DRAWING-ROOM ALCOHOLISM.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 17, 20 May 1871, Page 3

DRAWING-ROOM ALCOHOLISM.

The following article from the “ Saturday Review ” has created a great sensation in England, and has excited considerable attention in the colonies, having been reprinted and commented on in many of the leading journals : 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 whispered 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 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 who stand on the brink of the same precipice down which Lady A. or Mrs B. slipped out of 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 educated classes beyond the help of theories, however brilliant, of their rights. It is honest and prudent to confess that drunkenness is no longer quite unknown even in the most charming drawing-rooms, be it under, the form of dispomania or omomania, 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 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-mean-ing lady tipplers who do not imagine it possible that they should approach, and even rival, Irish Biddies of Saint Giles in their craving for and absorption of alcohol. There is at present a singular push for power among women, which suggests rather a deterioration than a development of the female intellect and will. This feverish self assertion is a confession of weakness. The sources of their legitimate influence are being exhausted; their old power is waning visibly, and even ridiculously collapsing. But though they may 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 mischevous than the crime for which she forfeits her place in the world, just as unacknowledged disease may work insidiously greater e\il than a confessed sore.

Vice in women is, moreover, almost more fatal to social safety than crime in men, for custom is more than law in the conduct of a people, and women—especially the women of the upper classes—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 causes of that failure in duty at home, and in discretion abroad, which appears to be on the increase; but there is reason to believe that the frequent “pick me up,” the midday and afternoon sherry or champagne, may have much to do with the pace at which young men and maidens, old men and children, Mayfair 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, and 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 wineglass. Indeed, novelists have lately treated us to many elaborate scenes of D. T., which we doubt to be wholesome study even for poor souls who are struggling to escape from their habitual vice.

But there are some facts and considerations that may be usefully put before rash but well-meaning women who have tampered with drink, but who are yet capable of self-control, and before all persons who may be concerned in the safety and welfare of a home where there is even a slight tendency to ring for irregular glasses of wine—where there is a chronic epidemic of attacks or sensations requiring alcoholic cure, or even • where there are complaints of periodical sinkings and unaccountable depressions. Most doctors will confess that the fashion of stimulation has been overdone, but it is true that they are seldom consulted as to the disuse of the drams they ordered for some special need, and the table-spoonful of brandy is often found so agreeable a stimulant that a second is added, and even a third, to meet the strain on nerves and stomach which an ordinary day of «* society” involves. It is a curious fact

