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Title: The history of drink
A review, social, scientific, and political
Author: James Samuelson
Release date: December 7, 2025 [eBook #77418]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Trübner & co, 1878
Credits: Tim Lindell, Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF DRINK ***
THE HISTORY OF DRINK.
Ballantyne Press.
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
THE
HISTORY OF DRINK.
A Review,
_SOCIAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND POLITICAL_.
BY
JAMES SAMUELSON,
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
Post Tenebras Lux.
LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL.
1878.
[_All rights reserved._]
_TO HIS ESTEEMED FRIEND_
_SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BARONET, D.C.L. (Oxon), F.R.S._,
_Vice-Chancellor of the University of London,
Author of “The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition
of Man,” and of various other valuable Contributions to our
Scientific Literature_,
The following Pages
_ARE,
WITH PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY_
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
No apology would be necessary for the publication of a good and
comprehensive work on the history of intoxicating drinks; for, strange
to say, although the subjects of drinking and drunkenness have attracted
the attention of writers in every age, there appears to have been
only one treatise which has attempted to deal with the whole question
in a systematic and historical manner, and that was “An Essay on the
Inventions and Customs of both Ancients and Moderns in the use of
Inebriating Liquors” (&c.), “by Samuel Morewood, Surveyor of Excise.”
This book, containing considerably less matter than the present volume,
was originally published by Longmans in 1824, and in 1838 it was
republished under a somewhat changed title by William Curry, jun.,
Dublin, with Longmans and others. Its dimensions had then increased
twofold, and it certainly contains an enormous collection of curious and
interesting facts concerning the drinks and drinking customs of all times
and nations. Numerous references to it will be found in the following
pages, but the book itself, which has been out of print for some time, is
no longer suited to modern requirements. At the time it was written, all
the facts relating to the pre-historic existence of mankind, the habits
of the ancient Chinese, and the history of the Aryan nations, were still
unrevealed; whilst the modern developments of social reform, such as the
temperance movement and various other aids to self-culture, had only just
commenced, and are barely noticed by the author of the work.
But whilst this hiatus in the world’s literature would justify the
publication of an elaborate treatise on the subject, the author desires
to have it clearly understood that this essay makes no such pretensions.
To deal with the question fully would necessitate a lifetime of careful
study and industrious labour, and all the author has attempted to do is
to sketch in the form of a popular essay the plan or outline of such a
treatise, and to indicate a few of the sources from which information may
be obtained for its effective composition.
He has endeavoured, in a general but very superficial way, to follow
the course of human history, commencing with a reference to some traces
in the pre-historic period, and then selecting tribes or nations whose
habits present features of interest in the history of drink. The earlier
chapters are devoted to the drinking customs of those countries which
constituted what has been called “the cradle of the human race;” and, at
the risk of being a little wearisome (for the whole topic is necessarily
monotonous), the author has dwelt at some length on this phase of
the subject, inasmuch as it presents a completely untrodden field of
investigation and philosophical study. Following the migrations of the
human race westward, the drinking habits of the Greek and Roman peoples,
and their moral condition in various stages of their national life, have
been briefly reviewed. The ancient and modern Germans have received a
fair share of attention, for their love of ethical studies has led to
the publication of numerous treatises on German drinking customs in all
ages, and their relation to the fortunes of the “Fatherland.” The habits
of our own people throughout their whole history, followed by an account
of Swedish and American drinking habits and legislation, serve as a
tolerably full outline of drinking in the modern world; and the remainder
of the essay is taken up with the consideration of some of the debated
questions connected therewith in the present day, and in the immediate
future.
That the attempt to follow the history of drink will, however, be
pronounced extremely superficial, the author cannot doubt for a moment;
and also that his imperfect judgment will often have led him astray in
the selection of facts and authorities. Still he is not without hope
that, the effort having been made in an impartial spirit and with a
desire to cast some light on a question of momentous import, it may not
have been in vain, and that it will lead to the publication of some work
on the subject, of a more accurate and comprehensive description.
But there is a consideration in connection with this essay which, with
many readers, will have far more weight than its fulness, its literary
merit, or, the author fears he must add, than even its accuracy, and that
is the question of its tendencies. Is it a temperance or a teetotal book?
or does it advocate the use of intoxicating drink? For every one reader
whose criticisms are directed to its style or its historical value,
there will be many (if many favour it with a perusal) who will be curious
to know how it tallies with their particular “ism.” It will afford
but little satisfaction to such readers to hear that in this respect
the author wishes the book to speak for itself. To promote sobriety
was certainly one of the objects for which he undertook his task, and
where debated questions have come under discussion which necessitate
an expression of opinion, it will be found that, whether correctly or
not, the opinion has been given without any reservation. But whether the
work would go far enough to please the members of the “United Kingdom
Alliance,” or whether it would give offence to those who profit by the
sale of drink, these are questions which never entered into the author’s
calculations; and if the work should prove to possess any value as an
aid to temperance, it will be simply because it has sought faithfully to
record the history of drink and its effects upon men and nations.
In concluding this brief preface, the author desires to express his
obligations to the numerous friends who have helped him with references
to authorities, or with their personal experiences; and he has no
hesitation in admitting that if the essay possesses any merit, it is to
the aid which he has thus received that it must be largely attributed.
CLAUGHTON, BIRKENHEAD, _June 1878_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—INSTINCTIVE TENDENCIES IN MAN AND THE LOWER
ANIMALS—DRINKING PROPENSITIES OF SAVAGES—PRE-HISTORIC TRACES, 1
CHAPTER II.
THE THREE SUBDIVISIONS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY—THE TURANIAN
BRANCH—ANCIENT CHINA—BUDDHIST LAWS CONCERNING DRINK—MODERN
CHINA, 15
CHAPTER III.
THE DRINKING HABITS OF THE ARYAN RACES OF INDIA—THE VEDAS AND
BRAHMINICAL LITERATURE—MODERN INDIA, 34
CHAPTER IV.
THE ZEND-AVESTA AND THE FOLLOWERS OF ZOROASTER—THE MODERN
PERSIANS—MOHAMMEDAN LAW CONCERNING DRINK AND DRINKING
PRACTICES—THE PARSEES OF INDIA, 49
CHAPTER V.
THE ANCIENT HEBREWS—THE SCRIPTURE CONTROVERSY CONCERNING
DRINK—THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE TALMUD—THE NEW TESTAMENT—JESUS
CHRIST—JOHN THE BAPTIST—ST. PAUL—THE MODERN HEBREWS, 59
CHAPTER VI.
ANCIENT EGYPT, 72
CHAPTER VII.
THE DRINKING CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME, 77
CHAPTER VIII.
GERMANY, ANCIENT, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN, 102
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLAND, PAST AND PRESENT, LAY AND CLERICAL—THE ANGLO-SAXONS
AND DANES—THE NORMANS AND EARLY ENGLISH, 118
CHAPTER X.
ENGLAND FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY DOWN TO THE TIME OF THE
REFORMATION, 134
CHAPTER XI.
ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY, 147
CHAPTER XII.
THE ENGLISH OF THE PRESENT DAY—THE ARISTOCRACY—THE MIDDLE
CLASSES—THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES—FARM LABOURERS—THE RESORTS OF
DRUNKARDS, 169
CHAPTER XIII.
SWEDEN AND ITS LICENSING SYSTEM, 194
CHAPTER XIV.
AMERICA—THE CREOLES AND INDIANS OF THE RIVER PLATE—THE
UNITED STATES DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THIS CENTURY—THE
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS—DRINKING IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
PRESENT TIME—LICENSING AND PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION—THE MAINE
LIQUOR LAW—ITS OPERATION AND PARTIAL FAILURE—PERMISSIVE
LEGISLATION—INEBRIATE ASYLUMS, 201
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE—MODERATE DRINKING—REMEDIES FOR
INTEMPERANCE—THE POLITICAL ASPECT OF THE QUESTION, 229
CHAPTER XVI.
RETROSPECT—CONCLUSION, 257
INDEX, 265
ERRATA.
Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected.
Page 67, line 8, “Christ said to the ruler of the feast,” _should be_,
“The governor of the feast said to the bridegroom.”
Page 141, line 15, for “cellar,” _read_ “cellarer.”
THE HISTORY OF DRINK.
CHAPTER I.
_INTRODUCTORY._
INSTINCTIVE TENDENCIES IN MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS—DRINKING PROPENSITIES
OF SAVAGES—PRE-HISTORIC TRACES.
One of the chief aims of this treatise is to demonstrate, from the facts
of history and experience, that excessive indulgence in intoxicating
beverages has wrought incalculable mischief to the human race; and it is
therefore a matter of regret to the author that his first duty should
be to call in question the doctrine propounded by some of the ablest
advocates of total abstinence, that there is no instinctive desire
in the human race for alcoholic or other artificial stimulants. That
doctrine has recently been placed before the public in definite and
unmistakable language by Dr. B. W. Richardson, the discoverer of one
of our most valuable pain alleviators, and himself an earnest disciple
of the cause of total abstinence. He says[1] that the lower animals
have never shown an instinctive desire for alcohol; that all children
instinctively dislike such drinks, and shrink from them; that inasmuch
as there have been nations (which, however, he does not name) that have
never shown the instinct, therefore the historical evidence which is
adduced in favour of the instinctive theory breaks down; and, strangest
proposition of all, that not only has nature provided no instinct in any
young animal for alcohol, but she has not herself provided the alcohol
for the instinct. Now, so far as children are concerned, Dr. Richardson’s
statement is far too sweeping. Many children do like intoxicating
drinks, unless they have a disagreeable flavour; and practically there
are myriads of children born with an innate tendency to indulge in such
beverages, whether or not it may show itself in the first years of their
existence; for, as Dr. Richardson himself remarks elsewhere,[2] the taste
for drink, with its consequences, is transmitted from parent to child.
Then, as regards the domesticated animals, many of them are fond of
wine; but it may be urged that this is the result of their association
with mankind. Possibly so; but the same does not hold good in the case
of the monkey tribes, the highest of all the inferior animals, and those
which approach nearest to human beings in their structure and habits. One
of the most careful and trustworthy of modern naturalists, Mr. Charles
Darwin, has told us that many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for
tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors, and that he has seen them smoke
tobacco.[3] Moreover, writing on the authority of Brehm,[4] he says that
the natives of North-Eastern Africa catch the wild baboons by exposing
vessels with strong beer, by which they are made drunk. He has seen
some of those animals which he kept in confinement in this state, and he
gives a laughable account of their behaviour and strange grimaces. On
the following morning they were cross and dismal; they held their aching
heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression; when beer or
wine was offered them they turned away with disgust, but relished the
juice of lemons. An American monkey—an Ateles—after getting drunk on
brandy, would never touch it again; and thus, says Mr. Darwin, he was
wiser than many men. Then again, as regards the argument, that nature
herself has not provided the means of gratifying the instinct. War is a
human instinct, but nature did not even chip her flints for pre-historic
man! and if none of our instincts could be gratified excepting those for
which the materials are ready-made to our hands, we might bid good-bye
to civilisation, and once more return to a state of nature. But even in
theory the writer of the essay is hardly correct. Wherever the juice
of fruits, or any liquid containing sugar, stands at a temperature of
about 70° for a few hours, it begins to ferment, and an intoxicating
liquor is the result. Hence the negroes in certain parts of Africa have
nothing to do but make an incision in a particular part of the palm-tree
in the morning, and allow the sap to flow, in order to obtain, the same
afternoon, what is to them a pleasant intoxicating drink.
From the foregoing facts it is obvious that to say young children or the
lower animals have no instinctive love of intoxicating drink is far too
broad an assertion, and it is one of little practical utility. Neither is
there very much to be gained by the germane inquiry as to whether savage
nations have ever been known to possess intoxicating beverages before
they came in contact with civilisation; but, as an interesting part of
the history of the subject, it may be worth while devoting a brief space
to its consideration. The evidence is in favour of the affirmative. The
Nubians make a liquor called bouza from dhourra or barley, also a kind
of wine from the palm-tree; and from time immemorial intoxicating drinks
have been extracted from these two sources, and from other cereals in
various parts of Asia and Africa.[5] Neither are those drinks harmless
in a moral sense, for we find that excessive indulgence in them leads to
the same crimes amongst savages as those which spring from the practice
of a similar vice amongst European nations. Whilst Dr. Livingstone
was staying at St. Hilarion in Bango, South Africa, he had favourable
opportunities of witnessing the effects of savage intoxication, which he
thus describes:[6]—
“The men of all these classes trust to their wives for food, and spend
most of their time in drinking the palm toddy. This toddy is the juice
of the palm-oil-tree (_Elais guineensis_), which when tapped yields
a clear sweet liquid, not at all intoxicating whilst fresh, but when
allowed to stand until the afternoon causes inebriation and many crimes.
This toddy, called malova, is the bane of the country. Culprits are
continually brought before the commandants for assaults committed through
its influence. Men come up with deep gashes on their heads; and one who
had burned his father’s house, I saw making a deep bow to Mr. Canto, and
volunteering to explain why he did the deed.”
The same trustworthy traveller makes mention of intoxicating drinks
produced by the natives in various other parts of Africa,[7] and in one
place (amongst the Makololo) he says he found that the men very much
disliked to be seen at their potations by persons of the opposite sex,—an
instance of refinement not always to be met with in civilised society.
But the primitive drink known to us as palm-wine is by no means
confined to the African continent. Another trustworthy traveller and
naturalist, Dr. Alfred R. Wallace, mentions it as a common drink in some
of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. “One of the few luxuries of
Matabello,” he says, “is the palm-wine, which is the fermented sap from
the flower-stems of the cocoa-nut. It is really a very nice drink, more
like cider than beer, though quite as intoxicating as the latter.”[8]
And instances might be multiplied indefinitely to show that perfectly
savage races have probably had intoxicating drinks peculiar to themselves
before they were known to the civilised world.[9] Dalzel first noticed
native intoxicating drink on the coast of Dahomey; Bosman on the coast
of Guinea; Bowditch, who visited Ashantee in 1817, found its inhabitants
well supplied with palm-wine.[10] Several of the Tartar tribes make an
intoxicating drink called koomiss from mares’-milk, and there is no doubt
they have done so from time immemorial. But perhaps the most convincing
facts are those mentioned by Schweinfurth,[11] which may be quoted to
show that not only do savage races possess their own inebriating liquors,
but that they reflect in an exaggerated manner all the other vices of
civilisation that usually accompany intemperance.
In one part of his travels Schweinfurth sojourned with a tribe from
whom he heard of the existence of another, still more remote, who were
regarded with great fear and superstition. They were called “Mam-Mam,”
great eaters (cannibals), and had been until recently considered, even by
the tribe from whom Schweinfurth obtained his information, as mythical
beings. He subsequently visited them, and found them to be more highly
civilised than he had expected. They possessed more than one kind of
intoxicating drink. That which pleased them the best, he says, was
prepared from _Eleusine coracana_, a cereal, and the skill with which
it was manufactured gave it a fair claim to be called beer. He says it
is bright, of a reddish pale colour, and is regularly brewed from the
malted grain, without the addition of any extraneous ingredient; it has
a pleasant bitter flavour derived from the dark husks. How large is the
proportion of beer consumed by the Mam-Mam, he says, may be estimated
by simply observing the ordinary way in which they store their corn. As
a regular rule, there are three granaries allotted to each dwelling, of
which two are made to suffice for the supply which is to contribute the
meal necessary for the household, whilst the other is entirely devoted to
the grain that has been malted. Whilst the same traveller was staying
with another tribe on one of the branches of the White Nile, he was
present at a harvest festival of the natives, which we will allow him to
describe in his own language:—“For two nights and a day, whilst I was
at Geer, the natives were abandoning themselves to their wild orgies,
which now for the first time I saw in their full unbridled swing. The
festival was held to celebrate the sowing of the crops, and confident
in the hope that the coming season would bring abundant rains, these
light-hearted Bongo anticipated their harvest. For the preparation
of their beer they encroached very lavishly upon their corn stores,
quite indifferent to the fact that for the next two months they would
be reduced to the necessity of grubbing after roots and devouring any
chance bird or even any creeping thing that might come in their way.
Incredible quantities of ‘legyee’ were consumed, so as to raise the
party to the degree of excitement necessary for so prolonged a revel.
In honour of the occasion there was produced a large array of musical
instruments, but the confusion of sound beggared the raging of all the
elements, and made me marvel as to what music might come to. They danced
till their bodies reeked again with the oil of the butter-tree. Had they
been made of india-rubber, their movements could scarcely have been more
elastic; indeed, their skins had all the appearance of gutta-percha. The
whole scene was more like a _fantoccini_ than any diversion of living
beings.”[12]
It is frequently assumed that because civilised nations were the first
to introduce ardent spirits amongst certain savage tribes, therefore
they must have been previously unacquainted with intoxicating drinks.
The Indians of the New World are often referred to as an illustration.
Without denying that there may have been tribes of North American Indians
who were sober when they came into contact with Europeans, but who were
soon debauched by the white man’s fire-water, it is certain that some of
them at least had native drinks as well as the savages of other parts of
the world. One of these was fermented maple juice, which was a favourite
drink with some of the Red Indian tribes, and was offered to the white
man along with the calumet of peace.[13] There was, we are told, also
a custom amongst the savage tribes residing on the Gulf of Mexico,
the Mississippi, and Ohio, to disinter the bodies of their dead at a
particular festival, and to consume a great quantity of native as well as
foreign liquor, if they could obtain it, during the ceremony, which was
one of very ancient origin.[14]
And this leads us to another popular fallacy in regard to the effect
of civilisation and its accompanying intemperance upon savage races.
The impression formed by the general reader concerning the contact of
whites with savages in Africa, North America, and elsewhere, is that the
former bring their spirits with them, and with that agent exterminate
the aborigines with whom they come in contact, whilst they, the whites,
escape almost uninjured. But what are the facts of the case? The author
has for many years been favourably situated for ascertaining the
condition of affairs in Africa; he has conversed with men of culture who
have resided for many years on the coast at various places of trade, and
the consensus of opinion, as well as the facts that have been narrated
to him, point to a widely different conclusion. The exportation of strong
drink from England to the west coast of Africa is enormous. It chiefly
consists of rum; and by far the larger portion of this is forwarded
into the interior, and is drunk out of sight amongst savage tribes who
are rarely visited by Europeans. Some of it is consumed by the negroes
on the coast, the whites, however, seldom taste it, their favourite
beverages being brandy and gin. Twenty or thirty years since, the whites
who were sent out to the coast were men of intemperate habits, many of
whom succumbed to the influence of ardent spirits, in which they indulged
very freely. The working blacks even then were more sober than their
masters, although, no doubt, evil example had its influences. Now a far
superior class of men represent the English firms on the coast, or, in
many cases, intelligent negroes have become the principals, who consign
produce to their agents and commission merchants in England. The result,
so far as the employers are concerned, is, that there is, comparatively
speaking, little drunkenness amongst them; and as to the negroes on the
coast, the author has been told by friends who have resided there for
periods varying from five to fifteen years, that they have never seen
one intoxicated. But inasmuch as the importation of rum continues to be
enormous, and the greater part of it is forwarded inland, it is clear
that if drunkenness is to be found anywhere (and it is known to the
missionaries to exist), it must be amongst those savages who are removed
from the influences of civilisation.
The unbridled passion of the savage for intoxicating drink, whether he
be the savage of the back-woods or of the city, as compared with the
same quality in a man of culture, has been forcibly put by one of our
leading historians. Alison says[15] that an Iroquois, when he sits down
beside a cask of spirits, often inserts a straw into a hole which he has
bored in the wood, and sucks the intoxicating draught until he drops down
dead, whilst a gentleman, with a good cellar of champagne, falls into no
such excesses, because he has other enjoyments which are inconsistent
with or prove a counterpoise to the first seductions of sense. He (the
historian) goes on to show by figures that drunkenness is essentially a
savage vice.[16] Whilst in 1838 the spirits consumed in England was about
half-a-gallon (strictly 0.53) per head of the population, in Ireland it
was 1.32, in Scotland 2.46, and in Australia 5.02 gallons per head. These
figures have changed materially since 1838, but the principle remains the
same. Only last year the author had a practical example of its operation.
In the course of a tour in Norway, he had occasion to stay two or three
days at Tromsoe, a small town on the coast within the Arctic circle.
Whilst there, he visited in the vicinity an encampment of Laplanders,
known as the “Summer Lapps,” from the fact of their descending from
the higher lands to the coast at that season in search of pasture for
their reindeer. To tourists, who only pay them a passing visit, they
seem a very interesting race, but to the people of the town, which they
frequent almost daily, they are a great nuisance. Their habits are very
intemperate, and the author was told that it is by no means unusual for
one of the men to drink a tumblerful of raw spirit at a draught, and
almost immediately to sink down intoxicated, and that, to them, is the
height of enjoyment.
Without, therefore, attempting to dogmatise on a question of such
extended application, and one which presents such varying aspects, as
the instinct for drink and the prevalence of drunkenness amongst savage
peoples, it is safe to affirm, first, that wherever and from whatever
source any intoxicating beverage has been obtainable, the untutored races
have not been slow to discover its use. Secondly, that when civilised
men have introduced a stronger drink than that already possessed by the
natives, it has been in the majority of cases readily consumed by them,
and that the further they were removed from the moderating influence of
civilisation the more uncontrolled has been the passion for drink and the
greater its indulgence.
And now, before proceeding to investigate the facts of history and
tradition concerning the employment of intoxicating drinks by the nations
of the world, let us endeavour to ascertain where the earliest traces
are to be found of the existence of those natural productions which have
been used in their preparation. The palm-tree, of course, existed in
the tropical regions probably long before man appeared upon the scene,
and that its sap was employed for the manufacture of wine between five
hundred and six hundred years before Christ, we know from the pages of
Herodotus,[17] but that is comparatively recent. Of the employment of
barley and other cereals for intoxicating beverages in remote ages of
the past we have also abundant evidence, to which reference will be made
hereafter. The origin of the vine, or rather its first application to
drinking purposes, is a much-debated question. The Romans and Greeks
believed Dionysus (Bacchus) to have employed it first for wine-making.
Representations of vineyards with grape-gatherers and wine-presses are
to be found on the monuments of ancient Egypt; whilst in the Hebrew
scriptures Noah is the first man mentioned as having cultivated the
grape. These circumstances will be touched upon when we come to deal with
the drinking customs of the various nations to whom they relate, but they
are only named here to show that the grape and such cereals as barley
were employed at a very early age for the preparation of inebriating
drinks, for we are in possession of facts which fix the period when these
materials were known and in use long prior to that indicated even by
tradition.
During the last few years, scientific research has revealed to mankind
the presence of remains which prove beyond a doubt that, during the age
known as the Stone Period, there were already colonies of partially
civilised men whose dwellings were built upon piles driven into the beds
of certain lakes then existing in Switzerland and other parts of Europe.
The age of those lake-dwellings—“Pfahlbauten,” as they are called in
Germany—is variously estimated at from three thousand to seven thousand
years;[18] and with the piles upon which they were constructed, and some
of which are in a good state of preservation, there have been found
associated various substances which prove, as just stated, that the
lake-dwellers had already attained a certain standard of civilisation. If
our space permitted, and if it fell within the scope of this treatise,
nothing would be more interesting than to study fully the character of
those remains. All we can do here, however, is to point out some of the
evidences they afford of the condition of the colonists, so as to enable
the reader to judge for himself whether or not they were likely to have
been acquainted with the use of intoxicating beverages. That they lived
contemporaneously with the urus, the wild progenitor of our domesticated
cattle, and that they waged constant war with the bear and the wolf,
is proved by the remains of those animals being found in considerable
quantities. They had already acquired, too, the art of cooking food,
as is testified by charred bones, grain, and fruit. They tilled the
ground; for amongst the numerous remains of cereals some are undoubtedly
cultivated varieties.[19] They possessed domesticated animals, such as
cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. Their rude dwellings, built upon piles in
the lakes, to protect them from the attacks of wild animals, and from
races of men more untutored than themselves, had some architectural
pretensions. Their implements for domestic use, especially the pottery,
were truly works of art, however primitive their manufacture, and those,
along with their clothing, which was made of textile fabrics, point to a
long antecedent experience in the industrial arts. But this is not all;
for they knew how to utilise seeds from which oil is produced. A whole
cake made from the seeds of the garden or opium poppy has been found at
Robenhausen, in a lake-dwelling in the peat moor on the southern side
of the Lake of Pfäffikon,[20] which had been pressed for oil, and was
probably intended to be used by the inhabitants themselves, or else given
to their domesticated cattle. And those ancient people, who lived in
wooden houses, habited themselves in woven cloths, practised agriculture,
and possessed some acquaintance with a rude kind of art, were also well
acquainted with the grape, with various other descriptions of fruit, such
as apples, pears, plums, and cherries, and with more than one variety
of barley; for charred and dried apples and pears, stones of grapes, as
well as of the fruits named (amongst many others), and whole ears of
barley, have been discovered in greater or less quantities amongst these
interesting remains of a pre-historic civilisation.
Whether or not, then, these primitive races had discovered, or were still
ignorant of the existence of intoxicating beverages, surrounded as they
were by so many natural products liable to alcoholic fermentation, we
must leave the reader to judge for himself, and quitting now the region
of surmise and speculation, we must ask him to accompany us whilst we
set foot upon the firm ground of fact, as revealed in history and in
popularly accepted tradition.[21]
CHAPTER II.
THE THREE SUBDIVISIONS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY—THE TURANIAN BRANCH—ANCIENT
CHINA—BUDDHIST LAWS CONCERNING DRINK—MODERN CHINA.
Nothing can be more interesting and instructive than to study the
drinking propensities of the earliest races of mankind, for it is
impossible to consider those without at the same time becoming acquainted
with their social customs, their family life, the tone of their religious
thought, and much that is important in regard to their national history.
In order to attain this object, we will adopt, generally speaking, the
most recent classification of the great human family into the Aryan, the
Semitic, and the Turanian groups, and will select one or more typical
nations to represent each, for special consideration.
From the Turanian branch, with which we shall first deal, we propose in
this chapter to single out the great Chinese empire for consideration,
taking no account of the savage tribes of Asia and Polynesia, nor of the
Lapps and Finns, who, roughly speaking, complete that subdivision of
mankind.
Next we shall deal with the main branches of the Aryan family, the
ancient inhabitants of India, Persia, and Central Asia; and in a later
portion of the work, their descendants in the empires of ancient
Greece and Rome, and subsequently those of modern Europe and America,
will demand and receive our attention. Lastly, we shall investigate the
drinking habits of the Semitic family, the ancient Hebrews, the ancient
Egyptians, and the followers of Mahomet.
The Chinese believe themselves to be the most ancient people in the
world, and from the accounts which follow it will be seen that they
may at least lay claim to a very early civilisation. Their greatest
philosopher, whose name has been handed down to modern times as
Confucius, lived in the fifth century before Christ, his death being
fixed at 478 B.C., and one of his disciples, Mencius, who was almost as
highly honoured as himself, flourished about two centuries later, dying
288 B.C. These two great men left behind them many original precepts
and adages, but they are also believed to have edited and perfected a
series of books or “Kings” which had been handed down from generation to
generation long before their time; and it is from those books that we
shall be able to collect information in regard to the drinking habits of
ancient China, and their influence upon the destinies of the people. But
although it will be anticipating somewhat in regard to time, we cannot
help thinking that our readers would like to know something concerning
the habits of the great teacher himself, whose name is most familiar to
European ears as one of the regenerators of our race.
Confucius was a highly cultivated literary man of his time, whose
instruction was reverently listened to by princes and nobles, but who
led a simple and abstemious life. His dress was very unostentatious,
and he is said to have avoided the bright colours which were usually
worn by men of high rank in his day. Some amusing details are given
of his apparel.[22] His night-dress, we are told, was always half as
long again as his body, which is of itself a proof of the advances
that had been made in civilisation by the Chinese at that early date,
for in our country, even in the thirteenth century or later, kings and
queens are said to have slept in a state of complete nudity.[23] Once
every month Confucius donned his court robes to pay his devoirs to his
prince, and he was also very particular as to the vestments which he
wore during sacrifices. He had all the dignity of his race, and his
mode of bowing and of conversing with his superiors and inferiors is
described as courteous and appropriate. When not occupied in court
or other ceremonies, his countenance was smiling and affable. Of his
domestic habits we have ample details. He usually ate rice, with small
portions of meat and fish, but he never tasted those if they were
becoming putrified,[24] from which it would appear that “gamey” food was
not unknown to the epicures of his day. The amount of drink of which he
partook was not restricted, but he never indulged so far as to “disturb
his understanding,” a circumstance which naturally leads us to infer that
hard drinking was then no uncommon practice at the tables of the rich.
The teachings of Confucius relate chiefly to the higher branches of
ethics, the means of attaining perfection, and the rules of good
government. They treat in general terms of vice and virtue, and it was
not often that he descended to the consideration of particular sins.
Occasionally, however, we find sentences which throw light upon Chinese
society in his day. “The superior man,” he says, “when he is at table
does not seek to glut his appetite. When he is in his house he does not
indulge in the enjoyments of indolence and effeminacy.”[25] “Ki-chi (a
noble of the kingdom of Lou) employed eight troupes of musicians at
his family fêtes. If he can allow himself to act thus, of what is he
not capable?”[26] “I see no fault in Yu; he was sober in eating and
drinking.”[27] “When you are abroad,” said the philosopher, “pay your
respects to your superior magistrates.... Be not given to excess in the
use of wine.”[28]
His disciple Mencius makes more frequent references to the vice
of drunkenness. He speaks of the excessive use of wine in the
sacrifices.[29] “The vices,” he says, “which, according to the custom
in our day, are called defects of filial piety, are five in number....
Loving to play chess,[30] and to drink instead of fulfilling one’s duties
to father and mother, is the second defect of filial piety.”
Judging from the writings of these two sages, however, we should,
perhaps, be disposed to think that drunkenness was not a flagrant vice in
their day, for whilst directions are given over and over again concerning
religious rites and observances, the duties of princes, obedience and
reverence to parents; whilst both princes and people are warned against
voluptuousness and extravagance, we seldom find drunkenness referred to,
and never as a dangerous and prevalent vice. But long before their time a
very different state of things must have prevailed, for the “Shoo-King,
or History,”[31] and the “She-King, or Book of Ancient Poetry,”[32]
teem with evidences of the over-indulgence in wine, as well as what
are called “spirits,” and it is to those records that we must now turn
in order to acquire a fuller knowledge of the subject. That the use of
intoxicating drinks was not absolutely forbidden, but was sanctioned
under certain conditions, is clear, both from the poems as well as the
prose writings of the period. Here is an extract from the “Shoo-King, or
History,”[33]—“Ye people of the Land of Mei, if you can employ your limbs
largely, cultivating your millet, and hastening about in the service of
your fathers and elders, and if, with your cart and oxen, you traffic
to a distance, that you may thereby filially minister to your parents,
then when your parents are happy, you may set forth your spirits clear
and strong, and you may use them. Hearken constantly to my instructions,
all ye high officers, ye assistants, and all ye noble chiefs; when you
have hugely done your duty in ministering to your aged and serving your
sovereign, you may eat and drink freely and to satiety.”
This forms part of what is called “The Announcement about Drunkenness,”
an imperial edict believed to have been promulgated about 1116 B.C., to
which we shall refer again presently; but in order to show beyond a
doubt that the use of intoxicating drinks in moderation was sanctioned
at that period, we will quote one or two short notes of the commentators
in the “Shoo-King” relating to the subject. One of them, Soo-ting-po,
says, “Spirits are what men will not do without. To prohibit them and
secure a total abstinence from them is beyond the power even of sages.
Here, therefore, we have warnings on the abuse of them.” Another,
Nan-heen, says, “Strong drink is intended to be used in offering
sacrifices and entertaining guests; such employment of it is what
Heaven has prescribed.” A third, speaking of Prince Fung, to whom the
“Announcement about Drunkenness” is addressed, says, “The people of Yin
had followed the example of their sovereign, and the vice of drunkenness
with its attendant immoralities extensively characterised the highest
and lowest classes of society. One of Fung’s most difficult tasks in his
administration would be to correct this evil habit, and he is, in this
book, summoned to the undertaking. He is instructed in the proper and the
allowable uses of spirits; the disastrous consequences of drunkenness
are strikingly set forth: he is called to roll back the flood of its
desolation from his officers and people.”
And as to the “Announcement” itself, a most strange and interesting
document, it recites the cautions which had been addressed by preceding
monarchs to the great officers of state, pointing out that “for
sacrifices spirits should be employed.” But it proceeds to say, in quaint
and forcible terms, that “our people have been greatly disorganised and
lost their virtue, which can be traced to their indulgence in spirits.”
“Yea, the ruin of states great and small” is invariably traced to the
same cause, the use of spirits. “King Wan,” it says, “admonished and
instructed the young and all who were charged with office and employment
that they should not ordinarily use spirits” but only on occasion of
sacrifices, “and then that virtue should preside, so that there might be
no drunkenness.” The edict goes on to show how a long line of ancestors
had practised self-denial, “from T’ang the successful to the Emperor
Yih,” setting an excellent example to their ministers and servants, they
not daring to indulge in drunkenness; but that “the last successor of
those kings was addicted to drink,” so that (to put it in the phraseology
of the Flowery Land of old), “No charges came from him brightly before
the people, and he was reverently and unchangingly bent on doing and
cherishing what provoked resentment. He gave himself up completely to
spirits; and though the extinction of the dynasty of Yin was imminent,
this gave him no concern, and he wrought not that any sacrifices of
fragrant virtue might ascend to heaven. The rank odour of the people’s
resentments, and the drunkenness of his herds of creatures, went loudly
up on high, so that Heaven sent down ruin on Yin, and showed no love
for Yin, because of such excesses. There is not any cruel oppression of
Heaven; people themselves accelerate their guilt and its punishment.”
We have only space for the concluding mandate of the “Announcement,”
which runs as follows: “If you are told that there are companies who
drink together, do not fail to apprehend them all and send them to Chow,
where I will put them to death. As to the ministers and officers of Yin,
who have been led to it and been addicted to drink, it is not necessary
to put them to death; let them be taught for a time. If they keep
these lessons, I will give them bright distinction. If you disregard
my lessons then, I, the one man, will show you no pity. As you cannot
cleanse your way, you shall be classed with those who are to be put to
death. The king says, “O Fung, give constant heed to my admonitions. If
you do not manage right, your officers and the people will continue lost
in drink.”
This “Announcement,” although to us it seems somewhat vague it its
wording, very clearly proclaims certain facts. That drunkenness had taken
such a hold upon the people as to threaten the ruin of the empire of
China more than one thousand years B.C.; that the chief ruler feared to
deal with nobles and ministers of state as with the common people (“one
law for the rich and another for the poor”); that the punishment of death
was at least threatened in the attempt to enforce sobriety; that total
abstinence was not deemed to come within the province of legislative
enactment; and that it was proper to use strong drink in religious
ceremonies.[34] But we may learn far more than this from the ancient
records. The “Book of Poetry” (“She-King”) gives us some very interesting
details of the domestic, social, and religious life of the period, and we
shall have no difficulty in transporting ourselves back three thousand
years or more, and of witnessing in imagination the gatherings which are
so graphically delineated.
The popular drink appears to have been “spirits” prepared from rice
and strained, as we shall find from the poems of which extracts follow,
and these spirits were drunk on all occasions. The religious festivals
seem to have been accompanied, as some are even in our day, by social
entertainments; and the drinking-songs and pastorals show that although
temperance was esteemed a virtue, it was one which was not always
practised on those occasions.
The two following verses are extracts from an ode descriptive of life
in the land of Pin in the olden time; the date is uncertain, but it was
probably more than eleven hundred years B.C.[35]
“For food, the sixth month, plums and vines they spoil;
The seventh, the beans and sunflower seeds they boil;
The eighth, they strike the jujube dates all down;
The tenth, they reap the paddy fully grown,
And with the grain make spirits ’gainst the spring,
Which to the bushy eyebrows comfort bring.
...
In the ninth month, the cold begins with frost:
The tenth, their cornyards swept and clean they boast.
Good spirits in two vessels kept they take
To help their joy, and this proposal make:—
‘Well kill both lambs and sheep,’ they joyous say,
‘And to the Ruler’s quickly take our way.
We’ll mount his hall; the massive cup we’ll raise
Made of rhinoceros’ horn; and as we praise,
Wish him long life,—the life of endless days.’”
Thus it would appear that, after completing their harvest and sweeping
their cornyards clean, those ancient people went to greet their rulers,
as shown in the preceding verses, and they also offered sacrifices to the
gods. Those customs are well described in verse:—
“Now, when our barns are filled with grain,
And myriad stacks in field remain,
Spirits and viands we prepare
To use on grand occasions rare,
In sacrificial rite.”[36]
And when they go before their ruler they sing thus:[37]—
1. “You gave us the brimming cup,
And crowned us with your grace;
Great king, for ever may you live,
With brightening happiness!
2. “You gave us the brimming cup,
And dainty viands spread;
May you, great king, for ever live,
Your splendour never fade!”
Their potations were drunk from the horn of the rhinoceros, as already
stated, and also from gourds—two substances which were in use amongst the
most primitive races, and of which we shall repeatedly find mention made
hereafter:—
“From herd and pen the victims both are killed;
Dried gourds for cups are with the spirits filled:
So does the duke his friends and chieftains feast,
Him as their lord and ruler hails each guest.”[38]
That their revels were often protracted there can be no doubt whatever
from the following:—
“The dew lies heavy all around,
Nor till the sun shines leaves the ground;
Far into the night we feasting sit,
We drink, and none his place may quit.”[39]
The drinking at their entertainments was accompanied by dancing and
singing:—
“The drums resound;
Having well drunk, they rise and dance,
And thus their mutual joys enhance.”[40]
And such entertainments are not confined to the lower classes only, but
are given by all ranks of society. The following describes temperate
feasting, the host being the king himself:—
“See the mighty cup of horn
Round their ranks in order borne!
