New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-12-28
Bad USES or CHRISTMAS

After Christmas, as after every festival and
holiday the work of the Police Courts is much
| heavier than usual. In every one OF them q
throng of dishev eled, sodden, unkempt men
and women is assembled, charged with drunken
ness in all cases, and dsorderly conduct or as
sauIt in many instances These cuprits arc
for the most part poor people, though some
well to do fools are scattered among them.
The mass of Christmas sentences are for
simple drunkenness, but the method of cele-
bration which fills the ordinary station house
cells on these occasions always produces
enough graver offences to emphasize the occa-
sion. No Christmas Day passes without pro
ducng its crop of murders. Sometimes it is a
husband who kicks and beats his wife to death
in the fervor of his rejoicing over the birth at
Bethlehem. Sometimes it is friend who
shoots or stabs bis comrade while laboring
under the same kind of exaltation. Those who
go no further than self-stupefaction generally
manage to destroy all the happiness of the dry
for their families, even when they do not batter
and mangle their wives and children. And
perhaps the oldest feature in the case is tt at
Police Justices treat Christmas drunkenness
with quite Daternal leniency, thus indirectly
reinforcing the popular notion that it is par
dDnable weakness to indulge 10 efCcsS Oh
that particular day.
1t may be asserted with confidence that no
man can make a worse use Of Christmas Day
than to get drunk on il : because the same
statement holds true of every day in the year.
1t is certainly pity, however, that numbers
of people possessing intelligence enough to
belong to churches, and who seriously consider
themselves Christians, see no harm or even
incongruity in drinking themselves blind on
this festival. Nevertheless before dealing
hardly with these cratic holiday keepers it
may b. we'll to remember that they represent
| a small minority to-day, whereas not so very
| long ago they would have stood for the major
! ity. The compatibility Of the grossest indul-
! gence with keen concern for religion remained
undisputed until about a hundred years ago,
| and our forefathers saw no inconsistency in the
coincident practice of the most austere doctrine
and the loosest habits In regard to drink The
movement of modern thought during the pres
ent century has been unprecedentedly Wifi, and
| it has revolutiOnized many practices which
seemed to our grandfathers harmless The
views taken now OF all forms of gross indul-
| gence would have been laughed at then and
vet it must be admitted that the pardon SO
generally extended 10 Christmas drunkenness Is
more suggestive of the old school than the new.
The change of sentiment, however, is shown
in the kind of comment made upon the obsti-
nate survival of the love of drink among the
poor. The modern thinker does not waste
| time in sentimental regrets, but proceeds TO
point out the bearing OF this weakness upon
the labor problem and upon the social conditions
generally of the slaves of the bottle. He shows
that those who thus misbehave on every holt
| day are as a rule people who cannot afford to
drink at all, and who by drinking aggravate or
cause all the discOmforts of which they are
prone to complain. He demonstrates the
reasOnableness Of such complaints on the part
of men and won en- who when they have money
which could procure them many comforts
go deliberately and waste 1t in drink. The
prospect of raising such people to a state of in
Deepen ience, he will say, must always be very
pOor because they have no self-control, no
self-respect, no ambition, no regard or affec
ton for their families. They are indeed to a
considerable extent sury ivals from a dead past,
but sDciety is not free from responsibility for
their present condition. The federation of
the saloon an institution belonging to the
civilization of the period is not less survival
than the drink habit. Both appertain to
| past from which we cannot attain complete
separation too soon. As frat step toward a
higher view of its duties and responsibilities,
moreover, society cannot too speedily begin
to recognize the m0nstr0us incongruity of the
regular Christmas aftermath with any concep-
ton not distinctly barbarous.