WILL THE COMING MAN DRINK WINE?

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 37, 15 June 1878, Page 4

WILL THE COMING MAN DRINK WINE?

(From the Atlantk Monthly.)

The teetotalers confess their failureAfter forty-tive years of tealous aid wellmeant effort in the " cause," they agree that people are drinking more than ever. Dr. K. T. Trail of New York, the most thoroughgoing teetotaler extant.exelaitus: " Where are we to-day T Defeated on all I sides. The enemy victorious and rain- i pant everywhere. More intoxicating i liquors manufactured and drunk than ever before. Way is this f Why, indeed I When the teetotalers can answer that question correctly, they will be in a fair way to gain on the " onemy " that is now so " rampant." They are not the first people who have mistaken a symptom of disease for the disease itself, and striven to cure a cancer by applying salve and plaster and cooling washes to the sore. They are not the first travellers through this Wilderness who have tried ta extinguish a smouldering fire, and discovered at last, that they had been pouring water into the crater of a volcano. Dr. Trail thinks we should all become teetotalers very soon, if only the doctors would stop prescribing wine, beer, and whiskey to their patients. But the doctors will not They like a glass of wine themselves. Dr. Trail tells us that, during the Medical Convention held at St Louis a few years ago, the doctors dined together, and upon tie table were " forty kinds of alcoholic liqours." The moat enormous feed ever accomplished under a roof in America, I suppose, was the great dinner of the doctors, given in New York, fifteen years ago, at the Metropolitan Hall. I had the pleasure of seeing half ■an acre of doctors all eating and drinking at once, and I can testify that very few of them—indeed, none that 1 could discover—neglected the bottle. It was an occasion which united all the established barbarisms and atrocities of a public dinner, —absence of ladies, indigestible foe'J in most indigestible quantities, profuse and miscellaneous dnnking, clouds of smoke, late sitting, and wild speaking. Why not ? Do not these men live am i thrive upon such practices ? Whyahou . they not set an example of the follies which enrich them ? It is only heroes who offend, deny, and rebuke the people upon whose favour their fortune depen I and there are never many heroes in t n world at one time. No, no, Dr. Tr i the doctors are good fellows; but their affair is to cure disease, not to preserve health.

One man, it seems, and only one, has had much success in dissuading people from drinking, and that was lather Mathew. A considerable proportion of his converts in Ireland, it is said, remain i;. thful to their pledge; and most of the *.; tholic parishes in the United States 1 ve a Fathor Mathew Society connected w.th them, which is both a teetotal and a •mutual-benefit organisation. In NewYork and adjacent cities the number of \ , isons belonging to such societies is nh:>ut twenty-seven thousand. On the anniversary of Father Mathew's birth they walk in procession, wearing aprons, caiTying large banners (when the wind permits), and heaping up gaily dresse I children into pyramids and mountains ■drawn by six and eight horses. At their woekly or monthly meetings they ain« songs, recite poetry, perform plays and farces, enact comic characters, and, in other innocent ways, endeavour to convince on-lookers that people can be happy and merry, uproariously merry, without putting a headache between their teeth. These societies seem to be a great and unmingled good. They do actually help poor men to withstand their only American enemy. They have, also, the approval of the most inveterate drinkers, both 'Catholic and Protestant. Jones cotuplaci ntly remarks, as he gracefully sips his claret (six dollars per dozen) that this total abstinence, you know, is an excellent thing for emigrants ; to which Brown and Robinson invariably assent.

Father Mathew used to administer his pledge to people who knelt before him, and when they bad taken it he made over them the sign of the cross. He did not usually deliver addresses; he did not relate amusing anecdotes; he did not argue the matter; he merely pronounced the pledge, and gave to it the sanction of religion, and something of the solemnity of a sacrament. The present Father Mathew Societies are also closely connected with the church, and the pledge is regarded by the members as of religious obligation. Hence, these societies are successful, in a respectable degree; and we may look, with the utmost confidence,

to see them extend and flourish until a great multitude of Catholics are teetotalers. Catholic priests, I am informed, generally drink wine, and very many of them smoke; but they are able to induce men to take the pledge without setting them an example of abstinence, just as parents sometimes deny their children pernicious viands of which they freely partake themselves. But we cannot proceed in that way. Our religion has not power to control a physical craving by its mere fiat, nor do we all yet perceive what a deadly and shameful sin it is to vitiate nur own bodies. The Catholic Church is antiquity. The Catholic Church is childhood. We are living in modern times; we have grown a little post childhood ; and when wo are asked to relinquish a pleasure, we demand | to be convinced that it is best wo should. Bv And by w,! "ball all comprehend that, when a person means to reform his lifo, the very first thing for him to do,—the thing preliminary and most indisponsible,, will bo to omm violating physical laws, j The time, I hope, is at hand, when an j audience in a theatre, who catch a man-1