Full of spirits soft and good,
It excites no conduct rude;
Surely blessings haste to greet
Lords of virtue so complete.”[41]
But the royal topers are not always so bepraised. The reader will
recollect in the “Announcement about Drunkenness” a virtuous King Wan is
mentioned, who admonished princes and rulers not to indulge too freely in
strong drink. Whether or not the following is the same we are unable to
say, but—
“Thus to the tyrant Show our King Wan said:—
‘Alas! alas! Yin’s king so great,
Not heaven but spirits flush your face with red,
That evil thus you imitate.
You do in all your conduct what is wrong,
Darkness to you the same as light,
Your noisy feasts and revels you prolong,
And day through you is black as night.’”[42]
The middle classes, too, indulged freely, and often entertained their
family connections at drinking parties:—
“I’ve strained and made my spirits clear,
The fatted lamb I’ve killed,
With friends who my own surname bear
My hall I’ve largely filled.”[43]
The “She-King” is full of poems which relate to the drinking habits of
the ancient Chinese, and one of them, called “The _Pin-che-tsoo-yen_:
Narrative against Drunkenness,”[44] too long for transference to these
pages, gives a vivid picture of the licence of the period. It describes
an archery match, followed by a festival, at which many of the guests
became intoxicated, and their behaviour is narrated in rather amusing
terms, one verse telling the reader that—
“They dance about, now fast now slow,
Can hardly keep their feet;
What fools they are they do not know,
No one resumes his seat.”
The perusal of this poem, which we should recommend to the reader who
is curious in such matters, shows that many of our customs date back as
far as those ancient days. The company began by drinking the health of
the ruling sovereign, and at the head of the table was a “chairman,” who
decided disputes, and was assisted by a “vice.”
Both poetry and prose records, then, indicate to us that in the very
earliest times there already existed in China those drinking propensities
which have exercised so powerful an influence for evil upon the character
of nations. The odes and poems range over a period of two or three
thousand years, and there may have been times at which comparative
sobriety was a national characteristic, as it has again become in modern
China and in the East generally; but certain facts are clear, namely,
that in ancient China all classes of society, from the king to the
peasant, indulged freely in “spirits,” or intoxicating drinks prepared
from cereals; that the use of such drinks was sanctioned by the priests
in their religious ceremonials, and that their consumption entered
largely, as in our day, into the practice of hospitality. Great efforts
were evidently made both by legislative enactments of the severest
kind, and through the teaching of sages, to suppress drunkenness, which
threatened at one time to subvert the Empire. Nay, it is probable that
the excessive use of drink and its accompanying vices caused the downfall
of one or more dynasties, and it is quite certain that the people rose
in rebellion against their debauched rulers and their servants, whose
tyranny was aggravated by their drinking propensities, and who themselves
committed the very crimes from which they should have protected the
masses. But how a people whose history, three thousand years since,
presented such features as these, should not only have maintained their
national existence, but should have become sober, it is difficult to
explain. The change is no doubt owing chiefly to the spread of the
Buddhist religion in China. In the practices of the ancient idolatry
drunkenness was a prominent characteristic, as we shall find it to have
been also in the religious observances of the Aryan nations; but Gautama
Sâkya, the Buddha (or enlightened), who lived in India about the sixth
century, B.C.,[45] founded a religion in which total abstinence was a
rule of the priesthood, as it had already been a Brahminical law. For
the laity he promulgated ten commandments which interdicted murder,
theft, adultery, lying, intoxication, voluptuousness, and extravagance,
whilst to the priests were enjoined total abstinence from the use of
intoxicating drinks, mendicancy, and fasting of the severest description.
On entering his noviciate the young Buddhist priest vows, “I will observe
the precept or ordinance that forbids the use of intoxicating drinks,
that lead to indifference towards religion;” and he also renounces every
other human enjoyment, along with most of the necessaries of life.[46]
His dress was of the meanest, if a few tatters can be called dress; his
food was barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, such as a
small portion of rice; he was a professed mendicant, going from place to
place with an almsbowl. His day was employed in religious observances,
meditation, penance, and self-mortification; in short, he became an
ascetic of the strictest order, and it was his duty to teach virtue
and morality to the multitude. “It is ever the rule of the Buddhas to
proclaim first the reward to be received for the giving of alms, and
then to enforce the precepts. The four great virtues are almsgiving,
affability, promoting the prosperity of others, and loving others as
ourselves.” “_But there is no reward to him who gives intoxicating
liquors_, ... or gives to those who only dance and sing, or exhibit
indecencies, or make obscene paintings on some public place.”[47] These
ordinances and dogmas give us at once a vivid picture of the morality
of the age, and show us the means that were taken to reform its vices.
The Buddhist religion, than which none has been more abused and less
understood, spread rapidly throughout China, and there can be no doubt
that such a code, supported by the example of its administrators, and
operating as it has done for more than two thousand years, must have
exercised a very beneficial influence on the national character.
There are, indeed, many who will unhesitatingly say that drunkenness is a
sin almost unknown in China at the present day, but that is undoubtedly
an exaggeration; and before closing this chapter we will endeavour to
form as correct an estimate as possible of the condition of the modern
Chinese in that respect. In doing so, it must however be remembered that
the temporary oblivion which seems to possess such a charm for vast
numbers of people, and which is induced in other countries by means of
intoxicants, is attained in China through opium, supplied from India,
to our shame be it said, by Englishmen who are protected by the laws of
their country. It would be unwise to place too much reliance upon the
statements of travellers in China, but it may safely be concluded from
their narratives that between the tenth and sixteenth centuries of our
era, the distillation of alcoholic drinks was known and practised there;
and that in the early part of the present century not only spirits but
native wines were drunk by all classes of the people. The chief natural
productions which have been and are still employed for the manufacture
of such drinks are rice and millet, from which a spirit called in Europe
arrack or raki is distilled, and some idea may be formed of the extent
to which these cereals were cultivated in past times from the fact that
in 1696 the quantity of rice and corn brought into the emperor’s stores
as tribute was 43,328,834 sacks, along with 38,550 lbs. of dried fruits
of various kinds. Besides the native liquors, China has imported beer,
wines, and spirits from other countries. Between the years 1810 and 1820
beer to the value of £14,309, and wine in bottles and packages valued
at £7383, were sent to China by the East India Company, and in the year
ending January 5, 1819, the Americans sent 1000 gallons of gin into
Canton. The importation of all these liquors and of European wines of
other descriptions has since then been constantly increasing.[48]
Morewood mentions that numbers of carts loaded with raki entered Pekin
daily in his time, and that the liquor was distributed over 1000 taverns;
but it should be stated that this proportion of public-houses to the
total number of inhabitants is very small compared with those of England,
and in China there is no restriction whatever on the sale of intoxicating
drink. The Chinese public-houses are, moreover, not mere drinking-shops,
but wherever a number of guests are assembled, they usually partake of
solid food as well as drink, and during their meals they are entertained
with comedies or musical performances. Private drinking parties, called
wine clubs, are, however, not uncommon, especially amongst young men, who
assemble at each other’s houses or at such places as may be selected, the
expenses being defrayed by the members in rotation. On such occasions the
day is spent in feasting, wine-drinking, card-playing, and such other
amusements as may be suggested by the host for the time being.[49] The
liquors drunk are distilled from red and white rice (which impart to
them their colours), and sometimes from potatoes, beans, or sugar-cane.
The juice of the grape is not used, and the Chinese native wine is in
reality whisky, which is drunk hot from cups of small dimensions.[50] The
latter fact does not, however, necessarily limit the quantity of liquor
consumed, for in some cases thirty or forty rounds are drunk.
The older people have similar feasts in connection with their trade
guilds, of which interesting descriptions have been given both by
travellers and residents. One of the latter, Mr. Giles, who was long
connected with the British Consular service, has published a graphic
account of modern China, in which he gives minute details of these social
gatherings. On one occasion he was present at a Chinese dinner-party of
six native gentlemen, who occupied seats at what he calls a four-legged
“eight fairy” table. Before each guest there was a pair of chopsticks,
a wine-cup, a small saucer of soy, a two-pronged fork, a spoon, a
tiny plate divided into two separate compartments for melon seeds and
almonds, and a pile of small pieces of paper for cleaning these various
articles as required. On the table was a kind of dessert consisting of
dried fruits as with us, and in the centre there were slices of ham,
sardines, &c., as is the custom in Sweden, Norway, and Russia. “Wine,” he
says,[51] “is produced the first thing, and poured into small porcelain
cups by the giver of the feast himself. It is polite to make a bow and
place one hand at the side of the cup while this operation is being
performed. The host then gives the signal to drink, and the cups are
emptied instantaneously, being often turned bottom upward as a proof
that there are no heel-taps. Many Chinamen, however, cannot stand even a
small quantity of wine, and it is no uncommon thing, when the feast is at
an eating-house, to hire one of the theatrical singing-boys to perform
vicariously such heavy drinking as may be required by custom or exacted
by forfeit.”[52] We will not pursue the description further, adding only
that amongst the dishes provided at this particular dinner-party were
sharks’ fins with crab sauce, pigeon’s eggs stewed with mushrooms, sliced
sea-slugs in chicken-broth with ham, stewed lily roots, and lumps of
parboiled mutton fried in pork fat.
The same author’s observations concerning the moral condition of the
lower classes are equally interesting. He seems disposed to make light of
opium-smoking, and does not consider it nearly such a pernicious custom
as gin-drinking in England. He considers the working classes remarkably
sober, a drunken husband being the exception; and during eight years’
residence in China, he says he never saw a drunken man in the streets.
“Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages of intoxication, but no drunken
brawls, no bruised and bleeding wives.” One thing is, however, certain;
the inability to procure intoxicating liquor has as much to do with the
sobriety of the poor Chinaman as the absence of a taste for drink; for,
as Mr. Giles says, it is as much as he can do to feed his family, which
consists not only of his wife and children but his parents also; and
he has besides to provide a supply of rice for uncles, cousins, &c.;
hence it follows that every cash earned either by the man or woman goes
towards procuring food and clothing instead of enriching the keepers of
grog-shops.[53] This is an important consideration, and one that should
not be lost sight of, when we look at the relations between the earnings
of working people and their expenditure on drink. China, like many other
countries in which wealth is unequally distributed, may at some future
time, when her working classes are more prosperous, have to contend
again with the national vice which was so prevalent during her early
civilisation.
CHAPTER III.
THE DRINKING HABITS OF THE ARYAN RACES OF INDIA—THE VEDAS AND BRAHMINICAL
LITERATURE—MODERN INDIA.
We are now about to consider the drinking propensities of our own remote
ancestry—of those from whom most of the inhabitants of modern Europe and
the Transatlantic continents are descended; and should there exist in the
mind of any of our readers a doubt as to the enormous advances that have
been made in civilisation since the earliest historic period, we think
that doubt will be dispelled for ever.
The religious and moral condition of the Aryan races of India is to be
found impressed upon the sacred writings of the ancient Brahmans, for a
knowledge of which we are largely indebted to that industrious student of
Sanskrit, Professor Max Müller of Oxford, who considers that the period
embraced by the Rig-Veda or Sacred Books extended back indefinitely from
1200 B.C., and that the hymns which they contain were first committed to
writing between 600 and 200 B.C.,[54] about the same time, therefore, as
the writings of Confucius and Mencius were published in China.
And what can these Brahminical writings teach us concerning the drinking
customs of the people? the reader may inquire. At the risk of offending
his susceptibilities, and even of laying ourselves open to the charge of
irreverence, we will ask him what he would think of a body of worshippers
in our day, who, instead of addressing their hymns and prayers to the
Almighty Father and Ruler of the universe, the One ineffably good, and
wise, and holy, were to appeal to Him as a mighty Ruler in heaven who was
to be propitiated and bribed with unlimited offerings of brandy, and who,
until he became completely intoxicated, was incapable of performing any
great or benevolent act? And yet this, or even lower than this, was the
estimate which the Aryan people had formed of their god Indra, as well as
of his less powerful companions in heaven; and the only inference we are
able to draw—one that we are sure the reader would extract from the study
of those so-called hymns—is that the nature of the Deity was but a reflex
of the character of his worshipping multitudes.
The chief sacrificial ceremony of the ancient Brahmans was called
“soma,” after an intoxicating drink to be described presently; and the
deity to whom this drink was believed to be the most acceptable was
Indra. The “soma” sacrifice was and is still performed by the Brahmans
as follows:—A certain quantity of the intoxicating juice is offered
as a libation to the different deities by pouring it from variously
shaped wooden vessels upon the sacred fire. This the gods are supposed
to drink. Then the priests themselves drink, sometimes very copiously;
also the sacrificer.[55] The drink itself is believed to have been
prepared with the juice of a creeper (_Asclepias_). After being cleaned
and macerated in water, the plant was pressed between two stones, and
the juice which flowed from it was diluted with water, and strained
through ram’s wool. This juice was then mixed with malt and warm milk
or clarified butter, and was allowed to ferment. M. Haug, who witnessed
the sacrifices of the modern Brahmans, tasted the “soma” as at present
prepared, and describes it as whitish, very astringent and bitter, with
some intoxicating properties. He says it had a most disagreeable taste,
and he could only drink a few spoonfuls of it. The plant used in the
present day is, however, not that employed by the ancient Brahmans.
“Soma,” it should be added, was not only a drink, but is frequently
addressed in the Vedas as a deity; and, by priestly incantations, the
liquor was believed to be miraculously transformed into the god himself.
It is not unlikely that this was the origin of the modern doctrine of
transubstantiation, or the real presence of the body and blood of Christ,
through priestly consecration, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist;
and it is strange how universal has been the practice of combining the
use of intoxicating drink with religious worship throughout all ages.
It is first found in connection with the early religious observances of
the Persian, Brahminical, and Chinese faiths. It was forbidden by the
Buddhists. Commencing with the Semitic sacrifices, it has retained its
place in the ceremonies of the modern Jews, and has found its way into
the worship of every denomination of Christians, from the Unitarians to
the Roman Catholics. Without attempting to discuss the proposition of
some total abstainers that the wine used at the Lord’s Supper was not an
intoxicating drink,[56] we cannot help remarking that until the custom,
however nominal, ceases to receive the highest possible sanction—the
approval of the Church and the priesthood—it seems idle to attempt to
suppress or discountenance the use of alcohol by coercive measures
amongst the lay members of society.
But to proceed. The Rig-Veda from beginning to end abounds with
references to the supposed drinking proclivities of the deities,
especially of Indra. To the effect of the libations poured out to him
by his worshippers all his gifts are attributed. “Come hither, O Indra,
to our sacrifice. Drink of the soma, O soma-drinker; thine intoxication
is that which gives us abundance of cows.”[57] “Come hither, O Indra,
and intoxicate thyself.”[58] Indra was not believed to be capable of
accomplishing any heroic deed unless he was intoxicated. For example,
“When he (Indra) combated against the withholder of rain (Vritra), in
his inebriation, the refreshing rain rushed down the declivity like
rivers.”[59] “When Indra, animated by soma, destroyed the defences
of Vala with the thunderbolt, as did Trita.” Just as in one of the
Hebrew psalms every verse ends with the words, “For His mercy endureth
for ever,” so in one hymn to Indra each verse concludes as follows:
“In the intoxication which soma has caused him, see what Indra has
accomplished.”[60] The account of his toping powers is in some cases
ludicrous, for he is described as taking such copious draughts of
soma that his inside becomes like a fish-pond,[61] and it is made a
merit in him that he is reeling drunk.[62] From these quotations it is
obvious that the Vedic people must have been well acquainted with the
intoxicating power of soma-drink, or they would not have known what
influence it would have upon their gods; and from the same source we may
gather with equal certainty that they indulged freely in that beverage
themselves. For they seem to have entertained no doubt that their gods
were willing to join in their revels, and often invited them to come
down and be partakers in their banquets. “Called by us, O Indra,” they
said, “sit down and intoxicate thyself with us, thy friends.”[63]
They must have renewed old acquaintance amongst themselves, top, over
what is called the social glass, for they treated their deities as
hail-fellows-well-met, and invited them to do likewise. “Very old is
your favour and your auspicious friendship,” they said to one of their
gods; “renewing again that auspicious friendship, may we now in your
society intoxicate ourselves with soma.”[64] No mincing matters there!
Nor was it merely a figurative expression, for the sacrificer, or he
at whose cost the sacrifice was provided, as well as the priests, drank
soma during the ceremony until they were all drunk together,[65] but
the hotar, or chief priest, commenced the operations: “Like the hotar,
drink first of this soma, O Indra; we offer thee, O god, this sweet
soma for inebriation.”[66] In one place, Indra is described with great
circumstantiality as getting drunk with soma-drink mixed with milk
early in the morning, a proof that the priests occasionally indulged
in a matutinal sip. Indeed, detailed accounts of the ceremonies are
found throughout the hymns which show that the priests were inordinate
drunkards; so much so, that in the later Vedas and in the “Institutes of
Manu” a check was put upon such practices, and they were denounced as
sinful.
But so too were the laity. There was another intoxicating drink besides
soma of which mention is made in the Vedas. It was called “sura,”
and was much more inebriating than soma, which was the drink of the
sacrifices, and therefore the supposed beverage of the gods, whilst
sura was that of the common people. The plant which, in the Vedic age,
entered largely into its composition was a tall grass of India, one of
the genus _Panicum_, and the other ingredients were water, curds, honey,
melted butter, and barley.[67] At a later period a liquor called sura
seems to have been actually distilled from a preparation of rice, barley,
black pepper, lemon juice, ginger, and hot water. The sura drink was in
general use, and the proof alike of its extended consumption amongst the
people, as well as of its being the cause of much crime in those days,
is to be found in several verses of the Vedic hymns. In one place it is
spoken of as a poison, kept at home suspended in a leather bottle;[68] in
another, the excessive intoxication of Indra with soma is compared to the
bad drunkenness caused by sura;[69] and in a well-known verse quoted by
Professor Max Müller,[70] it is thus referred to:
“It was not our own disposition, O Varuna; it was temptation,
Intoxication caused by sura, passion, thoughtlessness,” &c.
The Rig-Veda is certainly the most extraordinary publication of a sacred
character that can be imagined in respect to drink and drunkenness; and
the space occupied by references to the potations of the gods—for there
is hardly a hymn that is free from them—shows clearly that the Vedic
people, both priests and laymen, must have been terrible drunkards, and
must have believed their Deities to have been the same. At a somewhat
later period, however, we find the habit denounced in forcible terms and
the severest penalties attached to its practice; in fact, it is spoken of
as heinous in the last degree, and is compared to the murder of a Brahman.
The laws of Manu[71] contain a whole series of interdictions and
penalties, but the selection of two or three examples must suffice, for
some of them, although interesting as showing the depraved condition
of mankind at that early period, are not fit for transcription into
the pages of a popular work. “Any twice born (that is, regenerated)
man who has _intentionally_ drunk the spirit of rice (sura) through
perverse delusion of mind, may drink more spirit in flame and atone for
his offence by severely burning his body.” “Or he may drink boiling
hot, until he die, the urine of a cow, or pure water, or milk, or
clarified butter, or juice expressed from cow-dung.” “If he tasted it
_unknowingly_, he may expiate the sin of drinking spirituous liquor
by eating only a little broken rice or grains of tila from which oil
has been extracted, once every night for a whole year; wrapped in
coarse vesture of hairs from a cow’s tail, or sitting unclothed in his
house wearing his locks and beard uncut, and putting out the flag of a
tavern-keeper.”
There are three chief descriptions of pernicious liquor forbidden to be
drunk—one extracted from sugar dregs, another from bruised rice, and a
third from the flowers of madhuca (_Bassia latifolia_). These, along
with eight other kinds which were consumed with the flesh of animals at
certain juncates or secret feasts, were forbidden to the Brahmans, for
we are told that an intoxicated Brahman “might stumble upon something
very impure, or might even when intoxicated pronounce a sacred phrase
of the Veda, or might do some act that ought not to be done.” Even his
priestly character left him if he had been polluted with spirits, and he
sank to the low degree of a Sudra. “The slayer of a priest, a soldier,
or merchant drinking arrack, or a priest drinking arrack, mead, or rum,
he who steals the gold of a priest” (and ...) “are all to be considered
respectively as offenders of the highest degree, except those whose
crimes are not fit to be named.” Terrible punishments, such as branding
the forehead with a hot iron, were the penalties attached to those
crimes, and “with none to eat with them, with none to sacrifice with
them, with none to read with them, with none to be allied by marriage
to them; abject and excluded from all social duties, let them wander
over this earth. Branded with indelible marks, they shall be deserted by
their paternal and maternal relations, treated by none with affection,
received by none with respect. Such is the ordinance of Manu.” Nor is the
punishment, terrible as it appears, supposed to end in this world, for
the soul of a priest who has drunk spirituous liquors is consigned to the
body of a “smaller or larger worm, or insect, a moth, a fly feeding on
ordure, or some ravenous animal.”
Notwithstanding these severe penalties and denunciations, however, it is
clear from the later Sanskrit literature that intoxication was still rife
amongst the Aryan races of India. Palastya, an ancient sage, enumerates
no less than twelve different kinds of liquor besides soma,[72] and the
preparation of those drinks from the grape, from honey, sugar, dates, the
palm, pepper, rice, cocoa-nut, &c., has been described with considerable
minuteness. Besides these home-made drinks, large quantities of foreign
wines were imported into India two thousand years ago, and met with a
ready sale throughout the country. Amongst them are mentioned the wine of
Laodicea in Syria, Italian and Arabian wines.
In later times attempts were made by various rulers to suppress the
manufacture and use of intoxicating drinks, but in the sixteenth century,
when the interior of India was visited by English adventurers, many
kinds were freely consumed, and they are said to have been drunk out of
vessels of the most costly description. The East India Company encouraged
the distillation of spirits as a means of revenue, and the best proof
of the extensive consumption of such drinks in India during the last
and beginning of the present century is to be found in the published
statistics of the Company. Large quantities of native arrack, besides
brandy, rum, gin, wine, and ale, were imported and exported from the
various districts, and although the English themselves were, doubtless,
large consumers, the quantities named suffice to show that these drinks
must have been in general use amongst all classes.[73] In the year 1833
the value of native arrack exported from Ceylon alone to Great Britain
and the British Colonies was £12,425, 9s., besides which large quantities
were sent annually for consumption in Madras, Bombay, and other parts of
India.[74]
We have thus reviewed, though very cursorily and superficially, the
drinking habits and customs of the various peoples of India from the
earliest ages down to a recent period; and before quitting this part
of our subject, it will be useful to consider for a few moments the
present condition of its inhabitants, who are allied to us, if not
by ties of kindred, at least by identity of rule. All writers agree
in regarding the people of India as a comparatively sober race, and
the author finds the same opinion to prevail amongst those who have
long resided in the country. That there is a considerable amount of
intoxication in certain districts, and amongst the lower or half-castes,
is doubtless true; but the middle and upper classes, and the population
as a whole, are remarkably abstemious. One writer[75] says, “The Hindoos
are unquestionably a temperate people. Their favourite beverage is
water.” “Generally speaking,” he says, “the higher castes abstain from
intoxicating drinks. It is only the low castes who indulge the habit of
using such stimulants. The most common intoxicating liquor drunk by the
natives is what is here called arrack. It is distilled from rice, and
is highly intoxicating.” Toddy, or the juice of the palm, itself highly
inebriating, the same writer tells us, is distilled into a strong liquor
called Pariah arrack, and is largely drunk by the half-castes and lowest
classes. It is further fortified, another writer says, by being mixed
with _Datura stramonium_, a powerful narcotic.[76] (_Datura stramonium_,
as the reader is doubtless aware, is used in England for the adulteration
of beer.) The drink referred to, along with another intoxicating liquor
called bhang or bang, and prepared from the hemp plant (_Cannabis
sativa_), seems in the present day to be the commonest, and at the same
time the most deleterious, that is used by the worst class of drunkards
in India.
In some portions of Central India there is at one period of the year a
great amount of drunkenness and debauchery in every rank of society,
and strangely enough this takes place, as of old, in connection with
religious observances. These saturnalia have been referred to by several
travellers and writers on India. Fraser in his tour to the sources of the
Jumna and Ganges witnessed them in various places near the first-named
river, and generally at the foot of the Himalayas. He says that the
liquors drunk were manufactured from grains of various kinds as well
as from the grape, and that the natives of all classes drank them to
the accompaniments of music and dancing at the ceremony of bathing
the images of their gods in the waters of the Jumna. The men kept on
dancing all the day, and in the evening were joined indiscriminately
by the women, who supported the dancing and revelry till the night was
far advanced. This frantic kind of worship lasted for several days,
until their liquor was exhausted. A more recent traveller has given a
graphic and painful account of these saturnalia as they are practised at
the present time.[77] He first witnessed them at Oudeypoor during the
festival of the Holi which marks the arrival of spring, and says: “The
carnival lasts several days, during which the most licentious debauchery
and disorder reign throughout every class of society. It is the regular
saturnalia of India. Persons of the greatest respectability, without
regard to rank or age, are not ashamed to take part in orgies which mark
this season of the year.” “Towards the middle of the month of Thalgun
the revels reach their climax. Troops of men and women, wreathed with
flowers and drunk with bang, crowd the streets carrying sacks full of
a bright red vegetable powder. With this they assail the passers-by,
covering them with clouds of dust, which soon dye their clothes a
startling colour. No one is spared. The King and nobles throw off all
restraint and give themselves up to mirth and revelry. The nautch girls
enjoy unbounded liberty during the carnival They have special dances for
the occasion, when all propriety is forgotten.” “Major Nixon advised
me to go and see the sports.... Men, women, and children crowned with
flowers appeared completely intoxicated. Never have I seen so revolting
a spectacle. Groups of native wretches dead drunk were wallowing in the
gutters, and at every step the most disgusting debauchery was exhibited
with unblushing effrontery.” The writer witnessed and describes similar
scenes, though not of quite so gross a character, at Rajnuggur in
Chutterpore.
Notwithstanding these saturnalia, however, which are disgraceful
alike to governors and governed, the general opinion of those who are
acquainted with India is that, on the whole, the people are temperate.
The author has been assured by one friend who has visited most of the
large cities, and who resided three years at Bombay, that during the
whole of that period he never saw a native intoxicated in the streets;
that the higher classes amongst the Hindoos and Parsees (to whom we shall
refer hereafter), although they offer wine to their European guests
during their visits, refrain from drinking it themselves, and that any
drunkenness which may exist in the most civilised portions of the country
is confined entirely to Englishmen and the lowest castes of the native
population.
It is impossible to pass away from this phase of the subject without
uttering a word of caution as regards the future social condition of
our Indian Empire. We hear a great deal about the bugbear of an invasion
of India by the Russians, and if it were known that a statesman of any
eminence was about to address our House of Commons on that question, its
benches would be filled with eager listeners; but let any legislator or
philanthropist, however great his reputation, take up the subject of the
opium traffic, a detestable trade, which is not only a chronic curse to a
great neighbouring empire, but which may at any time become a scourge to
our own fellow-subjects, and we may rest assured that his audience would
be of the most limited. And so, too, as regards all matters which concern
the happiness and welfare of the people of India. But when we look at the
facility which exists there for the distillation of ardent spirits from
rice, the attention of our Legislature should be earnestly directed to
the evil that might result from their more general use, in case the means
of purchasing them were facilitated by greater prosperity. It should be
one of the chief cares of the Home and Colonial Governments to provide
for the education and training of the poorer natives, so that they may
learn to make a wise use of their increasing resources.
Those who have read accounts of military life in India fifty or a
hundred years back are aware that there has been a marked diminution in
drunkenness amongst the English of late years, and it is to be hoped that
the same causes which have led to a decided improvement in that respect
amongst our middle class at home will likewise operate in India, and
that our countrymen there may soon present that example of sobriety and
dignity which should always characterise the dominant race.[78]
CHAPTER IV.
THE ZEND-AVESTA AND THE FOLLOWERS OF ZOROASTER—THE MODERN
PERSIANS—MOHAMMEDAN LAW CONCERNING DRINK AND DRINKING PRACTICES—THE
PARSEES OF INDIA.
Although the social history of the branch of the Aryan family, which at
a very early period spread itself over Persia and other parts of Asia,
presents many features in common with that of the races described in our
last chapter, yet we are bound to devote a few pages to the consideration
of the followers of Zoroaster, partly to compare them with their modern
descendants, and also in order that we may deal with the Mohammedan
reform of drunkenness. This is the less to be regretted, as the close
resemblance, in many respects, between the religious ceremonies of the
two races is a guarantee of the accuracy with which both have been
described in the ancient records. The literature of the Zoroastrian epoch
is believed by some historians to extend back as far as 2800 B.C., but
the period when the great master himself flourished is purely mythical.
Like many of the ancient religious records, it is held by modern scholars
to have grown gradually into a series of books, which assumed a definite
form about 1000 years B.C. These sacred books—the Yaçna, the Vispered,
and the Vendidad, collectively known as the Zend-Avesta—contain a great
deal that serves to enlighten us concerning the habits of the people for
whose moral and religious guidance they were compiled. The chief facts
may be gathered from the directions given for the performance of the
sacrifices, more especially that of “homa” or “haoma,” the “soma” of
the Brahmans.[79] At that rite an intoxicating liquor was used that was
prepared from a plant, concerning which we only know that it had yellow
blossoms, and that the drink was called “parahaoma.” A similar drink
to parahaoma, we are told, is taken in small quantities by the Parsee
priests at the present day during their religious ceremonies.[80] Thus
it will be seen that in two important particulars the Brahminical and
Zoroastrian rites were almost identical; and as “soma” in Sanskrit was
“homa” in Zend, so the other intoxicating drink of the Vedas, namely,
“sura,” is changed to “hura” in Zend; and we find in one place that
a penance is enjoined upon sinners, namely, “to feed eighteen pure,”
_i.e._, religious men, with meat and hura or wine.[81] And finally,
the Hotar or high priest of the Brahmans was Zaŏtar amongst the Zend
worshippers. But that leads us to a most important difference between
the two religions; for whilst intoxication seems to have been a cardinal
feature in the ceremonies of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, although
they permitted, and even prescribed, the use of inebriating drink in
theirs, strictly forbade the practice of drunkenness. Indeed, it was
considered to be the work of Agromanyus or Angrô-Mainyus (Ahriman), the
power hostile to Ahura-Mazda or Ahuro-Mazdâo (Ormuzd), the almighty god
of the Zoroastrians; and even to simulate intoxication was regarded as
sinful.
But neither of the two liquors, homa and sura, seems to have been
employed by the lower classes in the sense in which it is used by the
populace to-day. A third and very deleterious drink called “banga”
is mentioned in the Zend-Avesta. It is there personified as a bad
spirit, and is named in conjunction with two others as the demon of
intoxication.[82] Like the modern bang, referred to in our account
of India, it is believed to have been extracted from the hemp plant
(_Cannabis sativa_); and it may be interesting to mention that the same
substance, somewhat modified in each case, is used in Turkey under the
name of “hadschy,” in Arabia as “hashish,” and by the Hottentots as
“dacha,” producing in all instances an intoxicating effect.
Whatever may have been the means employed in the earliest times, there
is no doubt that, notwithstanding the prohibitions and denunciations
of their religion, the ancient Persians were much addicted to
intoxication.[83] Of that we have evidence in the pages of Herodotus the
Greek historian,[84] who says that they were in the habit of discussing
most public affairs of importance under the influence of wine, and
that the landlord of the house where they met kept a record of their
decisions, which he submitted for their approval on the following day. If
these still met with their approbation, they were adopted and carried
into effect. _Per contra_, if they came to any resolution whilst they
were sober, it was reconsidered and approved or disapproved under the
influence of drink.[85]
The same historian also tells us that Cyrus gave a feast to the Persians
in which he provided rich wines;[86] and the following story is narrated
concerning that monarch, showing the excess to which drinking was carried
in his day.[87] Cyrus made war upon Tomyris, queen of the Massagetæ, a
race living in Central Asia, and by the advice of Cræsus the Lydian, he
made a feint of deserting his camp, and left “flowing goblets of wine” to
tempt the enemy to excess. The stratagem succeeded, and when the enemy
was drunk, he attacked him and took the queen’s son prisoner. Cyrus was,
however, ultimately defeated and slain.
The drink here referred to was made from the vine, but Herodotus also
mentions an incident which shows that palm-wine was drunk in the time
of Cambyses (B.C. 529-522). “He (Cambyses) sent the Ichthyophagæ into
Ethiopia with the following gifts, to wit, a purple robe, a gold
chain for the neck, armlets, an alabaster box of myrrh, and a cask of
palm-wine.” The king of the Ethiops was greatly delighted with those
gifts, and “last of all he came to the palm-wine, and having learned
their way of making it, he drank a draught, which greatly delighted
him.”[88]
Down to the time of the Saracen conquest of Persia in the first century
of the Hegira (A.D. 621), we have no reason to believe that any serious
attempt was made to suppress drunkenness, but by the Mohammedans the use
of intoxicating drink was at least nominally forbidden. The interdiction
is found in the fifth chapter of the Koran, and runs as follows:—“O
true believers, surely wine, and lots, and images, and divining arrows,
are an abomination of the work of Satan; therefore avoid them that ye
may prosper. Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred amongst you
by means of wine and lots, and to divert you from remembering God and
from prayer; will ye not therefore abstain from them?”[89] But the same
sacred volume of the Mohammedans also contains at least one if not more
phrases which would seem to justify as legitimate the use of intoxicating
drinks in moderation. In the sixteenth chapter, amongst God’s gifts
we find, “And of the fruits of palm trees and of grapes ye obtain an
inebriating liquor, and also good nourishment.”[90] Notwithstanding the
argumentative aspect of the question, however, Mussulmans themselves
regard wine and other intoxicating liquors as unlawful, and a very large
proportion of the faith, wherever they are found, really abstain from
their use. That the abstinence is, however, far from universal, we find
not only in considering the habits of those who reside in Persia, but
also in Turks, Arabians, and Egyptians.[91] That drunkenness was not
suppressed in Persia is evident from the various stories narrated to
and by travellers, the debauchery of successive rulers, and the known
consumption of large quantities of wine there in modern times. Morewood
describes with great minuteness the Persian mode of making wine from
the grape, and a kind of brandy which has long been distilled from the
lees and weaker kinds of wine. Several descriptions of wine are named by
him, of which Shiraz is the most highly esteemed; and quoting Tavernier,
a traveller in Persia, he says that in his time 4125 tuns of that wine
alone were made annually.[92] Later writers confirm these statements, and
Klemm, one of the ablest German sociologists, says that in Tavernier’s
time a drink called, “bengueh,” prepared from herbs and fortified with
hempseeds, was largely drunk. This liquor is evidently the “banga” of
the Zoroastrians; and Klemm states that in the royal library at Dresden
there is a valuable illuminated Persian MS. relating to its preparation
and use. He also says that in the present day, in some houses in Persia,
a kind of brandy called “kokemaar” is given to guests, and that it is
prepared from the kernels of fruits, and is intoxicating in the highest
degree.[93]
Fraser says of the Mohammedans of Persia that in private they often
solace themselves with copious libations from the wine-cup; that “in
truth many of the Persians are great topers in spite of the prohibition
of their Prophet; and when they betake themselves to this kind of
pastime, they seldom stop short of absolute intoxication.... They see no
disgrace in drunkenness, and envy Christians the supposed privilege of
getting tipsy when they choose, without check or reproach.”[94] A still
more recent traveller and author has published a graphic account of life
in Persia which fully confirms these statements. Arthur Arnold says, “I
have never seen people drink ardent spirits in such large quantities
as some Mohammedans of station whom I met in travel. A Moslem prince
lately asked me why I drank wine. ‘It does not make you drunk. _I_ take
arrack,’ he added. English doctors in the East are frequently summoned
to cases of _delirium tremens_.... The rich Moslem drinks privately, the
non-Mussulman publicly. The Moslem drinks at night, the non-Mussulman at
all times.”[95] Perhaps a majority of Mohammedans, he says, would refuse
to drink intoxicating liquors, but taking a large body of servants, very
few will regard the Koran as our Good Templars. Amongst the wandering
tribes he found the prohibition quite unheeded, and the remarks which he
makes concerning their customs, without any special intention to treat of
their drinking habits, afford the best evidence of their intemperance.
In one place,[96] describing a native dinner-party, he says, “A servant
walked round the room carrying a large bottle of arrack in one hand and
wine in the other. The Khan took half a tumbler of the fiery spirit,
and drank it off without winking; most of the guests preferred arrack.”
Elsewhere he says, “The arrack and wine circulated.” He describes amongst
the towns which he visited one he calls a temperance city.[97] “In Koom
we found it impossible to refill our empty wine bottles. Something
stronger than the Maine Liquor Law prevails in this sacred city, and
in that of Meshed, where the brother of Fatima is buried. Intoxicating
liquors appear absolutely unattainable, and intoxication is accomplished
by those who desire that condition by bhang or opium.”
Mr. Arnold is one of those who consider that the Koran does not
absolutely prohibit the use of stimulants, but only excess. He, however,
seems to acknowledge that practically they are forbidden to Mussulmans.
The reflection which naturally occurs to one who reads this account of
the ancient and modern Persians, the Zoroastrians of old, and the modern
Mohammedans who succeeded them, is that the mere prohibition of the
use of intoxicating drinks, even if it has the sanction of religion,
is not of itself sufficient to mould a people into sobriety. Where
there is wealth without intelligence and education, and the passions
are strong, as amongst the higher classes in the East, and in the West
too, for that matter, “not even the sages,” as the old Chinese writer
has it, “will prevent men from indulging in strong drink.” Hence the
Mohammedans in Persia and elsewhere, although their religion strictly
forbids its use, and although, as Mr. Arnold says, the majority may even
be abstainers, cannot safely be set down as a race confirmed in habits of
temperance. But, strictly speaking, we should not here have treated of
the Mohammedans, who are not the descendants of the ancient Zoroastrians,
and we must close this chapter with a brief reference to the existing
community which lays claim to that title—the Parsees of India. Their
head-quarters are notably in Bombay, and they are a small, enlightened,
and comparatively wealthy community, comprising in all not over 105,500
souls,[98] or, according to their historian and champion, Dosabhoy
Framjee, somewhat over 110,000.[99] The last-named writer has a high
opinion of the sobriety of his co-religionists, and says that although
“wines are then (at supper) consumed in large quantities by those who can
afford them, it is a fact creditable to the Parsees generally that they
drink no intoxicating liquors during the day.” But Mr. Arnold has told
us of the Mohammedans that they, too, drink at night only, and we know a
few Englishmen who do the same, and yet cannot be called sober; so that
is no sure guide. We are, however, quite prepared to receive the author’s
statement in perfect good faith, for it is notorious that they are a
community standing in very high moral repute, in which they resemble
the modern Jews, Quakers, and Unitarians. This is attributable to their
small numbers, comparative isolation, and to the almost entire absence of
pauperism in their body. Mr. Framjee, however, gives us some statistics
of which he does not appear to have noticed the significance. He took the
trouble to analyse the census of Bombay shortly before 1858, and he gives
us an account of the various occupations followed by his co-religionists.
