The Washington times., 1901-07-05
pryness Mt Atlantic city.

| It is reported that hereafter Atlantic
! City will be a dry place on Sunday. so
far as alcoholic stimulants are con-
cerned One is moved to wonder in the
| light of the recent anti-canteen demon
strations. whether the entire country,
under the management of the temper
ance societies, is to be led into total
abstinence debauch. In the ease of
Atlantic City. however. it is only sun
day spree. While it is allowable to
drink beer and wine and other alcoholic
liquors on other days, it is wicked
doubly wicked--to drink them on Sun
day. Nobody has ever explained this
construction of things. But there seems
to be a reason for it in the eyes Of the
teetotaler.
The peculiar feature of the situation
is that while this order Is supposed to
stop Sunday drinking, it does not do
anything of the kind. All the barkeep
ers hung out signs advising their pat
rons of the state of affairs and recon-
mending them to lay in good store of
drinks for the next day. They quoted
Scripture for their purpose, saying:
Eat and drink, for tomorrow we
sleep" The consequence was, as any
body could foresee, that Saturdays
business was enormous.
One trouble with the teetotal societies
is that they do not thoroughly under
stand the nature Of the drinking man.
and so do not comprehend the disease
which they are trying to cure. If they
had done 50 they never would have
urged that anti-canteen legislation 1t
might be a good thing 10 have a com
mittee of ex-topers. or even of active
ly engaged drinking men, as honorary
members of the total abstinence socie-
ties to explain a few things to them.
Many Of these men would be willing
enough to see drunkenness stop, but
they know it cannot be done by sys-
TENS which encourage secret drinking.
for that is about the worst thing in the
world for real temperance. Neither can
it be stopped by placing the moderate
drinker in a position where he cannot
get liquor more than once a month
Any man can take a small allowance of
alcohol once a day; but let him pile up
thirty Of those allowances, and take
them all at once, and he viii have a
time of il all that day and the next.
Moreover, an ex-toper might explain
TO the temperance people that when a
man who drinks, who is constitutionaIly
thirsty and who has money, is at the
seaside or in the country during the
summer heat, he has a most intense
horror of finding himself in a beerless
desert. with ell the saloons closed. A
hot Sunday night with two or three
friends gathered about him for social
purposes. and nothing to drink, is that
mans idea Of hades. The language
which he sends forth on the occasion
more than balances any good which
may be counted unto him for his en-
forced abstinence. Consequently, after
one such experience, or even in antici-
patton of its possibility, he lays in on
Saturday a store Of beer and other
things sufficient for small bar On a
hot sunday night an unlimited supply
of liquor at one,s elbow is not conducive
to temperance. either literally or in the
sense CT total abstinence. The teeto-
taller does not understand this because
he has never been in that predicament.
He has probably been never even vio-
lently hungry or thirsty. But let him
suffer himself to be locked up all day
Sunday, in a room where there is no
access to water or any other liquid; let
him eat Goldfish for breakfast and salt
mackerel for dinner, and drink nothing,
not even a spoonful of water, all day;
and if by nightfall he is not ready to
drain the nearest well he is not human,
that is all. He VIII then realize the
feelings of the beer drinker unable TO
get a glass of beer ON Sunday night,
with saloons all around him, securely
locked.