DRAWING-ROOM AND COUNTING-HOUSE DRINKING.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2653, 18 August 1871, Page 3

DRAWING-ROOM AND COUNT-ING-HOUSE DRINKING.

{From the Birmingham Daily Post) In his capital book of Scotch stories, Dean Ramsay tells of a -western baronet, of convivial habits, who desired to hear witness to the good qualities of a neighbor. Having set forth his friend’s ability, probity, and honor, the baronet deemed it proper to close the eulogium with another important notification—“ And he is a fair drinker.” If some persons are to be credited, this description applies to very large classes of persons in I ngland at this moment. We won’t say anything of the working class —they have been of late years so set upon, and lectured, and po : nted at with “ the finger of scorn ” in this matt r, that, for the present, they may may as well be let alone. It is the “respectable” drinkers with whom we have just now to do—those who sacrifice largely to the proprieties ot life, and for whose protection against gross habits all kinds of safeguards are devised. When one has to state an unpleasant fact, it is i. s well to “blurt” it out if only for the sake of giving a healthy moral shock—and therefore, on the authority of journals which concern themselves with the affairs of “society,” and on the further authority of medical journals, we say that w omen drink a great deal too much, that girls drink a great deal more than used to be allowed, and that “ business men” are taking io morning drams, to an extent which threatens most serious consequences. These

a re the charges which the censors and critics °f “society” bring against the component members of that somewhat mysterious entity. The Saturday Review is one of the chief accusers, and its allegations—very sweeping, and often very painful—are supported by medical journals, and are further confirmed by the private statements of medical men. But for the rule that while condemning the sin, a merciful reticence may be exercised towards the sinner, we could mention instances of a most lamentable description, even in Birmingham, though we believe that the better classes in this town are comparatively free from the vice of drinking. As regards women, the charge brought by the authorities just mentioned is that secret drinking is practised to an alarming extent. There is a fashionable disorder which settles down upon the “ nerves.” It has no medical name, but doctors know perfectly well what it is, and how the patients foster it by the very method they adopt to effect a temporary cure. Sometimes, when the medical man is weaker or less scrupulous than he should be, his own advice helps to establish the disorder. A patient feels “low or “ worried ” and the doctor allows or suggests “ a glass of sherry ’’—very often, to suit the British palate, nothing better than brandy in disguise. The medicine is agreeable, it is at the patient’s own command, and the dose is repeated, oftener than the medical man intends ; until the craving for one kind of stimulant leads so a desire for stronger, and then discredit and sometimes exposure follow, until real disease sets in and accounts for the distressing “ symptoms. ’lt is needless, however, to do more than hint at a subject already so thoroughly discussed that tho?e who are interested know it by heart. It is enough to say that in too many instances, the “ high spirits” of the evening and the “ low spirits ” of the morning, are attributable to the same cause.