Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-06-22
The Treacherous Cocktail.

The TreacherOus Cocktail.
From the PLi,a. Ledger.
Perhaps you will have an opportunity to pass
this round as a gentle lecture in hygiene to
club frequenters with tippling habits:
THE man who is in the habit of stopping on
his way to the elevated station to take n cock
tail and OF dropping into some cafe or club for
one, two or three more cocktails before he goes
home, Is In no condition to enjoy his dinner.
His stomach is iu1amed. and the blood vessels
OF his heart and of his throat are congested by
the ingredients Of the cocktails. He forgets
that while every separate cocktail he takes may
be an agreeable compound in itself. when he has
taken three or four of them they all mix up to-
gether in his stomach, and that the normal
function Of mans stomach is the place to take
in food. The first cocktail gives h I'M appetite,
and as like as not ho takes bit of cheese and a
cracker or two or three ginger snaps, and,
perhaps, some pickles from the free lunch
counter in the saloon where lie stopped on his
way to the elevated station. When he stops
again around Madison Square or on Broad
way he nibbles again at the free lunch
counter. The cocktails and the free lunch
have taken the place in his stomach of the
real dinner which he should have gone home
to eat, or to his club. hotel or restaurant.
When he sits down to the table with his family
he has no appetite. He will not have real APP
petite until the effect of the cocktails and free
lunch is worn off later in the evening. Then
he feels hungry, and he has a late supper, with
more to drink. The attacks of indigestion and
dyspepsia come after acourse of several months
or years of this treatment of himself. II q man
were to stick his finger in Jet of lighted gas he
would feel the pain at once and he would take
his finger away. The stomach is more long
suffering aud patient, but it does not heal so
easily as burned finger. 1t Is able to dis
pose OF one or two cocktails occasionally
without much harm; but when, at intervals
IF a uua offs IN hnur fonr ar five cock tails
with mongrel bits of free lunch. are nut into
the stomach it does the best it can, but at last
Eegns to demonstrate. Ii is good thing not
to provoke it to do that, because when it does
kick ut such treatment 1t kicks long and hard
enough to Overbalance u deal more fun than
was had in stirring up the disturbance. In
way one reason for the popularity of the
cocktail is that it disgui.es the taste of liquor.
To many men the taste of whisky. gin, brandy
and all straight drinks is distastetul In other
words. sucn things are repugnaut to their sys-
tens. They have to gulp them down. The
cocktail disguisos the odor and The taste both.
man pleases his sense OF smell and his palate
with the pleasant miXed orinA, forgetting
that ii his system il opposed to the use of
liquor the taste and smell are two nr tural
I ways OF opposition to wnas injuries
him. They nrc the guards to protect the vital
organs frcm injury. When their warnings are
disregarted the heart and the liver stand il for
"a whi.e aud then rebel at what becomes very
often successful revolution. Sugar increases
the effect of liquor, and there is sugar liz nnn 3,
every cocktail. Whisky and water are just
what they pretend to be. and every sense that
the man has detects them. Tic knows .he pro
portions of the water and The whisky. tie can
tell by few simple experiments. Ii he las not
already learned by practical investigation. how
mnch whisky he can stand under different con-
dtions aud Just the effect whisky will have
There Is no gaugiag a. cocktail In this way.