CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 392, 15 September 1876, Page 3

CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

[by est. e. boxeb.]

Tbe causeß of drunkenness are so obvious that very few authors hare thought it necessary to point them out. I shall merely say nfew words upon the subject. There are some persons who will never be drunkards, and others who will be so m spite of all that can be done to prevent them. Some" are druakartls by necessity, and others by choice. Tbe drunkard by necessity was never meant by nature to be dissipated. He is perhaps a person of very amiable disposition, waommisfoi':, tune has overtaken, and who, instead of bearing up manfully against it, endeavors to drown* his sorrows in spirituous or feimented liquors. It is an excess of sensibility,; a partial mental weakness, an absolute misery of the heart, which drives him on- Dranltenness with him is a cousequence of misfortune ; it is a solitary dissipation preying upon him in silence. Such an individual frequently dies broken-bearted, even before his excesses have had time to destroy him by their own assisted agency. The drunkard by choice has an innate and constitutional fondness for spirits or malt liquor, and drinks con amove. Such a person is'usually of a sanguineous temperament; of coarse, unintellectual mind, and of low animal propensities. He has, in general, a certain rigidity of fibre and a flow of animal spirits,, which other people are without. He delights in the roar and riot of .drinking companies'; and with them, in particular, all the. miseries of life may be referred to the bottle, etc. Some become drunkards from,. excess of- indulgence in youth. There are parents who have a common custom to treat their children to punch, or other intoxicating liquors. This, in reality, is regularly bringing them up in an apprenticeship to drunkenness. Others are taught the vice by frequenting drinking companies and public-houses. These are the academies of tippling. Two-thirds of the drunkards your meet with have been there initiated in that love of intemperance and boisterous irregularity which distinguish their future lives. Persons who are good singers are very apt to become drunkards, and, in truth, most of them arc so, more or less—especially if they have naturally much joviality or warmth of temperament. A line voice to such individuals is a fatal accomplishment. : Drunkenness i exists more in cities and towns than in the country, and more among mechanics and miners than husbandmen. Most of the misery to be observed among the working" classes springs from this source. JS6 persons are more addicted to tho habit, and all its attendant vices, thanjpublicans, actors, j musicians, and individuals whs lead, a rambling and eccentric life. Husbands sometimes ' tfeach their wives to be drunkards by indulging them in toddy, and such fluids, every time they themselves sit down to their libations. Women frequently acquire the vice of drunkenness by drinking ale or porter while I nursing. These stimulants are usually recommended them fromwell meant but mistaken motives by their female attendants. Many young women are ruined by this pernicious practice. Their persons become gross, their milk unhealthy, and a foundation is too often laid for future indulgence in malt or spirituous liquor. The. frequent use of cordials sometimes leads to the practice of drunkenness, as their active principle is neither more nor less than ardent spirits. Liqueurs, such as noyau, shrub, kirsels-wasser, curagoa, anissette, etc., often contain! narcotic principles ; therefore their use is doubly improper. Among other causes of drunkenness I may mention the excessive use of spirituous tinctures for tho cure of indigestion and hypochondria. Persons who use strong tea, especially green, run the same risk. Green tea is singularly hurtful to the constitution, producing heartburn, hysteria, and general debility of tho ehylopoetic viscera. Some of these bad effects are relieved for a time by the uso of spirits, and what was at first employed as a medicine soon booatno an essential requisite. Certain occupations have a

tendency to induce drunkenness. Publicans, innkeepers, &c, are all exposed in a great degree to temptations in this respect, and in-: temperance is a vice which may be very often justly charged against them. Commercial travellers, also, taken as a body, are open to the accusation of indulging too freely in the bottle, although I am not aw are that they carry it to such excess as to entitle many of tbem to be ranked as drunkards. Well, fed, riding or driving from town to town, and walking to the houses : of. the several tradesmen, they have an employment not only more agreeable, but more conducive to health, than almost any other dependent on traffic. But they destroy their constitutions by intempe-' generally by drunkenness, but by taking more liquor than nature requires. Dining at the traveller's table, each drinks his pint or bottle of ale, porter or wine. He then takes spirits with several of his customers, and at night he must have a glass or two of brandy, whisky, gin, or rum and-water. Drunkenness appears tobe in some measure hereditary.. You. frequently see it descending, from parents to their- children. This may undoubtedly often arise from bad example and.imitation, but there can be little' question that, in many instances at least, it exists as a family predisposition. Men of genius are often unfortunately addicted' to drinking. Nature, as she has gifted them with greater powers than their fellows, seema also to have mingled with their cup of life more bitterness. There is a melancholy which is apt to.come like, a cloud over the imaginations of such characters. Their minds possess s> susceptibility and a delicacy of structure which-unfits them for the gross atmosphere of human nature—wherefore, high talent has ever been distinguished for sadness and gloom. : Genius lies in a world of its own : it is the essence of a superior nature—the loftier imaginings of the mind, clothed with a more spiritual and refined verdure. Eevv men endowed with such faculties enjoy the ordinary happiness of humanity; The stream of their lives runs harsh and broken.' Melancholy thoughts sweepperpetuallyacross their souls,- and, if these be heightened by misfortune, they are plunged into the deepest misery. To relieve.these feelings many plans have been adopted. T need not endeavor to trace further the remote causes ef drunkenness* A drunkard is rarely able to recall the particular circumstances which made him sol The vice creeps upon him insensibly, and he is involved in its fetters before he is aware. It is enough that you know the p'roiimatc cause, and also the certain consequences. One thing is certain, that the person who addicts himself to intemperance'can never be saidto be-sound in mind or body. The former is' a state of partial insanity while the effects of the. liquor remains, and the latter is always more or less diseased in its actions.