Evening star., 1907-10-26
KITCHEN MECHANICS GROW
AMBITIOUS TO BRANCH OIJT

!. ~ LIN Al WI w i
| richest families in town are giving nm
the problem They're through trying Ia
lhpiore servants To come To them and TO
remain with them. What are they doing
about it? Well. they are moving bag and
baggage. To the great. luxurious hotels
| that have been shrewdly built for mil
honaires families. Who foresaw SOM. finn,
ago that the rich ones would eventually
have TO give up their fight with the sery-
ant question, 1t is extraordinary 10 oh
serve how many Of the most sumptuous
palaces In 9TH avenue have not been open-
ed this year at all They are not to be
opened. Announcement has already been
MADE that the occupants of these palaces
nave taken suites OF apartments at the,
great new hotels. notably the Plaza-that
new hostelry up at the south end of Cen
trai Park which makes everything else
on the civilized glope In the shane OF a
hotel look like a chicken coop bv com
parison Some of these families who
have abandoned the worries incidental tn
keeping up mansions with scrappy. inde-
pendent servants or with no servants at
ail' VIII pay as high as sl0o.Oo n year
for their apartments at the Plaza, and
the list OF folks who are quartered there
includes the names of Vanderbilts, Astors
Gouids. Fishes. Chanlers. Van Rensellaers
and many others at or near the apex of
social life In New York
Sixty five per cent of the women Of
New YORK are steady drinkers is
what a statistical medical man, who is
III position TO know, wrote the other
day 1t may well be true Ii does not
take much of an eye to perceive how
dangerously the New York women are
overdrinking. No day passes that from
hali dozen to twenty women OF sup
posedly high grade, young and elderly
matrons of position in New York. are
not picked up or the streets in a state
OF utter and hopeless drunkenness In
the shopping centers the ornate grog-
serles, maintained exclusively for women
with orchestraS that render wooza music
especially picked for the WOODY feminine
ear, flourish most splenditeruusly and
they are jammed and packed during all
the afternoon hours. At at least two of
them 1t is a common thing for an aver
age OF about dozen women to take too
muCh frc water every afternoon. and IL
mas become quite thing for idlers TO
conSreSate near these female gruggeries
rather la in the afternoon for the fun"
of seeing spifflicated women brought or
carried out to their carriages or automo-
biles by grinning walters.
Take It Straight
1t is gruesome to cast the eye about any
OF the main restaurants at any time Of
the day or night and to note how many
of the women are drinking raw whisky
and brandy Two Of the modish Broad
way restaurants have regular .'soberine-
up rooms for their women patrons with
women doctors in attendance. who are
experts in treating alcoholism and alco-
hoie hysteria. One of the high-priced
vaudeville theaterS has lately partitionei
off part of its bar into little rumorilm
Where women can sneak their drinks OF
hard liquor between the acts, and il is
noticeable how the women preponderate
over the men in the audiences at this
theater since this innovation And let the
matter he thprDlg1lV llnIarStnpH no
women of New York who are doing all
OF this drinking are not flash women
They are the young unmarried and the
young married women, the middle aged
unmarried and married women, even the
elderly and the old women, who are sup
posed to live lives of sedateness accord
ing to the canons of the time.
After time one becomes a bit skep-
tical of these "crusades." But 1t really
looks as if the time had about arrived for
the inauguration of the crusade against
drinking among women which is to be
started within a month or two by all of
the clergymen of New York irrespective
of sect. The Cathoic priest. the Prot
estant minister and the Jewish rabbi are
to cooperate in this-the biggest crusade
of its kind that has ever been even con-
templated over here. The idea of the
anti-drinking campaign of the clergy
men is to shame the women into quitting
drinking. They are going to try to so
arouse public sentiment that it will be
considered shameful for a woman of re-
spectability to take drink" in any
public place. When they get this fixed
their way they are going to attack the
evil of drinking among women at their
homes. There are thousands and tens
of thousands of New York husbands who
are now wishing more power TO
these religious persons who are going
into the fight against feminine boozng.
The same medical authority who com
mented upon the enormous increase I'm
the matter of drinking among women.
and who gave the figures on it. said a
curious thing in this connection. He said
that when woman of a family takes to
drinking the men of the family who may
themselves be drinkers quickly give up the
drinking habit themselves. He says that
they do this out of the disgust which
the spectacle of the drinking women
arouses within them. He mentions many
specific instances Of husbands who were
all but drunkardS themselves until their
wives, through overeXcitement while in
dulging in social fuffery. or through the
temptations offered by other women. fell
to drinking AS soon as such husbands
saw that their wives were becoming or
had become victims of the drink habit,
they boarded the water wagon with a
vengeance. and stayed on it. too.
Women Can't Quit.
This acute doctor person, who has de-
voted life to studying alcoholism, pre-
sents an astonishing view as to the rela-
tive curableness of the drink habit among
men and women. He says that from 60
to 20 per cent of the men who get
into the way of drinking too much are
curable: that they can grab hold of them
selves when the psychological moment or
the moment of adversely swings along and
pull themselves out of the n1:re and re-
main sober for the balance of their lives.
On the other hand this doctor says that
less than per cent-astonishing differ
ence-of women who become confirmed
drinkers ever can be induced or medicned
into ever leaving off the drinking busi-
ness for good and all. He says that there
Is something in the feminine mental make
up which holds her right to 1t when once
she has permitted herself to become thor
oughly enslaved by drink and that there
is virtually no hope for women who get
into this sort of maelstrom.
So, here in the greatest city in the
western world, it Is found that drunken
ness among men is rapidly on the de-
crease and that it is amazingly on the
increase among women. There must be
answer to all of this, If it could be
found. The doctor man, who is a frank
person indeed and whose conclusions
seem to be not in the least hurried. gives
the opinion that the abuse of the extra
privileges extended to the female sex in
the United States. alone of all civilized
countries" accounts for the increase in
among American women. Amer
lean women he states, not with any air
IAf,-f rFn,-f L.