ager cheating them out of their fair allowance of fresh air, will not ait and gasp, and inhale destruction till eleven p.m., and then rush wildly to the street for relief. They will atop the play ; they will tear up the tenches, if necessary ; they will throw things ou the stage; they will knock a hole in the wall; they will have the means of breathing, or perish in the struggle. But at present people do not know what they are doing when they inhale poison. They do not know that more than one half of all the diseases that plague us most, —scarlet fever, smallpox, measles, ami all the worst fevers—come of breathing bad air. Not a child last winter would have had the scarlet fever, if all the children in the world had slept with a window open, and had had pure air to breathe all day. This is Miss Nightingale's opinion, and there is no better authority. People are ignorant of these things, and they are therefore indifferent to tbem. They will remain indifferent till they are enlightened. Our teetotal friends have not neglected the scientific questions involved in their subject; nor have they settled them. Instead of insulting the public intelligence by asserting that the wines mentioned in the Bible were some kind of unintoxicating slop, and exasperating the public temper by premature prohibitory laws, they had better expend their strength upon the science of the matter, and prove tn mankind, if they can, that those agreeable drinks which they denounce are really hurtful. We all know that excess is hurtful. We also know that adulterated liquors may be. But is the thing in itself pernicious ?—pure wine taken in moderation ? good beer ! genuine Old Bourbon. For one, I wish it could be demonstrated that these things are hurtful. Sweeping, universal truths are as convenient as they are rare. The evils resulting from excess in drinking are so enormous and so terrible, that it would be a relief to know that alcoholic liquors are in themselves evil, and to be always avoided. What are the romantic woes of a Desdemona, or the brief picturesque njrrows of a Lear, compared with the thirty years' horror and desolation caused by adrunken parent ? We laugh when we read Lamb's funny description of his waking up in the morning, and learning in what condition ho had come home the night before by seeing all his clothes carefully folded. But his sister Mary did not laugh at it. He was all she had ; it was tragedy to her, —this self-destruction of her sole stay and consolation. (Jcelho did not find it a laughing matter to have a drunken wife in his house for fifteen years, nor a jest to havo his son brought in drunk from the tavern, and to see him dead in ins eoiHn, the early victim of champagne. Who would not like to have a clear conviction, that what we have to do with regard to all such fluids is to let them alone ? lam sure I should. It is a great advantage to have your enemy in plain .sight, and to be sure he is an enemy.

What is wine ? Chemist? tell us they do not know. Three-fifths of a glass of wine is water. One-fifth is alcohol. Of the remaining fifth, ahout one-half is sugar. One tenth of tho whole quantity remains to he accounted for. A small part of that tenth is the acid which makes vin 'gar sour. Water, alcohol, sugar, acid. —these make very nearly the whole body of the wine ; but if wo mix these things in the proportions in which they are found in Madeira the liquid is a disgusting mess. nothing like Madeira. The great chemists confess they do not know what 111 it last small fraction of the glass of wine w, I upon which its flavour, its odour, it.-. value, its fascination, depend. They do not know what it is that makes the di't'orenee between port and sherry, bit uvu obliged to content themselves with giving it a hard name. Similar things are admitted con erning fhe various kind-, of spirituous an ! malt liquors. Chemistry seems to agree with the temperance society, that wine, boer, brandy, whiskey, and rum are alcohol and wator, mixed in different proportions, and with some slight differences of flavouring and colouring matter. In all these drinks, teetotalers maintain, alcohol is power, the ther ingredients bring more dilution and flavouring. Wine, they assure us, is alcohol and water flavoured with grapes ; beer is alcohol and water flavoured with malt and hops; Bourbon whiskey is alcohol and water flavoured with corn. These things they assert, and the great chemist" ! i, -i ■■r.able us drinkers of those seductive liquids to deny it. On the contrary, ehetuie&l analysis, ao far as it has gone, supports tho teetotal view of the matter. What does a glass of wine do to us when we nave swallowed it ?

We should naturally look to physicians for an answer to such a question ; but the great lights of the profession—men of the rank of Astley Cooper, Brodie, Abornethy, Holmes—all assure the public, that no man of them knows, and no man has ever known, how medicinal substance* work in the system, and why they produce the effects they do. Even of a tubstance so common as Peruvian bark, no one knows why and how it acts as a tonic; nor is there any certainty of its being a benefit to mankind. Tliero is no science of medicino. Tho " Km I Lane " of the children leads to a region which is still mysterious and unknown ; for when the eye can explore its recesses, a chango has occurred in it, which is also nmturious and unknown: it is dead. Quacks tell us, in every newspaper, that tin-y can cure and prevent disease by pouring or dropping something down our throats, and we have heard this so often, that, when a man is sick, thu first tiling that occurs to him is to " take physic." Dut physicians who arc lionoht, intelligent,

