Drinking establishment

“ They monitor drinking establishments to ascertain that alcoholic beverages are not served to alcoholics, obviously drunken persons, juveniles, and drivers of motor vehicles. They are instructed to combat rowdy and irresponsible behavior—hooliganism, begging, and vagrancy—and other antisocial manifestations. They see that unsupervised and stray children are provided for. ”

“ In prohibition many look for the means by which the curse of drunkenness is to be abated. But, while we wait for a public sentiment strong enough to determine legislation, sixty thousand unhappy beings are yearly consigned to drunkards' graves.
What have temperance men accomplished in the fifty years during which they have so earnestly opposed the drinking usages of society and the traffic in alcoholic drinks? And what have they done for the prevention and cure of drunkenness? ”

“ Meantime, the general rule is established by an incredible amount of experience and testimony, that alcoholic drinks, in no cases, are needed by those in health, and that the indulgence in drinking them awakens a gnawing thirst and longing for them, that leads the vast majority of those who use them, to disease, debility, poverty, folly, crime, and death. ”

“ But, in the towns and cities of the liquor-law-ridden States, the more stringent the ordinances, and the more important and bustling the "smeller," it more and more becomes a point of self-respect, almost of honor, between man and man, to drink much and often, and liquor drinking increases daily. Even lads of tender years, clubbing together, buying a demijohn of what purports to be something of which they have heard their elders speak, and hiding in some cellar or bedroom, experience all the fearful joys of dissipation! ”

“ Such, then, are the proved consequences of an inordinate use of intoxicating liquors. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every one who is anxious for the well-being of the people, to diminish the occasions for drinking wherever possible. ”

“ When the applause that greeted this exchange of courtesies had subsided, Governor Dangerfield was still standing, and in a quiet conversational tone, and with a manner engagingly frank, he said:
[273] “Before it seemed expedient to follow the reform bandwagon, I held certain principles touching the drinking habit. But the American bar has destroyed drinking as a fine art, and it has now become a vulgar habit. In the good old times no gentleman ever jumped at his liquor. ”

“ At sumptuous social functions and at the parties of the poor, alcohol is freely consumed. It is served in the homes, cocktail lounges, night clubs, cafes, and the cheapest corner bars. No home of the well-to-do is fashionable unless it has the latest push wagon liquor service or a permanent, small, drinking mixing bar. Alcohol drinking seems to be the fad. The serving of alcoholic beverages is supposedly a sign of hospitality. ”

“ To stimulate a child's imagination by untruths about alcohol is as vicious as to stimulate his body with alcohol. Whisky drinking does not always lead to drunkenness, to physical incapacity, to short life, or to obvious loss of vitality. Beer drinking is not always objected to by employers. Neither crime, poverty, immorality, lack of ambition, nor ignorance can always be traced to alcohol. ”

“ Yes, I say boldly, that no man living who uses intoxicating drinks, is free from the danger of at least occasional, and if of occasional, ultimately of habitual excess. There seems to be no character, position, or circumstances that free men from the danger. I have known many young men of the finest promise, led by the drinking habit into vice, ruin, and early death. I have known many tradesmen whom it has made bankrupt. I have known Sunday scholars whom it has led to prison-teachers, and even superintendents, whom it has dragged down to profligacy. ”

“ The drinking of the last century went far beyond anything ever recorded; all classes alike drank; they began to drink hard somewhere about the year 1730, and they kept it up for a hundred years with great spirit and admirable results, which we, their grandchildren, are now illustrating. The clergy, grave and sober merchants, lawyers, judges, the most responsible people, drank freely; men about town, officers, Templars, tradesmen drank more than freely; the lowest classes spent all their money in drink, especially in gin, upon which they could get drunk for twopence. ”

“ When at a fair, a council, or a friendly visit, their entertainers regaled them with rations of the coveted liquor, so prudently measured out that they could not be the worse for it, they would unite their several portions in a common stock, which they would then divide among a few of their number, thus enabling them to attain that complete intoxication which, in their view, was the true end of all drinking. ”

“ An Act of Parliament has abrogated a very good law for discouraging the poor from drinking gin; nay, they have in reality encouraged men to drunkenness, and to the murder of themselves by such drinking. Judge Hale earnestly supported the restrictive law, and opposed its abrogation, declaring that millions of persons would kill themselves by these fatal liquors. [178]
By the 5th & 6th of William and Mary, the duties were raised in 1694 to 4s. ”

“ These social connotations are the stuff of which the drink habit is largely composed. The part that alcohol itself plays is inconsiderable when compared with the part played by the social atmosphere in which it is drunk. The human is rarely born these days, who, without long training in the social associations of drinking, feels the irresistible chemical propulsion of his system toward alcohol. ”

“ In all nature there is no substance that destroys or lessens a drunkard's desire for intoxicating liquors; and there is no such thing as permanently disgusting him with brandy by giving him more brandy than he wants. A drunkard's drinking is not a thing of mere appetite; his whole system craves stimulation; and he would drink himself into perdition while loathing the taste of the liquor. This Asylum simply gives its inmates rest, regimen, amusement, society, information. ”

“ There exist, sad to relate, persons who, with the notion of promoting temperance, would rob us of our beer. Many of these individuals may act with good motives, but they are weak, misguided bodies who, if they but devoted their energies to promoting ale-drinking as opposed to spirit-drinking, would be doing useful service to the State, for malt liquors are the true temperance drinks of the working classes. ”

