St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1905-03-04
MORE WINE THAN WATER.
Large Consumers Among the Gus
toners Of New York Ger
man Wine Shops.

Wine drinking, duty with some and
q pleasure with others, is to many thou
sands Of men and women in the German
quarter hardly less than science, says
the New York Sun.
The familiar half schoppen of native
wine, red or white, which sells in the
vein stuben at five cents. is rather more
than a fifth of bottle, or as nearly as
may be a twenty-fifth OF a gallon. Regu-
lar frequenters of the vein stuben drink
| these wines in lieu of water and much
more freely than most persons drink
the latter fluid.
The ordinary citizen drinks from
Six to eight half schoppens at sitting,
and it is an exceedingly moderate man
who stops at three or four. The old
topers go as high as ten or Is glasses.
and hard drinkers often consume 16
or Is.
All of these keep sober When men
assemble to a wassail bout, as they o.
casionally do in the vein stuben. noboGy
knows just how much a man may dri1z,
for the dead men" are carried off After
three or four have gathered on the table.
and no further count is kept.
The wassail drinkers buy by the bot
tie, but en- ordinary occasions wine is
bought by the glass. As a matter of fact
the price is nearly the same one way as
the other.
Wine drinking really begins in the
vein stuben about time for luncheon
say at noon. One rathskeller. however
has hit upon an ingenious plan of pro-
viding a free lunch from ten o'clock to
noon in order to attract early customer RS.
and the place is never empty after mid
morning The fact that the hot coffee
lunch is pretty vigorously cut of at noon
does not prevent customers from
crowding the rathskeller all afternoon.
Midday drinking in the vein stuben,
however is after all moderate and a
mere adjunct to luncheon because most
men have yet some hours of work be-
fore them. The regular business of
drinking begins toward four O'Clock,
when many business men have finished
their days work and few lucky men
OF leisure come in to meet their friends.
Many man drinks nearly half gal
lon of wine between four o'clock and
six and few drink more. Some of
those who spend the afternoon thus 60
home to dinner at which they drink
at least pint more.
The hour of eight o'clock finds the
night business of the vein stube we'll
under way, and now the number and
the variety of drinkers are multiplied.
Men far advanced in their seventies will
sit two hours in vein stube at night
and drink ten or II glasses of wine.
Even a few women drink as much, and
some of the afternoon drinkers return
at night to finish their score.
Raw fish. limburger cheese and few
like dainties, along with pretzels and
saitstangen, accompany the wine. At
the last sitter leaves the place,
and if he happens to be one OF the regu-
lar daily and nightly customers he has
probably consumed in the course OF II
hours well on to gallon and half OF
wine.
That men who drink after this fashion
live. keep moderately sober and are nei-
Their noisy or quarrelsome seems to. ar
que highly for the soundness of Ameri--
can wines. The barkeepers, who have
watched these goings on for half life
time, insist that the immunity of their
patrons from the penalties of over
drinking is due in part to the fact that
nearly every body drinks slowly and in
part to the almost invariable rule that
nobody drinks without eating.
AS a matter of fact the regular GUS
toners of the vein stube usually cut
down their daily supply of wine two
thirds or three-fourths once or twice
year under doctors orders, but very f0H
actually mount the water wagon.