Amongst them he names the following, it being understood that the numbers
include the wives and families of the workers:—
417 Bakers and confectioners.
5,468 Domestic servants.
61,298 Bankers, brokers, and merchants.
5,656 Priests.
11,028 Writers and accountants, about one-half of whom are in
Government employ.
127 Vagrants.
826 _Tavern-keepers_.
5,227 _Liquor sellers_, distillers, and palm-wine drawers.
The small number of vagrants shows, as already stated, that there is
comparatively little poverty in the community; but what of the 417 bakers
as against 6053 purveyors of drink? “Oh monstrous! but one halfpenny
worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!”
If we are to judge from these statistics, the Parsees would appear to be
amongst the wealthiest, the most enlightened, and religious members of
Indian society, and if they would only be as considerate towards their
neighbours in other religious communities in the matter of drink as they
are cautious in their own, they might be reckoned the salt of the earth.
No doubt we shall be reminded by some intelligent Parsee that there is no
need for us to go abroad in search of illustrations for such a doctrine,
and that even the titles of honour which have been conferred upon members
of his community in India for services rendered to the cause of morality,
are also lavished upon “liquor sellers” and “tavern-keepers” at home.
That is unfortunately so; but it is still worthy of consideration with
the descendants of an ancient race, themselves highly esteemed and
honoured for their intelligence and for their many virtues, whether
they could not do something towards removing this great blot from their
escutcheon.
CHAPTER V.
THE ANCIENT HEBREWS—THE SCRIPTURE CONTROVERSY CONCERNING DRINK—THE
OLD TESTAMENT AND THE TALMUD—THE NEW TESTAMENT—JESUS CHRIST—JOHN THE
BAPTIST—ST. PAUL—THE MODERN HEBREWS.
It is unnecessary that we should enter into particulars concerning the
history of the Semitic race as narrated in the Bible, and we shall
endeavour to avoid anything like the discussion of Jewish or Christian
theological doctrines. There is, however, a controversy concerning the
authority of Scripture upon the question of temperance, or rather total
abstinence from intoxicating drink, which it is impossible to ignore.
Concisely stated, it is this: There are (amongst others) two words used
in Scripture to denote the juice of the grape, namely, _Tirosh_, which is
generally supposed to mean “must,” or the unfermented juice; and _Yayin_,
or wine. There is also a third word, _Schechar_ or _Schecar_, which
means all strong drink excepting wine.[100] Writers on total abstinence
maintain that both the Old and New Testament clearly discountenance the
use of intoxicating drink, and that when wine is spoken of as being
permitted, _Tirosh_ or “must” is meant, whilst there are numerous
denunciations of wine proper (_Yayin_), and of strong drink.[101] One
of our most learned biblical commentators has said: “We question whether
the critics who have adopted these views have not driven their arguments
beyond their fair conclusions;”[102] and we are bound to say that, after
carefully considering the matter, we entirely agree with him. The account
which we shall give of the drinking habits of the ancient Hebrews will
refute these doctrines, but it will serve to clear the way if we devote
a page or two to the preliminary consideration of the subject from the
temperance point of view.
One of the writers named refers to a passage in Micah vi. 15, which says,
“Thou shalt tread the _grape-fruit_, but shalt not drink wine;”[103]
and this he construes to mean that the grape-fruit is a “permitted
enjoyment,” but that wine is not to be drunk. The reader may judge for
himself whether that is the correct interpretation. Micah vi. 13, says
to the children of Israel, “Therefore also will I make thee sick in
smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.” Ver. 14 says,
“Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied,” &c. &c. Ver. 15 (the one under
consideration) says, “_Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou
shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and
sweet wine_,” (translated grape-fruit by the temperance writer), “_but
shalt not drink wine_.”
If the construction put upon the words “but shalt not drink wine” were
the proper one, it would be just as correct to say that the Bible forbids
anointing with oil. The fact is, a curse is put upon Israel, and the
_blessings_ referred to are to be withheld. The same expressions occur
elsewhere, and are similarly misconstrued; as, for example, the writer
just referred to quotes Isaiah xxiv. 9, “They shall not drink wine with
a song,”[104] which he calls a “warning example.” And here he has been
either very careless, or something less pardonable, for he quotes half
a sentence. We will give the context as completely as possible, for we
think it will serve to satisfy the reader’s mind on the whole question.
Ver. 3, “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the
Lord hath spoken this word.” Ver. 6, “Therefore hath the curse devoured
the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate,” &c. Ver. 8, “The
mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy
of the harp ceaseth.” Ver. 9, “_They shall not drink wine with a song;
strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it._”
The true interpretation of the text seems to us to be that the enjoyments
which the Hebrews believed to be permitted to them, music, wine, and
strong drink, were, owing to their disobedience, withheld by Jehovah, or
deprived of their enjoyable accompaniments. Beyond these two examples of
what appears to us misleading in the arguments of our temperance friends,
we cannot further trespass upon our space. Nor is such reasoning at all
necessary in their cause, for the Old and New Testaments both contain
ample testimony of an incontrovertible character in favour of temperance,
nay, even in encouragement of total abstinence.
* * * * *
The reader who is completely unprejudiced will find, on investigating
the ancient writings, that very similar views were entertained by the
Hebrews in regard to wine and other intoxicating drinks as were held
by other Oriental races. Just as did the Brahmans and Vedic people, so
the Jews burned wine upon the altar, believing it to be gratifying to
Jehovah; and we find in the Old Testament examples of anthropomorphism
almost as gross as that in the Vedas.[105] The drinking of wine, too,
was one of the most important features in their celebration of their
festivals,[106] and the esteem in which it was held by the Rabbins is
proved by the fact that they instituted a special form of grace to be
recited before drinking it, whereas a general formula is presented for
use before partaking of any other liquor;[107] and the songs in the
Temple were, according to the Talmud, sung only over wine.[108] That the
wine employed was strong there can be little doubt, for it was found
necessary to mix it with water for ceremonial purposes, the proportions
used being three of water to one of wine.[109] As in the days of the
reformed Brahmans, and always with the followers of Zoroaster, the
priests were forbidden to take wine or strong drink before performing
their duties in the Tabernacle,[110] and the Nazarite was to abstain
entirely during his probation. “He shall separate himself from wine and
strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong
drink; neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes
or dried.” But when his probation was finished, “after that the Nazarite
may drink wine.”[111] The Rechabites were total abstainers. They had
neither vineyards nor fields, but dwelt in tents;[112] in fact, they led
a nomad life, and some biblical critics consider that alone to have been
the cause of their abstinence—an opinion which quite agrees with that of
Mr. Crawfurd concerning wandering savages, referred to at the conclusion
of our first chapter.[113] Under certain circumstances all Hebrews
were admonished not to take intoxicating drink; as, for example, “When
trouble comes to a congregation,” then “eating of flesh and drinking
of wine” were forbidden; and if they disobeyed this injunction, “such
iniquity shall not be purged from you until ye die, saith the Lord God of
hosts.”[114]
As we have already shown, however, wine not only entered into all
religious ceremonies (indeed it formed part of the tithes of the
priests), but, taken in moderation, it was regarded as one of the chief
blessings which Jehovah had conferred upon the Israelites, and in that
sense it is continually found coupled with corn, oil, or milk.[115]
Sometimes it is even compared with the Word of God itself. “Ho, every one
of ye that thirsteth, come ye to the water; and he, too, that hath no
money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy without money and without
price, wine and milk.”[116] “Wherefore has the Word of God been likened
to wine and milk?” asked the old Rabbins, and the answer was, “As these
fluids cannot be preserved in golden vessels but only in earthenware, so
those minds will be the best receptacles of learning which are found in
homely bodies.”[117]
Intoxicating drinks were prepared in Judea from various natural products;
from grapes, pomegranates, the palm tree, apples, dates, and other
fruits. Before pressing the grape, a quantity of the “must” or sweet
juice was allowed to flow spontaneously, as we shall find to have been
the practice also in ancient Rome, and that was either drunk in its fresh
condition, or was preserved for the finer kinds of wine. The juice was
allowed to ferment in bottles, and either the wine so produced, or some
other intoxicating beverage, was largely used by the Hebrews. It was
brought out on occasions of hospitality,[118] at festivals, and was given
to criminals before they were led to execution, for “wine banishes fear,”
said the Rabbins.[119]
As we have already stated, it must have been strong, for it was largely
diluted with water; and, as might naturally be expected, it was often
drunk to excess, even at the earliest period, and by some of the leaders
of the people. Noah, who is believed by some commentators to have been
the first to plant vines, was found intoxicated in his tent;[120] and
Lot’s daughters made their father drunk, and caused him to commit an
unnatural crime.[121]
It would tire the reader’s patience to extract from the Old Testament
many proofs of the existence of drunkenness and its evil effects upon the
ancient Hebrews; and although it is but due to them to say that their
purer faith was accompanied by greater morality than we find in some
other ancient races, still drunkenness, with all its attendant vices and
crimes, must have prevailed to a great extent then, as it does in modern
society, and it was denounced with equal vehemence. The same results
accompanied or followed a drinking bout in the days of Solomon as in
every other age. “Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions?
Who hath babblings? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of
eyes? They that tarry long at the wine. They that go to seek mixed wine.
Look not thou upon wine when it is red, when it giveth colour to the
cup, when it moveth itself aright. At last, it biteth like a serpent; it
stingeth like an adder.”[122] “Woe unto them that rise up early in the
morning that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night,
until wine inflame them.”[123] The same heart-burnings existed, and the
same grief to parents when their sons went to the bad, in those days as
now. The same leniency, too, was manifested towards them, and similar
means were used to wean them from their evil courses. “A king had a son
whom he daily discovered carousing with dissolute companions, eating
and drinking. ‘Eat at my table,’ said the king; ‘eat and drink, my son,
even as pleaseth thee, but let it be at my table, and not with dissolute
companions.’”[124] What a text is the following for a temperance
discourse:—“And they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy
for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.”[125] In
this short verse, the foulest depravities of ancient and modern days have
been concentrated. The practice of nameless vices, the tears and wailing
of the child torn away from its parent, reminding one of the wretch who,
in our days, will barter his wife for a pot of beer; the deserted home,
the last shred gone to pawn, and all “that they might drink.” Surely
no straining of texts, no misconstruction of words, is needed by the
temperance advocate whilst such lessons as this may be read from the
Sacred Book.
And now let us turn to the New Testament. There, too, we find wine spoken
of without disfavour if not taken in excess, drunkenness denounced, and
in one or two cases total abstinence commended. John the Baptist was
an ascetic and a total abstainer from all the luxuries of life. Jesus
Christ was neither one nor the other of these; He lived and moved freely
in society, participated in its enjoyments, and encouraged that which
He regarded as innocent in its customs. He drank wine Himself and gave
it to others. Of John it was predicted before his birth, “He shall be
great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink;” and he lived upon locusts and honey.[126] On the other hand,
comparing himself with John, Jesus said, “For John the Baptist came
neither eating nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil. The Son of
man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold, a gluttonous man
and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”[127] The evidence
that Christ favoured the use of wine is found in the first and the last
public acts of His life as narrated in Scripture. According to one of His
historians, His first miracle was the conversion, at a wedding feast, of
six large pots of water into wine.[128] The account of this miracle has
been criticised by temperance advocates with a view to show that the wine
was not intoxicating, but we confess that we are unconvinced by their
reasoning.[129] The governor of the feast said to the bridegroom, “Every
man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well
drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until
now.” From this it is clear that one of the customs of Rome (as we shall
find when we come to consider the scarcity of wine in the earlier days
of that empire) was also followed in Judea, and that as men became less
able to distinguish between good and bad wine, the latter was introduced.
As we have heard, by the way, this is still done by dishonest landlords
even in our day. To reconcile this act of Christ with the views of
temperance advocates is not our duty. We have only to state the fact,
and to explain, so far as we are able, its plain meaning. Almost the
last recorded injunction of Jesus to His disciples was to drink wine in
remembrance of Him—an act which has grown into a religious observance
practised by nearly all professing Christians of the present day,
whatever may be their theological views concerning His true nature. It is
obvious, therefore, that Jesus cannot have had any conscientious scruples
about drinking wine Himself, or recommending its use to His companions.
The last Hebrew authority whose teachings concerning drink it will be
necessary to consider is St. Paul. Whilst deprecating coercion and
tolerating the temperate use of drink, he undoubtedly commended total
abstinence as an example to those who were unable to control themselves.
To Timothy he said, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for
thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.”[130] “A bishop,” he
remarked, “must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober,
of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine,
not greedy of filthy lucre. Likewise must the deacons be grave, not
double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre.”[131]
It is obvious that avarice, gluttony, and drunkenness were then prevalent
vices, and, as we shall find when the customs of Rome are under
consideration, they had assumed their most glaring and repulsive form in
that city. To his co-religionists in Rome, therefore, Paul addressed the
most earnest exhortations, enjoining total abstinence as an example. To
them he said distinctly, “It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink
wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or
is made weak.”[132] At the same time, as we have said, he deprecated
the wholesale condemnation of persons who thought fit to enjoy these
luxuries in moderation. “For one,” he said, “believeth that he may eat
all things; another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him who eateth
despise him that eateth not, and let not him which eateth not judge him
that eateth; for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another
man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth.”[133] But of
drunkenness he spoke in very different terms. “Let us walk honestly,” he
said to the Roman Christians, “not in rioting and drunkenness;”[134] and
elsewhere he ranks drunkards with thieves and extortioners, and even goes
so far as to deny them salvation.[135]
Before concluding this imperfect commentary upon the teachings of the
Scriptures concerning drink, as they will naturally possess great
interest for English readers, it will be useful to consider briefly their
bearing upon the condition of modern society. The expression “gin and
gospel” has become a byword in relation to this subject. It originates in
the fact that in all ancient faiths the drinking of alcoholic beverages
was associated with religious observances and festivals, a custom which
is still upheld by a mistaken conservatism. Because the ancient Hebrews,
Persians, Brahmans and Chinese believed strong drink to be acceptable
offerings to their respective deities, and made such offerings part of
their religious ceremonies, it does not follow that in our somewhat more
enlightened day the modern Jews, Parsees, and Christians should continue
to follow the same practices in a modified form. As a ceremony, the use
of drink in connection with religious observances can have but little
influence or significance, whilst it is becoming daily more injurious as
an example.[136]
As regards the common use in moderation of certain fermented liquors, it
is clear that it never has been, and cannot be to-day, placed in the
same category with the excessive consumption of any alcoholic beverage,
or the free use of such strong drinks as spirituous liquors; and those
temperance reformers who class them together defeat their own aims,
which are worthy of the highest commendation. For it will be found, on
reviewing the whole question carefully, that it is not the liquors which
are consumed with solid food that are the operating causes of national
or individual drunkenness. The Frenchman does not get drunk on red wine,
nor the German on lager-bier. Absinthe and schnapps are the destructive
agents there, just as gin, and not Barclay’s stout or Bass’s ale, do the
business in England. The matter needs careful consideration, not under
the influence of passion or fanaticism (the latter often the result of
a reaction from over-indulgence), but after a calm investigation of the
predisposing causes of intemperance in every age. It is not, however,
intended in these remarks to prejudge the whole debated question of
“temperance or total abstinence;” that question will be dealt with in
the proper place. All we desire to do here is to show the fallacy of
attempting to extinguish intemperance by reducing all men to one level,
and seeking authority for such a proceeding in Scripture.
Little need be said of the drinking habits of the modern Jews. They
are notoriously a sober race both in England and elsewhere, and their
temperance is due mainly to two causes. First, they are a small
community, and their partial isolation from the other religious
denominations has a tendency to make them careful of their morals.
The most important reason, however, is that they do not follow any
avocations which necessitate great physical exertions. Thus we seldom
find them working as artisans or day-labourers; so that there is no great
bodily waste to be repaired; and they are, moreover, removed from the
temptations to excessive drinking to which the great mass of our working
population is exposed. Amongst Jews of the middle classes there is more
intemperance. They mix more freely with Christians, and their long fasts
are not unfrequently followed by a degree of self-indulgence which, many
will think, deprives some of their old religious observances of any merit
that they may possess. As already remarked, however, as a whole the Jews
are a sober and exemplary race, whose habits in that respect are well
worthy of universal imitation.
CHAPTER VI.
ANCIENT EGYPT.
The last branch of the human family, whose history reaches back to the
earliest historic period, which will occupy our attention, though it be
only for a brief space, is that which inhabited Egypt. Our information
concerning the drinking habits of the ancient Egyptians is derived not
only from sacred writings, but also from those of the Greek and Roman
historians, and it is, moreover, confirmed from an entirely independent
source, namely, from the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the ancient
monuments of the country which have been preserved to our time.
There was a tradition, which we shall pass over without comment, that
Isis or Osiris was the inventor of intoxicating drink; but we have very
good ground for believing that at the time of the deliverance of the
Israelites from Egypt wine was already in common use there. That it was
drunk at court may be gathered from the dream of Pharaoh’s butler,[137]
and the hieroglyphics and pictures found on the ancient monuments which
were coeval with or antecedent to that period,[138] demonstrate further
that it was consumed by other classes of society, and that they must
have been much addicted to drunkenness. At Beni-Hassan and Thebes,
representations of wine-presses have been found, of which there appear to
have been two kinds. One consisted of a long bag supported horizontally
in an upright frame, and capable of being twisted so that the grapes
which it contained were forced to yield their juices. In the engraving
two men are depicted in the operation of squeezing the bag. The other
is a foot-press, upon which several men are seen stamping upon the
grapes with their feet. Other representations exhibit men engaged in the
vineyards, or drawing wine from the vats into jars, servants handing cups
to guests, and others carrying their masters home drunk from a party. In
one case, the truth compels us to add, that a maid is seen approaching
her mistress with a basin, into which the drink she has taken is being
regurgitated after a fashion that gallantry forbids us further to
describe.[139] Although we have such trustworthy evidence that wine was
consumed in Egypt in the time of Pharaoh (for some of the monuments are
probably of a much older date), and that drunkenness was not an uncommon
vice, yet for accuracy’s sake we must mention that Herodotus, who lived
B.C. 484, distinctly states that grapes were not grown in Egypt. He
says,[140] “With respect to the Egyptians themselves, ... their drink
is a wine which they obtain from barley, as they have no vines in their
country.” Pliny, who lived much later (A.D. 23), but whose writings refer
to a period many centuries antecedent, says nothing about the absence of
vines in Egypt, but he also speaks of the beer made by them from “corn
steeped in water;” and he adds the quaint remark, “Alas! what wondrous
skill, and yet how misplaced. Means have absolutely been discovered for
getting drunk even upon water.”[141]
As in the religious ceremonies of almost all, if not all ancient peoples,
so in Egypt, too, wine was offered to the gods. Two kinds of vases were
principally employed for that purpose, and one of considerable height
was on grand occasions carried before the king in processions. Coming
down to a later period in Egyptian history, that is to say, about the
commencement of the Christian era, we find that wine was not only
consumed in that country, but it was even exported to Europe. Athenæus,
a comedy writer who lived in Egypt, and subsequently in Rome, about A.D.
230, mentions several kinds of Egyptian wine which were highly prized in
Greece and Italy. One was called the mareotic wine, which took its name
from a fountain called Marea, in the district of Alexandria, and from a
town of the same name.[142] This wine is described as white, sweet, good
for the breath, and digestible, and a special recommendation is that
“it never produces any ill effect on the head.” The reader must not,
however, infer from this that sobriety was the order of the day in the
time of Athenæus, for he will soon be undeceived on that score. Other
descriptions of Egyptian wine are mentioned by the same author, and
the best of all appears to have been the wine of Antylla, a city near
Alexandria, the revenues from the sale of which, he says, “the kings of
those ages—both the Egyptian and Persian kings—used to give to their
wives as pin-money.” Here, again, we have independent evidence of the
antiquity of wine in Egypt; for the period referred to by Athenæus must
have been long prior to his day. His writings, to which we shall have
occasion to refer in a succeeding chapter, give anything but a flattering
account of the ancient Egyptians, and according to him they must have
been great topers. “Now, that the Egyptians really are fond of wine,”
he says, “this is a proof that they are the only people amongst whom it
is a custom at their feasts to eat boiled cabbages before all the rest
of their food, and even to this very time they do so. And many people
add cabbage seed to potions which they prepare as preventives against
drunkenness. And wherever a vineyard has cabbages growing in it, there
the wine is weaker.”[143] And then the author, as is his custom, clenches
his assertion with corroborative testimony, chiefly in the form of
extracts from the writings of older authors. Two of these, which are in
verse, we will transcribe just as he gives them, for the amusement of our
readers:—
“And Eubulus says, somewhere or other:
‘Wife, quick! some cabbage boil, of virtuous healing,
That I may rid me of this seedy feeling!’”
“And so Alexis says:
‘Last evening, you were drinking deep,
So now your head aches. Go to sleep:
Take some boiled cabbage when you wake,
And there’s an end of your headache!’”
Although much might be added to this brief reference to the drink and
drinking habits of the ancient Egyptians, that is rendered needless
by the fact that similar customs prevailed in Rome, and those will be
treated at greater length hereafter. We will therefore simply add, in
conclusion, that however excellent a means boiled cabbage may have been
for alleviating drunken headaches, the sword of Islam proved a far
more efficacious and permanent cure, for, as already stated elsewhere,
abstinence, if not universal, is at least the rule of that faith in
modern Egypt and Arabia.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DRINKING CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME.
Thus far we have considered, although superficially, the habits of
those primitive races whose origin is lost in the obscurity of myths
and legends; but we have been able to gather, even from the imperfect
records that have been handed down to us, certain trustworthy information
relating to the subject.
We have ascertained that it is impossible to retrace the history of any
of the nations of antiquity to a period when strong drink was unknown
and intoxication was not practised. We know beyond a doubt that various
productions of the soil, the palm tree, the hemp plant, several shrubs,
herbs, and fruits, especially the grape, and also certain cereals, were
employed from the earliest times in the preparation of intoxicating
beverages. We know, too, that it was considered quite legitimate for
all classes, with very few exceptions, to drink these beverages in
moderation, and that amongst the early races of mankind some of them
were deemed worthy of being offered to their gods, and were supposed to
be acceptable to them. Neither can it be doubted that from the beginning
of the world, so far at least as our records of its history extend,
intemperance existed, and that it was a concomitant of most of the vices
and crimes which it impels men to commit even in our day.
But the imperfection of those records which we have consulted has
prevented us from travelling over the whole life-history of a nation as
we shall be able to do hereafter, for as we follow the migrations of the
great Aryan family from East to West, from Asia into Europe, travelling
downwards on the stream of history, we shall obtain a clearer insight
into the social customs of the time, and be better able to judge of their
relations with its political history. The great empires of Greece and
Rome constitute a connecting link between the ancient and modern world,
and we shall find it profitable to study the history of drink in those
countries, not only on account of its intrinsic interest, but because of
the lessons which it conveys in regard to the present and probable future
of our race.
In Greece the origin of wine and wine-bibbing belongs to the mythical
age. The discovery of wine was attributed to Dionysus, better known to
modern readers as Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Semele, the daughter
of Cadmus of Thebes.[144] He is said to have travelled in Egypt, Syria,
and parts of Asia, and there to have introduced the manufacture of wine
along with the other arts of civilisation, and on his return to Greece
he was at length acknowledged as a deity through the miracles which he
is said to have performed. After his death he was worshipped as the god
of wine, and the festivals in his honour became more and more riotous
and dissolute, both in Greece and Rome, until they degenerated into
saturnalia of the most disgraceful character. In the latter city they
were entirely suppressed by a consular edict B.C. 186 and a more innocent
festival was substituted. This celebration known as the Liberalia was
held annually on the 16th March, and was made the occasion of investing
all the Roman youths who had attained their sixteenth year with the _toga
virilis_ or vestment of manhood.[145]
We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to the ancient god of wine, but
for the present we must leave him for the purpose of considering another
narrative of the heroic age. Homer, who is variously placed in the
world’s history between 1184 and 684 B.C., also carries us back into the
realm of fiction, and in his pages we find mention made on more than one
occasion of wine and its injurious effects upon those who partook of it
to excess. He tells us, for example, that when Ulysses and his companions
came to the land of the fabled Cyclops, they found it rich in natural
productions which required no human aid to cultivate them. “Trusting to
the gods,” the natives neither plant a plant with their hands nor plough,
but all things unsown, untilled, spring up, wheat, and barley, and vines,
which bear wine from large clusters, and the shower from Jove nourishes
them.[146] In this paradise Ulysses and his companions disembarked, and
finding goats, they killed them and prepared a banquet. They are then
described as feasting on flesh and sweet wine during the whole day until
the setting sun, “for the ruby wine was not yet expended from the ships,
but was in them,” says the chronicler, “for each of us had drawn much
wine in kegs when we captured the sacred citadel of the Ciconians.” After
thus indulging, Ulysses and his companions had the misfortune to fall
into the hands of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who confined them in a cave and
devoured six of them. The monster was, however, unacquainted with the
intoxicating effects of the juice of the grape, and Ulysses succeeded in
making him drunk “with an ivy-wreathed cup of black wine,” and by that
means he effected his escape with his remaining companions.
Thus it would appear that the manufacture of wine from the grape and
its transport from place to place in barrels must have been common in
the days of Homer; and that its intoxicating effects were well known is
obvious, not only from the foregoing extracts, but from various other
portions of the “Odyssey.” Thus, Antinous says to Ulysses, “Sweet wine
hurts thee, which harms others also, whoever takes it too abundantly nor
drinks properly. Wine also inspired the illustrious Centaur Eurytion in
the palace of the magnanimous Pirithous when he came to the Lapithæ, but
he, when he had injured his mind with wine, in madness did wicked deeds
in the house of Pirithous.”[147]
The information which we have thus derived from the ancient poets is
confirmed by the results of modern archæologists. Many of our readers
have no doubt inspected the interesting relics of ancient Troy which
have been brought home by Dr. Schliemann, and are now deposited in South
Kensington Museum. They consist, amongst other articles, of drinking
vessels of various shapes and materials, cast and wrought gold, silver
and earthenware, and of every size, form, and colour. Their precise age
has been disputed, but it is quite unnecessary for our purpose to enter
minutely into this question. The race which used them were evidently
highly convivial in their habits; and in the matter of drinking, at
least, they would seem to have been the originators of many of the
customs of civilised society.
Crossing over once more from Troy into Greece, we find that, at a later
period of its history, the dangers which threatened the nation from
drunkenness became so apparent that in some of the states stringent
measures were taken to enforce abstinence.
The Lacedæmonians were at one time total abstainers,[148] and some
writers go so far as to say that they compelled their helots or slaves to
intoxicate themselves, and to dance indecent dances, and that whilst they
were in that condition they brought their youth to look at them, so that
they might be repelled by the sight, and eschew similar practices.[149]
Be that as it may, temperance and simplicity of life did not long hold
sway in Greece, and all its states, including Sparta, succumbed to habits
of luxury.[150] Of this we have ample proof in the works of the Greek
comedy writers. One of them, Panyasis, a relation of Herodotus, who lived
about 480 B.C., sings in praise of wine as follows:—
“Good wine’s the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven,
Of dance and song the genial sire,
Of friendship gay, and soft desire;
Yet rule it with a tightened rein,
Nor moderate wisdom’s rules disdain;
For when unchecked there’s nought runs faster—
A useful slave, but cruel master.”
Of immoderate drinking the same writer says, “For insolence and ruin
follow it;” and in that view he was supported by many other writers of
his day. Eubulus, for example, who flourished about a century later,
has left some verses which are applicable to other nations and to times
different from that in which he lived and sang. He puts the following
verses upon the lips of Bacchus:—
“Let them three parts of wine all duly season
With nine of water who’d preserve their reason.
The first gives health, the second sweet desires,
The third tranquillity and sleep inspires.
These are the wholesome draughts which wise men please,
Who from the banquet-house return in peace.
From a fourth measure insolence proceeds;
Uproar a fifth; a sixth wild license breeds;
A seventh brings black eyes and livid bruises;
The eighth the constable introduces;
Black gall and hatred lurk the ninth beneath;
The tenth is madness, arms, and fearful death.
For too much wine poured in one little vessel
Trips up all those who seek with it to wrestle.”[151]
Another quotation illustrative of the habits of the times must suffice.
Epicharmus, a Greek by birth, who lived in Sicily even at an earlier
period than either of the preceding, and of whose writings we have many
remains, has left a few lines on the subject of drunkenness which
supplement the above account of its ill effects, and which, alas! apply
to the nineteenth century of our Christian era equally with the period at
which Epicharmus flourished, namely, about 540 B.C.:—
“Then the drinking riot breeds;
Then on riot and confusion
Follow law and prosecution;
Law brings sentence, sentence chains;
Chains bring wounds and ulcerous pains.”[152]
But it is unnecessary that we should follow the history of the drinking
habits of Greece any further, for we find the same excesses to have
prevailed there as we meet with in the relations on the same subject in
Rome, and to that empire, therefore, we must now direct our attention.
* * * * *
The earliest mention made anywhere of wine in Italy is probably that
found in the writings of Varro, the historian, who says that Mezentius,
king of Etruria (contemporary with Æneas of Troy), succoured the Rutuli
against the Latini on condition that he should receive as compensation
all the wine that was in Latium. But although many other writers have
left us information on the subject, it is to Pliny the Elder that we owe
most of the interesting particulars concerning drink and drinking customs
in Rome.[153] From his pages we learn that wine was well known to the
people of that city from its very foundation[154] (about 650 B.C.); for
an anecdote is related that the wife of Egnatius Mecenius was slain by
her husband with a stick because she had drunk wine from a vat (women
being at that time forbidden to drink wine in Rome), and that he was
absolved from the murder by Romulus. The interdiction of wine to women
was in force at a much later period; for Fabius Pictor,[155] in his book
of “Annals,” states that a certain lady, for having opened a purse in
which the keys of the wine-cellar were kept, was starved to death by
her family; and Cato tells us that it was the usage of the men to give
their female relatives a kiss in order to ascertain whether they smelt of
_temetum_, for it was by that name that wine was known; “whence,” says
Pliny, “our word _temulentia_, signifying drunkenness.” Another case is
quoted, which shows that wine was subsequently allowed to women as a
medicine or a tonic. Cn. Domitius, a judge, gave it as his opinion that a
certain woman appeared to him to have drunk more wine than was requisite
for her health, and without her husband’s knowledge, for which reason
he condemned her to lose her dowry. Later on, however, men and women
caroused together freely.
But we must return to the earliest period of Roman history. Wine appears
then to have been very scarce, for King Numa promulgated a decree known
as the Posthumian law, which contained the injunction, “Sprinkle not
the funeral pyre with wine;” and the same edict forbade the employment
of wine as a libation to the gods which was the product of an unpruned
vine. For it appears that the vines were attached to high trees, which
the husbandman was obliged to climb in order to prune them, and as many
accidents, sometimes fatal ones, resulted from this custom, vines were
neglected, and their produce diminished in consequence. But there are
many other proofs of the scarcity of wine in the earlier days of Rome.
Thus L. Papirius, a general, who on one occasion commanded against the
Samnites, when about to engage, vowed an offering to Jupiter of a small
cup of wine if he should gain the victory; and for a considerable time
milk is often mentioned amongst offerings to the gods, but never wine.
Even at that early period, therefore, we know that, however scarce
intoxicating liquor may have been, it was already employed in a variety
of ways. That it was used in religious ceremonies; as a medicine; as an
article of diet, openly by men and secretly by women; and, if we were to
follow closely the course of Roman history, we should find that for those
purposes, and as a luxury, its consumption must have been always on the
increase. Our space will not, however, allow us to do more than refer to
a few illustrative cases, extracted from the pages of Pliny and other
Roman writers, in order to show how drinking increased, and the extent to
which it prevailed at a later period. We have seen that on one occasion
a Roman general offered as a rare gift to the gods a small cup of wine.
That was about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. (333-272). About
a hundred years later, Cato, another Roman general, who did his utmost to
discountenance the growing luxury of his time, whilst on an expedition to
Spain from which he afterwards returned in triumph, would drink no other
wine than such as was served out to his rowers, “very different indeed,”
says the historian, “to the conduct of those who are in the habit of
giving to their guests even inferior wine to that which they drink
themselves, or else contrive to substitute inferior in the course of
their repast.”[156] Still another century later, M. Varro, the historian
(born 116 B.C.), makes the following statement concerning the wines which
were held in high esteem in his day:—“L. Lucullus, when a boy, never saw
an entertainment at his father’s house, however sumptuous it might be,
at which Greek wine was handed round more than once during the repast,
whereas he himself, when he returned from Asia, distributed as a largess
among the people more than a hundred thousand congiaria[157] of the same
wine. C. Sentius, the prætor, used to say that Chian wine never entered
his house unless his physician prescribed it to him for the cardiac
disease; but, on the other hand, Hortensius (50 B.C.) left 10,000 casks
of it to his heir.” About the same period, Pliny tells us[158] that Cæsar
at a banquet given during his third consulship (B.C. 46), gave Falernian,
Chian, Lesbian, and Mamertine wines; “indeed, it is generally agreed that
this was the first occasion on which four different kinds of wine were
served at table. It was after this that all the other sorts came into
such very high repute, somewhere about the year of the city 700.” And
speaking of his own time (A.D. 23-79), he tells us that the luxurious
ways of his countrymen were fully matured. “Wealth, and not merit, had
become the passport to the highest offices, the motives and hopes of
all, therefore, tending to the one great object, the acquisition of
wealth.... We may therefore conclude, by Hercules, that pleasure has now
begun to live, and that life, so called, has ceased to be.”[159] What
would Pliny have said, had he lived in our time?
To the state of Roman society in Pliny’s day we shall return presently,
but although this is not a technical treatise on intoxicating liquors,
it is probable that some of our readers might desire to know something
of the character of the wines to which reference has been made in the
preceding observations, and we will therefore describe as concisely as
circumstances admit the method of their manufacture, and will add one or
two matters of interest bearing upon their use.
The manufacture of wine in Italy and Greece had been brought to great
perfection about the commencement of the Christian era, and from that
time to the fall of the Roman Empire its quality and varieties occupied
the attention of some of the most learned critics and historians. Three
distinct descriptions or qualities of wine were usually pressed from the
same grapes. The first may be compared to “virgin honey,” for it was
merely the juice or “must” which flowed from the fruit through the simple
pressure of the mass of grapes when they were put into the wine-press.
It was called _protrupum_, and was reserved for the manufacture of
a peculiarly fine description of wine. The second quality, _mustum
lixivium_, was the product of the first pressure; and after the grapes
had been completely pressed, the solid mass was taken out and once more
submitted to the same operation. The liquor from the second pressing
was known as _mustum tortivum_, and was used for the manufacture of
inferior wines, or for mixing with the better qualities. The “must” or
sweet juice was transferred to “_dolia_,” long bell-mouthed earthenware
vases, partially sunk in the earth, in an apartment on the ground floor
called the _cella vinaria_, and in these vessels the fermentation took
place, usually lasting nine days. After this, the upper part of the
inside of the _dolia_ having been previously smeared with a composition
of saffron, pitch, mastic, and fir cones, those vessels were closed with
lids, which were taken off from time to time to give air to the contents,
to remove impurities, and to add any substances which were deemed
necessary to give soundness to the wine. From the _dolia_ the finer
kinds of wine were transferred to other vessels called _amphoræ_, made
of earthenware or glass, and closed with a plug of wood or cork, which
was rendered impervious to air by being coated with clay or gypsum. These
_amphoræ_ bore the name of the wine they held, just as do our bottles,
and they were usually deposited in the upper floor of the house, it being
supposed that the smoke or warmth from the floors below, in passing
upwards, improved the quality of the wine. This effect was heightened by
constructing the bath furnaces below the apartments (_apothecæ_) in which
the wine was stored.[160] The commoner kinds were drawn direct from the
_dolia_, the original vessels in which fermentation had taken place; and
for the sale of wine in the streets and markets, or for its transport,
the wine-holders were usually made of the skins of animals.
The culture of the vine was a most important industry in Greece and
Italy, and the plant itself is said to have attained proportions which
are rarely if at all equalled in our day. We are told, for example, that
in the city of Populonium there was a statue formed of the trunk of a
single vine, which for ages remained proof against all decay;[161] and
again that at Metapontum the temple of Juno stood supported by pillars
formed of the same material. Pliny says that there were in his day
ninety-one varieties of vine, of which he describes several, giving many
details concerning their cultivation.[162] He mentions one hundred and
sixteen different sorts of wine, whereof fifty are called “generous;” and
he (as well as other writers of his day) speaks of the wines of Latium
in Italy, chiefly those growing near the sea, and of certain islands in
the Grecian Archipelago (Chios, Lesbos, &c.), as the most highly prized
and commended. Various substances were used to improve and give flavour
to the wines of those days, and amongst them we find named sea-water,
turpentine, resin, gypsum, almonds, parched salt, goats’ milk, cedar
cones, salts of lead, and a variety of others which would seem hardly
suited to the purpose. Many were adulterants used for doctoring inferior
wines, and severe enactments were passed to prevent such practices. We
are not, however, led to believe that artificial wines were manufactured
and adulteration practised to the same extent as in our day. A German
newspaper[163] recently gave an account of a prosecution in Berlin,
in which it was stated that one large store which had been inspected
contained only artificial wines, into the manufacture of which the juice
of the grape never entered, although the names borne by the labels of the
bottles were those of well-known wines.
