The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-04
WHISKY DRINKING IN NEW YORK.
Correspondent Is Alarmed About the Con-
sequences of Present 1ntemperance.


A Correspondent Is Alarmed About the Con-
sequences of Present Intemperance.
Joe Howard. in Boston Herald.
So far as surface indications are concerned
everything is lovely There are more rich men
in New Y ork to-day than ever before. There are
more men of moderate means doing excellent
business, making fair profit, than ever before
but there is deeper undertone of wretchedness a
stronger current of misery we'll There are
over 10, 600 places in the city of New York. from
wretched candy shops to palatial bar-rooms
| where rum. is the generic term, can be had.
They are all making money. Some of the rich
est men in New York sell whisky. This is an
era of false excitement Everybody drinks and
| the large circle of women who indulge in ex-
chants of various kinds from that which they
take by hypodernic injections through the var-
Gus grades of morphia, to literal indulgence in
wine, and thence to spirits, is very great, and
constantly on the increase. With the excep
ton of a few church temperance societies.
| there is very little organized endeavor here to
check the growth and rapid progress of this
drinking habit, which fastens itself upon the
clgarette-smokers of tender years, and is part
and parcel Of the daily routine of thousands OF
respectable men and fathers of respectable fami-
lies l don't know that there is any marked
undertoning of general morality in consequence
of this l have noticed, with great deal of APP
prehensiye interest the prevalence of the drink
ing habit Messenger BOYS not only smoke, but
their employers. All the great whirl and twist
Of what is called the swim of society drinks and
smokes. Sit in box with me in any frst-cass,
second-class, third-class theater. The curtain
falls at the end Of act. Is it an exaggeration
to say that four ifths of the men get up walk
out2 Leave the box; follow the crowd. They
go into the neighboring bar-rooms, into
the drug stores on the corner, into the no.
tel cafes. Nearly all of them smoke. All of
them drink. How queer it would seem
if the women did the same, and yet, why nots Is
it irksome, tiresome. boresome for man to sit
| three or four hours in theaterl Do his muscles
need telaxingl Must his nerves be braced up!
How about the women2 Are they not as fragile,
as nervous, as sensitive to impure airl Stand
with me at the end of one of these long counters
after the falling of the curtain, when the crowd
has rushed into the bar-room. There are, we
will say in any one of these places from fifty to
200 men strug Cling up to the bar to get drink.
Old men, middle-aged men, young men, boys.
| They are not ashamed to be seen drinking. On
| the contrary, friend after friend invites the 9TH
| ers to join him The bar tenders don't drink.
| The proprietor of the place doesn't drink. Why
notl Have you ever thought of thatl Of all
| the bar-tenders you know in Cambridge, in Bos
| ton you can't name one who drinks. Why not?
| Did it ever occur to you as a singlar fact a
clear fact in the problem of usages There pro-
| badly never was habit known to mankind SO
| potent this cursed habit of drink which
| dominates the race not alone the people of New
York and Boston, but the people of the world
| mere conspicuously, however, think, the people
| of the United States. No monarch on the face
of the earth is SO secure upon his throne as
| king Alcohol upon his. His subjects run 60 pay
| him homage. How he and his partner, the
| devil, must laugh when generation after genera
| ton comes up to continue paying taxes soul and
body. Statisticians say that nineteen twentieths
| of crime in great cities can be directly
| traced to rum drinking, and how much of the
| other twentieth comes from rum drinking, indi
rectly and incidentally, is matter worthy of
Th2o Sc do hCH, hoxya
no right to interfere with free agency;
| that if a man wants to drink, it's his
| affair and not his neighbours From false
| premises, false deductions naturally come In
one selfish sense it is none of my business if my
neighbor gets drunk. although how any Chris
tian community can salve its Indifference with
such plaster as that l can't understand, but
when my neighbours habit of drink leads up to
crime, which necessitates courts. the machinery
OF the law, prisons and the maintenance, at my
expense, of my neighbor who, but for his in
diligence in liquor drinking would be reput-
able and decent man, can any one honestly say
it is none of my business that my nelghbor
drinks? 1t must, however, be said that, while
drinking is universal habit drunkenness upon
the street is very rare occurrence, that is. com
paratively speaking. All the time / was in
Washington, when everybody was drinking all
the time, when every bar-room was packed to
! surfeit, and when, it being impossible for thou
sands to get anything to eat, they sought relief
in drink, | saw but really drunken person,
and the court records bear out the assertion that
there never was more quiet week. so far as
rampant crime was concerned, than that of the
Inauguration. To say that there is drunk
enness upon our streets would be absurd, but it
would be unwise to attempt an argument against
| liquor selling and rum drinking by the assertion
that drunkenness is often seen in our public
streets. 1t is very occurrence Now and
| then we meet crowd, hudded about some I'M
| fortunate man woman who is being lugged off
| to the station-house by burly policeman, but
| the very fact that immense crowd gathers
almost instantly, about such group is evidence
| of the infrequency of such incidents. No; it
isn't that we are nation of drunkards, but that
! we drinkers and smokers. and unless all our
preconceived notions of physical law are erron-
eous the next generation will show. in a very
marked degree, the effects of this senseless Gus
| tom by the present race of men and women.