The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-08-03
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
DRUNKENNESS IN FRANCE.
It II a Contagion That Demoralizes the
Peonle,

DRUNKENNESS IN FRANCE.
It Il Contagion That Demoralizes the
People.
Computations show that in the past
twenty-five years the consumption of
alcohol per inhabitant is tripled, and
with dircful augmentation the usual
cortege of evils: Compromised health,
unhappy homes, and the undermining
of frugality-one of the master and en-
viable virtues of the French nation. A
proverb states: He who has drank
will drink" Perhaps of all the evils to
eradicate that flesh is heir to the worst
is the drink crave. 1t demands, like
the grave: Give! give! give!" Some
moral NJ. DIS urge reformed manners
as the best remedies against alcoholic
vice, but the classes that ought to set
the example of purity of living are also
steeped in the spreading sin.
The current budget proposed to abol.
ish all duty on wine, beer, cider and
hygienic beverages, making up for the
fiscal deficit by an increased tax on al
cohoL The intention is admirable, but
the more you run up the duty on
brandy the more it will he struggled
and adulterated. So long as chemistry
can prepare an artificial spirit from
wood distillation, and spice and flavor
up the compound by poisonous ad'
juncts, the greater duty will not be a
bar to the consumption of the firewater
besides, the municipal chemist has re
ported that the cognac sold in the vast
majority of cafes and snowy taverns
only differs in degree from the throat
tittilating and misunderstanding liquid
that consoles the last stage of human
misery as represented by the nomadic
rag picker.
The social habits of the French facili-
tate the contagion of the drink disease
the majoity of the people meal out in
restaurants as costly as their purse can
patronize. The proprietors of the tav.
erns tell you plainly that they make nc
profit on the food, all that must come
from the drink. An individual, unless
possessing the address of tea or milk
show, would soon be made to feel in an
eating house that his presence was un-
desirable if he preferred river water to
the manufactured beverage. The mid
die class stratum of society now rarely
go home to dinner without swallowing
an absinthe, between five and seven
O'Clock, the vert stimulant being then
in full show. 1t is the deglutition OF
the green.
Anyone can open bank or a dram
shop in France who can pay the sealed
license, and as these rendezvous usual
ly unite the supplying of repasts, NO
form of local option could reduce their
number. Everyone must live, just as
well as a headsman. The petty coal
dealer in his tiny Black hole of Cal
cutta supplies, between piles of fire.
wood and sacks of charcoal, the cheap
est form of boarding out in Paris; he is
certain to have an annex for drinks,
and when not dealing in fruit and veg
etables he sells newspapers. am aware
of one enterprising coal man who sup
plies pork and rabbits. Like the
Ben Marche and kindred stores, he
ought to be brought under the influence
of cumulative trade license tax. They
are generally peasants, young man
and his wife, who run these concerns
The French workman-and especially
If he be single-can never find in his
attic den the shelter, the warmth and
the light he can enjoy when repasting
in his cafe-restaurant, where he can
meet society and share in billiard
games. The latter, after politics and
reading the orthodox slices of a trio of
romances in his sou journal, are his
choice pleasures. And in the work
mems quarters, when the rattle of
billiard balls is not heard in tavern,
that implies an infallible drop in the
employment barometer. One bright
spot, though of late becoming little
shaded, wives are never seen with their
husbands drinking of an evening, and
the children are conspicuous by their
absence. Staggering intoxication as a
rule is rare in France: the absorbents
generally stop when muddled; besides,
the proprietor of the rumhole can be
fined if he sells drink to a drunken man
or admits such a new client to his bar.
This well-meaning law is next to mop
erative.-Foreign Letter.