that, though more rapid in its effect on the will and principle of women, alcohol does not act with the same speedy mischief on their health as on that of men, and so it happens that they drift into courses hardly suspected or partly excused by the dozen ailments always in reserve to account for my lady’s social shortcomings. Meantime, their moral 1 self-control is daily weakened, and secondary passions appear in the wake of the ruling one which the weakened will is unable to check. Indulgence in any vice always entails others, but the distinct effect of alcohol is so to affect the nerves and brain that the material power to resist any temptation is lessened in proportion to the quantity taken. This is hardly, then, a safe stimulant for women, nor will it even in small quantities, advantageously develop their peculiarities. We are not writing a teetotal tract, so we will not dispute the valuable qualities of fermented liquors; but the limits to their beneficial use are passed when a woman in average good health feels inconvenience if she cannot have her favorite dram. She may, in favorable circumstances, and if of regular habits, go on safely for a time, but she is within reach of many evils. A chance shock, mental or physical, illness, sorrow, bad example, may leave her weak before the encroaching power which, most of all vices, drinking possesses, and before she is aware of it she may find herself in great if not hopeless difficulty. “ There exists,” writes Dr Marcet, “in the substance of the brain a well-known attraction for alcohol,” so the enemy not only attacks from without, but creates mutiny in the very citadel of our will. In of course a small, but still a perceptible, degree the controlling power of the brain is impaired when the daily dose of sherry or other spirituous compound is confessed to be a needful comfort. And, with all respect to Lady Amberley, women’s brains are not their strongest point. They have plenty of imagination, which is liable to be excited, but they have not much will to spare, and are especially liable, even at their best, to the depression which is aggravated by alcohol, And besides these physical mischiefs, what shall be said of the damage done to mind and character in proportion as drams become habitual ? We do not wish to be hard on the victims to bad customs, to overdoctoring, and in some cases to hereditary tendencies, but their demoralisation is extraordinarily rapid when once they have taken to “ pegs ” between meals. The craft with which a woman naturally truthful will baffle observation when her craving for alcohol is on her, shows how intensely and semi-maniac-ally she has concentrated her intelligence on the indulgence of her ruling passion. The devices of lovers seem poor in comparison with the skill with which she will make raids on the cellar, supply herself with strong waters in perfume bottles, and establish relations with the nearest public house. She will bribe, lie, and steal, sacrifice credit, position, and the affection of those dear to her, sooner than do without the stimulant for which her brain and whole system calls imperiously. And, poor wretch, though she has no illusion about the evil case she is in, she can’t help herself when once she is alcoholised to a certain point. We could multiply stories of the shifts to which well fenced-in ladies have been reduced when in their own homes spiiits were not easily attainable ; how one took to stealing the spirits of wine used for lamps, and another employed an old clo’ man to fetch her champagne. The strategy used to secure the private drams of London ladies would suffice to outwit Bismark, Yon Moltke, and all their following, and would baffle an Asrnodeus. But with what ruin to character and happiness ! We will not dwell on extreme cases, though they are daily becoming more frequent, for even what may be called moderate drinking is the wide door to disgraceful excess and nearly incurable vice. The increasing prevalence of what is considered allowable stimulation is the evil we would point out. Marguerite dallying with Faust’s gifts is but the prelude to Marguerite’s suicide, and it more useful to check her as she opens the glittering casket.than when she is the helpless prey of passion. 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 deadly-lively occupation, she remains a proof that a woman with a taste for 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, and dull afterwards. She does not cultive friends or acquaintances who could be any check to her practices. She likes her mankind to he much away from the house, and if they take no notice of the quantity of wine consumed in their establishment she will be affectionate, if rather stupid, to them. Of what is pure aud 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 be, at all events, dependent for their “ go” in society in copious champagne and frequent sherry. Naturally they will enjoy the increasing mob of fast girls, with all that 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 and pursuits, and we are sometimes tempted to prefer the age of Nell Gwynne or Madame de Pompadour to the actual confusion of dare-devil women and unabashed spinsters. It would seem that alcohol has something to do with this disorder, for the physical effects of it on women are proved by medical investigation to be precisely what would denaturalise them. We know how repulsive are most forms of mania in womeD, and, hard as the saying may seem, the development of impulse and the lessened self-control which follow the slightest excess in strong drink are symptoms of a brain excitement that is the precursor of disease.

A line, we think, can be drawn ; and it is certainly time to observe the limits where wine ceases to be useful as a stimulant of circulation, and becomes poisonous as a narcotic, and morally ruinous. What appeal can we make that will be most likely to succeed ? Let every woman who, from whatever cause, finds herself increasing her old quantity of drink, take timely alarm. In the earlier stages of dipsomania the victim will rationally acknowledge every fact connected with it, and will even expatiate on its horrid possibilities, but five minutes after she will swallow an increased dose of 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, potato brandy, curacoa, or gin, will satisfy her if only her nervous organisation 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 and full eye and hot band betray that alcohol has been freely applied to her blood, whose loosened tongue and slightly reckless manner announce 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 selfrespect. 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 in or some accidental

trouble reveals her alcoholisation. Then the doctor appears, and if any of our readers wish to know what chronic alcoholisation involves we will refer them to that bland official, and hope that in this one class of disease he will not conceal the truth. But before the doctor is called in—and he indeed is notable to do much in where woman’s wit and weakness combine with positive disease to baffle him—might not husbands, fathers, and whomsoever family life may concern, interfere and endeavor to control the doings of their womenkind ? It will not do to poohpooh the dangers of drinking for our “ world of fair ladies” of whom we have been so proud and foreigners so envious. We doubt if half-a-dozen Regencies and a Napoleonic Empire would be as bad for them as brandy 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 rapidly becomes irremediable for women of the higher classes. Few husbands would like to send a wife to a reformatory, and homewatching is very difficult and destructive of happiness. Yet not only the vice, but the temptations to it, are increasing with our modern hurry and excitement and with that vague religiosity which has taken the place of Christian duty. It will need some courage to oppose fashion, and 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 sedulously checked. The test of safety in the moderate use of alcoholic drinks seems to be the power in persons of fair health to leave off their accustomed beer or sherry without inconvenience or moral effort. This test might be occasionally applied by rational women to themselves or insisted on by their mankind, and we believe that a sensible 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 shown how little serviceable they are in the animal economy; but in this matter, and when womanly character is concerned, we have preferred to dwell on the moral rather than the physical reasons for extreme and increased caution in the use of the common domestic sherry and the almost equally common domestic champagne. “ Saturday Review,” January 31, 1871.