The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-01

peelings. sometimes imported in a stats of .haif-fermentation from the, United States. Or from refuse grapeskin, with
 out any of the scientific apparatus of
 great distilieries. and with all the impure
 heads and tails." which indeed give the
 favorite aroma of these home distilled
 liquors Tn the flashing village of Audier- | nc. in Brittany, in the year 1900. there passed through the hands of the .'octrol'' (exciser $500 lftres of alcohol at 90 de-
 grees. which being wstered down and favored according to custom Supplied the b,00o inhabitants with 13s.o0o litres of brandy at 45 degrees or z 1-s iitres per
 head of the population. GA Htre is ore and three-quarter imperial pints, some thing more than the ordinary American quart. J ,5e.es tE tE r
 Within twenty years alcoholism has tripled in the inland Norman Department of the Eure t.
 There Is yet another political reason in favor of alcohol. The revenue from the tax on alcohol drinks 1t would be irnpos- sible to replace in the resources of th, State Whenever Parliament has raised the taxes on the more. strongly alcohol- ized liquors. 1t has lowered the rates on the so-called 'hygienic'' drinks such as wines. beers and cider. But here quantity makes up for quality. and it Is wine, at 1NesGSo OA atCOtOis WHICH IS uO1nS the most to pickle French tissues and brains. For there can now be no doubt that this daily and almost hourly absorp ton Of even small quantities of alcohol results, if not in drunkenness, in what 1T often far more fatal. permanent alco- nol potson-the true "intoxication'' by al- cohol. which Is as much poison as opium or strychnine.
 The average Parisian drinks each year " l-2 <>f a1A A1t m strong liquors; 26S litres of common wine at, about ten degrees; n litres of liquor wine tvermouths. and the appetixers or aperitifs like absinthe, which add other drugs to alcohoD: and some litres of peer and cider, say degrees. Of course, ne Is more strongly alcoholized than tn inhabitants of entirely rural departments and he pays the penalty in and out of his insane asylum of Sainte-Anne, where there are 30 alcoholics among 100 male iunatics, and nine among the females.
 In the Department of the Eure doctors have sometimes to forbid aicoholized mothers to give suck to their children so impregnated Is their milk with the poi son. In many parts of Normandy, espe- cially among the laboring classes, children are given a glass of cider brandy with their morning coffee; they dip their bread In 1t to give them courage for school or work.
 It Is not alone a question of nervous and physical deseneracy among certain classes especially exposed to temptation, like factory workmen and unskilled labor CTS and fishermen; the future population of France will depend on the issue of the combat against alcohol. Thus the com- paratively una.coholized Department of the Gers loses annually but ninety-ona children in their first year: the Nord, strongly alcoholized. loses 2S4 among the same number of inhabitants, the Seine Inferieure Normandy from Rouen to Havre) 256, and so on in proportion. Among the middle and higher classes, ex- cept for those who make of life one long search after pleasure. the consumption of alcohol seems to be diminishing; these classes are susceptible to the example and teaching of men like Pasteur, who drank water, and to certain fashion of abstinence 5till. among men. there Is a considerable development of diseases of liver and kidneys, which always goes along with the steady absorption of alco- hol into the system.
 Now and then there Is a Nideous exam pie which would be comic if it were not full of tragedy. A ful-srown Parisian youth of r, master of his person and for tune. took a sudden fancy as he began seeing life to American drinks" He became a specialist in mixing liquors of different densities.so that they would form layers of different colors in long glasses. To this aesthetic study he soon added the preparation of new cocktail. with his fa- vorite Angostura bitters. After a course of these fiery drinks for some months, he took to his bed with aibuminuria and tn. bercuiosis. A month of exclusive milk diet did away with the kidney trouble. and the consumption of his lungs has been stopped; but how many years will he needed to make man of him agai.i? Tn France all doctors know one disease, fat as typical as house. maids knee in London. There is one remedy. when taken in time; and 1t would be the remedy of most of the ills of the French people, who are otherwise so ad- mirab1y adapted for the strugs.- life. It Is the suppression of all alcohol.