But to return to Rome. Drinks more or less intoxicating were made from
honey (_hydromeli_), and from a great variety of fruits, shrubs, and
herbs; but our space will not allow us even to enumerate them. The views
which were entertained at that time concerning the use and abuse of
wine seem to be somewhat similar to those which are held in the present
day. Pliny, for example, describes its effects as follows:—“It causes a
feeling of warmth in the interior of the viscera, and when poured upon
the body is cool and refreshing;” and he adds, that there is nothing more
useful than wine for strengthening the body, while at the same time there
is nothing more pernicious as a luxury if we are not on our guard against
excess.[164] Some wines, we are told, had the virtue of prolonging life;
thus Livia Augusta, who lived to her eighty-second year, attributed her
longevity to the wine of Pucinum, as she never drank any other. The fact
is hardly conclusive, for we do not know how long she would have lived
if she had drunk no wine at all. The author knows an old gentleman who
has attained nearly the same age, and he never drinks anything but brown
brandy, yet he has never heard him attribute his longevity to that cause.
Wine was believed to possess distinctly medicinal properties. Pliny
says, “It acts as an antidote to cantharides and stings inflicted by
serpents,” and that “it is good for the kidneys, liver, and inner coat
of the bladder, and is an antidote for various poisons, especially
hemlock;”[165] whilst Mnesitheus, an Athenian physician, although
he admitted that people who drink a great quantity of unmixed wine
at banquets often receive great injury from so doing, recommended
“occasional hard drinking,” which appeared to him to produce “a certain
purging of the body and a certain relaxation of the mind.”[166] We have
heard opinions expressed almost as irrational as the last named, even in
our time.
The price of wine appears to have been marvellously low. It is said
to have varied from sixpence per gallon down to threepence for ten
gallons;[167] but, of course, it is difficult to form a correct estimate
in this respect without comparing its price with that of bread or some
other article of regular consumption, and ascertaining what were the
rates of remuneration in trades and handicrafts. The strongest proof of
the large consumption of wine is, however, to be found in the number and
variety of the drinking vessels which were employed in Greece and Rome.
The most common were the _calix_, a flat vase-shaped cup with one handle,
and the _rhyton_, a horn-shaped vessel. Originally the latter was the
horn of an animal, which appears to have been the first drinking vessel
of most nations, but gradually the _rhyton_ assumed various ornamental
shapes, such as the head of a bull or greyhound, either made altogether
of earthenware, or surmounted with an open receptacle of chased gold or
silver, and provided with a handle. But besides these, the names of the
drinking vessels were legion. Athenæus describes a vast number with great
minuteness.[168] Some were of precious metal, others of crystal, wood,
horn, or earthenware; some of ordinary dimensions, and others again were
enormous as, for example, the elephant:—
“’Tis a mighty cup,
Pregnant with double springs of rosy wine,
And able to contain three ample measures,
The work of Alcon. When I was at Cypseli,
Adæus pledged me in this self-same cup.”[169]
Dionysius of Sinope, we are told, published a catalogue of cups, which,
if we may judge from the space occupied by little more than the bare
mention of some of them in Athenæus, must have been pretty compendious.
But these drinking vessels had a significance beyond that which attached
either to their size, material, or variety. Whilst some were works of
art, testifying only the skill, the love of the beautiful, and the
cultivated taste of their makers and owners, many, through the indecent
scenes which were portrayed upon them, revealed an age of dissoluteness
which had probably never been surpassed nor even equalled. To descend to
an account of the debauchery practised in the ancient empires of Greece
and Rome would be impossible in this or any other work of a popular
character, but our duty would remain unfulfilled did we not attempt
to convey some idea of the state of society in that day. There were
then, as now, banquets, dinner-parties, and wine-parties (_symposia_),
some of which were conducted with moderation, and were accompanied
by rational entertainments, such as conversation amongst the guests,
musical and dramatic performances, but at others drunkenness and every
species of debauchery were openly practised, and those often terminated
in confusion, riot, and bloodshed. It would be the easiest task possible
to degrade two of the greatest nations that have ruled the earth in the
reader’s eyes by laying bare the private character and doings of some
of those whom we have been in the habit of regarding as the heroes of a
bygone age, but that would be less fair, as it certainly would be less
satisfactory, than to take even the most grossly exaggerated descriptions
of society itself as they have been handed down to us by the satirists
of the day. Many of our readers have doubtless laughed or sighed over
the pages of Aristophanes, Petronius, and Athenæus, and to them the
account of an ancient Roman or Greek feast and drinking bout will be
no novelty; but there are others whose studies and researches have led
them in a different direction, and for these a brief sketch of a Roman
entertainment of the grosser, but by no means of the grossest kind, may
prove of interest. Let it be added that, remembering the practical aim of
this work, we have considerably softened down the farcical or exaggerated
tone of the authors whose writings have served as our guide in the
description.[170]
The scene opens at the entrance gate of a Roman mansion, on which there
are inscribed the following significant words: “Any slave who shall go
out of doors without his master’s leave shall receive a hundred lashes.”
Here the guests may be seen descending from their chariots in banqueting
dress, and within, the _ostium_ or entrance is alive with visitors,
playing various games, engaged in conversation, or already receiving
draughts of wine from the hands of obedient slaves.
The next scene is the banqueting hall itself, where the guests recline on
couches around the tables:—
“For now the floor and all men’s hands are clean,
And all the cups, and since the feasters’ brows
Are wreathed with garlands, while the slaves around
Bring fragrant perfume in well-suited dishes:
And in the middle stands the joyful bowl;
And wine’s at hand, which ne’er deserts the guests
Who know its worth, in earthen jars well kept,
Well-flavoured, fragrant with the sweet fresh flowers;
And in the midst the frankincense sends forth
Its holy perfume, and the water’s cold
And sweet and pure.”[171]
The host, a rich and vulgar _parvenu_, is surrounded by sycophants, who
are as ready to parade his wealth and his imaginary virtues as he is to
listen to and believe their flatteries; and the conversation, carried
on in a loud voice during the banquet, mainly runs upon his munificence
towards his slaves and freedmen, and his great possessions. After the
first course, wine is poured over the hands of the guests, for no one
offers them water;[172] and glass jars are carried round bearing labels,
“Opimian, Falernian, a hundred years old!” A human skeleton made of
silver is then produced, and the host incites his guests to partake of
the good things before them by crying out in a loud voice:—
“Vain as vanity are we,
Swift life’s transient flames decay;
What this is we soon shall be,
Then be merry whilst you may.”[173]
The course which follows deserves special attention. It is placed in a
circular tray divided into twelve sections, marked with the signs of
the zodiac, and each contains an appropriate dish. Thus in Aries there
are rams’-head pies; in Sagittarius, a hare; in Pisces, two mullets;
and so on. The entertainment is here diversified by the entrance of an
Egyptian slave, who sings a song in praise of some celebrated wine. The
host’s lady drinks but little (as yet), but she has an ugly tongue and
chatters eternally. The old story; the parvenu husband does sometimes
manage to conform himself to his new sphere of life—his wife never! But
we must not say too much even for him in this instance. He leads the
conversation, and is listened to with rapt attention. After the fashion
of a dinner-giver who instructed his servant to let a tongue fall from a
dish to enable him to make his pun about a _lapsus linguæ_, so the Roman
host had provided the zodiacal dishes as a theme for wise dissertation.
He spoke learnedly of the signs under which men of various trades are
born. Under Libra, for example, it appears that all retail dealers,
butchers, druggists, &c., are brought into the world! Then he turned
the conversation to some contemptible feast that had been given by one
of his wealthy rivals. “Call that a feast!” he said. “Why, there was a
trumpery show of gladiators; such decrepit wretches, one might have blown
them down.” He had seen better men thrown to the beasts by torchlight!
Other courses follow, and betwixt or during each there is some
entertainment or some surprise. Now a slave boy is freed, then an orator
enters and recounts the munificent deeds of the host. Then again the
cook is dragged in and threatened with condign punishment for having
forgotten to remove the intestines from a hog. At first he is handed over
to the tormentors; but the guests intercede, when the cook is directed
to slash open the intestines with a knife, and out falls a mass of
sausages. Thereupon follows immense applause; the cook is crowned with
honours and dismissed. Poor poets and literary men who are present are
vulgarly patronised by the host, and are “drawn out” into conversation,
whilst compliment after compliment is showered on the host. Towards the
close of the banquet, the ceiling over the heads of the guests cracks and
opens, and a great ring descends, hung all round with golden crowns and
alabaster pots filled with perfume, as presents to the guests; and this
is but one amongst similar surprises.
But how is it about our special department all this time? Are the guests
all as sober as when they assembled? Hardly, for each new course has
brought with it a fresh supply of wine, which is carried round from right
to left as with us; and although at first it is taken mixed with water,
it is soon drunk alone, until all the guests have arrived at that third
stage which “tranquillity and sleep inspires.” But soon one of them,
who never once allowed the wine to pass, and “is not in a fit state
for discussion,” naïvely acquaints his host with the interesting fact
that he is “completely fuddled;” an announcement which is received with
laughter and applause. His example is soon followed by others, until all
arrive at the fourth or fifth stages, from which “insolence” and “uproar”
proceed. The guests begin to vie with one another in drinking, brag, and
bluster. But there is method in this dipsomania; for the slaves, too,
are ordered to drink freely, that they may not see their masters at a
disadvantage; and when, at one particular phase of the entertainment,
the wine is brought round, the host threatens to have it poured over the
head of any of his guests who fails to drain his bumper.[174] During
the entertainment other friends arrive, and one party comes tipsy from
a funeral, until at length host and guests, men and women, are all
drunk together. Some of them retire, if reeling out of the hall can
be so called, and proceed to take a bath, with a view of returning to
the charge and renewing the bout; and finally the spectacle becomes
indescribable, and the curtain falls on the last scene of all amidst
“riot and confusion.”
This is by no means an exaggerated picture of the drunkenness and
debauchery which prevailed in Rome under the Empire. Amusements, if the
practice of the lowest vices can be so called, were introduced into the
entertainments of the rich which are quite unfit to be mentioned, and a
number of unnatural devices were resorted to for the purpose of enabling
the guests to protract their debauches. Accounts of these are to be found
not only in the pages of the satirists, but in the sober philosophical
writings of Pliny and other historians. Pliny says,[175] that on no
object was so much ingenuity expended as upon the manufacture of wine,
and that so common was its use, it was given even to beasts of burden. He
speaks of it as a liquid which deprives man of his reason and “drives him
to frenzy and the commission of a thousand crimes.” One of his statements
seems almost incredible, but it is made by other writers as well, and
that is, that men actually drank hemlock (to which, as already stated,
wine was considered an antidote), before commencing a carouse, “that they
may have the fear of death before them, to make them take their wine.”
“The more prudent,” he says, “have themselves parboiled in hot baths,
from whence they are carried away half dead,” and emetics were commonly
resorted to after a large quantity of wine had been swallowed, so that
the drinking might be renewed. Premiums upon the exercise of the drinking
capacity were offered to such as liked to make exhibitions of themselves
at banquets, and the result of these and similar practices is said to
have been the rupture of all ties of decency and modest bearing on the
part of the guests of both sexes.
“Then it is,” says Pliny, “that the secrets of the mind are revealed:
one man is heard to disclose the provisions of his will; another lets
fall some expression of fatal import, and so fails to keep to himself
words which will be sure to come home to him with a cut throat: and how
many a man has met his death in this fashion! Indeed, it has become a
common proverb that ‘in wine there is truth.’” He goes on to describe the
appearance of the drunkard, which agrees with the picture of him that
was drawn by the satirists, and which may be viewed at the present day:
the blotched and purple skin, the crimson nose, the bleared and watery
eyes! _Delirium tremens_, or, as the historian calls it, “sleep agitated
by furies,” was also common, and was accompanied by loss of memory; “and
this,” he adds, “this is what they call seizing the moments of life!
Whereas, in reality, whilst other men lose the day that has gone before,
the drinker has already lost the day that is to come!” He censures the
fashionable physicians of his day who prescribed alcoholic drinks to
their patients for the purpose of pleasing them, and so securing their
custom; and he does not hesitate to expose the habits of those who were
great topers as well as eminent citizens. Alcibiades comes in for severe
reproof; so, too, an eminent Roman, Novellius Torquatus, of Mediolanum,
a man who held all the honours of the state from the prefecture to the
proconsulate, of whom he says that he could drink off three congii at a
single draught,[176] from which he obtained the name of Tricongius. This
he is said to have done before the eyes of Tiberius, and to the extreme
surprise of the Emperor, who was himself a renowned toper. Another hero,
we are told, kept up a drinking bout at the residence of the same Emperor
for two days and two nights; and these little dissipations do not seem to
have interfered in the least with the exercise of the civil or military
duties of those who indulged in them.
But drunkenness and debauchery were not confined to the higher classes
in the days of Roman decadence. In describing the baths of Caracalla,
Gibbon says, on good authority, that there issued from those stately
palaces crowds of dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes and without a
mantle, who loitered away whole days in the street or Forum to hear news
and to hold disputes; who dissipated in extravagant gaming the miserable
pittance of their wives and children, and spent the hours of the night
in obscene taverns and brothels in the indulgence of gross and vulgar
sensuality.[177]
Such, then, was the condition of society in the latter days of Rome,
with her proud and debauched patricians and her ragged and dependent
plebeians, shortly before the conquering barbarians of the North swept
down like an avalanche and completed her overthrow; and thus do we find
the curse of drunkenness associated with her downfall. May the story of
her vices and the lesson of her fate not have been learned in vain by
succeeding nations, and above all by the people of our own land; for
they teach us that the upper ranks of society cannot yield themselves
to over-indulgence without the commission of a twofold wrong—without
injuring themselves by their vicious practices, as well as their poorer
fellow-citizens by their evil example. Neither does the inconvenience
cease with the discontinuance of the evil habit; the excesses of the poor
react upon the rich, and it is as idle to attempt to reform the lower
orders by criminal legislation and police restrictions alone, as it is
unwise to content ourselves with denouncing their vices, and leaving
them to work out their own reformation. In order to secure continued
prosperity to a nation, all classes, high and low, rich and poor, must
be alike free, contented, and virtuous. We cannot expect to progress
satisfactorily as a nation amongst our neighbours whilst we have even a
residuum of drunkards in our midst; for as long as there are amongst us
such as those who issued from the baths of Caracalla (but who in our day
neither enter nor issue from any baths at all), as easy would it be for a
rich _bon vivant_ whose head is but little affected by the irregularities
of his appetite but whose nether members the gout has made her own,
to expect to compete successfully in a race with a band of young, and
healthy, and vigorous athletes. This is the first grave lesson to be
learned from a consideration of the history of drink.
CHAPTER VIII.
GERMANY: ANCIENT, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN.
Long before the northern barbarians had descended into the plains of
Italy as conquerors, and whilst they were still the tributaries of
Rome, they had earned the reputation of being brave, but indolent and
intemperate. Pliny, who has already enlightened us concerning the habits
of his own countrymen, tells us that the chief drink of the Germans was
beer, or, as he calls it, “corn steeped in water,” which, he says, was
capable of being kept until it had attained a great age. They, however,
soon learned the superiority of the wines of Italy and Gaul, and those
are said to have been not the least of the inducements which tempted them
to make incursions into their neighbours’ territories. Tacitus describes
the Germans as a primitive, savage, and warlike race, much addicted to
intemperance in drink, but chaste and virtuous in their relations with
women, whom they treated with great respect.[178] He says that they
slept late into the day, and on rising they proceeded to bathe, after
which they partook of a meal, each sitting on a distinct seat and at a
separate table. They then went armed to business, and not less frequently
to convivial parties, in which it was no disgrace to pass whole days
and nights without intermission in drinking. The frequent quarrels which
arose amongst them when intoxicated seldom terminated in abusive language
only, but more frequently in bloodshed. Their drink, he also says, was
a liquor prepared from barley or wheat, brought by fermentation to a
certain resemblance of wine, but those who bordered on the Rhine also
purchased wine. They fed on fresh venison (some writers say they ate
it raw), wild fruits, and coagulated milk, and their intemperance in
eating and drinking was such as to give great advantage to the Romans in
their wars, or, as Tacitus puts it, “intemperance proves as effectual in
subduing them as the force of arms.”
A modern German writer, who has devoted considerable attention to
the rise, progress, and subsidence of the passion for drink in his
native land, attributes the love of drink in his ancestors to the damp
climate, and to their being constantly engaged in war or in hunting wild
beasts.[179] They appear, however, to have regarded the use of wine at
first with some apprehension, as it affected their physical powers more
injuriously than beer; and although vineyards were planted at an early
period, it is said, by Roman soldiers, the production and use of wine was
long of a limited character.[180]
It is to Christianity, or at least to its professors, that the credit
belongs of having caused the growth of the grape and the consumption
of wine to extend in Germany, and in the neighbouring countries of
the West.[181] The holy sacrament necessitated its use, and so we
find that the first vineyards of any importance were planted around
the great monasteries, such as those in the neighbourhood of Mayence
and Würzburg,[182] of which, amongst others, special mention was made
about the middle of the ninth century. Beer and mead were, however, the
national drinks of the ancient German tribes,[183] and their drinking
habits affected their whole character as well as the destinies of their
descendants. They held counsel on matters of importance over their
potations, and verified the adage which was referred to by Pliny, and
has descended to us, that “in wine” (or, with them, in beer) “there is
truth.” So there were no diplomats, no Bismarcks nor Gortschakoffs, in
that age; the warriors were outspoken and frank in their expressions,
hasty and daring in their subsequent undertakings. Drinking to excess
soon gained a firm hold upon the whole nation, and took the form of
healths and toasts, of drinking for wagers, and pledging strangers and
wayfarers. These customs at once stamped the Germans as an hospitable
people, and although “guest-friendship,” as it is still called, was a
conspicuous characteristic of the Middle Ages all over Europe, it seems
to have been pre-eminently the quality of the Germans.
Very early in the history of the nation, it is an admitted fact that all
classes and both sexes indulged freely in potations, so much so, that as
far back as the middle of the eighth century systematic attempts were
made to legislate against drunkenness. Charlemagne, whose character has
been variously judged by different historians, and who was undoubtedly
a Henry the Eighth in his conjugal relations, in the matter of drink
presented an example worthy of imitation. If not a total abstainer, he
was at least an extremely temperate drinker, and both in that respect
as well as by imperial edicts he endeavoured to reform the drinking
habits of his subjects. He forbade suitors or witnesses to appear in
court intoxicated, earls to sit in judgment unless perfectly sober, and
priests to offer drink to penitents.[184] If any one of his soldiers
was found drunk in camp, he was restricted to water as a beverage
until he admitted the heinousness of his offence and publicly implored
forgiveness.[185] But these edicts were of no avail. They, along with
others, which were directed not only against the common people, but also
against princes, rulers, and their following, were enacted again and
again in later times; as, for example, that of the Emperor Frederick III.
at a Reichstag in Worms, 1495, which ordered “all electors, princes,
prelates, counts, knights, and gentlemen to discountenance and severely
punish drunkenness;” and that of Karl IV., which stated in the preamble
that the vice is greatly on the increase, that it leads to blasphemy,
murder, and manslaughter, and that such vices and crimes have rendered
the Germans, “whose manliness was so famous in olden times, despised and
contemned of all foreign nations.”
Neither were the orders of temperance which were established in the
Middle Ages much more successful. Those were not mere associations of
the “moral suasion” class. Some of them were founded and governed by
emperors, princes, and counts, others by ecclesiastics or burghers. They
were levelled not only at drinking, but at its companion sins, cursing
and swearing; and the records of some of them would delight the heart of
a modern suppressor of the liquor traffic, from the severity with which
they show the rules to have been enforced. In some, the fines which were
inflicted upon the members for breaches of discipline were moderate, the
transgressor having to pay, “through the will of God, three kreuzers to
the poor.” In other cases a Rhenish florin was the forfeit. Those seem
to have been high-class societies. Occasionally, however, we meet with
such punishments as “three days and three nights in gaol,” but that
was for a miserable “knecht” (a serf); gentlemen were not so rudely
handled. In their case it was “five shillings and costs,” not “fourteen
days’ imprisonment.” But if these enactments and associations for the
suppression of drunkenness testified to its widespread prevalence, how
much more significant is the undoubted fact that there were orders of
_in_temperance, with formal codes of rules. The drinking-songs of the
students, and the drinking-code (_Jus potandi_), which is believed
by some writers to have been a genuine collection of rules for the
regulation of drinking, and by others to be merely a satire levelled
against drunkenness, reveal the situation to all who care to peruse
them.[186] Here is a description of the habits of the time as given by
the students:[187]—
“Bibit hera, bibit herus,
Bibit miles, bibit clerus,
Bibit ille, bibit illa,
Bibit servus cum ancilla,
Bibit velox, bibit piger,
Bibit albus, bibit niger,
Bibit constans, bibit vagus,
Bibit rudis, bibit magus.
...
Bibit pauper et ægrotus,
Bibit exul et ignotus,
Bibit puer, bibit canus,
Bibit præsul et decanus,
Bibit soror, bibit frater,
Bibit anus, bibit mater,
Bibit iste, bibit ille,
Bibunt centum, bibunt mille.”
In short, everybody, man, woman, and child, drank to their heart’s
content. Drinking formed part of the education of youth. “Now, let us
see,” said the fond parent to his little son, “let us see what you can
do. Bring him a half-measure;” and later on, “Bring him a measure.”[188]
And men told one another in high glee how they had succeeded in making
all their guests drunk the evening before, and how long each had managed
to hold out before he succumbed. Drunken tournaments were held, and Hans
Sachs, the national poet, gives an account of one of them which he had
witnessed, where twelve “beer heroes” succeeded in drinking from “pots
and cans” a tun of beer in six hours! Of course, it was necessary to
introduce something like order into this drinking world; and just as we
have found religious beliefs, and laws, and ceremonies accumulate through
ages, and handed down by tradition until the master-mind appeared to
codify the whole and reduce it to writing, so “Jus Potandi” was the grand
outcome of the wise drinking legislation of generations of topers. As
already remarked, whether it be a serious production or merely a satire,
its significance remains the same. It described the liquors of the age,
the beers especially. Rostocker, Hamburger, Dantzger duppelbier (equal to
our XX), Preussing, Brunswick mumme, Hanoverian broyhan, English beer,
which, along with many more, were, we are told, infinitely preferable to
such rubbish as Wittemburg cuckoo, Buffalo, or “_Leipzig herb-flavoured
body-rending Rastrum_,” whatever that may have been.[189]
It must have been a highly edifying spectacle a mediæval German
drinking-feast, comprising a mixed company of guests, who acknowledged
and obeyed the drinking-code (_Zech-recht_). There was no promiscuous
hobnobbing, and caste was duly respected then as now. Nobles were not
permitted to drink with tradespeople, but they might raise their glass to
a student, and he in like manner might condescend to notice a tradesman,
for there was no knowing of what advantage such a recognition might be
to a student.[190] A case is cited where a merchant (pedlar, we presume)
actually gave a poor “studiosus” a pair of beautiful silk stockings the
morning after a carouse, for which he had expressed a longing during the
entertainment. Young maidens were permitted to drink platonically with
virtuous young men, but they are warned in droll and not very modest
terms against “pseudo-prophêtes,” who are “lupi rapaces” in sheep’s
clothing, and the evils of drinking “sisterhood” with such ravening
wolves are duly and circumstantially set forth in the code.[191] One
clause is devoted specially to the expressions in vogue amongst ladies,
who may find it necessary, whilst at table, to protect themselves against
the too gross familiarities of their gallant neighbours.[192]
As a rule, guests might not pledge persons who were present, unless it
were a sweetheart, and that toast must be drunk “_ad unguem_”[193]—that
is to say, in a bumper—the drinkers afterwards reversing their goblets
and ringing them on the thumb-nail, to show that not a drop was left
therein. This has been a common drinking custom in several countries.
Toasts were drunk in various ways: sometimes one man drank from two
glasses at once; at others, when virtuous young ladies sat by the side
of respectable young men, they were allowed to drink simultaneously
from the same goblet, and it was deplored that such a mode of drinking
could not become more general, on account of the wild behaviour of the
youth of the period.[194] Regular penalties were inflicted for sneezing
and coughing into the goblets, and for certain other offences against
decency and propriety, which, although they seem to have been everyday
occurrences at those carousals, are unfit to be spoken of in genteel
society. When newcomers arrived, the goblet was offered to them, with
sundry compliments and orations, and to refuse to drink was a mortal
offence, usually followed by a bloody encounter. When a guest found it
difficult to keep pace with the company, or could not empty his goblet
at a draught, he might avail himself of the aid of any _young_ lady who
sat by his side, but _old_ ladies were not allowed to render assistance
under such circumstances, for they were too fond of their liquor
themselves.[195]
When men became riotous, gentle means were first to be employed to quiet
them; if they still persisted, warnings followed; and should they then
remain contumacious, they were to be well thrashed and sent home “as
cheaply as possible.” Table and window breaking were severely punished,
and certain acts of indecency, if practised before ladies, were to be
resented by seizing the offender and pitching him neck-and-crop into the
street.[196]
Should the reader be desirous of studying this remarkable code[197]
(whatever view he may take of its authenticity as a serious production),
he will find it composed in mediæval German, interspersed with Latin
and Greek phrases, as though it had been collated by some learned
ecclesiastic, which is more than probable—that is to say, by some
drunken hanger-on at a monastery; and he will see how the German youth
of bygone days studied as “vini et cerevisiæ candidatus,” and eventually
graduated in the courts of Bacchus. But if he imagines that the picture
is overdrawn, we should recommend him to consult the historical records,
and he will find that no language can adequately portray the state of
morals in Germany in those days, at least so far as drunkenness was
concerned.[198]
As already stated, in the highest as in the lowest ranks drinking to
excess was the universal practice. Kings set the example and subjects
followed it. One of the most temperate of the old Kaisers, Rudolph of
Hapsburg, is said to have called out in a loud voice in the streets of
Erfurt, holding a glass of beer up to the light, “Well! well! (Wohlan!
wohlan!) What splendid beer! I am sure it comes from Conrad of Bustede,”
and by this exclamation to have made himself extremely popular amongst
the Erfurters; just as our own Prince of Wales is believed by some to
have won the hearts of all true Britons by asking for a glass of bitter
beer on recovering consciousness during a dangerous illness. The stories
which are told of excesses in noble families, and of cruelties practised
in their indulgence, are not fit to be narrated in these pages. In some
noble households registers were kept from generation to generation,
called drink-albums, in which not only the men entered their exploits,
but—_O tempora, O mores_—the Gräfin von Schwillensaufenstein was allowed
to inscribe her name and sentiments (if she was able to write) side by
side with those of the Baron von Saus und Braus.[199] To be considered
of gentle blood, a man must of necessity be capable of draining off his
bumper at a draught. The goblet was an essential part of all ceremonies;
when the vassal swore fealty to his lord; at christenings, funerals,
tournaments, archery meetings; wherever knight met knight or burghers
congregated, there drinking followed. Bargains were concluded over the
goblet; indeed, a certain stipulated quantity of beer, to be drunk there
and then, formed part of the contract. The language of modern Germany,
and of England, for that matter, bears testimony to the universal thirst.
“Trink-geld” or drink-money—“allowance” with us—means a gratuity for
services rendered or not rendered. The “thirst” for gold, for glory,
or for fame; “intoxicated” with success or with love; “drinking” one’s
fill of some sensual delight, and many more such expressions, serve to
remind us of the paramount influence of drink in bygone days. German
intemperance had really become a byword amongst nations, as the edict
of Karl IV. declared. Antonius Campanius, an official witling who
represented the Pope at the Court of Frederick III., wrote to his master,
“Nil hic est aliud vivere, quam bibere,”—“Living here is nought but
drinking.” He might have gone further, and have said that even snoozing
was nought but boozing; for not only had each hour of the day and each
occasion its appropriate drink, but even the “schlaf-trunk,” _i.e._, the
sleeping-draught, was taken to the bedside of guests at night.[200]
The cheapness and varieties of intoxicating drinks, too, had something
to do with the prevailing drunkenness. Besides mead and beer, there were
numerous kinds of wine and liquors made from the grape, mulberry, apple,
pear, &c., and a favourite spiced wine called “Lütertrank.”[201] The low
price of wines at that time has been commemorated in a proverb of the
year 1539:
“Tausendfünfhundertdreissig und neun,
Galten die Fässer mehr als der Wein.”
Anglicised—
“In Fifteen hundred and thirty-nine,
The casks were valued at more than the wine.”
It was about that time that the enormous casks which are still so famous
were erected; that at Tübingen was twenty-four feet long and sixteen
feet in height, and the one at Heidelberg is of similar proportions. The
goblets which were used resembled the gigantic cups of ancient Rome, and,
like them, were made of various materials. Husbands presented their wives
with goblets of gold on their wedding mornings, and no greater compliment
could be paid by a vassal to his lord than to offer him a handsome gold
drinking vessel. Such goblets were often covered with narratives of the
drunken exploits of their owners. Nor were the clergy any better than
their flocks, although they preached against and denounced drunkenness
loudly enough. We shall have an opportunity of studying their ways later
on, but for the present one or two extracts from the ecclesiastical
chronicles and canons must suffice. In the monastery of St. Gall, during
the tenth century, each monk received daily five measures of beer,
besides occasional allowances of wine, which were consumed at breakfast,
dinner, and supper; and healths were often pledged by the abbots.[202]
“Amongst these vices,” said a preacher in Germany in the ninth century,
“feasting and drunkenness especially reign, since not only the rude and
vulgar people, but the noble and powerful of the land, are given up to
them. Both sexes and all ages have made intemperance into a custom; ...
and so greatly has the plague spread, that it has infected some of our
own order in the priesthood, so that not only do they not correct the
drunkards, but become drunkards themselves.”[203]
Again, the writer here quoted tells us of the penalties attached to
drunkenness amongst priests:—“1. If a bishop or any one ordained has a
habit of drunkenness, he must either resign or be deposed. 2. If a monk
drinks till he vomits, he must do thirty days’ penance; if a priest or
deacon, forty days. But if this happens from weakness of stomach or from
long abstinence, and he was not in the habit of excessive drinking or
eating, or if he did it in excess of joy on Christmas or Easter days, or
the commemoration of some saint, and if then he did not take more than
has been regulated by our predecessors, it is not to be punished. If the
bishop urged him, the fault is not to be imputed to the monk, unless he
gladly consented. 4. If a priest gets drunk through inadvertence, he must
do penance seven days; if through carelessness, fifteen days; if through
contempt, forty days; a deacon or monk, four weeks; a sub-deacon, three;
a layman, one week.”[204]
These quotations need no comment; the inferences to be drawn from them
may safely be left to the reader’s own judgment.[205]
But what neither legislative enactments, nor orders of temperance, nor
priestly admonitions, nor the pen of the satirist could accomplish, was
brought about insensibly and without an effort during the eighteenth
century, when various circumstances conduced to transform the Germans
from one of the most drunken to one of the soberest nations in Europe.
The introduction of Italian and French fashions into the rude courts of
Germany had something to do with the change; but this chiefly affected
the uppermost ranks of society. The importation of innocuous beverages
from the East—tea, coffee, and chocolate—and their extended use by all
classes, as well as the substitution of a milder but more palatable
kind of beer for the strong drink of the preceding centuries, were the
principal agents in the reform.[206] Moreover, the consumption of brandy,
which was very great before the Thirty Years’ War, had considerably
diminished, and by slow degrees the love of strong drink ceased to
characterise the various sections of society, from the denizens of the
court to those of the workshop. The last to relinquish their old depraved
habits were the students of the universities. It was not until after
the revolution of 1848, which reconstituted European society, that the
German “Bursche” forsook his evil ways; and although there is still great
room for improvement, he now compares favourably in his habits with the
students of other countries. But there is still another factor in the
modern civilisation of Germany which has been too little considered by
moralists, namely, the influence of compulsory education upon the masses.
This is the true corrective of the evil results which must always be
feared from the increasing affluence of the working classes, and it is
to be hoped it may operate favourably in Germany as well as in our own
industrial community.
But one of the writers whom we have quoted seems rather to have regretted
the good old toping days which were departing, and to have thought
that with the introduction of Oriental beverages all the manliness
and intellect of his countrymen would vanish. Indeed, he exclaims
despairingly, “And thus we see that it is with whole nations as with
individuals. One wicked, vehement passion is seldom exterminated
excepting by another. An old demon is rarely expelled otherwise than by a
new one.”[207]
This was written towards the close of the eighteenth century. What would
he have said if he had lived to witness Gravelotte, Metz, and Sedan?
* * * * *
We are all too prone to look upon the rose-coloured side of the national
life whilst we are travelling abroad, and it may be that a German tourist
whilst in England would be so impressed with the indications of industry
and prosperity which meet his eye wherever he goes, that the heinousness
of our national vice would be mitigated or partially lost from his view
in the surrounding glare. So, too, it is possible that, in judging the
German people of to-day, the author has been too favourably impressed
with those aspects of life which are presented to the holiday-seeker.
His observation has not, however, been quite superficial, and his
impressions of the moral and intellectual condition of the Germans is not
now stated for the first time.[208] Drunkenness appears to have given
place to sobriety, coarse sensual pleasures to intellectual enjoyments
resulting from the cultivation of music and the fine arts. The very
temperance societies of Germany bear witness to the sobriety of the
working classes, and present a strange contrast to our own, for they
deem it unnecessary to do more than enjoin moderation in drinking.[209]
The old writer must, indeed, himself have been imbued with that passion
which for centuries made Germany the scorn and byword of Europe (although
some of her neighbours, forsooth, had little to boast of in the matter
of temperance), a vice which threatened eventually to hand her over to
the same fate as ancient Rome had suffered at the hands of her ancestry.
If only her people are as successful in securing political freedom[210]
as they have been in emancipating themselves from the besetting sin of
their forefathers, there is a great and happy future in store for the
“Fatherland.”
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLAND, PAST AND PRESENT, LAY AND CLERICAL—THE ANGLO-SAXONS AND
DANES—THE NORMANS AND EARLY ENGLISH.
Although we will endeavour, for the sake of convenience, to divide the
story of drink in England into something like epochs, the distinction
between any two periods must by no means be considered arbitrary. The
conquering Danes are said to have stimulated and intensified the passion
for drink in the Anglo-Saxons, and those again, it is maintained by
some writers, corrupted and debauched the Normans when they settled in
England. So, again, modern writers amongst the Roman Catholic clergy
declare that the Reformation deprived the Church of her due influence
over the social habits of the people, and that drunkenness as a national
vice increased materially after that event,[211] whereas numerous
authors, both Protestant and Catholic, have drawn vivid pictures of the
debaucheries practised by the monks themselves, and more than one eminent
writer goes so far as to say that the whole tenor of mediæval popular and
historical literature shows the clergy to have been the great corruptors
of domestic virtue both in the burgher and agricultural classes.[212] It
is quite possible, therefore, that one class of society may have indulged
immoderately whilst another order was comparatively sober; and all we
shall attempt to do will be to glance down the pages of history, and note
any phases of our subject which we deem likely to interest the reader,
and which bear upon our general conclusions.
There can be little doubt that, in the matter of drink, the Anglo-Saxons
resembled their congeners abroad, and that intemperance was one of their
conspicuous vices. Their drinks were chiefly ale and mead, the latter
being prepared from honey, which was very plentiful in England. They
took their potations from horns and cups of various shapes, some of
which are still preserved, and make considerable pretensions to art.
That drinking was common in monasteries is shown by the fact that cups
of various materials, and some of very large size, were often bestowed
upon or left to religious houses by princes and nobles. Amongst many
other instances of this, Lady Ethelgiva is said to have presented to the
Abbey of Ramsey, among other things, “two silver cups for the use of the
brethren in the refectory, in order that while drink is served in them
to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more firmly imprinted
on their hearts.”[213] Nor need there be any doubt of the use to which
such cups were often put. A Roman Catholic writer on temperance, whom we
shall often have occasion to quote, and who is not at all disposed to
exaggerate the vices of the priesthood, gives anything but a flattering
picture of the habits of the Anglo-Saxon clergy.
St. Boniface, he says, writes as follows in the eighth century to
Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury:—“It is reported that in your dioceses
the vice of drunkenness is too frequent, so that not only certain bishops
do not hinder it, but they themselves indulge in excess of drink, and
force others to drink till they are intoxicated. This is most certainly a
great crime for a servant of God to do or to have done, since the ancient
canons decree that a bishop or a priest given to drink should either
resign or be deposed.”[214] And the same writer gives us extracts from
the canons which determine the penances and punishments to be borne by
priests addicted to drunkenness, and which show plainly that the vice
was by no means exceptional, but was widely spread amongst the clergy.
We shall revert to this portion of the subject presently, and have only
to remark here, that, with such an example in their spiritual superiors,
it is no wonder the laity should be addicted to excess in drinking.
Their bouts were conducted pretty much in the style of those of other
nations. They pledged each other freely, the distinctive feature in their
case being that the ceremony was accompanied by a kiss; and from the
illuminated manuscripts which have been handed down to us,[215] we learn
that their entertainments were accompanied by such amusements as singing
the national poetry, recounting their own exploits, propounding riddles,
dancing, and rude instrumental music. Amongst the wealthier classes
professional minstrels were kept, but in humbler life each guest took
his turn in contributing to the joviality of the feast. As may be readily
imagined, when the liquor began to take effect, the guests usually became
noisy and quarrelsome, their disputes frequently terminating in strife
and bloodshed. As not every reader can be expected to follow these
accounts of Anglo-Saxon life to their source, it may be interesting
if we give a brief description of a scene represented upon one of the
illuminated manuscripts referred to, as it presents a vivid picture of
jollity in that day.
