HOW THE PARISIANS MANAGE THEIR DRUNKARDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4440, 12 June 1875, Page 3

HOW THE PARISIANS MANAGE THEIR DRUNKARDS.

(From a Correspondent of the Glasgow Herald.) The French law regarding intoxication, probably known to few English people, is sufficiently severe to electrify the straitest of the sect teetotal. Two years ago a growing taste for “ absinthe,” and a deficiency in the police regulations respecting drunkenness, seem somewhat to have alarmed society, and accordingly, on the 3rd February, 1873, Monsieur Thiers promulgated a law, still valid, which should have the effect, if strictly enforced, of restraining, as far ns legislation can restrain, the abuse of an appetite of which it recognises the supply. The French are, perhaps, the most temperate drinkers in Europe, and at the head-quarters of the police we are informed that, instead of drunkenness being on the increase, as such a law would lead one to believe, it is greatly decreasing. In Paris between 1500 and 1600 persons come under this law each month, and of these about 100 lose their civil rights. Out of a population of, say 2,000,000, only 225 Parisians on Christmas night filled the flowing bowl once too often, and had their bemuddled senses clarified by a night’s lodging in the Bureau de Police. We scarcely think that on a holiday near the New Year so respectable a percentage of burghers in our Scottish towns get home “straight.” Intoxication in France is principally confined to large towns and the various centres of industry ; country villages are very sober. Before it is possible to estimate correctly the excessive indulgence of any given night or year, we must make a liberal allowance for a goodly number of seasoned tipplers who never “ get drunk about the legs,” and others with “ just a wee drap in their ee,” who can see well enough to avoid the lamp-posts and remember which end of the latch-key can be got into the lock; and last, but by no means least, we must remember the diffioiUty of defining exactly when men are not sober, and leave a considerable margin for doubtful cases.So long as a man is peaceably tending homewards, though his course may zig-zag a little, no policeman or gendarme is likely to interfere with him. It is only whjn he is drank and incapable, or drunk and disorderly, that it becomes both a charity and a duty to take him into custody. No town or country desires to head the national list of such sinners, and besides, there is often a feeling of pity aroused for what may be as much a misfortune as a fault. What we mean by a doubtful case was very aptly indicated by an old soldier at a recent court-martial ; —Officer : “ Was the prisoner drunk ? ” Sergeant ; “ No, sir, he was not drank.” “ Was he sober ?” “No, sir, he was not sober.” “Explain yourself, sergeant.” “ Well, six - , he .was neither drank nor sober, but just a little fatigued with diinking ! ” These fatigued persons do not appear in statistics, and the truth about public intoxication evidently can only be approximated. We do not mean to sing a panegyric on French virtue, or temperance in sjjeech or behavior ; we would only in these lines compliment them on the possession of another sort of tempex-anoe, and give one of the x’easons which appears to us to accoxmt in some degree for a national feature so enviable. It is a feature in which we are considerably more deficient. National temperament, it is true, may tend naturally in this direction, but we must not forget that it is as much modified by circumstances as individual character; and it is to the moulding force of certain circxxmstances we would draw your attention. Of course, the climates of France and England are materially different; and alcoholic consximption always increasing inversely to the warmth and sunshine, we may be excused throwing a portion of the blame of our shortcomings on the fogs and east wind. Among other reasons there is one often overlooked, which seems to us, nevertheless, as important as any, viz., the numerous sources of amusement and recreation open to Frenchmen of all classes. In the cafis where the ouvrier (workman) resorts after the day’s task is done to meet his companions, billiards, chess, dominoes, '.cards, and the journals divert no inconsiderable portion of his attention from absinthe and beer. Numerous theatres and cafes cJiantants, often in the open air, allow him' to entertain his wife and children at a very small cost, -whilst in summer military bands in all towns invite him to promenade with the rest of the world under the shade of the sycamores, where, if he so pleases, he may still enjoy his coffee, his beer, and his pipe. Tlxe French are well known to be an eminently social people. In solitxxde, like love birds, they always pine away. They can never become colonists, because the years of loneliness and hardship inseparable from colonisation, which have to Englishmen sometimes even a charm, are to Frenchmen fatal. This light and cheerful character and want of home life may to a great'extent create a variety of public amusements, yet it is not a logical conclusion that public amusements therefore necessarily destroy home life. We dissent emphatically from the Puritanic idea, carefxdly preserved from the days of the Commonwealth—on the principle Mark Antony alluded to when he said “The evil that men do lives after them. The good Is oft interred with their bones” —the idea that all amusements are reprehensible. Intrinsically harmless, they can only contain the evil that is put into them. At any rate, they must be accepted as irrepressible, because natural; and instead of being preached down and condemned, ought to be guided and improved. They have had an influence against intemperance in France that all our army of teetotallers, with their orations, their banners, and brass bands, will never be able to attain. English people generally do not much affect amusements outside of cricket, hunting, and field sports ; and these of necessity being enjoyed by the few, the many, (especially those of them who are unmarried or ill-lodged,) who have neither leiswe, horses, guns, club-houses, nor enough education to find pleasure in books, find nothing in the publican’s tap-x - oom to divert any of their attention from whisky or gin but a companionship which only encourages indulgence to excess. That intemperance prevails amongst the poorer classes to a greater extent than amongst the rich is mainly due to two reasons. First, that the latter, more alive to its baneful influence, have united to expel drunkards fronx their society; and second, that by their superior education and money they have become possessed of a variety of recreations infinitely greater. Wo are not, however, complaining of the small number of our theatres or cafis ckantants, when the former are never filled, or the latter seldom “ comme il faut,” thoxxglx it is a pity good music is not cheaper and more common ; nor do wo require to give any hints aboxxt the management of our restaux - ants and public dining-rooms taken from -French models. These do not occupy tho same position as the

cafes do here. We would only steal an idea, which, if carried out, might be a social benefit to that much-talked of and misinterpreted individual, “ the poor working man.” He cannot always be induced to spend hia evening in reading-rooms. We would therefore suggest to Good Templars that the money they waste on noisy processions should be laid out in gratuitously supplying him at the "ordinary publichouse which he frequents with a table on •which he could find newspapers, journals, and a few simple, well-known games. •In our day there is little chance of the brewers at Burton-on-Trent and Loudon dispensing lemonade and gooseberry wine, or the distillers at Glenlivet coming to see the superiority of ginger-beer to whisky. Even the most sanguine man of Good Templar faith must see how far in the vista of the future is that millennium, when his trumpet and banner shall be hung on the wall, and the beer-mug and toddy-ladle consigned to the British Museum as curious relics of by-gone days.