The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-02-29
FEMALE INEBRIATES.

TO the use of spirits in times of pleasure,
! as well as for the relief of pain and de-
| spondency, is fraught with dangers but
little appreciated by the average indi-
vidual. That the custom of the free use
of stimulants is upon the increase
amongst women, especially in our lar
ger cities, is easily demonstrated. A
cursory visit to any popular restaurant
will result in the visitors seeing ladies
both alone, in parties, and with and
without escorts, who ten years ago
would not have tasted an alcoholic be7-
erage of any kind, even in their own
homes, taking beer, wine or spirits
with their meals, almost as a matter of
course, and apparently with no idea
that they are doing anything unlady-
like or unusual.
Beer and especially bottled beer, has
of late years become immensely popular
with all classes. Ladies stop at restau-
rants often with the ole purpose of hav-
ing bottle of beer to refresh and in
vigorate them after long walk, or
when tired from shopping; families take
it regularly by the box. boarders have
it privately at table or in their rooms;
and servants, pitcher or pail in hand, no
longer make secret of their trips to
the corner GROCERY or the avenue beer
saloon. Grocers keep it, and sell it to
families by the bottle or box. The same
sentiment that has made the German
style OF open-air concert so popular in
this country seems at the same time to
have brought with it love for conYi7i-
atty, and to have popularized the Gus
tom of beer-drinking.
Beer has been the entering wedge,
and following close upon it has come
the more or less free use of spirits.
And this was natural and to be expect
ed. One thing almost unconsciously
leads to another in matters of this kind,
and beer has proved itself stepping
stone to the use of strong liquors.
Women who formerly would have used
spirits only under medical advice, and
even then reluctantly, now resort to
them without objection and upon the
slightest grounds, simply because their
previous use of beer seems to have
broken the ice. To many poor
wreck, the first glass of beer has
proven costly experiment. and will be
looked back to as the first step in a
career the incidents of which make her
| Shudder.
1t has been urged by some that the
| Germans, than whom there is not a
more Woodworking, frugal and studi-
GUS people, are nation of beer-drink-
ers, and that the introduction of their
amusements. social customs and the
like, would prove not only not a mis-
| fortune, but a positive boon to Ameri-
cans. The fact, however, that for
many reasons Americans differ from
Germans in point of nervous organiza-
ton, or rather lack of nervous equili-
bration, if we may be permitted to use
the term, makes that which would
prove of signal benefit to the latter ex-
tremely dangerous for the former.
That American women are placing
themselves in a position of peculiar
danger by admitting beer, and later
wine and spirits, to their homes and
tables, as well as indulging in them
while away from home, is fact beyond
| question. The peculiar satisfaction with
which tired, exhausted or unstrung
SUlQuldllOu
thus derivable leads almost invariably
| to a further resort to it. The fact that
woman's bodily or mental condition
is such that the slightest effort causes
exhaustion and calls for stimulation be-
| speaks, as forcibly as nature can posi-
bly, express it, very unhealthy, not to
say dangerous, state of affairs, for
which a physician should be consulted
| without delay. In such conditions the
chances are in favor of the woman's be-
coming, after time, wholly dependent
upon alcoholics. We have known such
women to become in time the veriest
sots through this same originally oc-
casional resort to stimulants Others
of the same class are known to us to-
day who are fast travelling the danger
Gus incline. To some the consequences
of the course they are pursuing are evil
dent; but the craving which has become
| firmly established seems to be too great
| for their unaided powers of resistance
They cry, wiring their hands in agony,
and bemoan their cruel fate in their in
teryals of sobriety, make rash promises
| to their husbands, and fondly caress
their little children that alcohol
is fast robbing of mothers love and
care, and whom she is daily robbing of
their birthright of good name and
responsibility. How many a poor
wretch of this class curses the first swal-
low that ever passed her lips Confne-
ment and close surveillance in some of
these cases seem to do good for time,
but the old craving appears never to be
thoroughly crushed out, for it keeps
cropping up every little while, some
times in its old fury, sometimes modi-
fed. Not few of these unfortunates
take to opium, or choral, or both, and
while using them manage to abstain
from liquor. They are content to do
this, and their friends, hopeless of a
radical cure, are willing to allow them
the narcotics, on the ground that though
one form of inebriety is virtually as bad
as the other. still that from the habitual
use of narcotics is less painful to the
view, and not nearly so prone to result
in open disgrace as that from alcohol.
Some, however, after acquiring crav-
ing for narcotics, relapse into the old
habit of drunkenness from alcoholics,
and then their state becomes desperate
and disgraceful in the extreme Be-
tween the class of occasional tipplers
and habitual users there is one that is
not, after all, SO peculiar when under
stood Women there are who, being in
a condition of ''neurasthenia, crave
some form of stimulation, and crafty
it on preparations containing certain
percentage of alcohol 1t is fact not
generally known, but nevertheless true,
that thousands Of bottles of essence of
ginger are consumed by individuals of
this class. Others use some form of
popular ''bitters;'' while still others,
under various pretenses, consume
quantities of various ''tinctures' and
the like on physicians prescriptions.
Women who are perfectly healthy, or
as near so as it is possible to be in this
age, certainly do not need and should
not use stimulants at any time. ssLet
well enough alone applies to such very
aptly. And, indeed. in many of US, APP
parently healthy and robust, there are
inherited tendencies and latent cravings
that onfy need for their development
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