The Red Cloud chief., 1885-06-05

Ths desire Of craving for stimulaaD
h IL most genseal sense q the wcrd-
1pe dru0 acting upon the nerves
wheshss q excitant q ledative agents
- a almost, II not absolutely. unt-
veEsal human appetite; % general -
early developed, that we might atDoss
call Il IN instinct Alcohol, 81 coufse,
II the most popular. under ordinary cir.
cumstauces the most seductive. and By
iar the most widely dt6used Of all slim
ulant substances. From the Euphrates
10 the Straits Of Dover the vine has
been from the earliest ages second only
to corn in popular estimation; wine.
next to bread. the most priced and most
universal article Of human food.
The connection between Ceres and
Bacchus is found in almost every Ian
Guage Is in the social life of every ma
ton. from the warlike Assyrian Mon
archy. the stable hierocratic despotism
of Egypt, to the modern French Re-
public and German Empire. Corn it
eelf hxs furnished stimulants second in
popularity TO wine alone; the spirit
which delighted the 1iercer. sterner
races of Northern Europe Swede. Nor
wegian and Dane. st. Olaf and Harold
Hardrada, - their descendants Of To-
day; and the ale Of our own Saxon and
Scandinavian ancestry, which neither
spirit. cider, nor Spanish wine has
superseded among ourselves. The vine.
ag1kn. seems to have been native to
America; but the civilized or semi-civ-
ilized races Of the southern and central
part of the Western Continent had
other more popular and more peculiar
stimulants, also for the most part alcO-
holic. The palm. again, has furnished
to African and Asiatic tribes q spirit
not less potent or less noxiOus. not less
popular and probably not less primitive.
than whisky or beer.
But where alcohol has been unknown,
among races to chose habits and tenn
permanent IL was alien, or in climates
where 20 powerful an excitant produced
effects too palpably alarming n be toll
Grated by rulers or law-givers royal or
priestly, other and milder stimulants or
sedatives are found in equally universal
use. Till the white man introduced
among them his own destructive bever-
ages, till the ..fire-water" spread de-
moralization and disease, tobacco was
the favorite indulgence Of the red In
| dian of North America, and very prob
| ably of that mighty race which pre-
| ccded them and seems to have disap-
| peared before they came upon the scene
the Mound builders, whose gigantic
| works bear testimony to the existence
| of an agriculture scarcely less advanced
or less prolific. a despOtism probably
| not less absolute than that of Egypt.
Coffee has for ages been almost equal
" dear to the Arab; tea has been to
| China all that wine Is and was to Eu-
rope. probably from a still earlier per-
| :od, and has taken hold on the North
ern, IS coffee and tobacco upon the
Southern. branches of the Tartar race.
Opium. or drugs resembling opium in
character. have been found as well suit.
cd to the temper, a. delightful to the
taste, of the quieter and more passive
Oriental races as wine to the AryaD and
Semitic nations. The Malays, the Vik-
ings of the East Indies, found in Mang
q drug the most exciting and madden.
ing in It's effects of any known to ci5il'
lied or uncivilized man; q substitute
for opium or hasheesh bearing much
the same relation to those sedatives as
brandy or whisky to the light wines Of
Southern Europe The National Re-
UieU.