The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-04-02
The Drink Habit Among Women.

DR.. John d. Quackenbos, of the Londoi
Society for Physical Research, sounde'
a warming over what he called th,
alarming increase in the use of alcohol,
liquors by women.
There is no more artfully organized
no more unscrupulously executed an in
tent to imbrute and devilize human ma
ture,' he said, than that implied in
the existence of the public bar-the
grossest insult to American intelligence,
the most brutal assault on the Christian
consciousness of the centuries.
The notable increase in the con-
sumption of stimulants, especially
among the upper classes, estimated at
ten per cent. during the last decade in
the case of men and much larger per
centage in that of women, is inviting
anxious attention. Upward of one bill
lion dollars are spent annually in the
United States for intoxicating drinks,
and another billion for the relief of the
restitution, the punishment of the
crime, and the care Of the physical and
mental diseases that result directly from
the drink habit. Especially alarming
is the growth of the practice among our
women.
The punch bowl figures at all func-
tons, and proud-pied women dip freely
therein, ten drinking to-day where one
drank dozen years ago. School mis-
ses and college girls are conspicuous
among the throng. Debutantes, not
necessarily of the fast set, unblushingly
assert right to drink wine and smoke
cigarettes at luncheon and levees, to say
nothing of private indulgence, and not
a few of this class, as well as young
married women, have been brought to
my Office in state of intoxication.
Such has become the vogue; and, worse
than this, girls in their teens see no i'm
propriety in drinking publicly with men
The abstinent, unobtrusive young
woman of the past generations is giving
place to a coarse and boisterous bon vi
want, controlled by unworthy impulses,
and wholly unfit to fulfill her function
in society as an inspirer to meritorious
action, or her function in the home asa
character former and a wife. "
This, doubtless, is not an overdrawn
picture of conditions in New York,
and other Eastern cities,
but, thank God, it is not quite so bad
in the land of the South. The punch |
bowl does not figure at nearly so many
functions as it did in the days of yore,
and wine-bibbing among men and wo-
men, except among the lower and the
ultra fashionable sets, is not so common
as it was
However, the warning should not 90
Women are weaker vessels
than men, albeit in this particular era
Of advanced thought it may not be pop
ular to say so. Women have no right
to do as men do, if men do wrong.
Women cannot afford to do as men do.
if men do wrong. Men can recoup and
recover their lost manhood and their
virtue. Women cannot, or rarely can. |
The stains Of life cling less closely to
men than to womankind; they wear off |
more easily. Women, strange crea-
lures that they are, will take unto them
selves abandoned, bedraggled, dirty men.
and by the power of their precept and |
and the sweet aroma of their
guiltless lives, ometimes-though a |
dangerous thing it is for them to at
tempt to do raise them up and make |
new creatures of them. 1t is not so |
with men. No honorable man will take
an unclean woman to his heart. and So
ciety would damn them both if he did. |
A man may drink and hold himself in |
leash; but drunken woman is at the
mercy of the man who escorts her to
her home. Men and women who drink
together are not safe chaperons for
each other; for there lies a danger line
DER which they may not safely pass,
and, seen too late, will surely wreck the
life of one, if not both of them.
Young people may not know this,
but older ones-men and women of the
it, some of them to their
sorrow, some to their shame, some with
the frightful scare of narrow ESCAPE.
There is no more dangerous thing to do
han for men and women to drink
strong drink together. And to tempt
he young to such a danger is a sin
against their innocence and upon hui
nity.-Nashville Tennessean: