San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-12-07
DRUNKENNESS.
a Wife Sets Forth the Evil Effects o
Alcoholism.


and | am frightened at the outset at my
own temerity, but still hope You will
not pitch my efiusiOn into the waste
basket. | am painfully aware OF my
Ignorance of pen craft, and Of my In
ability to staTtle the reader by pomp oil
language and brilliancy OF elOquence-
many maintain that women are incapa-
bic OF soaring to the empyrean heighths
of eloquence, and that they are only tit
for gossip aud chit-chat, but although
tn Sc things may be true, the words OF
truth and soberness" always possess
magnetic power beyond the reach oil
rhetoric,
1 am aware the observation has no
pretention to originality, still sense OF
duty constraIns me TO declare that alco-
holism is the chief curse Of our country
aud OF our age. Men smut their eyes to
the havoc and destruction wrought by
alcoholism, and are In the habit of max
ing IL only a matter of joke, when man
gels tipsy and plays the double part OF
fool and brute. People laugh over it as
a first rate joke.
Drunkenness Is the greatest enemy to
domestic happiness Indeed, IL 10 the
greatest trial women have to encounter
Heaven knows, they have to encounter
host of trials-nOta day passes that
does not bring come trial TO women
trials are the milestOnes Of their lives
but drunkenness lays In The shade all
other trials and calls for the utmos'
stretch of patience and fortitude on the
part Of my sex.
What effect does drunkenness have on
men even OF the brighte Intellect and
the most polished manners? Need sayr
1t Supplies and brutaiZes them, IL
brings all the scum that Is In their ma
Iure, to the top, and unChains all their
evil passions; 1t dethrones reason and
places insanity at the helm; 1t extin-
Huir hes kindliness and develops savage
ness.
If ia impossible to run into exag-
geratiun on this topic. The picture can
not b. painted black enough 10 make II
a faithful likeness OF drunkenness.
Drunkenness is bestiality and disbol-
rsm, insanity and dwelling idiOcy. yet
It's victims fancy themselves 70 be as
rich MS CrOesus, as wise As Solomon and
as puI e ~ Chesterfield. Drunken men
fancy themselves 10 be yeritable gods.
Women have cause TO curse alcohol.
I is their worst enemy. When drunk
-nness reels and stagger5 Toto the 10
rn-stic circle, happiness flies. in Wild
alright. out of the door, and the poor
vie il always apprehensive that her
husband viii stagger home, beasIly
drunk, or be killed while too drunk 10
know what he is about. Her surprise
and foreboding scare happiness away.
want TO give my personal expert
rhce about the dreadful effects ofdrunk-
-nness. and, shall tndeuvor 10 do this
without the least exaggeration.
have been married about Ihirty-!Our
| Years, and but for alcoholism, my life
| would have been happy ore, rs my
husband, when sober, is KIND. provident
and afieCtionate IN his disposition and
| very agreeable in his mannere. de Is an
| excellent business man, theoretically
and practically, and, but for alcohol,
would have been rich years ago But he
is n slave to his appetite for whisky and
-uuanders his money In treating par
oil Of men that care nothing at all for
him When he Is drunk, he becomes las
ciyious aud throws his money away on
/ the vilest prostitutes that can be picked
up In the streets. Half a dozen times
within the past five years, alcoholism
has rought him to deaths door and |
have had to nurse him, day and night,
| while he has been suffering from the
madness produced by whisky, and was
raving like a maniac, and incapable OF
retaining food upon his stomach.
Heaven only knows what the wife OF
| a drunkard has to endure and suffer, in
| the privacy of home. or course, true
wife Iabors hard to hide from the world
| the mOrtifying fact that her husband Is
| a drunkard, and that he converts his
home into q likeness of hell, but 1t Is
very hard for her to smile while her
heart Is breaking.
Poverty is the usual result of drunken
ness, and since the day when Diogenes
trundled his tub about, no one has ever
seen any particular charms in poverty
certainly not enough charms to cause
them to prefer a life OF poverty to con-
dition of competency. Is 1t not a
phenomenal circumstance, that hus-
band and father, who knows his wife
and children are In actual need of meat
and bread and clothes and wood, that
the rent is In arresrages, will squander
the pIttance which be earns in. bar
rooms? Icannot understand how men
act in this way, a d yet pass In the
community as sane men and gentlemen.
There is still another thing that passes
my powers of comprehension, and that
l., how men that have gone through the
dreadful ordeal OF getting sober and
recovering from the mental and bodily
effects OF drunken debauch can ever
yet drunk a second time, knowing what
Iortures they will have TO endure.
have been tortured myself at witnes- lug
the acute sufferings Of my unfOr-
tunate husband In the process OF
getting over drunken debauch.
What row husbands would raise II
their wives were In the habit OF ge ting
beastly drunk and misbehaving. Nature
gives wives an equal right with their
hu bands to get drunk.
1t seems to me that disreputation and
public contempt should be the portion
Of the babitual drunkard, as this would
deter thousands Of now respectable men
from allowing addiction TO whisky to
dethrone their reason, brutalize their ma
lures and deprive them OF every shred OF
manhood and responsibility.
The law should come forward to pro-
tect the families of drunkards from I'M
merited poverty by taking from drunk
ards all control over their property and
vesting IL In guardians. Perhaps such
law, by arousing the remnant Of pride
lett dormant and torpid in them. might
induce drunkards TO use whisky in mod
GRAFTON or to discontinue its use.
II is estimated that there are a half
million OF inveterare sots In the United
States and that 100 600 die annually from
the effects Of alcoholism, which 10 a
beart-rending evidence Of the havoc
wrought by intemperance. IL what
ply sicians maintain about the trans
mi, sibiIlty, or heredity Of the appetite
for whisky. be true, the men OF the
future will be sots Of the most degraded
type. The future woman will he q
drunkard also, In consequence OF In
heriting the appetite for whisky which
enslaved her father.
Iappeal to every woman In the length