sad in ail independent position, appear to be coming over to the opinion that this !is generally a delusion. We see eminent I physicians prescribing for the most maI lignant fevers little but open windows, ; plenty of blankets, Nightingale nursing, ! and beef tea. Many young physicians. 1 too, have gladlv availed themselves of the ingenuity of Hahnemann, and satisfy at once their consciences and their patients by prescribing doses of medicine that are next to no medicine at all. The higher we go among the doctors, the moro sweeping and emphatic is the assurance we receive that the profession does not understand the operation of medicines in the living b<>dv, and does not really approve their employment. If something more is known of the operation of a.lc->hol than of any other cbenucal fluid, —if there is any approach to certainty respecting it,—we owe it chiefly to the teetota ors, because it is they who have provoked contradiction, excited inquiry, and suggested experiment They have not dune much themselves in the way of investigation, but they started the topic, and kept it alive. They have aisi published a few which thr--w light upon the points i'i dispute. After going over the ground pretty thoroughly, I can tell the reader in a few words the substance of what has. been ascertained, and plausibly inferred, concerning the effects of wine, beer, and (spirits upon the human constitution. They cannot be nourishment, in the

ordinary acceptation of that word, because the quantity of nutritive matter in them is so small. Liebig, no ene;ny of beer, gays this: "We can prove, with mathematical certainty, that as much flour or meal as can lie on the point of a table-knife is more nutritious than nine quarts of the best Bavarian beer; that a man who is able daily to consume that amount of beer obtains from it, in a whole year, in the most favourable case, exactly the amount of nutritive constituents which is contained in n five-pound loaf of bread, or in three poundß of flesh." So of wine ; when we have taken from a glass of wine the ingredients known to be innutritious, there is scarcely anything left but a grain or two of sugar. Pure alcohol, though a produot of highly nutritive substances, is a mere poison,—an absolute po son, —the mortal foe of life in every one of its forms, animal and vegetable. If, therefore, these beverages do us good, it is not by supplying the body with nourishment. Nor can they aid digestion by assisting to decompose food. \\ hen we have taken too much shad for breakfast, we find that a wineglass of whiskey instantly mitigates the horrors of indigestion, and enables us again to contemplate the future without dismay. But if we catch a curious fish or reptile and want to keep him from decomposing, and luring- h.m home as a contribution to :he museum of Professor Agassi/., w • pul hi .1 in a bottle of whiskey. Several experiments ha. e teen made with a view to ascertain whether mixing alcohol with the gastric juice increases or lessens its \i >wer ti decompose food, ami the results of all of th ui point to the "'.u d'jsi m thai the al - ..i u retards the j.r. -e ,: :«Ki iaipite.it! ~i A ; :lt.e alconol reiav.! it a lial ■„, I : . ~e ,-

tiol retard* il .„■.. u, r! is -,:. . pi\,..d by repeated experiment, that t.nv p rti u l of alcohol, bowevei si mil, li il.il, ?s Hie I power of tha gastric juice f i■• : i\ a.' The digestive 'fluid has b.-e ui ■: jia l wiuo, beer, wiiiskev, ',! , I ... • ~■ ~. . Minted with w.ii r, an Ik ■ i . •> ■am;.icruture of the livi.i. ' > I t: ills of the body imitated 1 ■ ..■ ~.-;- I .eiiment; but, in every in: : . :•. j oure gastric juice ,va_ I ■■',.: It:. .' :L<. I truo and sole iig=.,i,ei, »■. . v.e .. >. :. retar.ler ..f ;"' !* [„■: , wit:, al ~! I .... i si un, ,te..> ! Nor is it a lie it-pi 11 i i ... ,i ./, i'• ' the ooutvar/, itappeir* ir, ,hj . diminish tho uieicn , duciug pro ■is.. M . here in the North ai. ,v ally nubjftitt .u■ - ii !.■ 11 , i at a tin., kn ,v :.i •,, |- • n ■.l !•, ■ en :e ; and all i 1 : Ar< til • y , u<is | it. Kr.in i_, is ■! s'frui i, n ioi ■ ~; . e to I'ii :c a t>;inperiiiur.' of i\., oeiott ari the iv i'ii lamp il t n .-•■ ." rieh iiluhbur f the wh.i.u imi wairus. Dr Itae. who mad.'two or three pedestrian tuiirsnf [he polar regions, an i whose pjwers of endurance were put fi i severe a test as man's ever wore, i.s oleor a.;d unpliatic upon this point. Bran y, he says, stimulates liut for a few mi. ilea, and greatly lessens a man's power to endure cold and fatigue. Occasionally we have in New York a cool breeze froiii the North which reduces the temperature below zero, —to the sore discomfort of omni-bus-drivers and car-drivors, who have to face it on their way up town. On a certain Monday night, two or three winters ago, tweuty-tbree drivers on one line ' were disabled by the cold, many of whom had to bo lifted from tho cars, and carried in. It is a fact familiar to persons in this business, that men who drink freely 1 are more likely to be benummed snd overcome by the cold than those who abstain. ' It seems strange to us, when we first hear I it, that a meagre toetotalershould lie safer ion such a night than a bluff, red-faced , imbiber of beer and whiskey, who.takes I something at each ond of the line to keep I himself warm. It nevertheless appears to I be true. (To bo continuod in our next.)