The Republican., 1891-09-25
THE scoURGE OF FRANCE.
A Terrible Picture Drawn from Actua
Life.

"A Terrible Picture Drawn from Actual
Life.
Tho following is a translation of an
article which appeared in lie Petit
Journal, which is the most largely cir
culated of Partisan daily newspapers,
its sales averaging something like nine
hundred thousand copies per day. An
article in 50 widely circulated journal
certainly must tell the truth:
1t has been said with truth that, of all
the dangers menacing our agricultural popula-
tion at the present day, the gravest and the
most difficult to fight against Is alcoholism.
No one can have been o resident Of a country
district without being struck with the devel
opment of this scourge during the last thirty
years, the deplorable effects OF which are every
where visible
The habit of saving, that was so long the
strength and the glory of our tilers of the
soil, is gradually disappearing. The money
box OF the liquor seller swallows up, sous by
sous, the wages that formerly in the form OF
silver pieces, were hidden away in some corner
of the clothes press, to be brought out when
enough was accumulated to buy a little piece
of ground.
The peace and harmony OF families is se-
riously impaired. In the villages the women
are reduced, like the wives of workmen in the
towns to haunt the doors of the drink shop
in order to rescue the bread OF their children
from the alcoholic gulf. In most of our ham.
lets the drunkard, who was formerly the ex-
ception, has multiplied by contagion.
Once the peasant never entered the cabaret
except on Sunday to leiSurely sip few litreS
of wine and play long game of cards or
bowls for the scot. To-day, when idle and
when going to work, whether 1t ls holiday or
not, the rural laborer never meets a comrade
1rit iytyit tive h +oI-o
of brandy. be it understood.
One glass means two, for it is only common
ciyility to call for another and it, as often
happens, friends drop in, each one treats
in his turn; until the man. who came in Just to
take nip goes away charged with half-pint
or pint of spirits, almost always adulter-
ated. This guzzling Of spirits (and what
spirits! for the country taveTn,kccpers do
not hesitate to sell the most fright
full mixtures for gain) is not rare occurrence.
Repeated daily, it becomes pernicious in the
last extreme.
When young man begins drinking, only to
do like the rest, habit soon makes 1t a neces-
sity, and rapidly he becomes imbruted. The
agricultural laborer is only willing to work for
the sake Of procuring the pleasures OF new ca
rousals. Deprived OF liquor, he is stupid and
brutal; when drunk he is transformed into a
savage beast. Tied to this animal, who covers
her with blows and even refuses to give her
food, the unhappy wife loses courage and some
times takes to drink in her turn. So much the
worse for the children! They will follow the
example of their parents.
No more terrible picture was ever
drawn from actual life than the above.
1t seems that revolution is going on in
France-a revolution which is de.
Stroying the one class of her people
who have been her stability and the
foundation stone on which she has
built the magnificent structure of a
mighty nation.
The agricultural class referred to
above are the ones who, going to their
secret boards, poured into the lap of
the nation those milliards of francs
which were required not only to meet
the expenses of the war with Germany
until the capitulation of Paris, but
then to pay the unexampled war in
demnity which that country exacted as
the price of peace. Great as was the
rapidity with which the United States
recuperated after the civil war. and
paid off the larger portion of her i'm
mense war debt, it was but child's play
in comparison with what France did
after the Franco -Prussian war. No
other country ever had rural popula-
tion who could respond to such enor-
nous demands by pouring into the ma
tiOn's purse their accumulated savings.
If the article above quoted from lie
Petit Journal be true-and we have,
unfortunately, no doubt but that it is
correct-the rum curse has fallen upon
this Industrious and saving class. From
a nation of thrifty and frugal and hard
working men, they have become drunk
en- and debauched; working only to OBJ
tain money wherewith to continue
their potations, and even starv-
ing their wives and children
in order to do So In place of
the PEASANTS wife having laid up,
lation of silver coins, saved piece by
piece, wherewith to purchase u bit of
land and become an Independent free
holder, she is obliged to go and wait at
the door of the village wineshop, in or
der to waylay her husband and obtain
money for the bare necessaries of life
before he goes within and wastes it in
drink. No longer, it seems, can the
French peasants be pointed to as an
example of people who can indulge
in drinking their light native wines as
freely as we drink tea and coffee, with
out becoming sots, and without losing
their well-earned reputation for indus
try and frugality. From drinking wine
they have gone to drinking brandy,
and that of most abominably adulter-
ated kind. In place of being econom-
ical, they are spendthrifts; in place of
being Industrious, they are loafers.
The consequences, it is not too much
to say, will prove fatal to France. With
a drunken, brutal and demoralized
working class from which to recruit
her army, defeat will be her portion
when she attempts, as she surely will,
to retrieve her position as the dominant
continental nation of western Europe,
by an appeal to arms; when her pas
sion for revenge over the humiliation
suffered at the hands of Germany, and
her design to reconquer Alsace and Lor-
raine, leads her to begin war, she will
find her regiments of drunken helotS