The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-14
AGE OF THE Exe11sH rnrnsn.
Preef That rntempcrnnce In England n Not or
Recent Growth.

ErOWNh.
AS an incident OF q recent temperance revival
IN ENGLAND the question of the date at which
hnsnehmen really began to get drunk was
brought up. and 1t was stated with great posi-
tiveness that drunkenness In anything like the
form 1t exists to-day first became common no
longer than 900 years ago. Tho temperance
advocates declared proudly that before that
tnne a drunken man was looked upon with
eonorrenco and that drunken men have re-
SeiVeu inc mild liberation which groots thom
now only within the last 200 years.
inc authorities for these views OF early Brit
lsh sooriety are said to DO Camden and Nash.
NO sooner had the temperance people pro-
nounccd this respectful conviction on the sub
'ect OF their ancestors habits than q great
many other people set out Co prove that their
ioretathers were not nearly 80 abstemious as
tho temperance advocates hau made them out
10 De- Either from a desire to prove that they
were not degencrates. even II they wore the
least temperate nation in the world to-day. or
with the object of talking back to the ~teetotal-
iers, THESE critics have resented the early sobriety
Oh the britons as bitterly as though 1t were a
national disgrace. One Of tho two quotations
on which the temperance people basod their
claims was from Camden, who wrote:
In the long wars of the Netherlands English
men first learned to drown themselves with Inn
moderate drinking and by drinking others
hsalths to impair their own. OF all tho northern
mended for sobriety."
Nash wrote that d superiority in drink is a ain
the Low Countries is counted honorable;. but
before we know these lingering wars 1t was held
Then. IL we had seen a man 20 wallowing in the
streets or lain sleeping under a board, we should
have spat at him and warned all our friends
So soon as these authorities were hurled at
the public there came q hunt for others TO prove
habit of getting drunk whenever they wanted
to since the nation began to exist. One patient
fore the Conquest Englishmen drank till they
s,sk' tss hs sBs t insm Rg the Ens sFs said Even ss hf sSs
Who says tEst they they, ,w saspi for%eS in the arst
R Ss1s 'g IS t fSss"1 eo%is. OF H Arch 5issors q &n as55s Is Is
clergy. Drunk as an Englishman ;" was
ago aR e and the old on record ord of f0 the eRpen eStars'o Of
money for liquor for coronations and other fes.
tivities is regarded as other evidence of the fact
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 com.
mon even In the period of the mystery plays,
always as a sodden drunkard. Under the com.
monwealth even the wives of respectable mer-
chants are said to have been accustomed to fre-
quent public houses as familiarly 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 witness
to the extent to which. Englishmcn drank dur.
ing his time and for a long period before that;
The injured feelings OF the persons who replied
to this statement that drunkenness was a ew
thing ought to ave been healed BY the viEor
with which they overwhelmed the temperance
advocates. They produced overwhelming evi.
dence that Englishm n had drunk as much as
they wanted to ever since they were a nation.