The guests are seated at a round table, near which stands a cupbearer,
who is pouring out some kind of drink from a large vase-shaped vessel,
resembling the Roman amphora. In the centre of the picture a man and
woman, evidently professionals, are dancing to music, which consists of
a harp (played by two men), two trumpet-shaped instruments, apparently
buffalo horns, and one of which appears to have stops or keys, and a
species of guitar. At one side of the picture is a person (of which sex
it is impossible to say) who, it is thought by the author of the work
which contains the picture, is about to join the players, but who seems
to us to be engaged in recitation.[216] It is not our province to enter
further into the amusements which were engaged in during these feasts,
but it may be mentioned in passing, that amongst them were gambling with
dice, witnessing sleight-of-hand performances, acrobatic exercises, &c.
That the feasts very often terminated in deadly strife is certain from
the accounts that are still extant. Here is the translation of part of an
Anglo-Saxon legend in which the Evil Spirit describes the influence which
he exercises over the festive board:—
“Some I by wiles have drawn
To strife prepared,
That they suddenly
Old grudges
Have renewed,
Drunken with beer;
I to them poured
Discord from the cup,
So that in the social hall,
Through gripe of sword,
The soul let forth
From the body.”[217]
Women joined the men in their feasts; but it is said that, as in recent
times, they retired from the table before the heavy drinking began,
and the blood of the company was roused. The lower classes, both men
and women, frequented taverns, of which there were many all over the
country, and there they were joined by the more dissolute of the clergy,
who were always welcome guests at such parties. Inns were very rare,
and the result was, that, as in all primitive races or sparsely peopled
countries, travellers were received in private and religious houses, and
the practice of hospitality was universal.
But whilst it is beyond doubt that in Anglo-Saxon times both laity and
clergy drank to excess, it is only due to the latter to say that the
great preachers denounced drunkenness, and visited it with more or less
severe punishment. We have referred to the canons that were framed
against it, extracts from a few of which, accompanied by references to
the cause of their promulgation, may be found interesting, and will save
the necessity of repetition at a later period, for they were promulgated
time after time in a modified form by the Councils of the Church.
St. Gildas the Wise (A.D. 570) decreed, “If any one (that is, a monk)
through drinking too freely gets thick of speech, so that he cannot join
in the psalmody, he is to be deprived of his supper.”[218] No very severe
penalty that; for he would probably be all the better for the abstinence.
The year previously (A.D. 569), synods were held by St. David, and
amongst the decrees we find the following, which refers to priests:—“He
that forces another to get drunk out of hospitality must do penance as
if he had got drunk himself. But he who out of hatred or wickedness, in
order to disgrace or mock at others, forces them to get drunk, if he has
not already sufficiently done penance, must do penance as a murderer of
souls.”[219]
The reverend author whom we are quoting explains that the Anglo-Saxon
monasteries were sometimes villages or towns with many hundred inmates,
many of whom were laymen, and to them he is disposed to attribute the
drunkenness. Besides, of the monks he says, that after their days
in which long fasting was joined to manual labour, “it is no wonder
that, when the refreshment hour came, the beer got into the heads of
some.”[220] Other very conscientious writers do not, however, endorse
this view, and, as we have already said, they charge the monastic orders
with great excesses. One of these says that in early Anglo-Saxon times
both nunneries and convents were places in which the worst vices were
practised. It was the fashion, he says, for nobles and others to purchase
crown lands upon pretence of founding a monastery; upon which they made
themselves abbots, collected a convent out of expelled monks (a proof
that in some monasteries at least dissolute monks were not tolerated),
and led a life perfectly secular, bringing their wives into the
monastery, and being husbands and abbots at the same time. Nor were the
nunneries, at least some of them, any better. The nuns of Coldingham are
said to have spent their time in feasting, drinking, and gossiping. “They
also employed themselves in working fine clothes, dressing themselves
like brides, and acquiring the favour of strange men.”[221]
Against such places the Anglo-Saxon synods preached and remonstrated.
They forbade all the practices referred to, and advised the abbots and
monks to set a good example themselves, to be vigilant against theft,
and to inculcate reading both in monks and nuns; monasteries were not to
be made the receptacles of ludicrous arts, of poets, harpers, fiddlers,
and buffoons, such as we have described in connection with the festivals
of the laity. “They were not to be houses of gossiping and drunkenness;”
and “abbots and abbesses were to be chosen of approved life, not stained
with the crimes of child-getting, homicide, or theft, but leading regular
lives in their cloisters.”[222]
Still the use of wine and beer was not by any means forbidden in
religious houses. Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury (A.D. 925-988), limited
the supply of wine as follows:—After mass the officiating ministers
received a quarter of a pound of bread and a quarter of a pint of wine;
this was called _mixtus_. After collations (which did not mean lunch, as
nowadays, but reading of Lives of the Fathers) on feast days, each monk
received a cup of wine, which was followed by a few words of thanksgiving
by the abbot; and both there and in other well-regulated monasteries
drinking does not appear to have been excessive.[223] With time, however,
as we shall see presently, great changes for the worse supervened.
The Danes are said to have been much heavier drinkers than the Saxons,
and from the stories which are told of them in the old chronicles, the
soldiers seem to have set no bounds upon their intemperance. More than
one anecdote is related of guards being overcome by drink;[224] and every
child knows the story of King Alfred introducing himself in the disguise
of a minstrel into the camp of Guthrum the Danish general, and finding
his soldiers steeped in drunkenness and dissipation. The last Danish
king, Hardicanute, was a great drunkard; in fact, his death is said to
have resulted in 1042 from a debauch at Lambeth.
* * * * *
With the advent of the Normans new phases of social life were introduced
into England, and at first there may have been a little less coarseness
in the drinking customs of the conquerors than in those of the vanquished
race. The former did not, however, long enjoy even that qualified
reputation for sobriety, and they are said soon to have excelled the
Saxons in their feats of debauchery. Our information regarding their
ways and customs is derived from other sources besides those which we
have hitherto examined. The French illuminated manuscripts as well as our
own give us considerable insight into the habits of the time, and show
that similar customs obtained in both countries. The chief sources of
information are, however, the French and Anglo-Norman Fabliaux or tales
in verse, written chiefly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
the Bayeux tapestry. We learn a good deal from the wood carvings of the
period still preserved in churches, and from the “men” which were used in
the favourite game of chess; the chronicles of the monasteries, too, are
a fertile source of instruction. Our attention will naturally be turned
first to the nobles and knights, and along with them we shall consider
the clerics, many of them priests-militant, and the monastic orders.
In the early Norman times we have little else than accounts of knightly
debauchery. Here are two of them, anything but edifying, but both
remarkably characteristic of a victorious and dominant race of soldiers.
The first is taken from the Life of Hereward.[225] “The new Lord of
Brunne (a Norman baron) was surrounded by his knights, who were scattered
about helpless from the extent of their potations, and reclining on
the laps of their women. In the midst of them stood a jongleur or
minstrel, alternately singing and exciting their mirth with coarse and
brutal jests.” It is, says the writer, a first rough sketch of a part
of mediæval manners which we shall find more fully developed at a later
period. The same author says that in the reign of Stephen “we find the
amusements of the hall varied with the torture of captured enemies.”
The other account referred to is taken from the Chronicles of St.
Edmundsbury, and relates to a time (A.D. 1194) when the monastery was
under the rule of a good and sober abbot, Sampson by name. A tournament
was held near St. Edmund, after which eighty young men with their
followers, sons of noblemen, were invited to dine with the abbot; “but,”
says the chronicle, “after dinner, the abbot retiring to his chamber,
they all arose and began to carol and sing, sending into the town for
wine, drinking and then screeching, depriving the abbot and convent of
their sleep, and doing everything in scorn of the abbot, and spending
the day, until the evening, in this manner,[226] and refused to desist
even when the abbot commanded them. But when the evening was come, they
broke open the gates of the town and went forth bodily. The abbot indeed
solemnly excommunicated them, yet not without first consulting Hubert, at
that time Justiciar,[227] and many of them came promising amendment and
seeking absolution.”[228]
As an amusing contrast to this example of knightly misconduct and
ecclesiastical reproof, we propose to describe a similar breach of the
peace committed by the lower classes, taken from the same chronicles, and
the reader will see the difference in the mode of dealing with the rich
and the poor in those days, as well as in the influence exercised by the
Church over the two classes of society. “On the morrow of the Nativity
of our Lord, there took place in the churchyard meetings, wrestlings, and
matches between the servants of the abbot and the burgesses of the town,
and from words it came to blows, and from cuffs to wounds and to shedding
of blood. The rioters were obliged to do penance by stripping themselves
altogether naked except their drawers, to prostrate themselves before the
door of the church; and when the abbot saw more than a hundred men lying
down naked he wept. They were then sharply whipped and absolved.”[229]
Of course the propensity to over-indulgence was not universal, even in
the race of warriors who had quartered themselves upon the forest lands
of Britain. The Normans were always more polished in their manners than
the Anglo-Saxons, and their dwellings were much more commodious. This we
learn not only from the appearance of the remains of those buildings,
but also from the statements of the learned men of the period. William
of Malmesbury, who wrote about the year 1130, says that “the Saxon
nobility passed entire nights and days in drinking, and consumed their
whole substance in mean and despicable houses; that they had their hair
cropped, their beards shaven, their arms laden with golden bracelets,
and their skin adorned with punctured designs; that they were accustomed
to eat till they became surfeited, and to drink till they were sick. And
these latter qualities,” adds the candid Norman historian, “they imparted
to their conquerors.”[230]
In well-regulated Norman households, the dinner, which was partaken
of early in the forenoon, was not accompanied by excessive drinking.
After it was removed, and the ceremony of washing performed, the
wine-cup was passed round once, and the guests retired. Sometimes wine
and sweetmeats were served in an adjoining apartment, and on grand
occasions the after-dinner entertainment comprised not only drinking, but
story-telling and performances by jongleurs, which, we are told, were
often very obscene, even in the presence of the ladies. It was customary,
by the way, for the lady of the house, however high her rank might be,
occasionally to fill the cups of the guests, and on the chessmen of the
twelfth century the “queen” usually carries a drinking horn. Some of
these chessmen are still preserved.
We need not be surprised that the performances of the jongleurs before
ladies were indecent, for the ladies themselves were by no means refined.
There has been no attempt, that we know of, to edit the English “_Jus
potandi_” of the Middle Ages, but it is certain that about the thirteenth
century a genuine code of rules for good behaviour was published for the
guidance of the fair sex. They were cautioned to avoid certain offences
against morality which we could not even venture to repeat here; and in
regard to drinking, they were warned not to get drunk, “that being a
practice from which much mischief might arise.” “Each time you drink,”
wrote their mentor, “wipe your mouth well, that no grease may go into the
wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks after you.”[231]
From this it would appear that there was a partnership in cups in those
days—at least, that each guest was not provided with a drinking vessel
for his sole use.
After the Anglo-Saxon and Norman races became amalgamated, the lower
classes were no better than their superiors. What the latter did in the
hall, the former accomplished in the tavern, where the women are said to
have spent much time idling and gossiping. The men, too, often wasted
their whole substance in such haunts, drinking, and gambling with dice;
and cases occurred in which one or other of the players gambled away his
last garment, and was left in a state of complete nudity. The wealthy
ecclesiastics lived in still greater luxury than the lay nobles and
knights, for their revenues were protected by their sacred calling even
in times of great commotion, and they never found it necessary to make
a raid upon their neighbours’ cattle for a meal. Giraldus Cambrensis,
or Gerald Barry, Archdeacon of Brecknock (1175-1200) describes a dinner
with the Prior of Canterbury, where there were wines of various kinds,
“piment, claret, mead, and others;” and at which, moreover, there was
“licentious discourse.”[232] The same writer speaks of the Irish clergy,
and after lauding their zealous preaching, fasting, and chastity, he
concludes by saying that, “amongst so many thousands, you will not find
one who, after all his rigorous observance of fasts and prayer, will not
make up at night for the labours of the day, by drinking wine and other
liquors beyond all bounds of decorum.”[233] The latter statement, indeed,
seems incredible to the Catholic author who quotes it; but there need not
be much hesitation in giving it credence, for it is completely confirmed
by the other records of the period. These tell us that the monks ate
and drank very intemperately, and that they selected the strongest
wines; and one published bill of fare contains twenty-seven different
dishes—fish, flesh, fowl, &c.—along with a variety of liquors.[234]
Every reader has heard of the cellarer, who managed the commissariat, and
whose emoluments and powers were very great, not only within the convent,
but even outside its precincts. At St. Edmundsbury he held a court, and
had a prison in which he confined wrong-doers. Yet these officials were
often guilty of great excesses. In 1197 the cellarer at St. Edmundsbury
was displaced for drunkenness, and the following year his successor,
Jocell, committed an offence for which the abbot forbade him to drink
anything but water; and he still remaining contumacious, his superior
forbade him both meat and drink until he repented.[235] About the same
time another official (not the cellarer) had been sent to look after
some of the estates of the convent, when it came to the abbot’s ears
that he was “deporting himself in somewhat too secular a manner,” as the
chronicle mildly puts it; but as he was serviceable to the community, the
abbot winked at his irregularities. Eventually, however, they became so
gross that the abbot could “wink” no longer, and his effects were ordered
to be seized. To the astonishment of the brotherhood, they were found to
comprise “a mighty deal of gold and silver, to the value of two hundred
marks.”[236]
Nor were the opportunities for over-indulgence in drink very rare.
Besides the sacred feasts, Christmas, Easter, &c., when the monks were
not so closely restricted, and were allowed to take a little more wine
than usual “in excess of joy,” we presume, there were other occasions
which were made the excuse for “a drop extra.” On the admission of an
abbot it was customary to allow every man a gallon of wine, a whole
loaf, and three handsome dishes of fish.[237] As already stated, the
abbots themselves fared very sumptuously. At one period they lived apart
from the monks, but in the ninth century the Council of Aix (and others
afterwards) ordered them to dine in the common refectory, to put bounds
upon their indulgence. After that, wine was brought to them in their
chamber when dinner was over. The prior, too, was allowed more wine than
the monks; he might send his cup to the cellarer to be filled once or
twice, and that officer had no power to refuse him. Much more has been
written concerning the drinking habits of the monks, but, as we shall
have to revert to them at a period when the whole system had become much
more corrupt, we must stop here, and will close the present chapter with
a brief mention of the kinds of intoxicating drinks which were consumed
in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times.
These were beer and ale (Welsh ale is mentioned at a very early period),
which varied very much in price, several gallons being at one time
obtainable for a penny, whilst later on they were much dearer.[238] Mead
or hydromel was a fermented drink produced from honey and flavoured with
herbs and spices. Wines also were coming into use. They were produced
either from grapes grown in England, those being very poor in quality,
or were imported from France, Italy, Spain, and Greece; and amongst them
we find mention made of claret, muscadelle, malmsey, &c. The wine called
“piment” in a feast referred to in the present chapter was a sour thin
wine, sweetened and flavoured with sugar, honey, and spices.
CHAPTER X.
ENGLAND FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY DOWN TO THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.
In order not to weary the reader with reiterated accounts of the drinking
customs of our ancestors, which varied little in their character during
three or four centuries subsequent to the period of which we treated
in our last chapter, we propose to pass somewhat rapidly over the
ground until we come to the Reformation, and we will first refer to
the well-known merrymakings, gatherings of the people in various parts
of England, at which, amidst a lavish consumption of liquor, all the
important local business, both lay and clerical, was transacted. Those
meetings were known by the generic name of “ales,” from the drink which
was there provided, and they were called either after the season at which
they were held, as “Whitsun-ale,” “Easter-ale,” or after the object for
which they were convened, as “church-ales,” where the money was paid for
the support of the Church; “bid-ales” or “help-ales,” when charitable
contributions were required for some one in need; “bride-ales,” literally
wedding festivals, where the bride turned an honest penny by selling
ale at an exorbitant price; and numerous others of a like description.
At first those meetings were encouraged by the clergy, as is proved by
the fact that at one period they were actually held in the churches
themselves in certain places,[239] and also by the agreements to which
the clergy were parties for the benefit of the Church. Here is an example
of such agreements:—
“Memd. that this is the agreement betwixt the inhabitants of
the townes and parish of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston,
of the one part, and the inhabitants of the town of Okebrooke,
within the parish of the said Elvaston, on the other parte,
by John, Abbot of the Dale.... That is to say, that the
inhabitants of the said towne of Okebrooke shall brew fowre
ales, and every ale of one quarter malt, and at their own cost
and charges, betwixt this and the Feast of St. John Baptist
next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of
Okebrooke shall be at the said ales, and every husband and
his wife shall pay 2d., and every cottyer 1d.; and all the
inhabitants of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston shall come to
the said ales, and that every husband and his wife and cottyer
shall pay as is afore-rehearsed; and that the said inhabitants
of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston shall have and retaine
all the profits and vantages coming of the said ales, to the
use and behoofe of the said Church of Elvaston. And the said
inhabitants of the said townes of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and
Ambaston shall brew viii. ales betwixt this and the said Feast
of St. John Baptist, at the which ales, and every each one
of them, the said inhabitants of the town of Okebrooke shall
come to and pay every husband and his wife and every cottyer
as it is above-rehearsed. And if hee bee away at one ale, to
pay at the toder ale for both, or else to send his money. And
the inhabitants of the said town of Okebrooke shall carry all
manner of timber being in the Dale Wood new felled, that the
said parishioners of the said towns of Elvaston, Thurlaston,
and Ambaston shall occupy to the use and profit of the said
church.”[240]
These “ales,” and other similar merrymakings, to which distance lends
such enchantment in the eyes of many Englishmen, soon became a public
nuisance, and they were conducted in such an unruly manner as to cause
great uneasiness to the civil authorities. Two of the most objectionable
features were, that they were often held in and about churches, as
already stated, and also that Sundays and feast-days were usually
selected for their celebration. Whatever has been said to the contrary,
it was the Church that encouraged them; not only the Roman Catholic
clergy,[241] but, for some time after the Reformation, the High Church
dignitaries of the Established Church, and chief amongst them was Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury. They were the cause of bitter strife at the
period referred to. At first they were denounced by Puritan ministers of
all religions, and then, as the period of the Reformation approached,
efforts were made to suppress them. To those efforts Queen Elizabeth lent
her sanction, and in the 38th year of her reign the justices assembled at
Bridgewater ordered the total suppression of “church-ales,” “clerk-ales,”
and “bid-ales,” and the decree was signed by the Lord Chief-Justice.
Similar orders were issued and enforced in the reign of James I.; but
in the following reign, when Chief-Justice Richardson and Baron Denham
published an order to suppress Sunday revels, the former was told in
the most insulting manner by Laud, the Primate, that the justices had
exceeded their duties; that wakes and ales were religious institutions;
and that although some correction of their abuses might be required,
the lay tribunals had nothing to do with the matter, which was one of
spiritual jurisdiction.[242]
A violent controversy followed between the Puritans and the clergy of the
Church of England; and so long as they were allowed to last, the terrors
of the Star Chamber and High Commission were employed by the latter
to counteract any efforts that were made to suppress the scandalous
desecration of sacred days and sacred places. But the Commonwealth, which
purged the country of many abuses, at least corrected that one. An Act of
Parliament was passed forbidding the holding of “ales” and merrymakings
within the precincts of places of worship or on the Sabbaths, and from
that time they gradually lost their importance. Although the divorce
between religion and beer was not then completely effected, the open
recognition and support of the Church has not since been extended to the
liquor traffic.
In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries living became
more luxurious amongst the higher classes, especially the clergy, and
intemperance grosser amongst the lower orders and those who haunted
taverns. In the year 1466, when George Nevile was made Archbishop of
York, amongst the drink supplied at the feast of his installation there
were 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine; and in 1504, when William
Warham was enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a fish banquet
at which were provided 6 tuns of red wine, 4 of claret wine, 1 of choice
white wine, 1 of white wine for the kitchen, 1 butt of Malmsey, 1 pipe
of wine of Osey, 2 tierces of Rhenish wine, 4 tuns of London ale, 6 of
Kentish ale, and 20 of English beer.[243]
Amongst the upper classes generally there seems to have been greater
variety than in Norman and Saxon times both in eating and drinking, but
little more refinement, and certainly not any more sobriety. We learn
from the French “Romances” and “Moralities,” that both in France and
England drunkenness was very prevalent, and its evil consequences are
there often described in allegory. In the fifteenth century a French code
of morals was published, in which people were told not to get intoxicated
_during dinner_. One poem of the period, called the “Doctrinal des
Filles” warned young ladies against talking scandal and believing in
dreams, against drinking too much wine, and being too talkative at table;
and they were also cautioned by the writer, a good Catholic, against
being alone with a priest except at confession.
Dancing appears to have been carried to great excess, and to have been
accompanied by immodest gestures. Young ladies were advised, therefore,
to be modest in their bearing, lest they should be mistaken for what they
were not:—
“Fille, quant serez en karolle!
Dansez gentiment par mesure,
Car quant fille se desmesure,
Tel la voit qui la tient pour folle.”[244]
The women of the middle and lower classes were of low morals, and spent
much of their time in taverns. This practice grew, until there were
parties of them assembled there who took with them the solid food for a
meal.
“Ech of them brought forth ther dysch,
Sum brought flesh and sum fysh.”[245]
And this custom of each woman contributing her share to the feast was
the origin of our modern picnic.
Taverns had become very numerous, not only in towns and villages, but
also by the roadside. They were known by a garland or bush hanging
out—hence the saying, “Good wine needs no bush;” and the publicans do not
seem to have enjoyed a high reputation. The writer whom we have so often
quoted tells us that the taverns were the haunts of gamblers, and that
the “taverner” took articles of dress in pledge for drink.[246] (So there
has been a division of labour, it seems, in our day in this as in every
other branch of human industry!) There, too, indecent songs were sung,
and those who frequented them were made drunk by dissolute women and
plundered.
A manuscript of about the year 1460 warns the reader to—
“Use no tavernys where be jestis and fablis,
Syngyng of lewde ballettes, rondelettes, or virolais.”[247]
The female publicans or “alewives” were no better than the men, and we
are told that there is still a carving in a seat in Ludlow Church which
represents Satan carrying off the alewife, with her gay head-dress and
false measure; and in the same church there is another carving of a
mediæval tapster drawing ale.
This account of the taverns is quite borne out by the religious records
of the period. Priests are warned, time after time, not to frequent such
places, which are spoken of as being unfit for respectable people to
visit. And yet it would appear that they were sometimes kept by priests
themselves; for in 1255, Walter, Bishop of Durham, forbids “those in
holy orders that they be not drunkards nor keep taverns, lest they die
an eternal death.”[248] And, finally, if Shakspeare is to be considered
a trustworthy authority concerning the manners of the times of which
he treats, the frequenters of taverns were by no means confined to the
lower classes; and those institutions in the Middle Ages (for we shall
have occasion to refer to them as they exist to-day) must have reached
their full growth and perfection when Prince Hal resented the rudeness of
the “sweet knight” Falstaff in the presence of that “honest, virtuous,
civil gentlewoman,” Doll Tear-Sheet, at the Boar’s Head Tavern in
Eastcheap![249]
And now we must direct our attention once more to the religious houses,
which, after all, occupied the most prominent place in the society of the
Middle Ages. With the exception of the universities, they were almost the
only centres of learning and the fine arts, which they kept alive during
the dark ages, whilst the country was either distracted by civil war or
depopulated to raise armies for foreign conquest. They were refuges,
too, from the tyranny of the feudal lords, many of whom they awed and
controlled by the threat of the Church’s displeasure; and whilst the
clang of arms resounded through the land, and robbery and violence were
the order of the day in the secular world, in their cloisters the hymn
of praise ascended on high, and round about their sacred precincts the
arts and industry continued to flourish. But all human institutions are
liable to debasement, and even those devoted to the noblest ends and
sanctioned by the highest authority did not escape the general corruption.
As in the present day in mountainous and thinly peopled countries, so
in the Middle Ages the monasteries were the chief inns for travellers.
But they were _hospices_ in the true sense of the term, no charge being
made to wayfarers during their sojourn, which was, however, limited to a
certain number of days. Each convent had attached to it a guest-house,
which was under the superintendence of a guest-master, whose duty it was
to provide wayfarers with food and to economise the expenses. So we find,
for example, that “Abbot Sampson found the cellarer in debt £50” (a very
large sum at that time, A.D. 1197), “and he said the debt was incurred
through excess in feasting in the prior’s inn by the assent of the
prior and cellarer, and superfluous expenses in the guest-house by the
carelessness of the hospitaller [guest-master]; and he took the cellary
and charge of the guests into his own hands, appointing two monks to act
for him.”[250] Thus it will be seen that at a very early period already
the guest-houses and other places attached to the convents were made the
resorts of drinking; this soon extended to the refectory or dining-hall,
and at length to every part of the convent and its surroundings.
Guests were hospitably received, especially if they were persons of
distinction; and when there was a tendency to intemperance on the part
of the monks, they were tempted to indulge in excesses in which the
latter joined, and drinking is said in some cases to have been kept up
until midnight. The refectory itself was adorned with a great variety of
drinking vessels, amongst which the most prominent was the “grace-cup,”
out of which the monks drank all round, “and another larger one, with
smaller within, where stood the mazers, of which each monk had his
peculiar one.”[251]
The monks were proverbially _bon vivants_ both in eating and drinking, as
is shown by the records and illuminated manuscripts. One of the latter of
the fourteenth century, which is to be found in the Arundel collection in
the British Museum, depicts a monk cramming himself with pasties supplied
to him by a naked imp, and another of about the same date represents a
cellarer drawing wine or ale into a large jug with one hand, and carrying
a cup to his mouth with the other.[252] Several of the illuminations and
carvings of the period prove also that drunkenness was not the only vice
practised by the monks; and in one of them a monk and a lady are seen
together suffering the penalty of their sins in the stocks, whilst the
public is represented by a small boy jeering at them and enjoying their
shame.
As might naturally be supposed, the higher officers of the convents took
better care of the morals of their inferiors than they did of their own.
We have already given instances of lavish extravagance in the abbots, and
amongst many similar cases, “Thomas Pennant, Abbot of Basingstoke, is
said to have given twice the treasure of a king in wine.”[253] But the
best pictures of monastic life have been handed down to us in the satires
written by the monks and clerics themselves, in which is shown the
difference of treatment experienced by the various degrees in a convent.
The following is an extract from one of these satires:—
“The abbot and prior of Gloucester and suite,
Were lately invited to share a good treat;
The first seat took the abbot, the prior hard by;
With the rag, tag, and bobtail below was poor I.
For wine for the abbot and prior they call;
To us poor devils nothing, but to the rich all.
The blustering abbot drinks health to the prior;
Give wine to my lordship, who am of rank higher;
If people below us but wisely behave,
They are sure from so doing advantage to have;
We’ll have all, and leave nought for our brothers to take,
For which shocking complaints in the chapter they’ll make.
Says the prior, ‘My lord, let’s be jogging away,
And to keep up appearances, now go and pray.’
‘You’re a man of good habits, and give good advice.’
The abbot replies;— they returned in a trice,
And then without flinching stuck to it amain,
Till out of their eyes ran the liquor again.”[254]
Another brief extract from a satirical song composed by a monk at a
somewhat later date illustrates the situation admirably:—
“One law for our rulers, another for us.
To us wretches the smell ev’n of wine is unknown;
The vinegar’s ours—the wine all their own.
Not a peg from the cloister must we dare to roam,
While the lords of a dwelling withdraw to their home,
To a smoking good fire, then set themselves down,
And with nectar of heaven their best moments crown.”
The inquiry into the condition of religious houses under Henry VIII.,
which led to the suppression of 376 of those establishments, and the
transfer of their revenues to the crown, revealed a state of affairs
which some Catholics of to-day are reluctant to credit. But, as one
of our most accurate and unprejudiced historians has said, the reports
of those visitors were so minute and specific, that it is rather a
preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their testimony when it
bears hard upon the regulars; and the commendation bestowed upon some
religious houses as pure and unexceptionable affords a presumption that
the censure upon others was not an indiscriminate prejudging of their
merits.[255]
The abbots were found to keep mistresses, to be the fathers of grown-up
sons, who lived with them openly; and the inferior officers were shown to
be dishonest men, who obtained their posts by flattery or purchase, and
whose vices, when once they were in office, were of the worst kind. They
oppressed people with violence and unfair exactions, frequented taverns
and other indecorous places, had the company of women in private places
and to eat and drink with them.[256]
The monks themselves were accused of the gravest breaches of the
law—treason, perjury, gambling, drunkenness, “swearing by the body of
Christ,” murderous assaults upon each other when they were gambling or in
their cups, and even deliberate murder for gain. “A certain knight,” we
are told, “had left a hundred marks by will to a certain house, and lay
there sick; upon getting well, the monks, that they might not lose the
money, plotted his death by poison or suffocation.”[257]
Nor were the nuns much better. Amongst the injunctions to the convent
of Appleton, A.D. 1489, is one: “Item, that none of your sisters use
the alehouse, nor the waterside, where course of strangers dayly
resorte.” And in another case the question was asked: “Item, whether
any of the sisters be comenly drunke.” They were accused of avarice,
brawling, voluptuousness, and sloth; and one of them, the Prioress of
Rumsey, was a notorious drunkard.[258] What the monks and nuns did in
and about the convents, the wandering friars performed throughout the
length and breadth of the land. They were vowed to poverty, and many of
them were bright examples of virtue and holiness, going about preaching
and ministering to the poor, healing dissensions, and, as well as they
were able, protecting the oppressed. But others accumulated property by
the most detestable means—some even by procuring pardon for murderers;
they were great liars, fraudulent, luxurious, and debauched. “They knew
all the taverns, hostelers, and tapsters in every town, but shunned
the beggars.” Their time was often spent in intrigues with women,
interference with families, and idle and useless gossip.[259]
But worst of all appear to have been the “clerics” or hired lay writers,
who hung about the convents, and were chiefly engaged in copying or
multiplying manuscripts. They are described as very low, profligate,
disorderly people. The kind of esteem in which they were held is shown by
the following lines from a mediæval ballad:—
“But if thou begin for drink to call or crave,
Thou for thy calling such good reward shalt have,
That none shall call thee malapert or dronke,
Or an abbey lowne _or limner of a monke_.”[260]
With this extract we must bid adieu to the drinking practices of “Merrie
England in the olden time.” So far we have witnessed the state of affairs
whilst the Roman Catholic Church held sway over the land, and in our next
chapter we shall see whether there was any improvement under Protestant
rule, and bring our inquiry down to the present day.
CHAPTER XI.
ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY.
Before entering upon the consideration of the drinking habits of the
English in Protestant times, it will only be fair and impartial to state
the plea which has been urged in favour of the mediæval taverns; and
we have the less hesitation in so doing, inasmuch as the justification
for their existence on the grounds advanced no longer holds good in the
present day. The village tavern, it is said, was not what it is to-day—a
resort for the idle and dissolute; it was the “public-house,” where
men of all ranks met together and enjoyed each other’s society—where,
indeed, distinctions between the hall, castle, and the cottage were for
the time obliterated. By some writers it is thought that the clergy
themselves did not absolutely discountenance taverns for the laity,
especially after the “ales” and similar meetings had been removed to the
places called “church-houses” from within the precincts of the churches
themselves. “When, therefore, the bishops ordered the clergy to expend
less time in alehouses,” says one author, “it is not to be inferred that
the bishops regarded these places as necessarily vicious and scandalous;
the fair inference from the episcopal injunction being that the chiefs
of the Church wished to impress upon the subordinate priests that the
obligations of the clerical office required them to exercise forbearance
with respect to social enjoyments.”[261] That this statement is in the
main accurate was shown in our last chapter, and it is confirmed by a
reference to the canons and injunctions of the Church. For example:
“Canon 30.—A priest should not drink in taverns _like laymen_.”[262]
Again, “But we do not comprise in this prohibition strangers who are
travelling, and those who come together in fairs or markets, although
they meet in taverns.”[263] And, “They (priests) are forbidden to enter
taverns for drinking, unless they are on a journey, or to take part in
drinking assemblies,” &c.[264]
As to the statement that various ranks of society met in the tavern for
social converse, those who hold that to be the case might have added that
the extension of national liberty was in part due to the opportunities
which were afforded for discussion in such places of resort. Nay,
although we have said that their continued existence can no longer
be justified on the old grounds in our time, yet it is impossible to
overlook the fact that there are even now exceptional instances where the
“public-house” is the only place which affords sufficient accommodation
for meetings of any considerable magnitude. That was, no doubt, much more
generally the case in the Middle Ages, when there were no assembly-rooms,
no public halls, no schoolhouses, nor any other buildings of a like
character.
It is a matter of history that at the period of the Reformation the
court of England was one of the most dissolute in Europe, and in the
reign of Henry VIII. it was held in bad repute even amongst the Germans,
drunken as they confess themselves to have been. A quaint story is told,
upon what appears to be good authority, how Henry himself managed to
make an envoy of the German court, who belonged to one of the orders of
temperance, violate his pledge, and how he then assured him that if his
master would only visit England, he would not lack boon-companions.[265]
Nor was the intoxication confined to men only. It is said that in the
time of James I. the revels instituted by the Queen were frequently
disgraced by the drunkenness of the court ladies; and one of the guests
at an entertainment given by the Earl of Salisbury in honour of the visit
of King Christian of Denmark wrote a letter from which the following is
an extract:—
“Those whom I never could get to taste good liquor now follow
the fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon
sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. After
dinner, the representation of Solomon his temple, and the
coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or, as I may better
say, was meant to have been made.... The lady who did play
the queen’s part did carry most precious gifts to both their
majesties, but forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy,
overset her caskets in his Danish Majesty’s lap, and fell at
his feet, though I rather think it was on his face. Much was
the hurry and confusion,—cloths and napkins were at hand to
make all clean. His Majesty then got up, and would dance with
the Queen of Sheba, but he fell down and humbled himself before
her, and was carried to his inner chamber, and laid on a bed of
state, which was not a little defiled with the presents of the
queen.... The entertainment and show went forward, and most of
the presenters went backward or fell down, wine did so occupy
their upper chambers. Now did appear in rich dress Hope, Faith,
and Charity. Hope did assay to speak, but wine did render her
endeavours so feeble that she withdrew. Faith was then alone.
For I am certain she was not joyned with good works, and left
the court in a staggering condition. Charity came to the King’s
feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters
had committed; in some sort she made obeysance and brought
gifts.... She then returned to Hope and Faith, who were ...”
But we must conclude in more refined phraseology than that used by the
writer ... who were in the hall engaged in operations inconsistent with
the healthy and sober condition in which ladies should be at a royal
entertainment.[266]
We will, however, not dwell upon the drinking habits of the middle and
lower classes prior to the Commonwealth. What change there was in their
condition was due to the action of the Puritans, who, both before and
during the civil war, presented a marked contrast to the Cavaliers or
Royalists. The character and conduct of the two parties may be studied
in the writings of historians of the time, as well as in those of modern
authors, and notably in the pages of Macaulay and Walter Scott.[267] The
Puritans were grave in their demeanour, sober in their habits, modest
and plain in their speech and attire. By these characteristics they
desired to be known. The Cavaliers swore, drank, affected an air of
gallantry towards the female sex, with whom their relations were of the
loosest, and in everything they sought to avoid what they called the
prudery and hypocrisy of the Roundheads. When the latter obtained the
ascendancy, they set about executing the most drastic reforms throughout
the land. Maypoles were cut down in various parts of the country, and
all the amusements of the period, such as theatrical performances,
entertainments on the village green and at fairs, bowls, horseracing, and
bearbaiting, were either absolutely forbidden or strongly denounced and
discountenanced. But what gave greater dissatisfaction than any other of
their proceedings was the suppression of Christmas festivities; and when,
in 1644, the Long Parliament gave orders that the 25th December should
be observed as a day of prayer and fasting, that act was considered such
an infringement of the public liberties, that it was almost universally
resisted, and in many places collisions took place between the populace
and the local authorities.
These extreme measures of repression on the part of the Puritans led
to the result which might be anticipated. They gave courage to those
who were anxious for the return of royalty, and reconciled many to its
reinstatement who would otherwise have struggled for the maintenance
of republican institutions; and when Charles II. was once more safely
enthroned, there followed a reaction in morals which has left to that
period the unenviable notoriety of being the most corrupt and dissolute
in the whole history of our country. Debauchery and drunkenness prevailed
in almost every rank of society, but chiefly amongst the higher and
middle classes. The King set the example, and history abounds with tales
of the debauchery of the court. We are told that when William, Prince of
Orange, came over to visit his intended, “one night at a supper given by
the Duke of Buckingham, the King made him (the Prince) drink very hard.
The heavy Dutchman was naturally averse to it, but being once entered,
was the most frolicsome of the company; and now the mind took him to
break the windows of the chambers of the maids of honour, and he had got
into their apartments had they not been timely rescued. His mistress”
(the princess, afterwards Queen Mary), “I suppose,” adds the narrator,
“did not like him the worse for such a notable indication of his
vigour.”[268] Another well-known story is related of the same monarch.
On one occasion, when he was dining with the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert
Viner, and the guests as well as his lordship had imbibed more than was
consistent with propriety in the presence of their sovereign, the latter
intimated to his suite his intention to withdraw; and he had succeeded in
making his escape from the banqueting hall, when he was hastily pursued
by the Lord Mayor, who caught hold of his robe, exclaiming, “Sir, you
shall stay and take t’other bottle.” The airy monarch looked kindly at
him over his shoulder, and with a smile and graceful air repeated this
line of the old song, “He that is drunk is as great as a king,” and with
this compliment to his host, he immediately returned and “took t’other
bottle.”
These Lord Mayors’ banquets are deserving of a passing notice. One of
them, given in 1663, is described by Pepys. It was served at one o’clock,
and a bill of fare was placed with every salt cellar, whilst at the end
of each table was a list of “persons proper” there to be seated. Pepys
was placed at the merchant-strangers’ table, “where ten good dishes to
a mess, with plenty of wine of all sorts.” Napkins and knives were,
however, only supplied at the Mayor’s table to him and the Lords of
the Privy Council, and Pepys complains bitterly that he and those who
were seated with him had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and had
to drink out of earthen pitchers. He, however, took his spoon and fork
away with him, as was customary in those days with guests invited to
entertainments. The dinner, he says, was provided by the Mayor and two
sheriffs for the time being, and the whole cost was from £700 to £800. We
are not told what wines were drunk, but a list of those which were served
at a similar banquet on Lord Mayor’s Day, 1782,[269] may be of interest.
