DRAWING-ROOM ALCHOLISM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 80, 5 April 1871, Page 3

DRAWING-ROOM ALCHOLISM.

o (From the Saturday Review.) There is an increasing evil under the sun, one of pressing importance, but so contrary to our English traditions, and to our notions of the fitness of things, that we are unwisely inclined to hush it up. Now and then, however, a whispeved scandal reminds our Pharisees that a Pharisee's wife indulges in alcoholic stimulants, "has been taken away from some ball by her friends, quite drunk, poor thing. How shocking ! " or " Really should not have been allowed J to ride when she could hardly sit on her horse. " But such stories we agree to get rid of as quickly as possible. They are '* too painful " for women on the brink of the same precipice down which Lady A. or Mrs. B. slipped out. 01 sight even within London memory. Even men do not relish exposures of the sort, or care to joke about what is too contrary to the natural order of things to be amusing. Yet some sincere effort should be made to check habits which are notoriously on the increase, and which threaten to degrade women even of the well-born and educated classes beyond the help of theories, however brilliant, of their rights. It is honest aud prudent to confess that drunkenness is no longer quite unFor remainder of news see fourth page.

known even in the most charming drawingrooms, be it under the form of dipsomania or oinomania, habitual or occasional excess. Ever since the Flood our heroes have, we know, distinguished themselves by their potations, but it remained for the heroines of our society to claim that prerogative of the stronger sex. It would seem that our doctors are too professional, our clergymen not professional enough, for candor on this ugly topic. Medical men are hampered by several considerations, some of them obvious ; and spiritual counsellors belong to another age. If the Lancet laments, as it has done, the over-prescription of stimulants which was " too much in fashion a few years ago, " its acknowledgment of the perhaps irreparable evil is unseen by the general reader. The literature of Temperance societies and police reports does not affect the divinities of our Olympus, who hardly guess the striking resemblance between their nectar and the gin of .the "masses." Yet something should be done to startle ignorant and well meaning jadytipplers who do not imagine it possible that they should approach, and even rival, Irish Biddies of St. Giles in their craving for aud absorption of alcohol. There is at present a singular push for power among women which suggests rather a deterioration than a development of the ftmale intellect and will. This feverish self-asser-tion is a confession of weakness. The sources- of their legitimate influence are 1 beinji exhausted ; their oid power is waning visibly, and even ridiculously collapsing. But though they deserve a lesson, it is a serious social misfortune that woman should be displaced from her right position in our homes. A habit that isolates and degrades her, while at the same time she retains her rank as wife and mother, is not only dangerous to her individually, but to society, and perhaps more subtly mischievous, than the crime for which she forfeits her place in the world, just as unacknowledged disease may work insidiously greater evil than a confessed sore. Vice in women is, moreover, almost more fatal to social safety than crime iv men. for custom is more than law in the conduct of a people — especially the women of the upper clashes—- have large control over custom. The rich escape the publicity of their practices which befalls our poor, and consequently we cannot so well guess at the cause of that failure in duty and home, and iv discretion abroad, which appears to be on the increase ; but there is reason to believe that the frequent -'pick me up, " the midday and after noou sherry or champagne, may have much to do with the pace at which young men and maidens, old men and children, May fair mothers and Belgravian beauties, are posting downhill. Not a few actual cases might be quoted for sensational purposes, but we have not space, even if this were a fitting occasion, to describe how Mrs. A. destroyed the peace of her home until she was removed from further trouble by permanent imbecility ; how Lady B. brought herself and her children to complicated grief and disgrace as she let fortune, friends, aud faith slip through her reckless fingers. Even if we enumerated the long train of diseases to which drunkards are liable, we doubt if the horrible list would lessen the use of alcohol by a single wine-glass. Indeed, novelists have lately treated us to many elaborate scenes of D. T., which we doubt to be wholesome Study eveu for poor souls who are struggling to escape from their habitual vice. It is probably a misfortune for women that in their own homes they have less employment than they had in other days before machinery interfered to do everybody's work. There is not incumbent on them the same duty to be useful, but there still remains for them the duty to be as ornamental as is consistent with fashion. Supposing the lady of the house never exceeds the sherry she can carry with dignity and self-approval, and gets decently through her daily round of deadlylively occupation, she remains a proof that a woman with a taste lor strong liquors ' has seldom any other taste. Her maid puts on her clothes, but she is careless of her appearance, and even liable to personal unkemptness. She is often unpunctual, | fractious before her dram, aud dull after- I wards. She does not cultivate friends or ! acquaintances who could be any check to ! her practices. She likes her mankind to be much away from the house, and if they take no notice of the quantity of wine consumed in their establishment she will j he affectionate, if rather stupid, to them. Of what is pure and noble in life she loses appreciation, while all that is animal is intensified in her. If she has- children, they will probably suffer from constitutional depression and weakness, and tone" will be plentifully supplied by port wine, and even brandy, from their infancy up. With, the career of the boys we are. not here concerned, but of the girls what may or may not be prophesied ? If they have escaped positive disease by the time they are launched in the world, they will he, at all events, dependent for their •," go" in society on copious champagne and frequent sherry. Naturally they wiUjoin.the increasing mob

