The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-10

, week" This does not prove, as might
| be claimed, that peanuts offer an even
better substitute for alcohol than
books, but that Americans are neglect
Ing their opportunities. (See de Maui
| PEASANT or Ambrose Bierce or Compton,
Mckenzie or Algernon Blackwood.)
An even deadlier substitute for al
cohol than either of these, urged by the
consoling, is candy. The candy store
proprietors themselves are keeping dis
creetly silent on the subject, but there
are plenty of others to do their adver-
Using for them. Men who have expe-
rience In climbing on and off the wa
ter wagon assert that candy is the only
hope OF the faithful when the last des-
cendant OF John Barleycorn has been
This statement is also upheld by scen-
lists. who have studied the effect of
various foods on the human system
and who point out that a piece of
candy In the process of digestion be-
comes alcohol, in which form it is dis
tributed throughout the system. Eat a
few chocolate drops on an icy winter
day, and you get almost the same eff
feet as II you had tapped the flask in
your inside pocket. But candy, in large
quantities, is capable of causing almost
as much damage as alcohol itself, ac-
cording to our best dieticians. so that
the nation is now faced by another dan
ger-the bon bon drunk.
Our jails will all be filed with candy
eaters; new society will have to be
formed for the suppression of candy
manufacture, and the movie scenario
writer's can go right on writing the
same drunken scenarios of heroines
lured away from home by candy and
of young men who take their first choc-
olate drop and thereafter rapidly go to
wreck and ruin. Already are sugges-
tons for dramatizing the candy vice
6aa RI 1YNf, 10 t.. -
scene one shows a pathetic little group,
Consisting of sad little woman and
her children, who sit sobbing about the
kitchen table, where the evening meal
Is growing cold. The mother rises and
looks mournfully out of the window,
eating again." she sobs.
Although the night is cold and stormy
as you can see by the way everything
in the room is being blown about by a
cleverly concealed electric fan, little An
gela, aged ten and half, rises nobly
that she will go and bring her father
home. Follow several feet of film
showing little Angela Drawing the storm
outside, searching the dark streets of
the big city, passing ribald groups of
men with candy on their breath, and
finally discovering her bleary- eyed. sod
den father, just as he is about to fall
off the wharf into the river. clutching
a candy carton firmly in one hand "Oh,
father" says little Angela, you prom
ised us you would stop eating candy"
And. leading him gently by the hand,
Angela guides her father through a
thousand or more feet of film, which
ends with his miraculous reform and
the signing of the candy prohibition
pledge.
Beside the vivid pictures candy con-
jures for the imagination, buttermilk. |
weak beer and even cologne are pale |
and inconspicuous. Automobile press
agents have proposed joy-ridng as a |
substitute for the usual weekend spree, !
but this is obviously illogical. sace joy |
riding has always been the effect and |
not the cause of intoxication. There Is |
one other suggestion, however, which |
appears to contain merit. That is
travel. Beginning July l, there was a
arge increase in the number of requests
Tor passports. and 1t Is stated that
thousands are barely holding themselves
IN until the passport situation loosens
Up and they are able to emigrate in
wholesale quantities to Europe. Some
Who are unable to restrain themselves
hat long are already on their way to
China, where American breweries are
low doing a large business. According
% the testimony of an American who
las just returned from China, every
American beer and light wines in that
and so far the results are so
'uccessful that many more American
brewers are talking of moving their
,lants to the Orient. Under these cir
It Is quite comprehensive
Why so many American business men
ire suddenly evincing such a tremen-
lous interest in China.
Subject OF tomorrow's letter America
in the Black Sea"D