“ But the laws of health and morality are so manifestly on the side of drinking light wines as compared with drinking heavy liquors, that any effort at social improvement in this direction would have a fair chance of success. Even the slight change of habit involved in drinking leisurely at a table in the open air with women and children—after the German fashion—would be a great social reform over the hasty bar-drinking, while standing. The worst intoxication of this city is with the Irish and American bar-drinkers, not the German frequenters of gardens. ”

“ It requires only your own experience, and observations, to convince you that it is upon the medical profession, upon their prescriptions and recommendations for its use upon many occasions, that the habitual dram-drinker depends for the seeming respectability of his drinking habits. It is upon the members of the medical profession, and the exceptional laws which it has always demanded, that the whole liquor fraternity depends, more than upon anything else, to screen it from opprobium, and just punishment for the evils which the traffic entails upon society ”

“ Are we to knock the heads out of all our wine-casks, join the temperance society, and denounce all men who do not follow our example? Taking together all that science and observation teach and indicate, we have one certainty: That, to a person in good health and of good life, alcoholic liquors are not necessary, but are always in some degree hurtful. This truth becomes so clear, after a few weeks' investigation, that I advise every person who means to keep on drinking such liquors not to look into the facts ”

“ It is a lamentable truth, that notwithstanding the laudable and wholesome exertions and admonitions of the Temperance and Tee-total Societies, that the people of the United Kingdom are grievously addicted to an excessive imbibation of spirituous liquors, cordials, and compounds.
Although six-bottle men are now regarded as monstrosities, and drinking parties are nearly exploded, tippling and dram-drinking among the lower orders are perhaps more indulged in than ever. ”

“ The working-class organisations are invited to suppress in their meeting all [324] compulsion to consume alcoholic liquors, to put a stop to its sale in schools, in registry offices, and in places where collections are made for strikers, and to inform children and young men by word of mouth and by the Press of the danger of alcohol, and to watch over drinking habits which lead to the abuse of alcohol. ”

“ Then there were others who, instead of drinking tea or coffee or cocoa with their dinners or suppers, drank beer. This did not cost more than the teetotal drinks, but all the same there are some persons who say that those who swell the “Nation’s Drink Bill” by drinking beer with their dinners or suppers are a kind of criminal, and that they ought to be compelled to drink something else: that is, if they are working people. ”

“ All the emphasis having been placed on not drinking, people are thinking of nothing but drinking. Public bars have been transferred to public coat-rooms, and we have the spectacle of numerous “souses” before a banquet, premature roisterers who become so tight that they can hardly get through a course dinner. ”

“ The National Council on Alcoholism has defined 'alcoholic' as 'a person who is powerless to stop drinking and whose drinking seriously alters his normal living pattern.' The American Medical Association has defined alcoholics as 'those excessive drinkers whose dependence on alcohol has attained such a degree that it shows a noticeable disturbance or interference with their bodily or mental health, their interpersonal relations, and their satisfactory social and economic functioning.'↑ It ranks among the top four public health problems of the country. ”

“ The deplorable practice of swilling adulterated malt liquor two or three times a day, begun in early boy and girlhood among English servants, had not in America, as I am convinced it has with us, laid the foundation for later habits of drinking in a whole class of the community, among whom a pernicious inherited necessity for the indulgence is one of its consequences ”

“ The influence of every man who is amenable to altruistic motives is needed against liquor, to counteract its lure; we must create a strong public sentiment and make it unfashionable and disreputable to drink. Happily the tide of liquor-drinking, which has been rising rapidly in the last half- century, owing to the increase in prosperity, the great influx of immigrants from liquor-drinking countries, and the stimulation of the trade by the highly organized liquor industry, has at last, by the earnest efforts of enlightened workers, been turned. ”

“ The records of all the authoritative bodies who dealt with the liquor traffic of the olden time are crowded with rules and regulations that plainly demonstrate not only the universal prevalence of beer drinking in a proper and domestic degree, but also the constant growing abuse of the sale of the liquor. In the reign of Elizabeth the evils of the tavern had become so notorious, that in some places women were forbidden to keep ale-houses. ”

“ There are multitudes who cannot. There are tens of thousands for whom our distilled liquors, open saloons, and treating customs, combined with our trying climate and nervous organizations, render moderate drinking practically impossible. They must choose between the safe and sure way of total abstinence, or the fatal plunge into drunkenness and disgrace. ”

“ For the army—and that includes practically all the younger and abler men—the danger has been minimized by the strict enforcement of regulations as to hours and the non-alcoholic nature of drinks permitted, which are posted conspicuously in all cafés and drinking-places and which are carefully observed, as any one who tries to order liquor in company with a man in uniform will quickly find out! I never saw a soldier or an officer in the least degree under the influence of liquor while I was in France, either at the front or outside the military zone, and very few workingmen. ”

“ It is probably true that among the hundred most eminent officials, pastors, merchants, professors, and scientists of to-day, the great majority of each class are moderate users of one or more forms of alcoholics. Overeating of potatoes or cake or meat, sleeping or working in ill-ventilated rooms, neglect of constipation, may occasion physiological and industrial [358] injuries that are not only as grave in themselves as the evils of moderate drinking, but, in addition, actually tempt to moderate drinking. ”

“ The down-town lunch-room and dining-room have, in most cases, their drinking bars; or, if no bar is visible, the bill of fare offers in too many cases, any kind of intoxicating beverage that may be desired. Thousands of men are, in consequence, yearly led away from sobriety.
Seeing this, efforts have been made during the past few years to establish, cheap temperance coffee-houses, where workingmen and others may get a good noonday lunch, or a morning and evening meal at a trifling cost. In all cases, these have been found of great service to the cause of temperance. ”