The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-02-21
TIPPLING IN MEXICO.
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR A CRU
SADIE AGAINST LIQUOR.

Inc growing wee OF htSnil'tIdhSS IA
Mexican cities attracts the attention OF
statesmen and physicians. And the op-
ponents of things American attribute the
increase of the alcohol habit to the yam
kee bar room" but they are partial OBJ
servers and unjust judges, for the canti-
mas of the Spanish grocery keepers are
on every corner, even in the middle OIL
almost every block. Mexico needs a big
hearted, untiring apostle of temperance
like Henry Faxon, some wealthy man
who will give time TO conducting crusade
against strong liquors
Absolute teetotalism will not be favora-
bly, received here, where much light wine
is drunk, and where beer is growing in
popularity since the establishment of ma
tive breweries, which are making their
owners rich. But there is ample room Tor
q fight against the Cocktail Americana
and the insidious gin fizzes, toddies, ETC.,
brought in by the aforesaid yankee bar
rooms" which have made tipping fash
ionable among people who were formerly
never seen In a cantina or bar-room.
Aud the sort Of stuff that is drunk in
this city is something awful to contem-
plate. Passing a shop window hlled with
great array of handsomely labeled bot
ties the other day, took note OF the
bargain offered by the wine merchant. A
Legitimate Bordeaux" for 90 cents All
that elegance of label and neatness of get
ND for 50 cents In silver, or about % cents
eoldl Impossible! The stuff never saw
the pleasant land of France, and no sun
shine of the Gallo land ever ripened the
grapes from which the wine pretended
to come.
think 1t not difficult to guess whence
came that wine. Labels and corks from
France or Spain; bottles from Plttspurs,
and wine from a neighboriug manufac-
tory of liquors and brandies, ETC., for mere
in this privileged land we have our own
coguac prepared from the juice OF the
sugar cane, and, properly favored and
sold as genuine within the means OF ev-
ervbodyl OF such is the democracy OF
Justification.
Campeche is near at hand, and its fam
GUS Iogwood is a good basis for the color
of our cheap, homemade clarets such as
have noted. One day down at Vera Cruz
the custom house place of deposit for
merchandise was heaped with logwood
sticks. and a resident German merchant,
pointing to the heap, said, laconically, but
significantly: "Your claret in the City of
Mexico"
AS for brandy, the homemade stuff is
put up very handsomely and with as many
"stars'' on the label as you may decide.
Not paying duty, II allows the retail dealer
to make a big profit Brandy drinking is
very common here. People demand their
"copita de cognac" after their coffee at
dinner They take it, poor deluded beings
to cure heartburn and "clean out the stom-
ach," having an idea that brandy is
specific for indigestion, etc. delicate
young fellow said to me, on my noting his
extraordinary pallor "Oh, l lost my
sleep with heartburn, and was taking
brandy and carbonate of soda all nignt!'
The Spanish groceries almost invariably
have a cantina attached, and the bar
seems always to have customers. A boy
bill collector on his rounds drops in to
several of them and takes brandy or a
liqueur In each Thus begins the habit
of drinking, and here is the commencement
of the abscessed livers so common here.
The liquors sold in these cheap and nasty
cantinas cannot be pure stuff The prices
do not admit of the legitimate article, and
vet the mass of men, who are unrehecting
lake the word of the bartender, who points
with pride to the label, asserting the PRO
cedencia" of the stuff to France, Spain or
Germany, as the case may be. These
countries are about five miles away in a
secluded factory of intoxicants.
Cfatreuse and other liqueurs In demand
are turned out here in large quantities.
Stimulating very well the real goods The
bottles are perfect limitations, and the
seals, labels and corks for all these goods
are such as to deceive the very elect
among would-be connoisseurs.
The result of this tipping is seen in the
feeble and degenerate youth who Will
never be able to compete with young and
temperate foreigners; it is seen in the
rclxety children of such fathers, who are
the despair of our physicians. In fact il
is from the doctors, all Mexican, that
have derived much information regarding
the sinister effects on Mexico's rising gem
Grafton of the tippling habit. They declare
| unanimously that the nipper, the appe-
| tier, the cocktail" etc, are making de-
| cadents of city-bred youth.
This is how one famous doctor summed
| it all up: II wish your American bar rooms
| we're in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico
| They are a curse. for they have made
drinking fashionable among our youth
Formerly people took tequila and aguar-
| djente and the cantinas were not attrac-
| tive TO young men. But, nowadays your
fancy drinks are playing the mischief
with our young men. They are of feeble
| digestive power, their stomachs being ir-
| ritated with alcohol they have weak
| hearts from alcoholic excitation and they
are. consequently 'raquiticos' feeble and
prematurely senile).
81 am as you know, fond of the Amer
| lean nation; have Travelled In your coun-
| try and admire your progress in so many
things. but wish the devil had your fan
| cy drinks and those who compound them.
| All that saves us now is that in our coun.
| try regions the youth of the land is not de
| cadent The boys are much on horseback
| in the open air and have vigorous discs-
lions and sound heads and their hearts are
not giving out at twenty-five years OF agei
Another evil which Is a curse In our
| cities is the eternal cigarette. Mark M
| wordsl a youth who smokes cigarettes
and tipples will be worn-out man at thir~
| ty and wreck at forty, possibly paretic
l sometimes smoke, but only light cigars,
and but three Of those day--and under
one condition, that am in the country on
my farm and in the open air taking exer-
else. In the city one needs nothing of the
kind. and tobacco Is never necessary, but
the minimum OF harm is done when It Is
smoked out OF doors by a vigorously exer-
cising man.
Cigarettes are detestable, principally be-
cause they are smoked by men who inhaIe