Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-09-30
DRINKING IN ENGLAND.
Great Progress of the Temperance Cause in
the Past Twenty Years.
Boston Advertiser,

Boston Advertiser,
There is no country, perhaps, in the
world that has made more progress on
the temperance question during the past
twenty years than England writes Lon
don correspondent. Heavy drinking,
accompanied by brutal and vulgar sports
were not long since common to every
class of society. 1t has not been over
half a century when even some Of the
churches were used for secular purposes
with as much freedom as town halls
while the phrase drunk as lord,' found
its use through actual experience, this
class of people having the reputation of
being immoderate in their living. Min
listers and laymen, masters and servants,
magistrates. judges, mobiles and sover-
| igns not long since looked not only up
on freqvent 'tippling,' but heavy drink
| ing with the eye of charity.
| When l say that the habit of drinking
has greatly changed, | do not by any
means infer that there is not tremen-
dous amount of it done in this country.
! Why, every servant and dressmaker who
1 comes to the house, ash-man, garbage
| chucker," charwOman, and IN fact every
man servant and maid servant, even the
| porter who brings your luggage to the
door, will wait for mug of beer for his
individual services. If you say that you
have no beer in the house, he will extend
his big dexter hand for twopence to buy
| the needful article. And it is not only
the laboring, the common, or the mid
die classes of society who are the sub
! jects of regular drinking, but there is not
a table in hundred among the better
people but has its beer and two or three
kinds of wine, with little hard stuff to
wind up with.
| L Will give one or two examples, with
out mentioning names, which will give a
good and interesting illustration of the
ancient practice of drinking and the ex-
IRENE reluctance Of these people to give
up an ancient custom.
Not long since I dined with very
prominent man, occupying high pro
fessional position and an active member
| of the Church Temperance society.
About dozen guests were seated at his
hos pitable bOrrd. There were three or
four different kinds of wine served, and
yet the good generous host himself
touched not nor tasted not" But he
knew 1t was an ancient usage to have it
on his table; that a table would not be
complete without it; that some of his
! guests enjoyed glass of good wine. He
furnished it, and did not give any lecture
or advice against the usage.
| But anothes, and certainly the most
singular, practice came under my observ-
alton few Sundays ago. I was asked to
preach that morning in one of the old
est churches in the old city of London,
and the following was my experience,
which illustrates the observance of an
cient customs, the little harm there was
once supposed to be in wine-drinking,
and an American impression of such old
and ORIG surroundings. As / entered the
porch of the church, I was met by the
beadle; yes, the very old beadle, as real
and impatient as Dickens so frequently
and cunningly describes. He was not
dressed as the regular church verger, in
a silk gown, and he did not wear that
solemn and almost sepulchral expression:
but he was dressed in the finest of blue
broadcloth with an elaborate and richly
embroidered profus on of gold lace and
gilt buttons and with the pleasantest
face and welcoming smiles, stately bear
ing and yet with the most polite man,
ners, he ushered me into the vestry
room. Then, with bow and a smile, he
said: "Will you take sherry or port sir !?
On the table, on q salver were two good
sized decanters containing the aforesaid
wines, and with them was plate of sweet
biscuits.
smiled at the Sunday and churchly
display, and the beadle, noticing it, said
that some two hundred Or three hundred
years ago there was good woman of the
parish who dying, left certain sum for
the purchase "of wine and sweet cakes
for the cleryg," and since that time
|
supplied at each service. No half dozen
clergy would care to empty the decanters
of these occasions, and the question is
how large has the bequest of the good
woman grown, and is it all spent in sher-
ry and port, ahd if so, what must be the
contents of this wine cellar?