Semi=weekly graphic., 1897-11-03
MANY INTOXICANTS.
MIR. JOHNSON, WHO TRAVELS, FREE
 LY DISCUSSES THE SUBJECT.

Johnson travels for' New York state wine and brandy producing firm and is a veritable mine of information concerning wines and spirits, alcohol percentages, bouquets, methods and processes of refining and "aging'' wines, and besides is a connoisseur of no mean quality in everything drinkable. No one ever saw him drink more of any al eoholic liquor than the half dozen drops he sips before passing a wonderfully near infallible verdict on a sample. Nev- ertheless Johnson remarked one day to q friend that he took an occasional l spree. Mot an alcoholic drunk, D he explained, ''but 6 hasheesh vision. U
 'Hasheesht'' exclaimed the other. "Why, I'yo always regarded that as more dreadful than spirits '
 Perhaps it is, replied Johnson. sI don't advise any one to use it. But Ill parts of Europe and in all oriental coun- tries many persons use hasheesh as do. The effect of the drug taken ill the larger quantity is to stimulate the im- agination. It seems to release the soul from the body's bonds. Fatigue, depres- sion, mental weariness, business cares, all harassments, ill fact, are thrown off, and the mind reyels in an abnormal and pleasurable superactivity. never expe- rienced any unpleasant reaction.
 '' Persons of different temperaments are affected in different ways I knew man who wanted to try dose of hasheesh with me. He had q most Uln- pleasant time of it. He said that his mental sufferings were indescribable, fear, or rather apprehension, of some thing mysterious and more grewsome than ali the ghost stories ever told rolled into one awful horror expressing him throughout the short time that he was under the spell of the hemp. He never will try it again, for which I am glad, for he might get into the habit of it. Johnson's business takes him among pharmacists a good deal, and by way of adding to his disclaimer of being a hasheesh slave he remarked that every druggist has among his customers one or more opium ''flends'' who do not feel the bondage of the drug, although they are enslayed. 1T saw q clerk mak- 1 ing 100 small powders of morphine one day, " said Johnson, land asked him why he was putting up so many. Ths clerk replied that he put mp that num- her every Thursday for certain lady on renewal of a physicians prescrip- ton. The physician had authorized the renewal, and the patient had been talk ing the morphia for several years in the same quantity. The habit probably grew out of the drug having been pre- scribed originally for the relief of some obstinate pain The patient only knew that the powders kept her pain away.
 This same drug clerk also told of i the successful cure of sufferer from the opium habit, another lady who re alized her situation and longed to be free. She went to live at her physicians s house. She had been drinking so much laudanum day The doctor began by allowing her the equivalent in mor- phine in capsules, taken at the hours at which she had been accustomed to take the liquid He kept her on a nourishing and stimulating diet and very gradual ly, without the patients knowledge, reduced the size of the doses of morphia.
 After a time he substituted for one of ] the morphine capsules daily one of the same appearance, filled with cinchoni- dia, an alkaloid of Peruvian bark like quinine, but weaker. The patient did not feel the difference. AnC iher cincho- india capsule was substituted daily aft CT another week or two, and so on, until after some months the habitue was talk ing nothing but cinchonidia one day, with, perhaps, two morphine doses the next. As gradually as before these were eliminated, and the patient was told ono day that she had had no mor- phia for a month. She was surprised 1 and incredulous, but she at last real i ized that she was cured. don t know that every one could be freed from the 1 opium habit ill that manner.
 ''Thc druggists clerk told me of fellow employee of his who had pas sion for ether. He had found him seY- ] eral times asleep or dozing in heap of i excelsior packing ill the cellar, and at last discovered that the young man had been stealing ether. He would saturate a sponge, put it into pasteboard cone, hold it over his nose, and thus anRs- thetize himself. You know that the sensation of passing under the influence 1 of ether is very pleasant. It is akin to the exhilaration of alcohol. The patient about to be operated upon is in q state of high spirits, no matter how great his anxieties may be, as soon as the ether has begun to intoxicate him.
 But ill one part of Ireland, where the making of 'potheen' has been squelehed by the excise, the simple na- tiyes have taken to using ether-a prod uct not expensively purified like that used by surgeons Only instead of in- haling it they drink it. It induces ex- treme collaboration, then sleep, and the drunkard awakes with q headache, a sick stomach and an unpleasant, sweet l taste in the mouth, just as the surgeon s l patient does. The ether drinking makes I Q man noisy and quarrelsome and reck- less while it's exhilarating effect lasts, and is in other ways far worse than whisky. A man may be drunk and so- Der again in 15 minutes. The local cler- gy are very bitter against the excisemen for driving out the comparatively harm. less 'potheen. "--New York Mail and Express.
 4 Failure.
 New Seryant--I found this coin upon