Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1892-10-13
THE BEER HABIT IN GERMANY.

The BEEh HABIT IN tEhMAN1.
Statistics from northern and central
Europe have repeatedly been quoted for
the purpose of proving that the craving
for alcoholic drink threatens to assume
the form of an epidemic, and that the
stimulant habit among millions of our
fellowmen has acquired the force of a
second nature. But the strongest proof
of that fact is incidentally furnished by
a pamphlet intended to demonstrate the
%ruinous tendency of overtaxation as a
consequence of the enormous expendi-
ture for standing armies, etc.
Circulars had been addressed to Ger
man mechanics of all classes, asking
them to state the cost of living and rate
of wages in their n~eighborhood, and the
classified result has now been published
by the committee of leading labor Or
ganization. From that pamphlet it
would appear that a plurality of such
mechanics as masons, bricklayers and
house carpenters earn less than 1000
marks (about $1,000 a year, and have to
limit their household expenses to the
absolute necessaries of life, but among
those necessaries a considerable number
of the respondents continue to include
beer.
Thus IL laborer, from Erlangen, in
the kingdom of Bavaria, states that his
total earnings as foreman of a quarry
are $50 marks a year; the aggregate
added by his wife and children picking
up odd jobs at washing, errand running
ETC., about 100 marks more. Their house
rent does not exceed $50 marks; cloth
ing and shoes, so; food, $50 marks about
$3.50 a year, for a family of five); taxes
and contributions, 40 marks; but the
same family admit to be spending 1870
marks for beer-while evidently cruelty
stinting themselves in food and clothing
for the prices of both are almost as high
in Bavaria as in Illinois. And, more
over, that pamphlet is avowedly pub
lisbed for the purpose of demonstrating
that with the utmost possible economy
it is hard to make both ends meet under
the present system of taxation.
In "a suburb of Grogingen, in north
Holland, a gango of street arabs recently
rummaged a country wagon while the
proprietor was treating a friend in a
neighboring coffee house. One of the
youngsters happened to see a pile of
fodder covered with an old o~vercoat,
and after reno wing an armful of straw
discovered a keg of Schiedam schnapps,
the same liquor which our importers of
foreign high wines describe as a
strengthening and exhilarating bever-
age. Not one of the little marauders
was than twelve years old, but
their leader managed to procure a
wheelbarrow that enabled them to trun-
die the keg out of town and along the
towpath of an old canal, where they
turned into a side trail and lifted their
prize over the fence of an out of the
way pasture. Here they encamped I'M
der a shade tree and agreed to devote
the afternoon to the pleasure of exhil-
aration.
After an hour and a half the prescrip-
ton began to work, and the members
of the symposium fell like baresarks
upon a flock of sheep at the other end
of the pasture, ripping and stabbing
away with their pocketknives till the
result would have kept their p rents in
mutton for the rest of the year. In the
dispute for the prize Of bravery, the
young heroes, however, proceeded from
words to blows, and at last to knives.
Two of the younger combatants were
slashed in u horrible manner, two
Others got drowned in the attempt to
escape across the canal, and one of the
victors has since died from an overdose
OF alcohol.-Felix L. Oswald, M. d.