The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-01-02
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
PROHIBITION IN ARABIA.

adage has been made the test of nu-
merous dissertations in defense of the
old world drink habits. america" said
those apologists, sis a young country,
offering its inhabitants sufficient excite
ment in the form of adventures in the
struggle with the perils of the wilder
ness and of manifold inducements to
activity and enterprise. The older civ
ilized nations, on the other hand, need
an artificial stimulus to prevent the
stagnation of their vital spirits"
Such sophists ought to visit Arabia,
the ancient home of total abstinence.
The Mohammedans date the triumph
of their religion from the year 622,
though the complete conversion of the
Arabian peninsula was not accom-
plished before the end of the
seventh century. But under the Calf
ate of Omar prohibition OF Intoxicating
beverages was enforced throughout the
Moslem dominions, and since that time
the followers of Islam, with the rarest
exceptions, have remained total alb
stainers in all continents and all climes.
it would be mistake to suppose that
the Mohammedan Scriptures interdict
wine alone and permit other noxious
stimulants. Wine-drinl1ing, indeed, had
become a synonym of the poison-habit,
but the precepts of the Koran are COM
prehensive enough to answer all the
practical purposes of Temperance:
avoid Drunkenness" "Renounce the
Vice of Intoxication.' The Wahabites,
or Mohammedan Professionals, as they
have been called, on account of their
reform doctrines, make, indeed, the
Koran their warrant for prohibiting
coffee and tobacco, as well as wine and
brandy, and the opium excuses of the
modern Turks have never been sane
toned by the strict expounders of their
faith. In that part of Araby known as
Arabia Felix (the hill country in the
south of the peninsula) grapes flourish
in hundreds of gardens, but the crop is
gathered exclusively for the sake of the
raisins, and the natives actually dis
pense with all fluid stimulants except
coffee; yet the effects of that abstemi-
BUSINESS can by no means be traced in
their lack of mental energy. "What
struck me most in the character of the
nation" says the traveller, Burkhardt,
who visited every part of the peninsula,
lis the dignified bearing of their poor
and the vivacity of their old men. Pa
triarchs of sixty or seventy years will
enter with unaffected pleasure into the
spirit of the liveliest conversation; will
handy repartees with precocious
youngster, or shake with laughter at
the recital of a practical joke. So uni
versal is that disposition among the
graybeards both of the well-to-do class
cs and of the poorest, that I can not
help thinking the lack of mental buoy
ance among the aged persons of our
own nation must be due to some cause
besides the depressing influence of long
continued drudgery."
Can there be much doubt that that
"other cause" is the lethargizing after
effect of habitual intoxication? Wine
and brandy stimulate or rather irritate,
but eventually blunt the mental ener-
gies, and the Arabs escape that
cause of vital exhaustion in spite of
their torrid climate, and in spite of
their rather far-going habit of early
marriage. In the nomad camps of
Yemen, boys of twelve years are fire.
quently married to girls of ten. and
young fellows of twenty may thus be
burdened with all the cares of respon-
sibility for the support of a numerous
family, for polygamy, too, is practiced
now and then. War, fearful droughts
and famine add their share to the sor-
rows of existence, but Temperance
steeled health bears up against all that,
and an Arab sheik at eighty years is,
TO all purposes, younger than a French
Marquis at fifty. Wrestling
and horse races are amusements shared
by all the adult males of an Arab tribe,
with the exception of cripples, sickness
being so rare that it is almost limited
to indigestions contracted by the eating
of unwholesome substances in time of
famine. On the fight before pursu-
ing enemy the Arabs of the desert
brave with impunity almost indescrib-
able fatigues, thinking nothing of be-
Ftriding a trotting dromedary for twen-
ty consecutive hours, or of travelling for
days in the teeth of binding sand
storm.
Nor does poverty daunt the spirit of
that plucky race. 1.-The natives of
Araby have no proletariate," says
Baron Won Wrede; mo lower classes in
our mob-and-rabble sense of the word
The poorest tiller of the soil maintains
his dignity as man, declines to cringe
before superior wealth or power, and
never loses sight of the rules of decorum
in the presence of guest. The
wealthy sheiks of Hadramant, with
all their overbearing treatment of
mental foreigners, at once drop their
hectoring manner on approaching a
fellow countryman. They know that
a negro will put up with kicks for the
sake of bread, and Frankish peddler
with taunts for the sake of profit; but
they also know that the self-respect of
an Arab is poverty-proof."
In the pursuit of science Arabia has
remained behind the countries of the
civilized North, but in land of deserts
the development of educational institu-
tons is hardly fair test of mental en-
rrgy. Science, like art, is more or less
product of leisure which again presup-
poses surplus of wealth. In their
DrOSDerOuS colonies in SYRIA, Northern