It will give some idea of the quantity and character of the drinks
consumed at such entertainments:—
Port, 438 bottles.
Lisbon, 220 ”
Madeira, 90 ”
Claret, 168 ”
Champagne, 143 ”
Burgundy, 116 ”
Malmsey or sack, 4 ”
Brandy, 4 ”
Hock, 66 ”
----
Grand total, 1249 bottles.
From that time to the present there has not been any very material change
in the descriptions of the wines which are drunk at Lord Mayors’ feasts,
except that the heavier wines have been to some extent displaced by
those of a lighter description. Thus, at various banquets which were
given between 1860 and 1876, the following descriptions were consumed on
Lord Mayor’s Day:—Various kinds of port, sherry, madeira, hock, claret,
champagne, and moselle. In other respects great changes have, however,
taken place at these feasts. Earthenware drinking vessels are no longer
in vogue, “trenchers” are changed, napkins and knives are not wanting,
and guests do not (with the knowledge of their host) walk off with their
spoons and forks!
But to resume. Hard-drinking was not confined to kings and Lord Mayors,
and one of the practices amongst all classes of society which had the
effect of stimulating excess, and of which we are not yet completely rid,
was the drinking of healths. A French writer who visited England about
the close of the seventeenth century, and who described the ludicrous
grimaces which accompanied the ceremony, says that “whilst in France the
custom had disappeared from polite society, any one in England who drank
at table without doing so to the health of some person present would be
considered as drinking on the sly, and that it would be regarded as an
act of incivility.”[270]
How rapidly the indulgence in intoxicating drink increased from the
Commonwealth to the eighteenth century we are able to learn from the
poets and moralists of the time, as well as from the graphic pictures
of life which have been bequeathed to us by the pencil of Hogarth; but
before reverting to the oft-told tale, we have to speak of a satisfactory
phase in the drinking customs of the country, which commenced at the
epoch under consideration, and which is happily still in steady progress.
We mean the introduction into England of those non-alcoholic beverages
which we find to have exercised so potent and beneficial an influence
upon the morals of German society. Tea was first imported into England
from the Netherlands in 1666 by Lords Arundel and Ossory, but it was
then only used medicinally, its price (about 60s. per lb.) being for a
long time a virtual prohibition against its use as a beverage. Coffee
was, however, a much more popular article of consumption. The first
coffee-house is said to have been opened in Paris in 1643; and either in
1652 or 1657 (writers differ as to the date) the first was established
in London. Coffee was soon served in taverns along with wine, beer, and
tobacco, and although it met with opposition from the satirical writers
of the day, it was drunk by men of every class, from the labourers and
apprentices to the members of the Privy Council, and it interfered
considerably with the consumption of alcoholic drinks. There were ere
long coffee-houses for all ranks of society, such as the “Grecian” in
Threadneedle Street, said to have been the first opened, where noblemen
and the committee of the Royal Society met, and many others of more
modest pretensions, for the accommodation of merchants, tradesmen, and
the labouring classes.
The character of the clubs, too, was changed by the introduction of tea
and coffee and chocolate. Those institutions had existed from the reign
of Elizabeth, the first having been the “Mermaid” in Friday Street,
founded by Sir Walter Raleigh; and the other leading men connected with
it were Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher. Ben
Jonson founded a club which met at the “Devil” Tavern between Temple
Bar and the Temple Gates, for which he wrote a code of rules in Latin
verse called “Leges Conviviales.”[271] The clubs found no favour with the
Puritans, who endeavoured to abolish them; whilst in Charles II.’s time
the coffee-houses were so inconvenient to royalty, that an attempt was
made to suppress them. The latter incident occurred in 1675, when on the
29th December a royal proclamation ordered them to be closed, “because in
such houses, and by the meeting of disaffected persons in them, divers
false, malicious, and scandalous reports were devised and spread abroad,
to the defamation of His Majesty’s Government, and the disturbance of the
peace of the realm.” The dissatisfaction caused by this proceeding was,
however, so great that the proclamation was soon withdrawn.
With the clubs and coffee-houses some of the greatest English names
are associated. At Will’s Coffee-house, in Bow Street, Dryden reigned
supreme; at Button’s, in Great Russell Street, Addison was the presiding
genius. Addison, by the way, moralist as he was, was addicted to
something much stronger than coffee; he entered largely into, if he did
not lead, the dissipation of his day. Samuel Johnson, as is well known,
was quite an enthusiast in the matter of clubs and taverns. His principal
haunt was the “Turk’s Head” in Gerard Street, where the Literary Club
met, including, amongst others, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick (who also
frequented the Bedford in Covent Garden, along with Foote, Quin, and
others), Oliver Goldsmith, Burke, and Sheridan. Johnson also went to
the Essex Club in Essex Street, and the King’s Head beefsteak house.
Our space will not allow us to enumerate the various clubs of the
time, but in order to show what extension had been given to the system
in later days, we may add that in 1801 there was a club called “The
King of Clubs,” which met at the “Crown and Anchor” in the Strand, and
reckoned among its members Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord
Abinger, Lord Erskine, and Samuel Rogers. Then, at the opposite end of
the social scale, there were the “Bird Fanciers,” who met at a pothouse
in Rosemary Lane; the “Flat Cap,” where market-women assembled, and
“young gentlemen and gallants paid their court to those ladies with burnt
brandy and formidable mugs of porter;” the “Thieves,” at the Half-Moon in
the Old Bailey; the “Lying Club,” where whoever told the truth between
six and ten was fined a gallon of wine; the “Bold Bucks,” who drove the
neighbourhood of St. Mary-le-Strand crazy with bands of music during the
performance of divine service, and then sat down to feast on “Holy Ghost
Pie;” and the “Sword Clubs,” whose members took possession of the town
after supper, “holding their swords against every man, whilst every man’s
sword was held against them.”[272]
As this notice of the clubs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
may possibly find its way to posterity, it is but just to add regarding
those of the present day that they are amongst the noblest institutions
of our country. This is certainly not the place to expatiate upon their
services to the state, and it must suffice to say that they are the
centres of political and intellectual activity. All that we have to note
concerning them in relation to our subject is, that they are certainly
not conducted on teetotal principles. In most of them the wines are
selected by a committee of connoisseurs, and one, in which the “feast
of reason and the flow of soul” are supposed to predominate, manages to
expend £2000 annually in wines and spirits. A well-known French writer
has been at the trouble to ascertain what quantity of wine is usually
consumed at our metropolitan clubs, and he sets it down at a pint per
diem for each member.[273]
The character of the clubs and taverns in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries demonstrates pretty plainly what was the condition of society
at the time; and it could hardly have been worse than it was. Drunkenness
and debauchery, accompanied by lawlessness and violence, marked the age.
People got drunk at private tables, and quarrelled and fought duels
afterwards. Suppers were followed by sallies into the streets and attacks
upon the citizens, which often resulted in murder and mutilations,
and the newspapers of the last century contain stories of license and
depravity which it is difficult to believe even after reading our
own police reports or the columns filled with casualties and crimes.
For whilst to-day such matters are related of the lower orders, then
they characterised the so-called respectable classes of society.[274]
As to the poorer classes, they had fallen a prey to a new demon of
intoxication—gin—which, along with other spirituous liquors, was fast
taking the place of less inebriating beverages, such as ale, porter, and
cider.
Although the period of the discovery of distillation is unknown, it
is believed to have been not later than about the seventh century of
our era. At that time it was described by Geber, supposed to have been
an Arab; but his nationality and the precise time at which he wrote,
are also enveloped in doubt.[275] The same uncertainty applies to the
introduction or discovery of distillation in England. Friar Bacon, who
lived in the thirteenth century, is believed to have been acquainted
with the process, and “spirits of wine” were certainly known to
Raymond Tully, who wrote a book called “Testamentum Novissimum” on the
preparation of alcohol in the same century.[276] The perfect chemical
separation of alcohol was, however, not effected until the following
century (about 1300), by Arnauld de Villeneuve, a famous physician
residing in Montpellier, and its analysis was first performed by Th.
de la Saussure.[277] In 1430 arrack was first introduced into England
from Genoa,[278] and from that time forward the importation and home
manufacture of spirituous liquors continued to increase.
In order that the reader may form some idea of the effect which the
substitution of spirituous liquors for other intoxicating beverages would
have upon the drinking habits of the nation, we append the following
tabular statement of the relative proportions of alcohol contained in
some of the chief European drinks of present and past times:[279]—
Beverage. Percentage of alcohol.
German beer, From 1.9 to 4.62
Cider, ” 5.4 ” 7.4
Ale and porter, ” 5.4 ” 8.5
Very strong ale, ” 10.5 ” 12.4
Moselle and Rhine wines, ” 7.5 ” 9.5
Claret, ” 8.0 ” 9.0
Champagne, ” 11.5 ” 14.1
Sherry, ” 15.4 ” 16.0
Port, ” 15.0 ” 20.7
Madeira, ” 19.0 ” 19.8
Marsala, ” 19.9 ” 20.0
Gin (London), ” 31.73 ...
Geneva spirit, ” 49.4 ...
Brandy, ” 50.4 ” 53.6
Whisky, ” 59.2 ” 59.4
Rum, ” 72.7 ” 77.1
And proof spirit consists of 49.2 per cent. of alcohol and 50.98 of water.
Thus it will be seen that a man might drink without any greater effect
ten times as much of the old as he could of the new beverages, and when
we come to inquire how much of these were consumed, we shall have no
difficulty in understanding what a terrible influence they exercised upon
the morals of the age.
In the year 1694, with an estimated population of about 5,800,000 souls,
the quantity of British spirits upon which duty was charged in England
was, according to one author, 810,096 gallons;[280] according to another,
754,300 gallons.[281] (The discrepancy is immaterial for our purpose.)
But forty-two years later—in 1736, the _annus mirabilis_ in the history
of drink—although the population had only increased to 6,200,000, the
consumption of spirits had risen to 6,116,473 gallons, or nearly a gallon
per head of the inhabitants.
The reason why we have called 1736 the _annus mirabilis_ in the history
of drink is because it was on the 29th September of that year that the
“Gin Act” came into operation, and the passing of that Act was considered
a necessity consequent upon the awful prevalence of drunkenness in all
classes of society.
How great was the debauchery of the age may be seen, not alone from the
statistics here given, but it may be read in the pages of contemporary
history. Those who have perused accounts of the parliamentary debates,
or the published notices and correspondence of the time, know into what
a deplorable condition the lower and middle classes were fallen, and
how openly they were tempted to still lower depths of depravity. That
announcements were hung out before the gin-shops informing passers-by
that they could get drunk for a penny, and dead drunk for twopence,
and that when they were in the desired state, clean straw would be
gratuitously provided for them in convenient cellars, has become a matter
of history.[282] So also the fact that the inducements to drink which
were so generously offered were as readily accepted, and the state of the
city of London became so dangerous and disgraceful, that at length the
Grand Jury of Middlesex made a presentment asking the Legislature for
repressive measures. It was then that Sir Joseph Jekyll introduced and
carried through Parliament the famous “Gin Act,” of which the following
is a copy:—
“Whereas the excessive drinking of spirituous liquors by the
common people tends not only to the destruction of their health
and the debauching of their morals, but to the public ruin;
“For remedy thereof—
“Be it enacted, that from September 29th no person shall
presume, by themselves or any others employed by them, to sell
or retail any brandy, rum, arrack, usquebaugh, geneva, aqua
vitæ, or any other distilled spirituous liquors, mixed or
unmixed, in any less quantity than two gallons, without first
taking out a license for that purpose within ten days at least
before they sell or retail the same; for which they shall pay
down £50, to be renewed ten days before the year expires,
paying the like sum, and in case of neglect to forfeit £100,
such licenses to be taken out within the limits of the penny
post at the chief office of Excise, London, and at the next
office of Excise for the country. And be it enacted that for
all such spirituous liquors as any retailers shall be possessed
of on or after September 29th, 1736, there shall be paid a
duty of 20s. per gallon, and so in proportion for a greater or
lesser quantity above all other duties charged on the same.
“The collecting the rates by this Act imposed to be under the
management of the commissioners and officers of Excise by all
the Excise laws now in force (except otherwise provided by this
Act), and all moneys arising by the said duties or licenses for
sale thereof shall be paid into the receipt of His Majesty’s
Exchequer distinctly from other branches of the public revenue;
one moiety of the fines, penalties, and forfeitures to be paid
to His Majesty and successors, the other to the person who
shall inform on any one for the same.”
This Act remained nominally in operation for seven years, the first
result being an apparent falling off in the consumption of spirits to the
extent of nearly 2,000,000 gallons; for whilst, as already stated, the
quantity on which duty was paid in the year 1736 was 6,116,473 gallons,
that in 1737 was 4,250,399 gallons. The consumption, however, soon rose
again; and when, in the year 1743, the “Gin Act” was repealed, it had
risen to 8,203,430 gallons.
In the meantime the remedy had proved worse than the disease. Gin riots;
false information given by men who made it their profession; violence
towards, and even the murder of, such informers; the illicit distillation
and sale of spirits under various names all over the country;—these
were the fruits of this extreme legislation, and long before the Act
was repealed it had ceased to be operative. When its repeal (which was
opposed by the bishops) was being discussed in the House of peers, one
noble lord stated that for several years the Act had been a dead letter,
and that the pathways of London were obstructed by men who were openly
selling spirits to the populace, and by those who had drunk them until
they were unable to move. But there is an important circumstance in
connection with this experiment which is well worthy of being noticed.
Whilst the sudden and extreme measure had no permanent effect upon the
moral disease which it was intended to cure, but called into action evils
which had not previously existed, yet impediments of a less violent and
conspicuous character, which were unintentionally thrown in the way of
excessive drinking at a subsequent period, seem to have proved more
efficacious. For we find that when the duty was afterwards raised from
3d. to 1s. per gallon, the consumption steadily diminished, until, in
1758, it had fallen to 1,849,370 gallons, and it continued to stand
at 2,000,000 gallons from 1762 to 1780, after the duty had been still
further raised to 2s. 6d. per gallon.[283]
For a long time after the repeal of the “Gin Act,” there is very little
improvement to be noticed in the drinking habits of the English people.
Moralists, poets, and some of the clergy, were vigorous in their
denunciations of the national vice, which, then more them at any other
period, seems to have been a fruitful source of crime and villainy. Men
of good family and station, who had ruined themselves with drinking and
gambling, did not, as to-day, seek relief in the insolvency court or
the colonies, but, armed with pistol and blunderbuss, they endeavoured
to retrieve their broken fortunes on the highway. The metropolis was
the scene of nightly robberies, whilst the neighbouring roads and
commons were beset with footpads and mounted highwaymen, so that, as a
contemporary (Bishop Benson) wrote, there was “not only no safety of
living in this town, but scarcely any in the country now, robbery and
murther are grown so frequent. Our people are now become, what they
never before were, cruel and inhuman. Those accursed spirituous liquors,
which, to the shame of our Government, are so easily to be had, and in
such quantities drunk, have changed the very nature of our people; and
they will, if continued to be drunk, destroy the very race of people
themselves.”[284]
That this was no exaggerated picture of society at that time we have
ample testimony in the literature extending over a great part of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of the chief aims of the
essayists in such papers as the “Spectator” was “to recover society out
of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age had fallen;”
and Addison thus describes the typical drunkard of his time:—
“I was only the other day with honest Will Funnell, the West
Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through
him in the last twenty years of his life, which, according to
computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of october,
four tuns of port, half a kilderkin of small beer, nineteen
barrels of cider, and three glasses of champagne, besides which
he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention
sips, drams, and whets without number. I question not but every
reader’s memory will suggest to him several ambitious young men
who are as vain in this particular as Will Funnell, and can
boast of as glorious exploits.”
If _our_ readers will kindly substitute “bitter” for “october,” “sherry”
for “port,” and, leaving all the other drinks as they stand, will throw
in a few dozen cases of champagne, and brandy and soda _ad libitum_,
we shall have no hesitation in echoing Addison’s concluding sentence,
inasmuch as it will obviate the necessity for any further reference to
the habits of intemperance which obtain amongst a large circle of fast
young gentlemen of our own time!
Of the taverns we have already spoken, and without adopting to the
fullest extent the statement which has been made by various historians,
that even noble ladies were in the habit of largely patronising such
places, we need not hesitate to believe that they were more extensively
used by the upper classes than they are at present. But they were then,
as now, the ruin of those who visited them:—
“There enter the prude and the reprobate boy,
The mother of grief and the daughter of joy,
The serving-maid slim and the serving-man stout—
They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out.
...
Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect,
Apparently baffling its deadly effect;
But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives,
And ninety-nine perish for one who survives.”[285]
Nor was Scotland a whit better. Here is a picture of the High Street of
Edinburgh during the last century:—
“Next to the neighbouring tavern all retired,
And draughts of wine their various thoughts inspired;
O’er draughts of wine the beau would moan his love,
O’er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove;
O’er draughts of wine the writer penned his will,
And legal wisdom counselled—o’er a gill.”[286]
Of Ireland we can only add, that from an early period both clergy and
laity drank inordinately. They with ourselves began to imbibe spirits, we
are told, whilst some other nations were still content with less potent
liquors:—
“The Russ drinks quass, Dutch Lubeck beer,
And that is strong and mighty;
The Briton[287] he metheghlin quaffs,
The Irish aqua vitæ;
The French affect the Orleans grape,
The Spaniard tastes his sherry;
The English none of these can ’scape,
But he with all makes merry.”[288]
Of the Irish clergy in the twelfth century we have already spoken, and
Archbishop Plunkett says of them in his day:[289]—
“Whilst visiting six dioceses of this province, I applied
myself especially to root out the cursed vice of drunkenness,
which is the parent and nurse of all scandals and contentions.
I commanded also, under penalty of privation of benefite, that
no priest should frequent public-houses or drink whisky, &c.
Indeed, I have derived great fruit from this order, and as it
is of little use to teach without practising, I myself never
drink at meals(!).... Give me an Irish priest without this
vice, and he is assuredly a saint.”
Other writers have confirmed this account of the Irish clergy;[290] and
as to the laity, their lavish hospitality, whilst it did honour to their
hearts, was the cause of great improvidence and self-indulgence. “Nine
gentlemen in ten in Ireland,” wrote Chesterfield, “are impoverished by
the great quantity of claret which, from mistaken notions of hospitality,
they think it necessary to be drunk in their houses.” Another writer
of the eighteenth century says, “Would not a Frenchman give a shrug at
finding in every little inn Bordeaux claret and Nantz brandy, though in
all likelihood not a morsel of Irish bread.”[291]
That there followed in the train of drunkenness all the evils and
diseases of which it is still the fruitful source, it may readily be
conceived. This has been shown by William Hogarth in his famous pictures
of life in his day,[292] and there is a poem of John Gay, written about
the same time, which leaves no doubt upon the subject.
Death, sitting on his throne, declares his intention to name his prime
minister, and each disorder puts forth his claim to the office. Fever,
gout, an unnameable disease, consumption, plague:—
“All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand—
Now expectation hushed the band,
When thus the monarch from the throne:
‘Merit was ever modest known.
What! no physician speak his right?
None here, but fees their toils requite.
Let then Intemperance take the wand.
You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest
(Whom wary men as foes detest),
Forego your claim; no more pretend:
Intemperance is esteemed a friend;
He shares their mirth, their social joys,
And as a courted guest destroys.
The charge on him must justly fall
Who finds employment for you all.’”[293]
Much more might be written concerning the drinking habits of our
countrymen in post-Reformation times; but if we mistake not, the reader
will be better pleased that we should now draw this chapter to its
close. For the changes which took place during the first half of this
century may be briefly summed up by saying, that there was a gradual
improvement amongst the upper and middle classes. Leaving the curious
reader, therefore, to study the pictures of the three-bottle squire, and
his friend the fox-hunting parson, by the light of the literature of this
century, aided, it may be, by the memory of those who are still alive to
relate their own experiences, we shall pass on to the consideration of
drink as we find it to-day, and of those varied efforts which are being
made for the purpose of diminishing the evils of intemperance.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ENGLISH OF THE PRESENT DAY—THE ARISTOCRACY—THE MIDDLE CLASSES—THE
INDUSTRIAL CLASSES—FARM LABOURERS—THE RESORTS OF DRUNKARDS.
England, or perhaps we should rather say Great Britain, to-day occupies
a very peculiar and not a very enviable position in the history of
drink. In that, as in many other respects, our island has formed a kind
of halting station in the traffic between the Eastern and the Western
world. Some writers attribute the worst phases of drunkenness to our wars
in the Netherlands,[294] others to our Anglo-Saxon descent, and to our
intercourse with the mediæval Germans; and the last view is supported by
the philological resemblance between their drinking terms and ours, and
perhaps also by the ordinary colloquial expressions to which reference
was made when we treated of the history of drink in Germany. No doubt the
invasions of such barbarians as the Danish rovers on the one hand, and
the return of our own soldiery from expeditions into the Netherlands,
Germany, and France on the other, have had much to do with the formation
and development of our national vice. Passing westward, the Americans
of to-day will tell us, in like manner, that most of their drinking is
performed by Irish, German, and English emigrants and settlers; and that
view is certainly borne out by the opinions of impartial English writers
on America. But Great Britain ought not to be held responsible for the
whole sum of her intemperance. Our seaports, especially those on the west
coast, are made the receptacles of what may be called the concentrated
vice of the world. In Liverpool, Glasgow, and Bristol there is a constant
influx of men whose chief employment is drinking;—seamen of all nations
landing with a keen thirst and full purses; improvident Irish labourers,
who, after being accustomed to earn very low wages at home, suddenly find
themselves possessed of more than is necessary to provide for their daily
wants. In addition to these, there is the residuum of the currents which
are constantly flowing backwards and forwards between the eastern and
the western hemispheres. Where there is a demand for drink, the supply
naturally follows, and the supply in this case is undoubtedly accompanied
by infamies inexpressible, as any one may witness for himself who wanders
along the docks, or visits the haunts of the vicious classes in the great
seaports which have been named, or, indeed, in any considerable seaport
in Great Britain.
It is to this class of society chiefly that England owes her unenviable
reputation for drunkenness amongst the nations of the world, but before
dealing with this lowest phase of the subject, it will be instructive to
cast a glance over the whole of our society in the present day.
_No English gentleman now gets drunk_; that is not saying much, perhaps;
and however it may hurt the susceptibilities of some of our readers
in the middle and upper classes, we feel bound to add, that the term
“gentleman” is, in this respect, equally applicable to every rank of
society, to the humblest artisan as well as to the peer of the realm.
There is one regrettable distinction, however, and it is this: In the
middle and upper classes there are naturally not so many drunkards, nor
are they so obtrusive, as those in the lower classes. In the former,
therefore, sober people do not feel themselves identified with the sots
who disgrace their order, whilst among the poor, many who are really
better deserving of the title of “gentleman” than some of those who are
constantly lecturing them upon sobriety, have to support a large share of
the obloquy which attaches to the drunken and disorderly members of their
class.
In common with every other rank of society except the “residuum,” the
English aristocracy have very much improved in their drinking habits,
especially during the last few years. The exercise of field-sports,
and the opportunities they offered for indulgence, were formerly the
occasions of great intemperance in the higher walks of life; and to be
“as drunk as a lord” is an epithet which is not yet forgotten. Their
comparatively small numbers, the position of responsibility which they
occupy, and above all, the example of a virtuous court, or perhaps it
would be more strictly accurate to say, of a punctilious sovereign, these
circumstances have completely changed the habits of the aristocracy. No
doubt there are still many men amongst them who are a disgrace to their
rank and station, but on the whole they compare favourably with any class
below them. Making all due allowance for the courtesy necessitated by the
position in which he was placed, we should say that Sir William Gull was
not far wrong when he stated to the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance: “I
think it is quite a mistake if the public, or any class of the public,
should suppose that where people have the means they are intemperate.
It is quite the contrary. I think, if I had to look for a temperate
person, I should look in the upper classes.”[295] It would indeed be a
sad disgrace to the “upper classes” if it were otherwise. As in the upper
middle classes, there is now very little after-dinner drinking amongst
the aristocracy; the younger members are not given to excess to any
greater extent than those of the class below them, although the practice,
prejudicial alike to health and morals, of “nipping” at clubs is said to
be on the increase; and finally, the cases of ladies (if the term can be
so applied) who drink inordinately are exceptions to the general rule.
And yet it is the opinion of those who are best able to judge, that for
health there is still far too much alcohol drunk even by the aristocracy;
but probably that remark applies equally to every other rank of society.
In the middle classes there has been a very great improvement of
late years. There is still far too much drinking, but comparatively
little drunkenness, excepting among fast young men. There are no more
three-bottle men, for in nearly all cultivated circles the gentlemen
rise from the table with the ladies, and there are very few men of good
position in society who would care to boast that they had drunk a couple
of bottles of wine at a sitting. Spirits, which are still consumed by
the middle classes more largely in Scotland and Ireland than in England,
are rarely drunk to excess by gentlemen. In our clubs and restaurants
claret and hock are daily coming more into use; and one of the most
satisfactory evidences of the changed drinking habits in this country is
the increasing consumption of imported German and Scandinavian beer.
If it be true that an English gentleman never gets drunk, not gallantry
alone but the facts of the case warrant our saying further that
no English _lady_ takes more intoxicating drink than is becoming.
Unfortunately our municipal and charitable institutions are made the
excuse for entertainments at which old drinking customs are upheld far
more than is desirable, and we should not be within the strict limits of
accuracy if we were to say that we have never seen a lady at a public
table whose conversation had been stimulated by wine more freely than
was consistent with the usages of polite society. But these are, after
all, exceptions, and we think our readers may take it for granted that
the _lady_ who thus forgets herself, or one who sends to her grocer’s for
wine or spirits, has gone far to relinquish her claim to the title.[296]
Amongst the lower middle classes—as, for example, the smaller
tradesmen—there is still much intemperance; but even there, self-respect
and public opinion prevent anything like its obtrusion upon the notice
of the world. In connection with political action drunkenness is still
rife, but secret voting and the abolition of public nominations have to
some extent mitigated the evil. There was a time, and that not very far
back, when in many English towns the week preceding and that following
a parliamentary election was one protracted orgie of the most debasing
kind. This part of the subject we shall, however, treat at greater length
hereafter. Perhaps the distribution of actual drunkenness through the
various ranks of society is pretty fairly illustrated by some of our
police records. The following, for example, is a statement condensed and
classified from the table of apprehensions for drunkenness as they appear
in the report of the Chief Constable of Liverpool for the year 1877:—
The total number of men who were apprehended for being “drunk and
disorderly” in Liverpool during that year was 7020. These were taken
from various classes of society, as follows:—
Clergymen and priests, _None._
Merchants and brokers, 13
Professional men of all kinds—architects, artists, surgeons, &c., 43
Shopkeepers (including 12 publicans), 194
Clerks and agents, 175
All skilled artisans, including engineers, mechanics, joiners,
masons, printers, &c., 1010
Coachmen, carmen, and carters, 342
Sailors, 894
Porters and dock labourers, 3862
All other occupations, and persons of no occupation, 487
----
7020
Thus it will be seen that, as nearly as possible, two-thirds of the
disorderly drunkenness in the town (for there were the “drunk and
incapables” besides) which ranks second upon the black list (Glasgow
being usually considered the first) is caused by dock-labourers and
sailors, precisely the classes to whom we said we are indebted for our
unenviable reputation as a drunken people! And if the reader turns to
the female statistics for the same year, he will be pained to find
that of 4842 women who were apprehended under the same conditions,
421 are set down as hawkers, which means chiefly basket-women; 1364 as
prostitutes; and 2565 (being nearly all the remainder) as of “no trade.”
What that means we leave the reader to imagine. Of course this statement
embraces the residuum of every class; but, in the author’s opinion, it
presents a fair summary of the relative amount of drunkenness in the
different grades of the middle and lower classes. It has been stated by
some persons who have large opportunities of judging, that drunkenness
is on the increase in England; whilst others as distinctly declare the
reverse. Those who wish to review these opposite expressions of opinion
should read the Report of the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance; but,
in order to show that the evidence there given cannot be considered at
all conclusive on either side, we need only take that of two witnesses.
The Chief Constable of Liverpool (Major Greig) holds the opinion that,
“if anything, he should say that intemperance is increasing” in that
town;[297] but, on the other hand, the Rev. James Nugent, the “Father
Matthew” of Liverpool, who has been twenty-nine years a priest there,
and is now the Roman Catholic chaplain of the borough gaol, says that
“certainly there is less drunkenness in Liverpool” than there was
formerly;[298] and the same uncertainty on the subject seems to prevail
generally throughout the country.
Now let us inquire on what grounds the opinion obtains that drunkenness
is on the increase, and we shall find that they are twofold. The first is
the increasing consumption of spirits per head of the population; the
second, the police statistics. The first fact may be admitted, although
there cannot at present be any accurate calculation on the subject. As to
the police statistics, we shall show that they are quite misleading. In
reading the evidence given before Committees of the Houses of Parliament,
we are often far more accurately informed by the questions of the
members of the Committee than by the replies which are given to them.
For the questioners are usually statesmen of high intelligence and large
experience, who have taken a more extended survey of the subject than
the witnesses who have been called up from various parts of the country.
These are generally advocates of some particular theory or system, and
their information, which is usually of a local nature, is often distorted
by the medium through which it passes, or vitiated by the method in which
it is communicated.
Thus, in reading over the questions put by Lord Aberdare, one of the
Lords’ Committee referred to, whose sanitary legislation, especially
connected with the over-crowding of dwellings in 1866, and his Licensing
Act (1872), render him peculiarly fitted to form an accurate estimate of
the condition of the working classes, we are led to infer that his views
on the subject under consideration are as follows:[299]—First, that the
increased consumption of intoxicating drinks amongst the working classes
is due to their greater power of expenditure, much in the same sense as
the increasing consumption of tea, coffee, meat, &c., and that growing
intemperance is not a necessary corollary of the increased consumption;
and, secondly, that a higher standard of feeling is growing up amongst
working men generally, who look upon drunkenness with greater disfavour
than they did formerly.[300] If these be the views of Lord Aberdare, the
author cordially endorses them, and he will endeavour, as concisely as
possible, to prove their accuracy. But it must first be shown clearly
that, either from their dubious nature or from their partial application,
statistics are usually very misleading when they are used as a factor in
estimating this part of the question.
Let us consider, for example, the police statistics which are so often
employed to gauge the amount of drunkenness in our large towns; and it
may be remarked that the figures and information here quoted have been
supplied to the author by the Chief Constables in the respective places,
or they are printed in annual or special reports. In the statistics
of the Metropolitan Police[301] we find the following remarkable
circumstances:—
In 1833, with an estimated population of 1,579,525
there were 29,880 apprehensions
for drunkenness,
or 18.917 per 1000.
In 1834, with an estimated population of 1,607,350
there were only 19,779 apprehensions,
or 12.305 per 1000.
In 1876, with an estimated population of 4,211,607
there were 32,328 apprehensions,
or 7.676 per 1000.
First, it appears there was a falling off in the arrests to the extent
of over 10,000 between the years 1833 and 1834; and then a gradual
diminution from nearly 30 per mille in 1833 to 7.6 per mille in 1876.
Surely these figures would indicate not an increase but a remarkable
diminution of drunkenness. But, on inquiry as to the cause of the sudden
decrease, the author received the following information:—“In 1831,
’32, and ’33, three-fourths of the persons arrested, _or rather taken
care of_, by the police were discharged by the superintendents without
being taken before a magistrate. This practice was discontinued by the
Metropolitan Police in 1834, and the arrests decreased by 10,000.”
In 1840 the arrests had, however, fallen to about 8 per mille, and
from that time to the present they have fluctuated between that figure
and about 5 per mille; consequently, whilst it would be very unsafe,
after the above explanation, to base any estimate upon the figures,
yet, if they mean anything at all, there must have been a diminution of
drunkenness in one of our most important centres of civilisation.[302]
Now let us turn to Liverpool:—
In the year 1857, with an estimated population of 416,119,
the number of persons proceeded against for 11,439, or 2.75
drunkenness was per 100.
In the year 1877, with an estimated population of 519,505
the number proceeded against for drunkenness was 15,736, or 3.02
per 100.
Here, at first sight, there would appear to be a slight increase
of drunkenness; but if the reader could see the printed books of
instructions given to the police for the last thirty or thirty-five
years, he would find that a very much more stringent system of dealing
with drunkards has been gradually established in Liverpool during that
period. Unfortunately the table[303] does not go back farther than 1857;
but a comparison of the police instructions in the years 1845, 1867, and
1878[304] reveals the fact that whilst formerly the solicitude of the
authorities seems to have been on behalf of the drunkards as against the
police (in fact, drunkards were “taken care of,” as in London), now the
former meets with the consideration which he deserves, and instead of
being “passed on” to his home, he is taken before a magistrate and fined.
Here again, therefore, the statistics favour the view that drunkenness
has diminished rather than that it has increased. But this is mere
guess-work. What it does prove, however, is, that the vice which was
formerly regarded as a pardonable failing has gradually become a petty
criminal offence. And finally, in Birmingham, we have a very flattering
picture, for—
In 1866, the estimated population was 295,995.
The arrests for drunkenness were only 1,357, or 0.45 per cent.
And in 1877, the estimated population was 380,787,
and the arrests for drunkenness, 3,727, or 0.9 per cent.
But on inquiry, the author was informed by the Chief Constable (Major
Bond) that “in September last year (1877) I put in force the first
paragraph of section 12 of Act 1872, generally known as the ‘quiet
drunkard,’ and summoned in a short time 320 persons for being drunk in
our public streets; but I was eventually ordered by the Town Council
not to carry out the provisions of that section.” This fact was, we
believe, published at the time in the Birmingham papers; and without
expressing any opinion upon the policy of arresting or not arresting
drunken people at any particular stage of intoxication, we hope we have
sufficiently proved that the value and significance of the statistics
are absolutely nothing, unless all the concomitant circumstances in
each case, extending over a long series of years, are regarded at the
same time. The number of persons arrested or proceeded against depends
largely upon the jurisdiction and mode of dealing with drunkards by the
police, and upon the view taken by the inhabitants or the magistrates of
what really constitutes a drunkard. In some places a man is allowed to
go his way; in another, he is taken up and “booked;” and the smallest
change in the mode of proceeding makes an incalculable difference in the
published statistics of drunkenness. And finally, these statistics of
apprehensions are misleading in another respect. It must not be supposed
that because in Liverpool, for example, apparently three per cent. of
the population were arrested last year for drunkenness, therefore that
proportion are in the habit of getting drunk. The same men and women are
brought before the magistrates over and over again, and their arrest is
recorded each time; so that the actual number of individuals apprehended
annually is not known, or at least not published. Once more, then, the
statistics of apprehensions serve only to convey some vague idea of the
general condition of the lowest residuum; and although the ignorance and
depravity of the class affected really render them all the more dangerous
to society, it is quite fallacious to employ the records of our police
courts to base an estimate of the increase or diminution of drunkenness
throughout the whole community. We have here gone quite far enough in
employing them to convey some general idea of the condition of the
various ranks of society.
That the annual consumption of spirits per head of the population may
be a somewhat better guide to the condition of the people, we have
little doubt, though there is no proof that it is so; and even a nominal
prohibition of the manufacture and sale may sometimes have little
effect in checking drunkenness, as we shall see hereafter. Still it
is safe to affirm that the more easily drink is obtainable, whether
from its cheapness or from the multiplication of drinking shops, the
more liability there is to excess on the part of all sections of the
community. This is, however, a mere generalisation. For example, when the
“Gin Act” was passed, it is true the consumption fell off apparently two
millions of gallons, but twenty-two years afterwards, long after the Act
was repealed, it had first risen and then fallen much lower; that is to
say, in 1737 it stood at 4,250,399; in 1743, after the repeal of the Act,
at 8,203,430, and during the interim the duty was threepence per gallon;
but in 1759, when the duty was raised to 2s. 3d., it was only 1,819,134
gallons. Again, if the reader will consult the interesting table compiled
by the Rev. D. Burns already referred to,[305] he will find that, with
slight fluctuations, there has been a steady increase in the consumption
of spirits in England, in proportion to the population, from 1684, when
the duty was twopence per gallon, to 1873, when it was 10s.; and that
increase still continues. In Scotland, whilst in 1853 the duties were
3s. 8d. and 4s. 8d. per gallon, the consumption of spirits was 6,534,648
gallons; whilst in 1873, with the duty raised to 10s., and an increase of
about 600,000 inhabitants, it was only a little more, namely, 6,832,487
gallons. This really denotes increased sobriety, due, no doubt, partly to
repressive measures, and partly to the rapid spread of education.
Still great caution is necessary in the use of these statistics. Mr.
Burns tells us in his paper referred to,[306] that Mr. Gladstone’s
legislation in 1860, which reduced the duty on light French wines, had
failed as a measure of temperance, inasmuch as it had stimulated the
consumption of strong Spanish and Portuguese wines, and in proof he
cites the customs’ returns of 1858 to 1860 inclusive, and then those of
1863 to 1865 inclusive, showing that the importation of claret had not
prevented that of the strong Spanish and Portuguese wines from rising
rapidly from an annual average of 6,600,000 gallons to one of 11,270,000
gallons. Feeling certain that Mr. Burns had formed an erroneous estimate
of the effect produced by Mr. Gladstone’s fiscal legislation, the author
procured from him further statistics, and this is really how the matter
stands:—Mr. Gladstone’s legislation took place, as already stated, in
1860. Beginning with the year 1859, the wine imported from France was
695,911 gallons; from Spain and Portugal, 4,893,916 gallons. Whilst in
1876 the wine imported from France was 6,745,710 gallons; and from Spain
and Portugal, 10,186,332 gallons. The importation of strong wines had
therefore actually fallen below the average of 1863-65, whilst that of
French wine had increased tenfold by the reduction of the duty.
We have no hesitation in repeating that it is to the increased
consumption of these light wines the improved drinking habits of the
middle classes are largely to be attributed. And now we must bid adieu to
statistics, which are, as Abbé Moigno once remarked, very eloquent, but
which, as we have sought to show, are often very misleading, and although
in perfect good faith, are frequently much misapplied.
