SUBSTITUTE FOR ALCOHOL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1564, 21 May 1887, Page 2

SUBSTITUTE FOR ALCOHOL.

♦ If men will drink, there is no reason why tbey should drink alcohol, says the "Milwaukee Sentinel." It is a popular notion that the purpose of alcohol cannot be filled by anything else ; and the drinker submits to the staying after the fun is all over, and having a blooming headaohe the next day as a matter of necessity. Now, it is a well-established faot that a man can make just as great a fool of himself, and can have just aB full a sense of degradation on ether as he can on alcohol. Out of wood can be obtained an ether, a methylio alcohol, which, is lighter than the alcohol of ordinary drinks, and which produces the same effects, only more quickly, and which leaves the drinker less broken up. A man may take his ether ? and m a few minutes he will be wildly excited, and will want to whip all creation ; but before he fairly gets ready to whip anybody he will be m a stupor — and m half an hour he will be as sober as he ever was m his life. He can get drunk and sober a dozen times while the drinker of whisky is getting through one debauch. In Ireland there is a distriot where ether is the only drink. It is not pure ether, but a mixture of that with methylated alcohol; It sells for 3d al pint; and that quantity is more than enough for one luxurious and degrading drink. So it has economy m its favor. Dr Richardson, who visited the region, says that none of the savage acts of a man raging from ' alcohol are committed by the ether drinkers. The man who limits his drink- j ing to this does not acquire the alcoholic < appetite* and cpnstitution. If he doesn't I make a mistake and take enough to kill i him, he is not injured by it. " j 1