The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-01-25
DRUNKEN ENGLISH WOMEN.
Alarming Addictions to Inebriety
Among British Maids and Matrons.

Among British Maids and Matrons.
Drunk as a duchess" is a popular
phrase in the mouth of the English peop.e
just now, and it is phrase powerfully sug-
gestive of striking and shocking con-
dition of affairs in English society. coming
as all such popular by words DO from ant
application of prominent features of the
life and affairs of today. Drinking among
women in the higher and richest social
ranks of English society is developing into
national scandal says Lady Henry
Somerset. Apd a public meeting was
held here recently, presided over by this
lady, at which some remarkable state
mentS were made of the prevalence of
drunkenness among women in high life
But drinking is not an attribute merely
OF women in high life. What is more SER
lous and which touches the life of the
whole nation is the prevalence and in
crease OF drunkenness among women of
national shame" is how the London Daily
News characterizes the startling revela-
tons that have been made recently
through public meetings, official reports
and a general investigation and open dis
cussIon concerning the great evil. 1t
was made subject to special inquiry by
startling testimony as to the prevalence
OF the vice among women was given by
ma istrates, coroners. officers of public
institutions, and medical men of high
standing, the latter headed by no less a
man than the late Sir Andrew Clark,
Gladstone's old physician.
| On an average of SO, coo women committed
to prison annually in the United Kingdom
in the past few years so per cent. were
sent there for drunkenness, or for offenses
arising from or allied to drunkenness.
The testimony of the police courts is that
the vice is prevalent among all classes in
the east end of London. Not alone women
OF d1sreputable class come before the
magistrates charged with drunkenness
but wives of respectable workingmen and
young women earning their living and
otherwise conducting themselves in a
respectable way. All ages, as well as ali
classes, are victims of the vice There are
many records of women drunkards of so
and IS years old. Five unmarried girls
II years old were charged with drunken
ness in one court in single day. and girls
| OF tender years are found in the streets
in the early morning, helpless from a
nights drunken debauch In 1891 there
were in London some 5000 convictions of
women for drunkenness. Last year the
by over 500 and there were in addition 9,373
arrests of women on the charge of having
been drunk and disorderly.
| The British Medical Journal says: "The
standard of sobriety among women has
come, of late to be gradually but percept-
IDLY lowered till, unhappily, now women
are often seen affected by liquor in the
ings. The Lancet says: mo one who
has his eyes open can fail to see that
women are fatally losing modesty in the
The public mind or that portion which
has been aroused to an active interest
in this matter, is trying to devise some
way TO stop the further spread of the
scourge It is conceded by those best
able to judge that Incarceration in prisons
! is of no benefit whatever in the case of
women drunkards Sir Andrew Clark
proposition for the compulsory seclusion
and cure of drupkards in retreats under
state, control finds many supporters. He
said he would run the act of compulsion
as close as the feeling of the English
people for the freedom of the person
would allow, and would especially enforce
| it in the earliest stages of the vice in the
case of women. He. said, as he spoke
| from great experience. especially in
private dealings with drunkards, that the
drinking habit was difficult to cure in
men, but it was all but Impossible in
women. When taken in hand early,
cures we're obtained in both sexes, but
! in his experience, even then the proper
ton of cures of women was painfully
smaD.-London Letter in the New York
|