Year: 1875

tFrom the PlttSburR telegraph


An AntiTreating Society is being organized
inPittsburg, the,purpose ofw which is to abate the
excessive use of liquor and expenditure ofcash
resulting from the absurd American custom
of ''treatiDg" in drinking saloons. This custom
does not prevail in Europe. 1t is a senseless
one, and at the bottom not even a generous
one. Some Frenchman has said, "Too much
haste to repay an obligation is species of in
gratitude" Apply that acute remark to our
treating custom. A man invites another o
drink, and Immediately afterihe is himself in
Vited to drink, so that the account will be
Squared" The business is a vulgar as well
as q dangerous one. In regard to drinking,
Psychologists are pretty well agreed that, save
in exceptional cases, the real danger is in pass
ing a certain quantity. The man who can take
one or two glasses of wine safely may suffer
partial narcotism with the third glass and then
drink to excess. Some organizations cannot
take glass of liquor safely, but these are the
exceptional cases. 1t is the treating habit
which is mainly responsible for excessive
drinking. Few men go deliberately to make
themselves drunk, but under our absurd social
customs they frequently lose their discretion,
even in the use of such beverages as beer and
wine. The Anti Treating Society is a move
ment genuinely in the interest of temperance,
and if it could break up the wholesale invita-
tions to repeated drinking it would do more
good than all the temperance speeches, tracts
and meetings that could be employed. Break
this foolish and ruinous habit up, and the man
who goes to beer hall to take glass or two
of beer or wine with little cheese will not
be apt to take dozen glasses and come out of
the establishment suffering from narcosis and
and ready for any excess. The treating habit
is insulting TO mems intelligence. 1t ought to
be considered an insult TO ask man who has
Just drank glass of strong liquor to take an
additional one. 1t is really an invitation to
him to dethrone his reason. 1t is not SO in-
tended and 1t is not SO understood, but practi-
cally that's what it means.


Whilst we are on this topic we perceive that
the able editor of the Pittsburg Christian Ad-
Vocats deyotes two columns to q recent article
in the Evening Telegraph on the Chicago Tenn
perance Convention. In that article we found
fault with the said convention for insisting on
the fetal abolition of the liquor traffic as the
only remedy for drunkenness, and refusing to
consider methods for the regulation of the
traffic. The editor of the Advocate is an un-
compromising champion of total abolition; he
will have the whole loaf or none; he says the
millions Of Islam and Asia have proved that
abolition can be successfully accomplished,
and he maintains that prohibition in this coan.
try has worked successfully where tri5i.
Total non use of liquors, even in the tropical
regions cited by the Advocate, has never been
brought about, and it must also be remen-
bered that in warm climates the necessity, or
supposed necessity for stimulants is no; 50
urgent, whilst the immediate effects ara in
finitely more deadly than in colder climates.
The Northern nations are the great drinking
nations, and there are climatic reasons for it.
Let us add, too, that these nations notwith-
standing their habits in this respect are the
nations where law, government, order, hero