The proof that the great mass of the community is becoming more sober,
and that the working classes are more sensitive than formerly on the
question of drunkenness, is easily obtained, and the facts are quite
apparent to any one who has moved about amongst, and associated with
them for the last twenty years, as the author has done. Year by year
the unions and societies of working men are deserting the public-house
and its dangerous attractions in greater numbers, and are holding their
meetings in schoolrooms and other places where intoxicating drink is
not procurable. And round about the practice of meeting in such places
there clustered a variety of old trade customs, the effect of which
was to encourage, if not actually to necessitate, intemperance on the
part of working men. Until the year 1872, the boiler-makers, a large
and influential body of artisans, were allowed threepence each from the
society’s funds to be spent at the public-house at which the branch held
its meetings; but now, wherever the meetings may be held, intoxicating
drink is forbidden. Many of the branches meet, as the author is told by
Mr. Knight, the general secretary, in schoolrooms, halls, and private
houses; and he adds, “I believe very many more would hold their meetings
away from the public-house could they get convenient accommodation
sufficiently near.”
Another agency which is influencing the habits of the working classes is
the introduction of machinery in place of manual labour. A very marked
illustration of this exists in the case of the bakers. “Thirty years
ago,” says the secretary of the Liverpool Bakers’ Union, Mr. Ritchie, in
a letter to the author, “a branch of our trade, the ship-bread bakers,
were very much given to excess in drinking, through having to work in a
very hot atmosphere, and by double sets of men, night and day; but that
is altered now by the introduction of machinery. Any man who becomes
a confirmed drunkard is now compelled, owing to greater strictness in
the matter of sobriety, to leave his trade, and take work at the corn
warehouses or docks. The branch,” he adds, “to which I belong, numbering
over two hundred members, have not held our meetings in a public-house
for the last five years; and now we have bought a house for our own
accommodation, and to let off to other societies. We could not have done
that if the old habits had continued.” This writer attributes much of the
drunkenness that does undoubtedly exist amongst the working classes to
the encouragement which is given to it by the construction and management
of public-houses, a view in which the author entirely concurs; for, as at
present constructed, our public-houses and wine-rooms give facility for
private and secret intemperance.
In several of the trades foremen were formerly lessees of public-houses,
and, as the secretary of the ropemakers, Mr. Pritchard, writes, “drinking
men had the preference, but nothing of the sort exists now.” Of course
his remark refers to the ropemakers only, but no doubt it is applicable
to other trades. The practice, however, on the part of stevedores and
warehousemen of keeping public-houses, and of giving a preference to
“drinking men,” prevails much too largely, and it is one that might
be greatly mitigated by employers, many of whom content themselves
with denouncing the drinking habits of their labourers, whilst their
own servants are perhaps accumulating a small fortune by the sale of
drink and favouring the intemperate amongst the labourers. A still more
pernicious custom than any of those named existed in bygone years, and
that was the necessity on the part of an artisan to “pay his footing”
on entering a new situation. “This custom,” says the secretary of the
millers, Mr. J. Clarke, “is now totally done away with amongst society’s
men, and I am glad to say that the drinking habits amongst the millers
have greatly diminished in the last twenty years of my own experience.”
Amongst the iron-moulders the case was much worse. The secretary of the
union, Mr. Owen, writes, that besides the fines or “footings” paid by
the men on entering a new shop, the apprentices also were mulcted. When
a lad was bound, he had to pay the “shop” 10s.; when out of his time,
20s.; and when he got married, 10s. All these fines were spent in drink,
and, says Mr. Owen, “the whole shop’s crew often went on the spree for
days together, ending in their discharge from the firm.” All these things
are now forbidden, and any one asking for footings or money in any
shape is liable to a fine of 2s. 6d., the same fine being inflicted by
the union upon any man who is known to have complied with the request.
But the author has himself had excellent means of forming an opinion
concerning the changed habits of the working classes; for, some years
since, in conjunction with several friends, he helped to establish a
trades hall in Liverpool, to which a number of the unions at once removed
from public-houses in different parts of the town, and there now meet in
that institution the following trades:—The printers, the coopers, the
painters, the shipwrights, the plumbers, the farriers, the upholsterers,
and several minor friendly societies, who maintain the establishment at
an aggregate expenditure of about £160 per annum, which they subscribe
amongst themselves. It is hardly necessary to say that the removal from
the public-house to such an institution has exercised a very beneficial
influence upon the drinking habits of those trades. The “United Trades
Council,” which embraces representatives of every important trade in the
town, also meets there, whereas, within the author’s recollection its
meetings were held in a little pothouse called the “Tam o’ Shanter,” and
the change has added not a little to the wisdom and moderation of its
counsels, and the weight and influence of its decisions. Mr. Alexander
Clark, the secretary of the council, in whose opinion on the subject the
author places great reliance, assures him that during the last twenty
years he has observed a marked improvement in the drinking habits of
most of the trades. Another circumstance which shows the desire for
improvement of the respectable working classes is, that they are all
(not only the teetotallers) anxious to see the facilities for obtaining
drink curtailed. In the year 1872, a committee of gentlemen, with whom
the author co-operated, invited the opinion of the skilled artisans of
Liverpool on the question of the hours which should be allowed for the
sale of drink, and the result was as follows:[307]—
Returns were made freely, and without influence being in any way
exercised upon them, by 8096 men.
Of these, the number in favour of opening public-houses at
6 A.M. on week-days was 1586, or less than one-fifth.
At 7 A.M., 6505, or more than four-fifths.
Of closing at 11 P.M., 1724, or about one-fifth.
Of closing at 10 P.M., 6372, or about four-fifths.
And a canvass, which was subsequently made by the temperance
organisations, showed that an immense majority of the whole community
favoured the total closing of public-houses on Sunday. This, it must be
remembered, was in a town which has the reputation, and justly so, of
being one of the most drink-ridden in the whole country! What refers to
the working classes of Liverpool may, however, be safely said concerning
those of other large towns.
It is still too early to express a decided opinion upon the changes which
are taking place in the drinking habits of our agricultural labourers.
In a letter to the author, their leader, Mr. Joseph Arch, says that
“having had the opportunity of making inquiries respecting the increase
of drunkenness in rural villages consequent upon the advance of wages,”
the answer he has received from nine out of every ten has been that
there is less intemperance and less disturbance, and many publicans, he
says, have complained to him that, although some of the branches of the
Agricultural Labourers’ Union meet at their houses, the men spend less
money now than they did formerly. Mr. Arch adds, that the reason of their
meeting in public-houses at all is because the clergy deny them the use
of the village schoolrooms!
When the franchise is given to those men, who are as well entitled to it
as one half, at least, of those who possess it already, all this will
be changed. There will be as great anxiety to conciliate the “voters,”
as there is now on the part of many of the less enlightened clergy and
squirearchy to suppress the combinations formed for the purpose of
ameliorating their condition.[308]
It may be objected, however, that these opinions concerning the
improvement in the drinking habits of the working classes, and the facts
in connection with them, have been supplied to the author by persons
whose interests and inclinations would naturally prompt them to present
the best side of the picture for publication. No doubt it has been so;
but if the reader will permit the author to take him into his confidence,
he may mention that the same thing applies equally to the accounts which
have been given to him by experienced men in every rank of society, from
the highest to the lowest, each believing his own class to be the most
sober. If there has been any unfriendly criticism of their own order, it
has been amongst those who can unfortunately not close their eyes to the
effects which drink is producing in their midst. For although a review
of the whole question leads to the conclusion that national drunkenness
is diminishing, it would be useless to conceal the fact that there are
periods when the great increase in the consumption of intoxicating
drinks, and especially of spirits, points to a corresponding increase in
intemperance. The general prosperity of the trading community, and the
rise of wages which accompanied that prosperity, from about the years
1871 to 1875, swelled the figures that represent the national thirst
very considerably. But it would be very unfair to say that there was a
proportionate increase of drunkenness amongst the working classes only.
Gentlemen laid down wine who had not laid down wine before, and the
consumption of all kinds of alcoholic drinks increased in every class
of society. So far as the indulgence in drink can be blameless, much of
that which was the concomitant of increasing wealth was of an innocent
character. Let us not, however, forget the lesson of Rome in her latter
days. The present commercial depression, with its diminution of profits
and wages, may not be without its advantages, and may prove a blessing
to the nation if it teaches all classes to husband their resources,
and not to “eat and drink, for to-morrow we must die.” Let us remember
that there are others to come after us, whom we would desire to see
better and more temperate than ourselves. This brings us to a phase of
the subject which the author would gladly have passed over without any
further comment, namely, the character of gin-palaces; for however people
may otherwise differ concerning the cause of drunkenness, there can be
but one opinion of the baneful influence which these places exercise
upon the habits and morals of the community. They were, perhaps, never
more fairly, and certainly not more graphically, described than by a
foreigner who visited England about sixteen years ago,[309] and since
that period their meretricious adornments, and therewith their dangerous
character, have been very much augmented. The boarded window, with its
glowing descriptions of the liquid treasures (often the vilest compounds
of disease and death) which are to be obtained within, whilst it conceals
the scenes of debauchery which it would not be prudent to expose to the
light of day, renders drinking as secret as possible. And at night the
showy glass-barrels and the brilliant chandeliers, with their bright jets
of gas lighting up the neighbourhood, are fit emblems of the devouring
flame which, sooner or later, seizes and consumes the silly, fluttering
moths that circulate about them, often vainly endeavouring to resist
their attractive influences.
But why dwell upon the subject? Hundreds of books and pamphlets and
thousands of newspaper articles have been published with the view to
expose and counteract the evils of those “palaces,” in which are
held the saturnalia of modern England. All the eloquence of the first
orators of the age has been levelled at these abominations, and yet our
magistrates, who are charged with the responsibility of limiting their
number to meet “the wants of their neighbourhood,” allow so many of them
to exist that, in one street in a large northern town, a missionary says
that he “counted seven public-houses out of eleven consecutive tenements,
to say nothing of two or three on the opposite side of the street!”
Over and over again they have been denounced as the fruitful sources of
every evil—of drunkenness, of wretched poverty and destitution, of the
worst forms of insanity, of prostitution, robbery, rape, infanticide,
manslaughter, and deliberate murder.[310] And yet, what is the position
which their proprietors occupy in the state? They are promoted to the
highest offices in our municipalities, and honours are heaped upon them
which should be reserved only for those who render eminent services to
the community. They are courted as political supporters; and even those
who are reluctant to avail themselves of their aid uphold their influence
because they dread their enmity. Their trade interests are protected with
greater solicitude than those of any branch of respectable industry,
because they are the source of great revenue to the national exchequer.
The attempt made by one party in the state to restrict their dangerous
traffic within such reasonable bounds as to prevent breaches of the law
and ensure order and decency in our public streets at night, has secured
for them the approving smile of the opposite political party, who now
reign with their aid, and who will find it difficult to sever the odious
alliance when the national conscience is once more awakened to its duties
and responsibilities on the great question of drunkenness.
And as to their social influence, why it is impossible nowadays to sit
at the table of a friend or relative without committing one’s self by
a passing remark upon the drink traffic, and thus giving unpardonable
offence to a publican, or a publican’s brother, or his sister, or some
one of his intimate friends who may happen to be present!
And yet, notwithstanding the deplorable condition of the lowest ranks
of our population, and the great social and political influence of
those who are enriching themselves at their expense, the author does
not hesitate to repeat his conviction that, whilst in some of the
neighbouring countries intemperance is said to be increasing, it is in
England descending lower and lower in the scale of society. And there is
every reason to hope that the spread of education and the means which
are being employed to counteract the evil are already operating to check
its growth, and that they will before long raise the moral and social
status of our country to a level with her commercial, intellectual, and
political standing amongst the nations.
CHAPTER XIII.
SWEDEN AND ITS LICENSING SYSTEM.
It was not our object, in entering upon this inquiry, to deal with the
drinking habits of every nation, nor even of every race of mankind, but
rather to select those countries and peoples whose history presented
features of special interest bearing upon our subject. Thus we
considered, in some detail, the customs of those ancient races in which
the subsequent drinking habits of the world appear to have originated.
We dwelt upon the social life of ancient Rome, an empire whose fall was
attributable mainly to the effeminacy, self-indulgence, and tyranny of
its patrician element, and the abject servility and ignorance of its
plebeian population. We have somewhat carefully noticed the changes in
the social history of Germany, a country in which a system of national
education, the love of music, and the use of innocuous beverages have
all tended to convert a whole people from intemperance to sobriety; and
we have devoted considerable space to the consideration of the drinking
life, if we may so call it, of our own country. There are two other
existing nations whose condition at the present time calls for special
notice—the Swedes and the people of the United States of America.
During the first half of the present century, the Swedes are considered
by some persons to have been the most drunken people on the face of
the earth;[311] and one well-known historian says that about the year
1828 the amount of crime over all Sweden was equal to that of the
most depraved cities in Great Britain, whilst the illegitimate births
in Stockholm were “one in two and three-tenths, exceeding even the
proportion of Paris itself.”[312] This state of things the author in
question attributed to the destructive passion for ardent spirits. Other
writers have regarded the accounts of drunkenness in Sweden as somewhat
exaggerated,[313] but all are agreed that the production and consumption
of spirituous liquors were out of all proportion to the number of its
inhabitants, and that the upper classes especially were most intemperate.
We may state at once that the worst accounts of Swedish intemperance in
former times have been based upon certain statistics which need further
elucidation, for at present they appear to be erroneous, but of that the
reader will presently judge for himself. Gustavus III.[314] attempted
to make the distillation of spirits a royal monopoly, but this created
such a dissatisfaction that a modification was soon made in the law, and
every little landowner who was prepared to pay a small fee for a license
was allowed to distil spirits. This system continued to expand until at
length nearly every one in Sweden who felt disposed to turn distiller
was enabled to do so. Every burgher in the towns, we are told, had the
right to retail spirits. “The effect was fearful national drunkenness
beyond the excess of all other nations, and the whole country may have
been said to have been deluged with spirits.” But now let us descend to
details. Alison says that at the time of his writing there were “no less
than 150,000 manufactories of liquid hell-fire, as they have been well
denominated, which distil annually thirty millions of gallons of spirits
for the consumption of three millions of people.”[315] This estimate,
the reader will remark, gives an annual consumption of ten gallons per
head of the whole population. Mr. Carnegie, who resided in Sweden from
1830 to 1845, says in his evidence before the Lords’ Committee, that in
the former year “the number of stills amounted to 173,000, producing, as
well as can be calculated, a quantity equal to ten gallons per head of
the population.”[316] Morewood treats the matter differently.[317] He
speaks of the extent of dram-drinking which prevailed in Sweden in 1830.
The population, he says, was 2,904,538, of whom half may be considered
consumers of brandy. These may be divided into three classes, according
to the number of drams taken daily:—
Canns.
Half-a-million take 5 drams daily or 60 canns yearly, 30,000,000
” 3 ” 36 ” 18,000,000
” 2 ” 24 ” 12,000,000[318]
So far we have extracted verbatim. On the following page of his work the
author tells us that 100 canns are equal to 69½ English wine gallons,
and that the cann is computed to hold 30 drams. From this it would appear
that, in round numbers, 3,000,000 people consumed, in 1830, 60,000,000
canns, or 41,700,000 gallons of spirits, being nearly 14 gallons per
head of the population. But on the same page on which Morewood gives us
this rough estimate, there is what appears to be an accurate “return of
the number of pans (stills) employed, with the amount of canns of brandy
manufactured in Sweden during the years specified.”[319] Those years
are from 1825 to 1829, and the number of pans or stills agrees pretty
well with Mr. Carnegie’s statement, fluctuating from 162,733 in 1827 to
173,126 in 1830, the year named by him. But the total quantity of spirits
produced in the whole of the five years is set down as 17,623,837 canns,
or considerably less than one-third of what the three writers estimate
to have been the consumption in the year 1830 alone, in which the total
production was 3,542,956 canns. (The imports appear on the same page,
and are not worth considering.) This quantity is still enormous, for
the reader will find, on reducing it to gallons, that a population of
2,904,538 consumed, in the year 1830, 2,462,264 gallons of spirits,
whilst in England in the same year nearly 14,000,000 of people consumed
7,732,101 gallons.[320] Whence the writers in question have obtained
their statistics we are unable to say, but, in justice to a brave and
intelligent race of men, it is only fair to point out what appears to
be a grave error affecting the character of a whole nation, and to
give an opportunity for its rectification or explanation. In addition
to spirits, the Swedes drank, at the time mentioned (and continue to
consume), almost every kind of wine and a light palatable beer; and in
consequence of the excessive drunkenness which prevailed, great efforts
were made to promote reform. A temperance society was started in 1835 in
Sweden, which Morewood tells us[321] had succeeded, in 1838, in reducing
the number of stills to about 150,000 (the number named by Alison), and
at length, in the year 1853, a bill was introduced into the Diet which
effected a complete reform in the licensing system of Sweden, and which
has wrought wonders in the habits of the people. The distinctive feature
of the system is, now, that licenses are sold by auction, for a term not
exceeding three years, to persons who undertake to pay certain duties
annually to the local authorities; “or if a company is formed for taking
the whole number of public-house licenses, the town authorities may
contract with such company for three years without an auction, subject to
the confirmation of the provincial governor.”[322]
It is upon this part of the law that the Gothenburg “Bolag,” or company,
was started, which consists of a number of gentlemen whose sole object
is to diminish intemperance, and who pay over the profits on the sale
of drink to the town and provincial treasuries in reduction of the
rates. With the exception of half a dozen licenses which the town
authorities have retained in their own hands, the whole licensing system
is centred in the “Bolag,” which even sublets to the clubs and hotels.
The author visited the drinking houses of various classes last year, and
investigated the system carefully. It is a success so far as Sweden is
concerned, and should certainly be tried in some town in England. The
houses are strictly regulated and managed. The manager has the greatest
interest in maintaining order and propriety. Solid food is supplied
with drink, but that is in many cases a mere form; and everything is
done to diminish as far as possible the evils attending the sale of
intoxicating drink, even the lowest houses being far superior to similar
places in England. The system was about to be introduced into Stockholm,
and is likely to spread throughout the country. But the fact is that a
Permissive Bill is also in operation throughout Sweden. The law as it
stands does not fix the minimum number of public-houses, and in many
places the local authorities, with the sanction of the governor, have
prohibited the trade altogether.[323]
There is some difference of opinion as to the success of the Swedish
system, but it is easily explained. There is certainly still a good
deal of intemperance in Gothenburg, but it arises mainly from the
fact that the country people are unable to obtain liquor in their own
neighbourhood, and therefore they take every opportunity of visiting the
town, where they can procure it without difficulty, and the result is
that, at certain times, there is a considerable increase of drunkenness
visible in Gothenburg.[324] That the legislation has been successful,
however, arises from the fact that it is popular, and meets with the
support of the inhabitants; for during his sojourn in the country the
author never heard a single complaint against its adoption. As regards
the middle classes, however, the author formed the impression that they
still indulge very freely in drink.
There is a custom in Sweden and other northern countries of taking a
kind of preliminary meal immediately before dinner. On a sideboard
numerous cold dishes are set out of sardines, ham, tongue, sausages, &c.,
and invariably two or three decanters of raw spirit, from which each
guest takes a “schnapps” or “dram.” If an Englishman indulged in these
so-called appetisers, as the Swedes are in the habit of doing, he would
spoil his dinner, and they are quite astonished to hear the preliminary
dram spoken of as provocative, not of appetite, but of intemperance.
Then, again, the author saw people in Stockholm, in the middle of summer,
in warm weather, drinking hot grog around the cafés listening to the
music, a practice which he has never witnessed in any other European
capital; and wine appears to be very largely consumed both by gentlemen
and ladies.
Two principles are, however, in operation in Sweden which cannot fail
to prove effectual in diminishing intemperance. One is, that the people
are satisfied of the necessity of adopting legislative measures for
discontinuing the drink traffic; and the other that, as in Gothenburg,
for example, the profits of the sale, are applied to diminish the burdens
of the ratepayers. In other words, the trade is being made unpopular
and unremunerative, neither of which, unfortunately, is yet the case in
England.[325]
CHAPTER XIV.
AMERICA—THE CREOLES AND INDIANS OF THE RIVER PLATE—THE UNITED
STATES DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THIS CENTURY—THE NORTH AMERICAN
INDIANS—DRINKING IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE PRESENT TIME—LICENSING AND
PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION—THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW—ITS OPERATION AND PARTIAL
FAILURE—PERMISSIVE LEGISLATION—INEBRIATE ASYLUMS.
Once more we must follow the course of civilisation westward, this time
across the Atlantic, and in the New World we shall find much to interest
us in connection with drinking habits and their effects upon society.
Every phase of the subject may be studied in America—the aborigines,
with their primitive methods of preparing intoxicating drinks and their
unbridled indulgence in them; the half-caste, who has acquired all the
vices but few of the virtues of civilisation; the European emigrant,
usually sober if a German; often intemperate if he comes from Great
Britain or Ireland; and finally, we find there the Puritan spirit in full
operation, and the law, backed by public opinion, effectually suppressing
not alone drunkenness, but in many places even the manufacture and sale
of intoxicating beverages.
A curious and very repulsive feature of our subject presents itself in
that part of South America which is watered by the River Plate, but it
must be referred to, first, because it exhibits in striking contrast the
drinking habits of civilised and barbarous races; and, secondly, because
it almost places beyond a doubt the question of the aboriginal tendency
to use native intoxicating beverages.
In the neighbourhood of the Plate there are three varieties of men—two
of the Creole, descendants of the Spaniards, whose habits are quite
dissimilar, and then the native Indians. All three indulge in alcoholic
drinks, but in varying degrees.[326] The inhabitants of the large towns,
such as Buenos Ayres, Monte Video, Rosario, &c., are as civilised as
Europeans, and much more sober than the majority. They usually drink
light French or Spanish wine in great moderation, and mostly diluted
with water. This is taken at meals, and at other times coffee, iced
syrup drinks, and light beer are the customary beverages. Spirits are
hardly ever tasted. The inhabitants of the interior are barely civilised,
and the farther one recedes from the large towns the more distinctly
the Indian blood may be traced. They are great drunkards and gamblers,
and are only deterred by poverty (for they often work for food and
lodging only), or by their distance from a camp-store, from habitual and
continuous intemperance. They consume a raw spirit called caña, distilled
from the sugar-cane, which is pure, very strong, and not disagreeable
to the taste. As for the third variety, the Indians, they are men of
the very lowest type, said, indeed, to have been brought under the
civilising influence of the Jesuits some centuries back, but retaining
only a portion of their sacred nomenclature, and a few of the rudest
arts, such as plaiting straw. These Indians are spread over an immense
tract of country lying between the northern frontier of the Argentine
Republic and the southern borders of Paraguay, and they drink, raw, a
strong spirit which they distil from the sweet beans of the algaroba (the
locust or carob bean). The process of distillation they have probably
learned from the Europeans, though not from the Jesuits, who endeavoured
to win them over from barbarism to civilisation, but they are said to
have another mode of preparing an intoxicating beverage, which they adopt
in common with the natives of the South Sea Islands. The drink, called
cava, is prepared by masticating the root of the plant so called,[327]
and expectorating the chewed plant into a vessel; to this, water is
added, and the whole is allowed to ferment. Morewood says that in the
South Sea Islands no one is allowed to chew the root but young persons
with good teeth, clean mouths, and free from disease, and he describes
at considerable length both the manufacture of the cava drink and its
effects.[328] It is an aromatic, stimulating narcotic, with sudorific
properties, and to a stranger unaccustomed to its use it operates like
spirits, quickly causing intoxication. The reader must pardon this
reference to what is certainly a horrible and filthy process, but it
is mentioned in order to show that the arts of civilisation are by no
means essential to the gratification of the desire for intoxicating
beverages. And here, in these three varieties of mankind, we have another
illustration of the principle laid down in our first chapter, that the
passion for drink is more unbridled in the savage than in civilised men.
For whilst the cultivated race is remarkably sober, the half-castes in
their immediate contiguity are drunkards and gamblers, and the aborigines
of the interior, with many of whom they rarely come into contact, are
the most debauched of all. When they can procure spirits, or when they
prepare their native beverages, they drink until they are intoxicated,
and remain in that condition until the supply is completely exhausted.
* * * * *
In no people has the transition from intemperance to sobriety been so
marked as in those of the United States. The accounts of their drinking
habits in the early part of this century are hardly credible, and are
repulsive beyond description; in fact, they are worse than anything to
be found in modern European records. The price of the native spirits was
exceedingly low, varying from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. per gallon, and the
consumption was enormous. We have some hesitation, after what has been
said concerning Sweden, in accepting statistics as a guide, but Morewood
gives a table, which he says was compiled by the marshals of the United
States and the secretaries of the territories,[329] and which shows
that in one year the distillation and consumption of spirits reached
25,456,432 gallons; whilst according to another writer the quantity
distilled in 1817 was about 25,000,000. But it must not be forgotten that
a very large proportion of this liquid fire was used in barter with the
Indians, with what effect history has but too faithfully recorded. Nor
were these all the spirits which were consumed in the United States, for
we find that as early as 1790 about 3,679,000 gallons were imported, and
in the years immediately preceding 1806 the average annual importation
had reached 9,750,000 gallons. Besides being manufactured from the usual
substances, such as cereals, the native spirits were distilled from
peaches, apples, and two kinds of maple; and not only was their price
low, but the charge for licenses to sell them and other intoxicating
drinks was equally so, varying from ten to twenty-five dollars; in fact,
every possible encouragement was given to the production and consumption
of home-made alcoholic beverages. Wines, too, were largely imported from
all parts of the world, and in 1805 a company of emigrants planted what
appears to have been the first vineyard in the United States, namely, in
New Switzerland, Indiana, from which very excellent wine was manufactured.
With all these inducements to excessive indulgence in drink, it is not
surprising that drunkenness was widespread; and the chief sinners and
sufferers were the emigrants and the aboriginal races. The custom already
existed at that time of drinking what may be called slang mixtures,
“mint-juleps,” “sherry-cobblers,” &c., at bars; and although the habits
of the people of the United States have since reformed, that still
appears to be the characteristic form of intemperance, at least in large
cities. Of the temperance societies which were started to counteract
the terrible plague, we shall speak in the next chapter, but in proof
of the condition of the people at that time it will suffice to mention
two or three facts. In 1821, a law was passed which placed the property
of habitual drunkards on the same footing as that of lunatics, handing
it over to a committee of the Court of Chancery. What a blessing it
would be to thousands of suffering wives and children, and to society
generally, not excepting the unfortunate “habitual drunkards” themselves,
if such a law existed and were strictly enforced in England to-day. Would
it not?
Again, from a report of the trustees of the almshouse for the city and
county of Baltimore in 1827, it appears that of 623 adults admitted
during the year 1826, it was positively ascertained that 554 had been
placed there on account of the poverty to which they were reduced by
excessive drunkenness. As to crime, in a report presented by Dr. Francis
Lieber to the Philadelphia Society, he attributed nearly all the crime of
the country to drunkenness, for which the chief remedy proposed by him
was “education.” Moreover, the chaplain of the state prison at Sing-Sing,
who was acquainted with the whole of the prison system of the United
States at that time, said that of the prisoners who had been under his
care, 75 in 100 acknowledged themselves to be habitual drunkards, and 44
in 100 confessed that they had committed their crimes under the influence
of liquor.[330] And in regard to disease, it is stated that in the summer
of 1832, during a cholera epidemic in Albany, out of 336 deaths, “138
were foreigners; that 140 of the victims were hard drinkers, and 55 drank
freely.”[331]
Concerning the Indians, the writer here quoted said,[332] that the
introduction of rum and whisky amongst them was a curse which they owed
entirely to the whites, and that it has been a powerful agent in their
destruction and demoralisation. At all councils it is freely distributed,
either before or pending negotiations, and “hundreds,” he said, “breathe
their last with the rum bottle in their hands.” No wonder that the poor
Indians were impelled to avenge their wrongs and thus to accelerate their
doom. The ordinary canons of civilisation and morality seem to have been
completely ignored by the white man in his negotiations with the redskin.
Throughout the civilised world a contract made between two men one of
whom is intoxicated has no validity in law, and cannot be enforced, but
it was not so in the white man’s dealings with the savage. There the rum
bottle was the substitute for the pen which signed the contract, and the
musket or rifle was the agent employed to compel its fulfilment. A more
beneficent system exists at present, but it is too late, for this is the
condition of the Indian of to-day, and of his relations with the white
man, as described by an intelligent and impartial observer:—“Spirits
and strong liquors of all descriptions are contraband in the Indian
territory, and vigorous measures are taken to carry out the prohibition;
but, in spite of the law, it is not impossible to obtain liquor at
the settlements situated in the vicinity of the railways. At those
places, however, that are under the immediate control of the military
authorities, the execution of the law is strictly enforced.” But the same
writer tells us that they (the Indians) “have acquired all the vices and
debaucheries of the so-called civilised people (men who have escaped
the meshes of the law, or reprobates who could do no good in civilised
society) with whom they have come into contact, acquiring few of the
virtues of civilisation, whilst the many noble qualities that adorn
the character of the savage are sunk and forgotten in their attempts to
imitate their white conquerors.”[333] This is what drink and civilisation
has done for the American Indian, but we must now return to his “white
conquerors.”
We have said that in the early part of this century the drunkenness
which prevailed in the United States was appalling, but the energy which
has carried the nation forward in all the paths of civilisation, which
has succeeded in abolishing a deep-rooted system of domestic slavery,
though it has been at the sacrifice of much blood and treasure; that same
energy, we say, has also been successfully directed to the suppression
of intemperance, which is as great a danger to any nation as slavery
or communism of the worst description. From the third decade to about
the middle of this century, the American people trusted to the effects
of moral suasion for curing the evils of drunkenness, but it will be
found that already in the year 1852 the State of Vermont had passed a
prohibitory liquor law,[334] and from that time to the present the war
has been waged between the State legislatures, more especially those of
New England, and the liquor traffic, and in the main the former have been
faithfully supported by the force of public opinion. To this portion of
the subject we shall return hereafter.
But the measure of success with which the cause of temperance has
prevailed has not been uniform, nor has it advanced to the same stage
in every part of the Union. In some of the remote States, amongst
the miners, for example, an enormous amount of drunkenness exists,
whilst there are small towns and villages in some of the New England
States where it is almost impossible to obtain intoxicating drinks,
and where drunkenness is unknown. The reader will therefore appreciate
the difficulty of forming and pronouncing a correct judgment upon the
drinking habits of the people of this vast republic. The difficulty
is greatly increased by the fact that the contest between the State,
aided by individual and concerted action on the one hand, and the
drink-sellers and their supporters on the other, is still actively
carried on, and every day therefore brings its chances and changes. For
example, it was only last April that an effort was made by the advocates
of the drink-sellers in the senate of the State of New York to carry a
measure repealing an Act passed in 1866, and part of another of 1857,
“to suppress intemperance and to regulate the sale of intoxicating
liquors.”[335] During the debate one of the senators who opposed the
repeal drew some pictures of the liquor dens and cellars which he said
would, by the proposed bill, be allowed to dispense poison to the poor
and vicious, and he launched bitter anathemas against its promoters.[336]
The bill was ultimately lost, but if the liquor-sellers of New York at
all resemble those of Old England, they may probably renew the attempt.
That there is much drunkenness in some of the large towns, especially in
New York, cannot be doubted, but it is not to be compared in extent with
similar places in Great Britain or even in some Continental countries.
In New York only two or three days before the debate above referred to,
namely, on Sunday, 14th April, an attempt was made to storm a closed
drinking saloon by a band of men “already half intoxicated and clamouring
for more liquor.” Before the police could interfere considerable damage
was done to the premises, and when the ringleaders were brought before
the magistrates, “they were recognised as members of a dissolute gang who
infest the neighbourhood, and who more than once before had disturbed
the public peace.”[337] Some of them were deservedly imprisoned; and we
venture to say, without fear of contradiction, notwithstanding our bad
reputation in that respect, that such an event would not have occurred in
England as it did there, on Sunday, during the hours of divine service.
But a careful perusal of the newspapers, which, after all, give one a
very fair estimate of the moral condition of the United States, shows
beyond a doubt that alcoholic drinks are a less fruitful source of crime
and misery there than with us in England. For example, in the Boston
papers, under the head of “criminal matters,” we find men indicted for
such crimes as embezzlement, passing counterfeit coin, gambling, and even
highway robbery, but drink and drunkenness are hardly ever mentioned.
That they exist we shall show later on, and the papers give accounts
of temperance unions, at which it is proposed to establish halls,
gymnasiums, and reading-rooms as “antidotes to the drinking saloon.” And
this is in Boston, the “hub of the universe.” The same applies to the
Philadelphia journals, and there, by the way, they are agitating for a
change in the fiscal regulations of the excise, in order to enable the
Americans to export grain to England in its most highly concentrated
form, namely, distilled spirits. Congress, they think, should allow a
drawback on spirits which are exported, in which case “the liquor trade
in our own city” (Philadelphia) “would undoubtedly engage largely in the
traffic.” We cannot help thinking that the whole thing is the notion of
some Yankee humorist who intends to visit England, and would like to
rouse from his long rest a real specimen of the English protectionist
of the old school, to see whether he bore any resemblance to men of the
present day!
In the Californian journals even, the vice of drunkenness is not so
frequently referred to as in almost any of our newspapers, although
the deeds of swindlers, forgers, robbers, and murderers are plainly
set forth, and even political shortcomings are visited with severe
condemnation. One of the papers[338] recently had a column filled with
extracts from Californian newspapers having reference to a gentleman
whose political views do not seem to find favour with some of his
countrymen. He is a senator, and is spoken of as a “coward” and a
“traitor,” and his followers are “law-defying miscreants engaged
in diabolical schemes.” “The mob element,” we are told, “is in the
ascendancy, communism stalks abroad. Hemp is his” (the senator’s)
“stock-in-trade, and a portion of it might be advantageously used
to suspend his worthless carcass.” So the reader will observe that
drunkenness is not always a necessary concomitant of crime, and that
there is a license which is unconnected with the liquor traffic. If we
take up the New York papers, we seem to come nearer home. There we
read of wife-beating, and “stabbing whilst drunk.” “Liquor stores” are
advertised for sale or to be let, but they are few in number as compared
with similar announcements on this side of the Atlantic.
A stranger who travels through the United States, receives the impression
that there is comparatively little alcohol drunk by any persons excepting
foreigners, and that the people of the country are sober, and this
impression is to some extent, but not entirely, correct. The traveller
may visit and dine in large hotels in New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Washington, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Salt Lake City, San
Francisco, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, and he will
hardly see any beer or wine upon the table,[339] but——if he follows the
guests after dinner, he will find, in many places, that they adjourn to
the bar and drink whisky! Bar-drinking, especially what Dickens called
“perpendicular drinking,” that is, taking a stand-up drink and then
going off, is the usual American mode of “liquoring up,” and that is, in
some towns, carried to great excess.[340] But, says an English author,
of the man who thus indulges, “the number of drinks he will take at
that bar before business hours are over would astonish people of the
same class here.”[341] And the class referred to comprises “merchants,
generals, colonels, senators, and officers of state, who patronise these
bars as freely as we would a flower-show,”—a “class of men who in our
country would no more be seen entering a public-house than they would
be seen entering a house of ill-fame.”[342] This statement is probably
a little exaggerated: the American “bar” can hardly be compared to an
English gin-palace, and, moreover, strangers are apt to be misled as to
the character of the persons whom they see in such places. There are
drinking shops in certain parts of London which are regularly frequented
by barristers, solicitors, &c., but who are they? Why, the scum of the
profession to which they belong, and it would be a great mistake of any
one who saw them there to conclude that such places are supported by
respectable men of any rank or calling. The most repulsive thing about
American drinking is its slanginess, and this is what often deceives
the casual visitor. Drinks containing in reality very little alcohol
are baptized with names that savour of dissoluteness and debauchery.
Gin-slings, cocktails, tangle-legs, eye-openers, morning glories, are
suggestive of drinking debauches over-night and tippling renewed at
daybreak, whereas the truth is that the drinking habits of some States
really resemble those of the more sober Continental countries. In winter
or in bad weather, drinks are consumed too freely indeed which contain a
certain proportion of alcohol, whilst in summer the beverages are to a
large extent what are known here as “temperance drinks.”
Their passion for advertising, too, would lead a stranger to suppose
that the Americans are a nation of inveterate drunkards who glory in
their shame. “Bitters,” says one of the authors we have quoted, “are
advertised in every newspaper, placarded on every shed, painted in
enormous letters on every fence and rock where a human eye may be
expected to rest. I sometimes encountered these advertisements in
Southern swamps and Western prairies, where one would imagine the only
customers would be polecats, ‘bars’ (bears), or buffaloes.” It is said
that in a graveyard in Gloucester, Mass., the following advertisement
meets the eye of the visitor:—“If you would keep out here, use
Hochstetter’s bitters.”[343] Yes; but it is also “said” that somewhere in
an English churchyard there is the following characteristic epitaph:—
“Beneath this stone, in hopes of Zion,
Doth rest the landlord of the Lion:
Resigned unto the heavenly will,
His son keeps on the business still.”
