The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1905-02-04
MORE WINE THAN WATER.
Large Consumers Among the Gus
toners of New York Ger
man Wine Shops.

| Wine drinking, a duty with some anC
a pleasure with others, is to many thou
sands of men and women in the German
quarter hardly less than science, says
I the New York Sun.
The familiar half sehoppen Of native
wine, red or white, which sells in the
WEN stuben at five cents. is rather more
| than fifth of bottle, or as nearly as
| may be a tWenty-ifth of a gallon. Regsi-
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 a sitting.
and it is an exceedingly moderate man
who stops at three or four. The old
toperss go as high as ten or Is glasses,
and hard drinkers often consume Is
or Is,
All of these keep sober When men
assemble to a Wassail bout, as they Of
casionally do in the vein stuben. nobody
knows just how much man may dris1ss
for the dead men are carried off afIer
three or four have gathered on the table
and no further count szkept.
The wassail drinkers buy by the bot
| tie, but on 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-
yiding a free lunch from ten o'clock to
noon in order to attract early customers.
and the place is never empty after mid
morning. The fact that the hot coffee
lunch is pretty vigorously cut off noon
does not prevent customers from
croWding the rathskelier all afternoon
Midday drinking in the vein stuben,
however. is after all moderate and a
mere adjunct to luncheon. because most
men have vet 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 a few lucky men
OF leisure come in to meet their friends.
Many a man drinks nearly half a gal
Ion of wine between four o'clock and
six and few drink more. Some of
those who spend the afternoon thus go
home to a dinner at which they drink
at least a pint more.
The hour of eight O'Clock finds the
night business of the vein stube well
under way, and now the number and
the variety OF drinkers are multiplied.
Men far advanced in their seventies will
sit two hours IN a 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 a few
like dainties, along with pretzeIs and
saitstangen, accompany the wine. At
midnight the last sitter leaves the place, |
and il he happens to be one OF the regu-
lar daily and nightly. customers he has |
probably consumed in the course of u |
hours we'll on to a gallon and a half of |
wine
That men who drink afterthis fashion
live. keep moderately sober and are nei-
Their noisy or quarrelscnle seems to ar
que highly for the sounaness of Ameri-
can wines The barEeepers, who have
watched these zeoings on for half a life
time. insist that the immunity of their
patrons from the penalties of over
drinking is due in part TO the fact that
nearly everybody drinks slowly and in
part to the almost inTariable rule that
nobody drinks without eating.
AS a matter Of fact the regular Gus
.omers of the vein stube- usually cut
Town their daily supply OF wine two
thirds or three-fourths once or twice a
year under doctors orders. but very few
actually mount the water wagon.