Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1885-05-07
The Craving for stilnulanss,
From the Nationa Review


The desire or craving for stimulants
in the most general sense Of the word
for drugs or sedative agents lis almost,
ii not absolutely, universal human APP
petite; so general, SO early developed,
that we might almost call IL an instinct.
Alcohol, of course, is the most popular.
under Ordinary circumstances the most
seductive. and by far the most widely
diffused of all stimnlant subst ances.
From the Euphrates to the Straits Of
Dover the vine has been from the earli-
est ages second only to corn in popular
estimation; wine, next to bread,
the most priced and most uni
versal article of human food. The con.
ncction between Ceres and Bacchus ia
fond in almost every language as in
the social life OF every nation from the
war.like Assyrisn Monarchy, the stable
hierocratic despotispa OF Egypt, to the
modern French Republic and German
Empire. Corn itself has furnished
stimulants second in popularity TO vine
alone; the spirit which delighted the
tiercer, sterner aces OF Northern
Europe-Sswede, Norwegian and Dane,
st. Olaf and hsrold Hardrada, as theif
descendar.ss Of to-day; and the ale OF
our ow,a Saxon and scandinavian ances-
try, which neither spirit, cider nor
S,panish wine has superseded among
ourselves. The vine, again, seems &c
have been native to America, but the
civilized or semi civilized races OF the
southern and central part OF the West
ern continent had other more popular
and more peculiar stimulants, also for
the most part alcoholic. The palm,
again, has furnished TO African and
Asiatic tribes spirit not less POI
tent or less noxious, not less popular
and probably not less primitive, than
whisky or beer. But where alcohol has
been unknown, among races to whose
habits and temperament it was alien, OF
in climates where SC powerful an exclt-
ant produced effects too palpably
alarming to be tolerated by rulers OF
law givers ROYAL or priestly, other and
milder stirnulants or sedatiyes are found
in equally universal use. I'LL the
white man introduced among them his
own destructive beverages, till tire
water spread decentralization and dis
ease. tobacco was the favorite indulgence
81 the real Indian of North America,
and very probably OF that mighty race
which preceded them, and seems to have
disappeared before they came upon the
scene-the mound builders, whose
gigantic works bear testimony TO
the existence of an agriculture
scarcely less advanced OF less pro,
litic, a despotism probably moi
less absolute than that of Egypt.
Coffee has for ages been almost
equally dear TO the Arab; tea has been
TO China all that wine is and was to
Europe. probably from still GARNER
period. and has taken hold on the North
ern. as coffee and tobacco upon the
Southern branches of the Tartar race.
Opium. or drugs resembling opium 10
character. having been found as well
suited to the temper, as delignti'd 70
the taste Of the quieter, and more pas
siye Oriental races as wine to the Arysn
and Semitic nations. The Malays, the
vikings of the East Indies, found IN
chang a drug the most exciting ano
maddening in its effects OF any known
10 civilized or uncivilized man; q suDsn-
tute for opicm OF hasheesh, bearing
much the same relation to those seds.
tiyes Al brandy and whisky to the 'igh'
wines Of Southern Europe.