The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-08
WOMEN AND WINE.

That many society women drink ar
dent spirits and sometimes to excess is
a well-known fact. They have many
opportunities for indulgence in this
form of dissipation that the men do not
imagine exist. OF course the society
woman does not drink" in the sense
IN which the bag in the slum and the
plbulouS cook do. She is too careful,
says the Chicago Chronicle, of her
sylphlike figure and of her porcelain
skin to indulge in much champagne.
and she has enough to make her nerv-
Gus without whisky, but what she
does take is a slip of liquor here and
thimbleful of Madeira there and a
drop or two of cognac in her coffee
after luncheon and maybe a cocktail
TO give her an appetite for dinner. This
all counts up at the end of the day,
and after a while madam feels the
need of her little fillips and encourage
ers in order to enable her to carry
out the exacting routine of her busy
social life. She doesn't realize that
she drinks. But stimulate she certain
ly does.
Living as she does in an electric at
mosphere and under highly unwhole-
some and artificial conditions, with
nerves always strung to the highest
LOOKING
for some new form of excitement, it
is almost inevitable that artificial slim
ulantS should be reStorted to in order
to enable the jaded human organfza-
ton to meet the excessive demands
that are made upon 1t. From morning
till night and often through the night
as well there is one long round of
worry and excitement.
The demands of fashionable society
things become either fatiguing or ex-
citing. The mere act of dressing, for
instance, which has to be repeated sew
eral times in the day, makes a severe
call upon the strength of a delicate
woman, even if she has a clever maid
to assist her, and after having been
laced into her armor of satin and lace
and had her head coiffed deliberately
she is too tired to go out without hav-
ing recourse to nip of cognac or cor
dial to brace her up and give her cour-
age to face the world with the stereo-
typed smile of amiability expected from
her.
Then there are the ordeals of shop
ping and trying on. Standing on high
heels and in a tightly laced corset
straight-front hygienists notwithstapd-
ing-to have heavy velvet gown fit
ted. in a superheated room is an or
QSdl lIdl WOuIQ cause InOSL 1lSH TO
topple over and faint. But the poor
fashionable lady has to stand it and
perhaps drive off to pay a half dozen
calls after she has been dismissed by
the dressmaker. But the dressmaker
knows the psychological moment when
the customer is Just on the verge of
fainting or Mysteries and comes for
ward with an offer of a glass of Bene-
dictine or the "tiniest drop of green
Chartreuse, and her fair customer finds
it so grateful and comforting that OH
her next visit she looks out for it as
a mater of course and in a short time
starts bottle in her own room, if she
has not already done so.
The high-sounding names of the vari-
Gus expensive liqueurs have such dis
tinguished ring about them that it
never occurs to the lady who is con-
Stunning them that she drinks" Some
women delude themselves still further
by drinking eau de cologne or some
other perfume on the assumption that
harmless, whereas. if anything, it is
more deadly than the other.
OF course, it is not suggested for a
moment that all women who have re-
course to this kind of thing go the
length of making themselves intoxicat-
ed. But they do often get as far as
acquiring a color and a sparkle in the
eye and style of conversation, all of
which are quite foreign to their real
nature, and the effect in the long run
is bound to be unmanageable nerves if
nothing worse.