of fast girls, with all tnaf is involved in that evil. We are sensible of a distinct moral relaxation among women, and of a new sort of unwomanly recklessness in the presence of men. ' We complain of a prevalent coarseness even among the virtuous, not only of manner, but of imagination an 1 pursuits, and we are sometimes tempted to prefer the age of Nell Gwynue or Madame de Pompadour to the actual confusion of daredevil women and unabashed spinsters. It would seem that alcohol has something lo do with this disorder, for the physical effects of it on women ate pioved by medical investigation to be precisely what would denaturalise them. We know how repulsive are most forms of mania in women, and, hard as the saying may seem, the development, of impulse and the lessened self-control which follow the slightest excess iv strong drink are symptoms ol a bruin excitement that is the precursor of disease. A line, we think, can be drawn ; and it is certainly time to observe the limit, where wine ceases to be useful as a stimulant of circulation, and becomes poisonous as a na' cutic, and morally ruinous. What appeal can we make that will be most lik ly to succeed ? Let every woman who, from whatever cause, finds herself increasing her old quantity of drink, lake timely alarm. In the earlier days of dipsomania the victim wilf rationally acknowledge every fact conndcteu^mh it, and will oven expatiate on itk^lforrid possibilities, but five minutes, -ffftfr she will swallow an increased dose «f the confessed poison. Education and* intelligence are rather against her than otherwise, for they make her believe that she at least is safe. Women seldom drink for the gratification of their palate, and the pitiable dramdrinker sometimes loathes the spirit she gulps down. Good or bad wine, potatobrandy, curacoa, or gin will satisfy her if only her nervous organization be sufficiently saturated. The volume of light wine or beer sometimes taken is almost incredible. And it is a bad sign when little is drunk at meals by a lady whose flushed face ancfc full eye aud hot hand betray that alcohol has been freely applied to her blood, whose looseued tongue and slightly reckless manner aunounce unhealthy brain action. Had she taken her allowance of wine with food, its effects would not have been so powerful or so immediate. It is easy to guess how deceit becomes as habitual as her vice, and how her daily life is a struggle to secure her dose at any cost of self-respect. She is continually driven to act a part, and is never at ease except when she arrives at the "tone" she requires. To do this an increasing quantity of alcohol is needed up to the time when debility sets in or some accidental trouble reveals her nicoholizat ion. Then the doctor appears, and if any of our. readers wish to know what chronic alcoholization involves we will refer them to that bland official, and hope that in this one class of disease he will not conceal the j truth. But before the doctor is called in ! — and he indeed is not able to do much in casps where woman's wit and weakness combine with positive disease to baffle him — might not husbands, fathers, and whom • soever family life may concern, interfere and endeavour to control the doings of their womankind ? „ It will not do to poobpooh the dangers of drinking for our j " world of fair ladies" of whom we have J be^n so proud and foreigners so envious. We doubt if half a-dozen Regencies and a Napoleonic Empire would be as bad for them as braudy and soda of a morning, or untimely sherry, or any tampering with the agent of so much possible mischief, sanctioned as its presence is on every table and at every street corner. And it is a mischief that rapid ly becomes irremediable for women of the higher classes. Few husbands would care to send a wife to a reformatory, and home-watching is very difficult and destructive of happin ss. Yet not only the vice, hut tho temptations to it, are increasing with our modern hu r ry and excitement and with that vague riligiosity which has taken the place of Christian duty. It will need some courage to oppose fashion, aud keep away from bad example, and struggle with hereditary depression. But one important step will be gained if the use of stimulants between meals is sedulous'y checked. The test of safety in the moderate use oi alcoholic drinks seems to be the power in persons of fair health to leave off their accustomed beer or sherry without inconvenience or moral effect. This test might be occasionally applied by rational women to themlesves.or insisted on by their mankind, and we believe that a single improvement in both moral and physical wellbeing would generally surprise the fair abstainer. Had we thought it useful we should have quoted the latest analysis of popular wines, and show how little servicable they are in the animal economy ; but in this^ matter, and vrHen womanly character is concerned, we have preferred to dwell >on the moral rather than the, physical reason^ for extreme and increased caution in ther* use of the common domestic slerry and the almost equally common domestic champagne. I