Year: 1871

late IN the most alarming manner
"The American bar system" it informs
us, (which in New York and elsewhere
has been carried to heigth at which,
though being so fagrantly scandalous
and intolerable, it has almost begun to
cure itself, has, unfortunately, taken
root in London" "Secret drinking
among the mercantile classes "is free
and uncontrolled" and "the potations
ofcity men are terribly on the increase u
The reasons for this are several and
manifest. One, it appears, is the tele
graph. Formerly there was an interval
between sending his letters and getting
replies, when man of business could
mediate calmly on his affairs. Now, all
things are decided offhand, and conse-
quently there is kept up constant
fever of excitement. Hence, nervous
exhaustion ensues, and stimulents are
resorted to. Another reason for excess
is that business men, instead of living
over their counting houses or shops, as
was once the custom, now almost in
variably live several miles away. Most
of them come to the city by rail, which
works i'll in various ways. In the first
| place, there is a constant anxiety about
missing the train, SO that nervous
fatigue begins with the day. Then the
journey by rail is pronounced unfavora-
BILE to digestion, and, according to some
men, if taken every day, is injurious to
the brain as well as the stomach and
nerves. Besides these disturbing agen-
cies, "overwork," the strain of busi-
ness" and the anxieties of specula-
tion," are set down as originating and
nourishing those physical and mental
conditions that lead men to seek the
consultations of alcohol, and, ultimately,
to become slaves to its fascinating infiu-
| ence.


There is no doubt some truth in this,
although it is hardly truth of the sort
that warrants the air of discovery with
which the Saturday Re0iew announces it..
Deplorable and extensive as is the habit
of drinking in our own business COM
munity, we believe it has grown to be as
bad, or perhaps even worse, in London.
IF it is worse there, the reason is clear.
Most Americans who drink before din
ner do not drink at or after dinner, but
| the Englishmen who drink before din
ner are pretty certain to do the other as
well. There cannot be question that
it is safer and healthier, if men must
drink at all, to drink at or after dinner
than before it. 1t is equally certain,
however, that those who do only one Of
| the two are better off than those who
do both. Thus the city men in London,
who not only takes "nips" and "pegs"
| throughout the morning, but swallows
a great quantity of wine with his dinner,
it is a disadvantage compared with his
New York brother, who confines him
self to the former set of stimulants.
With both classes, the growing habit of
concentrating the entire business of the
day into small fraction of it is, no
doubt prejudicial. Early y-closing move
ments are salutary in respect of saving
the physical rather than the mental
powers, just as are the organizations
for shortening the hours of labor in still
humber social strata. But with men
who do their entire days work with
their heads, the more deliberately it is
done the better. Generally speaking, q
given set of brains can only healthily
secret given amount of thought in a
stated time. If you habitually overwork
the mind, or, so to speak, over-focalize
its energies, you induce disease. 1t is
plain that many men who do not care a
straw for the exultation of drink, or for
its good fellowship, or for it's flavor,
resort to it to sustain" themselves
while habitually subjecting their powers
to excessive strain. The competitions
of business are in this way sapping and
running many noble lives. And men
of the world well know how numerous
are the cases of sudden death in our
business community-casesi imputed to
"heart disease" "paralysis," and the
like, that are really the result of drink
ing, secret or other, which has been re-
sorted to for the sake of keeping up
strength in the unremitting and arduous
battle of life.


| Equally we'll do men of the world
| know how much easier it is to point out
| these evils than to correct them, to sug-
gest remedies than to enforce their ap-
plication. The dangerous theory that
alcoholic stimulus can be better born by
brains that are actively and perpetually
at work-if indeed, such stimulus is
not positively beneficial to such brains
has been much disseminated of late,
and is undoubtedly very mischievous.
Perhaps the temperance movement
went too far, and, like all excess, is now
followed by reaction but whatever the
influence or importance of this. it is
certain that drinking in business cir
cles, if less alarming among us than it
was three yeas ago, is still practiced
upon a scale of deplorable magnitude,
and that the evil calls for serious efforts
to restrain and extirpate it. 1t is favor
ite theory with many that palliatives
are of doubtful service, and ought not
to be recommended. With such think
ers, total abstinence is the only proper
cure. We, however, venturel to think
that the application of more moderate
ductive of good. If, for example, busi-
ness men were to cultivate and
encourage the habit of refusing to take
anything whatever of an Intoxicating
character before dinner-supposing the
dinner hour be six o'clock or later-it
cannot be doubted an important reform
might be effected. The adoption of this
suggestion, we are persuaded, would
bring benefits which more sweeping and
practical remedies might altogether fail
to assure.


Mr.. j. III. HANNAHs, of Chicago, has
secured patent for an elevated metro
politan railway of which he is the in
ventor. 1t may be briefly described as
an elevated double-track railway, placed
on single columns when the carriage
way is sufficiently wide, or on columns
set at the edge of the sidewalk on each