The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1914-03-19
As Seen from the Water Buggy.

The Literary Digest" in it's issue of February
81 st, under the above caption. devotes
siderable space to an article recently appearing
in the Saturday Evening Post" by Mr.
Samuel G.. Blythe. who during twenty years of
conviviality and three years of abstinence made
some intimate observations concerning the
liquor habit. The article Is of exceeding in
terest and the Digest makes very liberal
quotations from the Saturday Evening Post"
all of which occupy too much space for the
columns of the Bulletin. but attention is called
to the following extracts which give Mr.
Bythe's views the drinking habit and the
abstinence therefrom and which will probably
prove very interesting reading:
"A nondrinking man is the master of his
time. A drinking is master Of his time
lie may think he is. but he il not. He is the
creature of habit that may be harmless, but
which surely is insistent; and the habit dictates
what he shall do with his leisure.
Time Why. such new vstas OF what car
be done with time that was wasted in former
years have opened before me. that time seems
to me the greatest luxury in the world-time
that was formerly wasted and is used,
hope that does not sound prggish ! have
tried to show that I value highly the privilege
of assoeiating with my fellows, and that l like
their ways and their talk and their company
What ] by this paean to time is that
can have company in a modified measure, If
choose: and that I and do have other
things that man who has a daily drinking
habit or does have
Take books--though books may not be Il
fair test of time employed in my case, for
always have read books in great numbers
but take books. In the past three years I
have read many books--real books--as
read In the ten years preceding
Il have had time to go to some pictures
have had time to hear music. l have
met and talked to large number of people
who were formerly outside my range Of vision
And I have done better work in my line
have more time for It.
Now, then, we come to the real Question.
which is: With our society organized as IL is
with men such men they are. with condi-
tons that surround life it is organized, with
things they stand today--4s it worth while
to drink moderately. or 1t is not? The yer,
based solely on my own experience is that il is
not Looking at the matter from all its angles
am convinced that the best thing l ever did
for myself to quit drinking. / will go
further than that and say it is my unalterable
conviction that alcohol in any form as a
beverage never did anything for any man that
he would not have been better without.
| Il sit back and contrast the old
game with the The comparisons fall un-
der two general heads--physcal and mental
The physical gain is so obvious that those
who have not experienced IL admit it, and those
who have experienced it comment it as
some miracle of health that has been attained
the sort Of drnSer / was, who will stop
drinking long enough to get cooled out will
feel so much better in every way that he will
be hard put to 1t to give for ever be
ginning again.
Mentally | have clearer, saaeF, wider view
of life. | am afflicted by of the desultori-
ness superinduced by alcohol / do not need
a braeer to get going hooker to keep
me under way. / find, that / know the
other side of it, that ohe chief mental effect Of
alcohol. taken took it, is to induce a certain
scattering and casualness Of mind Also, it in
duces lack of defniteness of view and a
notable failure of intensive effort man
evades and scatters and exaggerates and makes
loose statements when he drinks
IF health is a desderatum. one way to at
tain lot Of It Is to cut out the booze The
old game makes for fun. but it takes sei--and
| never fails,
II have tried II both ways I can see how a
man who never took any liquor cannot under
stand much of what / have written. and I can
see how man who has the same sort of habits
/ had think absurd in my conclusions,
but man who has played both ends of 1t GER
tainly has some qualifications n Judge
ROYAL Arcanum Bulletin.