The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-05
AGE OF THE ENGLISH THIRST.
| Proof that Intemperance in England
Is Rot of Recent Growth.
New York Sun.


AS an incident Of a recent temperance re-
vival in England the question of the date
at which Englishmen really began to get
drunk was brought up, and it was stated
with great pOSitiVeneSS that drunkenness
in anything like the form it exists to-day
first became common no longer than three
hundred years ago. The temperance advo-
Gates declared proudly that before that time
a drunken man was looked upon with abhor-
renee and that drunken men have received
the mild liberation which greets them now
only within the last two hundred years.
The authorities for these views of early
British sObriety are said to be Camden and
Nash. No sooner had the temperance peo-
pie pronounced this respectful conviction
on the subject of their ancestors habits
than a great many other people set out to
prove that their forefatherS were not near
ly so abstemious as the temperance advo-
Gates had made them out to be. Either
from a desire to prove that they were not
degenerates, even II they were the least
temperate nation in the world to-day. or
with the object of talking back to the tee
totalers these critics have resented the
early sobriety of the Britons as bitterly as
though it were a national disgrace. one OF
the two quotations on which the temper
ance people based their claims was from
Camden, who wrote:
Englishmen first learned to drown them
selves with imfnoderate drinking and by
drinking others healths to impair their
own OF all the northern l.ations they had
been before this the most commended for
sobriety."
Nash wrote that "superfluity in drink is
a sin that ever since we have mixed our
selves with the low countries is counted
honorable; but before we knew those lin
gering wars it was held in the highest de-
gree of hatred that could be: Then, II we
had seen a man go wallOwing in the streets
or lain sleeping under board, we should
have spat at him and warned all our friends
against him..
So soon as these authorities were hurled
at the public there came a hunt for others
to prove that Englishmen had been in the
comfortable habit of getting drunk when
ever they wanted to since the nation began
to exist. One patient seeker after denials
to the temperance people discovered one au-
thority who said that even before the con-
quest Englishmen drank till they sick
ened," and the Romans are said to have
got the habit from the English. Even the
guilds are put under suspicion by one writ
err, who says that they were formed in the
first place as drinking societies, and that
the members took advantage Of that fea-
ture to drink as hard as they could. Arch
bishop Anselm is quoted as having inter
fered as early as 1902 to bring to an end
intemperance among the clergy. Drunk as
an Englishman" was an expression on the
continent centuries ago, and the old record
of the expenditure of money for liquor for
cOronatiOnS and other festivities is regarded
as other evidence of the fact that the drink
ing such occasions was always
an important feature. In the effort to prove
how much their ancestors really did drink
some of the investigators have established
the fact that drinking among women was
very common even in the period of the
mystery plays, when it was common to
represent Noah's wife always as sodden
drunkard. Under the commonwealth even
the wives of respectable merchants are said
to have been accustomed to frequent pub
lie houses as Familiarity as the men did,
and the difference in the quantity of ale
they consumed is said to have been slight.
Shakespeare was appealed to as a final wit
ness to the extent to which Englishmen
drank during his time and for a long period
before that. The injured feelings of the
persons who replied to this statement that
Drunkenness was a new thing ought to have
overwhelmed the temperance advocates.
They produced overwhelming evidence that
Englshmen had drunk much as they
wanted to ever since they were nation.