But we must repeat that the people of the United States are comparatively
sober, and that the low drinking which we have in England is unknown
excepting in a few large towns. Intoxicating drinks are very little used
in families, and are only offered to visitors. It is only in large towns
that “cellars” are kept, and then chiefly by rich men. Tea, coffee, and
iced drinks supply the place of wine, beer, or porter at table, and
nothing surprises an American so much, when he visits this country, as to
see alcoholic drinks always brought out, and present at every lunch and
dinner. There is one circumstance which, in the course of his inquiries,
has struck the author as being quite as serious as the intemperance
amongst the poorer classes which is so much talked and preached about
in England, and it is this: In the United States there is no worldly
advantage, but the reverse, in being a drinker of alcohol. In many places
the minister of religion must be a total abstainer, and it is always a
merit in every profession (generally speaking) to refrain from the use of
intoxicants. Is it so here? Many ministers, it is true, are abstainers,
but how many are there, on the other hand, who dine and drink _freely_
with the wealthier members of their congregations, but who seldom go
near the poorer ones, because the former pay the best? The author was
discussing this matter with the chief officer of one of the largest
steamers sailing from Liverpool, who told him that he had formerly been
a total abstainer, but that he had found it absolutely necessary to
recommence taking alcohol as it militated against his advancement in
life. And if it is a disadvantage to be a drinker in the United States,
still more so is it to be a drink-seller. A “grog-seller” there may
build any number of churches or endow any number of institutions out of
the profits of his trade, but he will be a “grog-seller” still; whilst
in England, if he has fifty gin-palaces, and supplies them all from one
warehouse and office or from one brewery, he calls himself a wine and
spirit merchant, or a brewer, and his vocation presents no obstacle to
his being allowed to rank side by side with the inferior orders of our
nobility. That drunkenness is not a prevailing vice in the States is best
proved by the fact that drunken people are rarely seen in the streets.
The author has ascertained this from friends who have travelled over
every portion of the States, and a near relative of his who resided about
a year in Louisville tells him that during the whole of that time he saw
only two instances, the one being an old man who was followed about by a
crowd of urchins reviling and mocking at him as they would at a howling
idiot in England.
But we must now consider what share legislation has had in bringing
about the change from the gross intemperance which existed all over the
States about the middle of this century to the comparative sobriety of
the present day, and with this view a cursory glance at the liquor laws
in different parts of the Union, as they exist _in theory_, may not be
uninteresting nor unprofitable. In Maine, the so-called “Maine law”
entirely prohibits the manufacture or sale of intoxicating drink except
for medicinal, mechanical, and manufacturing purposes, and then only
through the municipal authorities. Should any one commit a breach of the
law, he is to be punished by imprisonment two months in the county gaol
and fined a thousand dollars. Public-houses are spoken of in the Act as
“drinking-houses” and “tippling shops,” and the keeper of such a house is
liable to imprisonment for each conviction. The relatives of drunkards
have a right of action against any one selling liquors to such drunkards,
and even persons who are found intoxicated in their own houses are
liable to thirty days’ imprisonment; but, in the words of the Act, “said
judge or justice may remit any portion of said punishment, and order the
prisoner to be discharged whenever he shall become satisfied that the
objects of the law and the good of the public and the prisoner would be
advanced thereby.”[344] From this and all other drink legislation in the
United States it will be seen that the law regards the liquor-seller as
the chief law-breaker, and the drunkard as his victim, though himself
culpable.
A similar law to the “Maine law,” with modifications, exists in some of
the other New England States. New Hampshire “has a prohibitory law, which
is not enforced to any great extent. An effort to secure a constabulary
bill has also proved a failure.”[345] Vermont, as we have already stated,
has a prohibitory law, and a “Civil Damage Act,” passed in 1869, by
which the drink-seller is held liable for any damage done by a drunken
person to whom he has supplied the drink.[346] In New Hampshire, saloons,
bars, &c., are declared to be “common nuisances kept in violation of the
law;”[347] and intoxicated persons may be detained until they are sober,
and then forced, on pain of imprisonment, to declare on oath where they
obtained the liquor. In Massachusetts the law is not prohibitory, but
there are various classes of licenses, those for light drinks being much
less expensive than licenses to sell spirits. In New Jersey there is an
Act which enables the authorities to regulate licenses, but inasmuch as
it does not compel them to grant any unless they choose, the people of
Chatham, Co. Morris, have refused to do so, and their right has been
formally recognised by the Supreme Court. They have, therefore, a local
option or permissive bill, or at least what is one there, where the force
of public opinion makes itself felt through the local authorities. In
Rhode Island and New York there is regulated licensing. The licenses are
granted by commissioners appointed by the mayors in cities, subject to
the approval of the aldermen in New York and Brooklyn. In Connecticut and
some other States there are permissive bills with regulated licensing,
also enforced closing on Sundays and election days, which is the rule
in several other States. In Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas,
&c., there are local option bills. In Pennsylvania, there is regulated
licensing, with local option in some places; and in most of the other
States there is regulated licensing, excepting in Nevada, where, we are
told, “there is no law on the statute book relating to the traffic in
alcoholic liquors.”[348]
A word concerning Nevada. We do not know whether the absence of
legislative interference has anything to do with it, but it is certainly
a “frightful example.” It was at Virginia city in that State that Artemus
Ward said, in taking his departure, “I never, gentlemen, was in a city
where I was treated so well, nor, I will add, so _often_.” And Sir C.
Dilke, who visited it, says that with ten thousand inhabitants it was
blessed with five hundred whisky-shops; in some of which “diggers might
be seen tossing the whisky down their throats with a scowl of resolve as
though they were committing suicide, which indeed, except in point of
speed, is probably the case.”[349]
But whilst this is the condition of the remote States of the Union, where
civilisation has but recently set its foot, a very different state of
affairs is found to exist in the New England and other north-eastern
States. It may at once be remarked, that so far as actual prohibition
is concerned, in the large towns especially, the “Maine Liquor Law”
has proved a failure. Upon that score all kinds of authors, excepting
perhaps a few extreme teetotallers, and all observant travellers are
agreed. In the article already referred to, Mr. M’Carthy somewhat
exaggerates the failure, for he says that in Portland, when he visited
that city, there was no more concealment in the sale of drink than there
would have been in a public-house in Fleet Street.[350] The whole of his
article, indeed, betrays a mind which had largely prejudged the question,
and had been prepared to find failure rather than success; but it is
not he alone who has testified to the breakdown of the prohibitory law.
Mr. W. S. Caine, the leader of the temperance movement in and around
Liverpool, who is certainly not likely to underrate efforts in the cause
which he warmly advocates, has favoured the author with an account of
two visits made by him (in 1875-76) to the United States, when he made
a point of inquiring into the law, and he says that “he was reluctantly
compelled to come to the conclusion that it needs considerable
modification.” Unlike Mr. M’Carthy, he says he “wandered about the city
of Portland looking for a public-house in vain.”[351] He could see
nothing externally that would lead him to suppose that any building
was devoted to the purpose; but when he asked in various shops “where
he could get a drink,” he had a score of places pointed out to him. He
then did what Mr. M’Carthy had done with the same result, namely, paid a
visit to the English Consul. That gentleman had sent home a strong report
against the Maine Law,[352] and he satisfied Mr. Caine of the ease with
which liquor could be procured by taking him to at least a score of
places where it was freely sold. Mr. Caine also gives an amusing account
of a temperance meeting which he attended at Bangor (State of Maine).
“On the platform,” he says, “were one hundred and fifty men decorated
with sashes and medals, the speakers and president being ladies. The men
with medals were drunkards who had been reclaimed in the city of Bangor
during the winter by the ‘Ladies’ Temperance Association.’ At the close
of the meeting, I spoke to the lady president, and expressed my surprise
that in a town where liquor was prohibited, both in sale and manufacture,
one society of women should be able to find no less than one hundred and
fifty drunkards in six months. She replied that the law was a dead letter
in Bangor, and that it was only of use in the country districts. The
speeches at the meeting were of the same character as those delivered at
English temperance meetings: the rum-sellers of Bangor were denounced,
their victims pitied, and it was clear that these good women had just the
same difficulties to contend with as we teetotallers find in Liverpool,
prohibition notwithstanding.”[353]
But if a doubt remains as to the failure of the legislation so far
as prohibition is concerned, it may be set at rest by reading the
declarations of the teetotal judges of the land. One of those must
suffice. The “National Temperance Society of New York” has published a
pamphlet (No. 11) called the “Maine Law Vindicated,” by the Hon. Woodbury
Davis, Judge of the Supreme Court of Maine, in which that Judge enters
at length into the whole subject, showing the moral influence of the law,
how it is enforced, the probability of its being ultimately successful,
&c., and one of his concluding sentences runs thus:—“If such men as Dr.
Bacon, and many others that might be named, instead of carping at it,
and at best refusing to advocate it, would come out publicly and give
it a hearty and cordial support, its provisions would soon be made more
stringent, the tone of public sentiment in regard to it would become
higher and stronger, and its more vigorous execution would soon make it
a terror _to multitudes of evil-doers who now trample it under foot_.”
We have italicised the last words to show that, from whatever cause, the
Maine Law has not accomplished what is proposed by it, namely, the entire
suppression of the liquor traffic.
But although Professor Davis’s remarks may apply to the State of Maine,
they do not accurately represent public feeling throughout the United
States regarding the Maine Law. In Massachusetts, a prohibitory law was
in force until the year 1875, but as far back as 1867 a vigorous effort
was made to repeal it. Petitions signed by about 35,000 persons for,
and about 26,000 against, the repeal were presented to the Legislature,
and a special committee of both houses was appointed to inquire into
the operation of the law. Their report was a very decided one against
it.[354] Without referring to the theoretical part of the question, we
will only mention a few of the practical results at which the committee
arrived. The whole number of places in Boston, they found, in which
liquor was sold in 1854, that is, before the passing of the Prohibitory
Act, was 1500, whilst twelve years later, in 1866, 1515 such places
existed. The number of drunken persons taken up by the police in 1854 was
6983, while in 1866 it was 15,542.[355] In most of the large towns, such
as Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, Charlestown, New Bedford, &c., the sale was
found to be just as unrestricted as before the passing of the Prohibitory
Act. One of the statements of the committee, “upon the evidence before
them, was that it was a fatal mistake on the part of the leaders of the
so-called temperance movement to prohibit the sale of cider and light
beer.” And the committee recommended that the law should encourage the
consumption of those liquors “in the true interests of temperance,” in
substitution of stronger and more dangerous liquors.[356] The result
of that inquiry was the repeal in 1875 of the Prohibitory Bill, and
the passing of an Act which regulates the price of licenses according
to the kind of liquor sold. For example, the licensing committee _may_
charge up to 1000 dollars for a license to sell liquors of any kind to
be drunk on the premises; whilst they may not charge to any one, not
being a brewer, more than 150 dollars for a license to sell malt liquors,
cider, and light wines containing not more than 15 per cent. of alcohol,
to be drunk off the premises.[357] This Act (which is now in force, an
amendment of it having been vetoed by the Governor) is intended to be a
test of the efficacy of permissive legislation coupled with restrictions
where licenses are granted, as against entire prohibition. For, as
Governor Rice said, in his address to the Legislature of Massachusetts
in 1876,[358] “It expressly declares that nothing in it shall be so
construed as to require the mayor and aldermen of a city or the selectmen
of a town to grant licenses. Every city and town, therefore, has the
right and the opportunity secured to it to forbid altogether the sale
of intoxicating liquors within its limits; and in this particular and
in others the present law seems to involve the principles and measures
which the most advanced temperance men in Great Britain are seeking to
carry out in that country.”[359] Governor Rice then recites the penalties
and forfeitures that attach to breaches of the licensing regulations,
which include the very important restriction “not to sell at a bar;” and
he goes on to say, that the Board of License Commissioners of the city
of Boston believe that under the law “something has been gained.”[360]
The law is recognised; there is a decrease in the sale of intoxicating
liquors; and the number of liquor shops had diminished from 3090 in
December 1874 to 2483 in September 1875. And finally, the Governor
confirms what is usually held to be the case, namely, that whilst it is
impossible to enforce prohibition in large towns, “in sparsely settled
agricultural districts almost any measure of repression approved by
the more intelligent and virtuous citizens of the neighbourhood can be
enforced.”[361]
This, then, may be taken as the last enlightened utterance in the United
States as to the impossibility of carrying out the Maine Law in its
integrity; but, now, if we are asked whether the repressive legislation
of the United States has tended to the diminution of drunkenness and
to the elevation of the national morality, then the reply will be an
emphatic “Yes.” We have quoted Judge Davis against the law, now let us
quote him for it. Whilst there was no legal restriction upon the sale,
he says: “It was permitted in almost every town; nearly every tavern in
town and in city had its ‘bar;’ at almost every village and corner was a
grog-shop; and in most places of that kind more than one, where old men
and young spent their earnings in dissipation; men helplessly drunk on
the streets and by the wayside were a common sight; and at elections, at
military trainings, and at other public gatherings, there were scenes of
debauchery and riot enough to make one ashamed of one’s race.” (Let us
remark, by way of parenthesis, that this is but a slight exaggeration of
the condition of England in our own time.) Well, Judge Davis goes on to
show that the Maine law has effectually cleansed and reformed society in
that State. “No observing man,” he says, “who has lived in the State for
twenty years, and has had an opportunity to know the facts, can doubt
that the Maine Law has produced a hundred times more visible improvement
in the character, condition, and prosperity of our people than any other
law that was ever enacted.”[362]
And what he says is true. Almost every writer on the United States
bears out his statement although they may not perhaps attribute all the
improvement to this particular law. Even Mr. M’Carthy says that it acts
as a check upon drinking, because it draws it into low places, and makes
it disreputable;[363] and that the evasion is chiefly by foreigners, but
that the Americans themselves are “largely total abstainers.”[364] He and
others say that it enables the authorities to make raids upon men who
carry on the trade with effrontery, and many instances are given where
they have been forced by the law, with public opinion to support it, to
give up the trade altogether, at least for a time. One case mentioned
by Mr. M’Carthy[365] is worth recording. In Rutland, Vermont, drinking
was carried to such excess that the authorities forbade the sale of
drinks in the bars of the hotels. The hotel keepers “struck,” and closed
their houses; but the inhabitants turned their houses into hotels, and
met travellers at the railway station. This checkmated the regular
innkeepers, who were glad enough to reopen their houses and submit to the
law. Mr. M’Carthy adds, that a fortnight afterwards he obtained brandy at
an hotel in Rutland; a fact which proves that it is possible to evade the
law, and which is not calculated to raise Englishmen in the estimation of
the Americans.
Another author, already quoted, says that wherever the cause of
temperance is strong enough to get the Maine Law passed, it is strong
enough to force the liquor traffic to withdraw from public gaze. “In
desperate cases,” he says, “it has to reduce itself to the exhibition of
Greenland pigs and other curious animals, charging twenty-five cents for
the sight of the pig, and throwing in a gin-cocktail gratuitously.”[366]
And it is most remarkable, he adds, how this encourages the study of
natural history, for the same persons have been known to go over and over
again to study the habits of the “Greenland pig!” But it is unnecessary
to cite authors. In these days of rapid locomotion, every reader
must have frequent opportunities of conversing with men of different
nationalities who have resided or travelled in the United States, and if
he takes the trouble to inquire for himself, he will find the following
to be the facts in regard to American temperance legislation. So far as
entire prohibition is concerned, it has failed in the large towns, but
has been successful in many small towns and country villages. In places
where public opinion has demanded, or cordially supported, any form of
repression or restriction, it has made the traffic disreputable; has
removed temptation out of the way of those who would, if they could,
control themselves, and has reduced the habitual, callous drunkard, as
well as the man who supplies him, to the position of a law-breaker and
a sneak. It has raised the whole moral tone of society and the material
condition of the masses. The failure has been where the law has tried
to force prohibition upon an unwilling community; the success where a
reforming or reformed public opinion has found the law ready to aid it
in enforcing sobriety for the benefit of all. In short, the legislation
which has succeeded best in the United States is that which gives the
option to localities to have liquor sold in their midst or not as they
choose,—“permissive legislation,”—and that has indeed been an inestimable
boon to the citizens of the Great Republic.
And now we must say a few words, and they must be very few, concerning
that new development of the drink question in America, “inebriate
asylums.” Attempts have been made to establish them in England,[367] but
so far only to a very limited extent, and they are not recognised by the
State. In the United States there are at least four such institutions.
The “Washingtonian Home” was opened in Boston as far back as 1857; the
“New York Inebriate Asylum,” at Binghampton, was founded the following
year; the “Sanitarium,” in Philadelphia, started in 1867; and an
asylum at Chicago in 1868. These institutions are aided by the State
legislatures, and it is calculated that in the one at Boston, out of
3000 inebriates who have been received in nine years, 2000 have been
completely cured. They are all voluntary asylums, that is to say, the
“patients” are never detained against their will; and those who seek
refuge there pay part or the whole cost of their maintenance. Very
interesting but painful accounts have been given by visitors of the
condition of the inebriates, some of whom are brought by their relatives
or friends completely intoxicated; and those who have conversed with the
inmates, and with the medical men under whose care they are placed, tell
us that there are certain canons of intemperance, if we may call them so,
which are quite stable and undeviating. First, it is impossible for a
drunkard ever to become a moderate drinker. Secondly, there is no hope
for an inebriate until he thoroughly distrusts his own resolution, and
excepting as a total abstainer for life. Thirdly, he must avoid on system
and on principle the occasions of temptation, such as places where liquor
is sold, and persons who will urge it upon him. Even the wine given at
the communion table should be avoided. “_That sip might be enough to
awaken the desire; the mere odour of the wine filling the church might be
too much for some men._”[368] This is the deliberately expressed opinion
of one of the most experienced “inebriate” doctors in the States. As we
have said, at present the American institutions are voluntary, but it is
expected that there will one day be an asylum for incurable drunkards who
will be forcibly detained, and compelled to earn their own livelihood.
This, then, is the position of the drink question in America. The contest
between the sober portion of the community on the one hand, and the
drink-sellers and their depraved customers on the other, a contest in
which the state very properly sides with the cause of temperance, has
successfully reached a stage far in advance of that which it has attained
in Great Britain, and the people are devoting their energies and their
inexhaustible resources to arrive at a practical solution of the problem
which has hitherto puzzled all men and all ages.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE—MODERATE DRINKING—REMEDIES FOR
INTEMPERANCE—THE POLITICAL ASPECT OF THE QUESTION.
Up to the present time we have been chiefly engaged in recording the
facts of history, and in describing various phases in the social life of
nations, but in the present chapter we shall have to deal with theories
and opinions of a more or less debateable character. This it will be our
endeavour to do, as heretofore, in an impartial spirit; but whilst we
examine the views of others without prejudice, we shall not hesitate to
avow openly the convictions which have been forced upon us, by a careful
review of the experience of the past and by personal observation of the
social changes now in progress.
What, then, have been the causes of intemperance in the human race? and
are those causes still in operation? These are the questions to which we
must first seek satisfactory replies. Some persons hold the view that
climate has much to do with the inordinate love of intoxicating drink,
and they point to the intemperance of Northern nations—of the Russians,
the Swedes, the Norwegians, and the English—as examples in favour of
their theory, comparing them with the Mohammedans and the nations of
Southern Europe. But our cursory glance at the habits of the earliest
known races of mankind has taught us that there has been as great
intemperance in warm and dry as in cold and damp climates. The history
and traditions of ancient China, of some of the Aryan races of India, and
of the ancient Egyptians, go far to invalidate the climatic theory. And
how about the people of ancient Greece and Rome during the decadence of
the latter? What is to be said of Torquatus “Tricongius;” of the Emperor
Tiberius? Even the evidence which is adduced in favour of the theory, on
careful inquiry, tells against it. It is true that the Mohammedans of
to-day are a comparatively sober people. But why are they so? Because
their great prophet found them such inveterate drunkards that he made
them renounce intoxicating drinks entirely, in order to save them from
destruction.
We are quite prepared to admit, however, that the inhabitants of cold
and damp countries are able to stand more alcohol than those of warmer
regions. That is shown by the change which takes place in the character
of the drinks taken at different seasons of the year in the same country.
And that is a circumstance, too, which should not be lost sight of by
those who draw inferences concerning the degrees of intemperance in any
particular locality from the statistics of drink consumed. We have not
taken the trouble to look closely into the matter, but it would not at
all surprise us to find that in years where there had been severe cold,
or a long continuance of “uncomfortable weather,” the consumption of
alcohol will have materially increased. This is, however, an abnormal
condition, and we believe that the argument will not hold good that a
cold and damp climate constantly favours intemperance as compared with
one that is warm and dry. At the present time, the Northern nations of
Europe are actually becoming more sober, whilst the habits of some of
those bordering on the south are tending in the opposite direction.
Another explanation has been given of the prevalence of drunkenness,
namely, the practice on the part of medical men of too freely prescribing
alcohol as a remedy for bodily ailments. This sin was laid to their
charge at a very early period, for Pliny, as we know, censured certain
of them for seeking to please their patients by such prescriptions. Nor
are they by any means free from blame in our time; indeed, we shall find
presently that medical men of the higher order admit this to be the
case. The downfall of many a man or woman has dated from the first dose
prescribed by a heedless or mercenary physician; but all right-minded
medical men now recognise this abuse in the profession, and none are so
anxious as they to see it remedied. In this relation, however, it will
be proper to say a few words on the necessary employment of alcohol in
cases of disease, for we must be careful not to pronounce an opinion
which shall cause unnecessary suffering to the innocent and afflicted,
even whilst we are condemning a recognised abuse. The views of medical
practitioners are somewhat divergent on this question, but the balance
of opinion decidedly favours the use of alcohol in certain cases; and
amongst those who hold that view are found to be some who have written
vigorously in favour of total abstinence. In the United States, for
example, we noticed that even the Maine Liquor Law provides for its sale
for medicinal purposes; and in Scotland, Dr. James Miller, in his able
work against alcoholic beverages, more than once approves of their use
medicinally, and treats of the cases of disease in which they may be
beneficially employed.[369]
In their evidence given before the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance,
some of our leading professional men, as Dr. Burdon Sanderson, Dr.
Brunton, and Sir William Gull, have all spoken of the value of alcohol
as a medicine, giving their reasons for thus advocating its employment
in the clearest and most explicit manner, and valuable information on
the subject may be gained from various books and reports which have been
published by perfectly disinterested critics, and even by those who are
strongly biassed in favour of total abstinence.[370]
As regards the use of alcohol in surgical cases, it is needless to
say that its indiscreet application under such circumstances must be
dangerous, without reference to its moral effects; but there, too, the
best opinions favour its use in certain cases. They are well expressed
by Mr. W. S. Savory, F.R.C.S., of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in a
letter to the author, which, with the writer’s sanction, he publishes
verbatim, for it conveys at the same time moral sentiments concerning
the use of alcohol which he holds in common with nearly all respectable
practitioners in the present day. “Although,” he says, “I am willing to
admit that in my opinion alcohol, in its various forms of wine, beer, and
spirits, is often needlessly and recklessly prescribed in the practice of
surgery, yet I am sure that we could not altogether dispense with its use
without frequent disadvantage to our patients, and even the occasional
sacrifice of life. In cases where stimulants are required, sometimes
others, as certain drugs, might be substituted for those, either without
loss or with positive gain; but, after full allowance is made for this,
there must remain, I think, many instances in which alcoholic drinks
largely promote recovery, and several in which the balance of life and
death turns upon their prompt and judicious administration. When I
reflect on the enormous evil of alcohol to the community—an evil in its
physical and moral results beyond parallel—I wish with all my heart that
I could, as a surgeon, say less for this most prolific parent of disease
and crime.”
Looking, then, at the opinions here expressed, and at all the
circumstances, we think our readers will agree with us in saying
that it would be very unwise and injurious to attempt, by pressure
or coercion, to interfere with the employment of alcohol by regular
medical practitioners when they deem it requisite. But, on the other
hand, society is under deep obligations to those who are endeavouring
to replace it by other remedies, and more particularly to the
philanthropists who have recently established an hospital from which the
use of alcohol is entirely excluded. The great benefit that such an
institution will confer, not only upon the medical profession but upon
the whole community, is that it will lead to the limitation of the use of
alcohol in diseases, and will prevent its prescription merely to gratify
the taste of self-indulgent patients. Eventually, too, it may lead to the
discontinuance of the use of alcohol even for medicinal purposes.[371]
Two other causes, concerning which there will be no difference of
opinion, have been assigned for the prevalence of intemperance, and
these lie at the very root of the whole matter. Whether, technically
speaking, the love of intoxicating drink be or be not “instinctive,” it
is a human passion, and certainly it is in many cases hereditary. As
we showed in our opening chapter, those who refuse to regard it as an
instinct are driven to acknowledge that it is an “inbred enemy,”[372]
which is transmissible by inheritance; and one writer on temperance
speaks of the enjoyments which accompany the use of alcohol in terms
sufficiently vague to show that he has no very clear views on the matter.
“It is something transferred from the category of drugs into that of
food,” he says, “because in its effects it is pleasant or ‘delightful
to the senses.’ In its effects, we say, for as regards itself, the
‘daintiness’ and ‘deliciousness,’ and ‘gratifying of the appetite,’ are
generally not instinctive but acquired.”[373] But it is precisely this
“deliciousness,” and the pleasurable sensations which accompany its use,
that have caused the passion for drink to obtain so great a mastery over
a large portion of mankind, and it is a waste of words to tell people
who find intoxicating drink dainty and delicious and pleasant to the
senses, that they must discontinue its use because it is _generally_
an acquired taste, and does not form part of their instinctive nature.
That the forms in which alcohol is imbibed are often very unpalatable,
there can be no doubt. If the “soma” drink of the ancient Aryans at all
resembled that which the modern Brahmans permitted M. Haug to taste, the
gustatory sense amongst the primitive races of men could not have been
very refined, and we question whether it needed less education than the
palate which can find enjoyment in gin and bitters, or in a tumblerful
of Scotch whisky diluted with cold water. But it is the physiological
effect upon the body, and the influence upon the brain and nerves, which
have been the irresistible attractions of alcohol for men, women, and
children in all ages. The Aryans could not conceive of Indra’s performing
any great action unless he was inebriated, because alcohol inspired them
(his worshippers) with artificial valour. “Wine banishes fear,” said the
ancient Rabbins. Homer makes his hero speak of
“——twelve large vessels of unmingled wine,
Mellifluous, undecaying, and divine,”[374]
which Maron had kept “some ages” in his cellar.
Pliny, the foe of intemperance, says of wine, that “it causes a feeling
of warmth” in the body, and he extols its moderate use. “Brandy,” said
a Red Indian, “is made of tongues and hearts, for when I have drunk of
it, I fear nothing, and I talk like an angel.” And that is precisely the
sensation which is experienced by a modern pothouse orator whilst he is
spouting to a small circle of admirers in the bar-parlour, or by the more
ambitious politician who flourishes in the face of a bewildered continent
a sanguinary manifesto under the exhilarating influences of a civic feast.
Even the savages of civilised life do not love the drink for its taste
alone. “Please God! I’ll be like him in an hour,” says the still sober
navvy as he sees his intoxicated comrade reel past, whilst he is waiting
at the contractor’s gate for the payment of his week’s wages.
When, in addition to its physiological and mental effects, the liquor
itself is sweet and aromatic, as in certain wines, or when the process
of fermentation has been checked and a sparkling effervescence is
superadded, making it pleasant also to the taste and smell, it is no
wonder that its influence should be so irresistible, and that it should
entice so many from the path of duty. It “drives dull care away,” the
anxious man will tell us, and if it be only for the time, he is content
to seek refuge in his cup from the cares of life. It “warms the heart
of man,” and makes that one generous and open-hearted who is otherwise
niggard and reserved. He may be meaner afterwards for having forgotten
himself in a moment of exhilaration, but that only renders his fits of
inebriate generosity the more conspicuous. If not itself a food, it often
takes its place where suitable nourishment is wanting, and it would be
rank hypocrisy to deny that a bottle of port-wine has brought health and
comfort to many a poor man’s home. And finally, it has been a bond of
union in all ages between those who have been misnamed “good fellows,”
amongst whom—
“Wit’s electric flame
Ne’er so swiftly passes,
As when through the frame
It shoots from brimming glasses.”[375]
These have been the chief causes of intemperance in past times, and
in the present day there are many others peculiar to a comparatively
high state of civilisation. The chief, amongst the poor at least, are
unhappy and unhealthy homes, and he who does something to improve the
dwellings and the sanitary condition of the humbler classes, or to amend
their domestic habits, is one of the most effective workers in the
cause of temperance reform. Smoking, too, in which some teetotallers
indulge to such excess, is another stimulus to drinking; so is the
custom, peculiarly English, of associating the consumption of drink with
commercial, religious, moral, and charitable undertakings. But worst of
all is the needless multiplication of public-houses, and the strenuous
efforts which are made by the vendors of intoxicating drink to render
their establishments and their wares as attractive as possible to every
human sense, often at a great sacrifice of honesty, and without any
regard to the feelings of humanity.
Of the agencies which are at work to counteract all these injurious
influences we shall speak presently; but, meanwhile, we must make a brief
reference to the somewhat delicate subject of moderate drinking. And,
first of all, we must inquire, “What is moderate drinking?”
One writer on the subject, who is usually considered an authority,
says that “for a hard-working student, politician, professional man,
or busy merchant, there is no better arrangement possible than that
of taking as the regular daily allowance, a bottle of sound ordinary
wine of Bordeaux.”[376] Such wine, we are told, is to cost one shilling
per bottle. Another quotation from the same writer will, however,
relieve us from the necessity of showing that this can hardly be called
moderate drinking: “We did not intend,” he says, “when recommending the
‘hard-working _student_’ to allow himself a bottle per diem of weak
Bordeaux wine” [it was ‘sound’ just now], “to give that recommendation
to young lads. We are thinking of ‘hard-working students’ of middle
age; and we would state our firm conviction that for youths, say under
twenty-five, whose bodily frame is as yet not fully consolidated, the
proper rule is, _either no alcohol, or very little indeed_.”[377] We
trust that “young lads” under twenty-five will appreciate the compliment
and the advice; and as to politicians and busy merchants, we may safely
leave them to enjoy a bottle of shilling claret per diem, if they like
that “arrangement.” Another medical authority, the “Lancet,” in a very
temperate article on the “Drink Question,” says that, “For young and
active men a glass of beer, or one or two glasses of claret, at dinner,
is, we believe, an ample supply; while men of middle age may, with
advantage, stop at the third glass of claret, sherry, or port, and feel
no ill result.” But the same writer admits that no definite quantity can
be fixed, and that “the ultimate test in every case must be experience,
and until men have enough moral control and discretion to limit their
drinking to that which they absolutely require, all direction and rebuke
will be thrown away.”
Both these writers are singularly reticent concerning the quantity of
alcohol which they would consider moderate for a strong, active working
man, who can afford neither port, sherry, nor claret. But really it
matters very little, for the whole argument may be summed up by saying
that, if men are unable to restrain themselves in the matter of drink,
by far the best counsel to give them is, “drink not at all;” and in
case that advice should prove unavailing, the only alternative is to
prevent them from inflicting injury upon themselves and others by using
such measures as the state may from time to time authorise. And now let
us direct our attention to some of the agencies which are in active
operation to counteract the intemperance unfortunately so prevalent,
chiefly amongst the poorer classes.
* * * * *
Temperance societies, called “Orden der Mässigkeit,” as we know, were
established and officially recognised in the Middle Ages throughout
Germany, where they met with support from the princes and nobles of the
land. It is needless to refer again to their rules and operations, for
we did so in our review of the drinking habits of that country; but it
will be as well to recollect that the causes to which the reform of
those customs are attributable were in part the action of the temperance
societies, but also in a great measure the substitution of beer for
spirits, the introduction of non-alcoholic beverages from the East, and
the general education of the people. From the record of those facts,
then, we take our departure in treating of the changes which are now in
progress in our own country and elsewhere.
Modern temperance societies were, as their name indicates, associations
of earnest men whose object was to check drunkenness, and their scope was
at first limited to the recommendation of abstinence from spirits. On
that basis the first temperance society was founded at Boston, U.S.A.,
according to some authorities, on February 1824,[378] whilst others say
in February 1826.[379] In the New World they spread with marvellous
rapidity; for we are told that in 1829 there had been formed more than
1000 temperance societies; that upwards of fifty distilleries had been
stopped, above 400 merchants had relinquished the sale of spirits, and
upwards of 1200 drunkards had been reformed. As a proof that the change
was not merely hypothetical, it was shown that in 1824 the imported
spirits amounted to 5,285,000 gallons, whilst in 1830 the imports had
fallen off to 1,195,000 gallons.[380] All good citizens co-operated in
the work of reformation. Shipowners paid higher wages to temperance
captains, and the Boston Insurance Company agreed to return five per
cent. on the premium of every vessel navigated without spirituous
liquors, as our marine insurance companies might well do in England,
with great pecuniary benefit to themselves. Even the war authorities
aided the movement by issuing an order prohibiting the distribution of
spirits amongst the army, and substituting eight pounds of sugar and four
pounds of coffee with every 100 rations, as an equivalent for the spirits
formerly in use. In 1834 the number of temperance societies had increased
to about 7000, reckoning two millions of members, and a thousand ships
were sailing without spirits on board.[381]
In England the first society was started on the 2nd February 1830, by
Mr H. Forbes at Bradford; in Scotland, at Greenock, by Mr. John Dunlop
and his friends on the 6th October 1829; and in Ireland by the Rev.
G. W. Carr at New Ross, 1829. In the last-named country, it is hardly
necessary to remind the reader, the great work of temperance reform
was taken up at a later period and carried on with great vigour and
success by Father Mathew, the well-known philanthropist. From the very
commencement the temperance societies have received the support of all
thoughtful members of the community, but they have had drawbacks in
the eyes of many which prevented their being regarded with unqualified
approbation. They soon found it necessary to shift the basis of their
operations from the mere abstention from spirits to what is called “total
abstinence,” and from moral suasion only, they turned to coercive legal
measures against drunkards and drink-sellers. In these matters they have,
however, only followed the direction of public opinion, and whilst the
number of their members and the zeal of their workers have increased,
their changed policy has naturally swelled the ranks of their enemies.
Many of their members, too, have taken refuge within their precincts from
their inability to exercise due control over their passions, and some
of those have not been any more successful as temperance orators than
they were previously as moderate drinkers, for it is their intemperate
advocacy which has alienated many who would otherwise have been warm
supporters of the movement. Amongst the leaders of the great reform,
however, there have been some of the noblest men of the age, who have
cheerfully submitted to ridicule, to sneers, and to every kind of
obloquy and persecution in the performance of their sacred duty; and
their perseverance, aided by that of myriads of workers of the rank and
file, is already bearing rich fruits in the ameliorated condition of
modern society.
The extent and ramifications of modern temperance societies are almost
incredible. Most of the United States and Territories have general
societies, and in many cities and townships of each State there are,
as with us, local societies with their branches. The chief religious
denominations are committed by resolution and practice to total
abstinence, and many churches connect temperance work with their other
organisations. So widespread and universal are these denominational
societies, that Father Nugent of Liverpool stated before the Lords’
Committee on Intemperance that he found attached to nearly every Catholic
church in Canada and the United States total abstinence societies, and
that such society was “the leaven of each congregation.”[382] Indeed, he
was so impressed with what he witnessed there, that on his return home,
to use his own words, “he took up Father Mathew’s work in Liverpool on
the 29th February 1872.” His action, coupled with that of his zealous
associates in Liverpool, has had the effect of ameliorating the condition
of the Irish Catholics in that town, although there is still ample room
for improvement; but his reforming zeal is not universal, for there are
places in which the priests have not hesitated to seek the alliance of
the gin-shop in the pursuit of what they no doubt believe conscientiously
enough to be their religious duty. On the whole, however, the leadership
and example of their chief, Cardinal Manning, and the self-denial
and devotion of the priesthood, are doing much to stem the tide of
drunkenness amongst the class in which that vice is undoubtedly the most
prevalent in all English-speaking communities.
Those, however, who are exercising the most powerful influence upon
all grades and classes are the Nonconformist clergy and laity, and
the members of the Society of Friends. In many parts of the United
States, as we stated in our last chapter, it is a _sine qua non_ that
the minister should be a total abstainer, and that he should lead the
temperance movement in his congregation. In England the mantle of the
Puritans has undoubtedly fallen upon the Nonconformists, and the only
fault to be found with a few of the more earnest of them is, that there
is a little too much unction in their public and private utterances.
This is, however, quite pardonable, for their zeal is beyond question,
and in the author’s view they are obtaining even more valuable results
from their indirect than from their avowed temperance action, which is
always regarded as somewhat professional in its character. Whoever has
interested himself in the establishment of social clubs, cocoa-rooms,
or British workmen’s public-houses (it is immaterial by what name the
reforming institution may be known), is well aware that the men who
have made the most sacrifices, who have expended the largest amount of
time, thought, and money on the work, who have been the most hopeful in
adversity, and the most tenacious in carrying out the project, have been
the Nonconformist members of the temperance organisations.[383]
The Church of England is also beginning to be active, and her clergy
are coming somewhat tardily to the front, though many of them have long
been privately at work in their own parishes. A society has recently
been formed under the auspices of that body, “which accepts as members
non-abstainers as well as abstainers,” and the objects of which are
to promote counter-attractions to the public-house, in the shape of
reading-rooms, working men’s clubs, and coffee-rooms.[384] The noble
speaker, whose words we have quoted, still adheres to the old temperance
principle, believing that in good health men and women can do without
spirits, and that they would be much better off with very much less
than they now consume. These views may meet with the approbation of the
members of the Church of England Society, but we fear they will hardly
commend themselves to any of the old-established associations. And yet
he does not stand alone in pressing the “temperance” view upon public
notice. The greatest statesman of the day, Mr. Gladstone, in speaking
at the annual meeting of the “Coffee Tavern Company” in the metropolis,
expressed his conviction that drunkenness, which he characterised as a
“monster evil,” could not be altogether checked by “heroic remedies,”
by which, we presume, he meant legislative measures for the entire
suppression of the liquor traffic. And many more of our leading statesmen
conscientiously hold that view, although they are doing all in their
power by precept and example to diminish the evils of intemperance.
As we find the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to have
produced a beneficial effect in Germany, so the author believes that
the establishment of such houses as those referred to will eventually
prove the most effective agency for the reform of drunkenness in Great
Britain. But many of those places must first be reformed themselves
before they can accomplish their object. Whitewashed brick walls, deal
tables and benches, thin tea and coffee, or thick cocoa, will never
compete successfully with crystal chandeliers and “cream of the valley.”
The working man must be enticed from the gin-palace by the superior
attractions of the cocoa-rooms, and held fast when he is once secured.
The opening of museums and art galleries on Sundays, which will be long
deferred by the Sabbatarian spirit of the English people, will have
a tendency, indirectly, to elevate the lowest classes, especially if
the gin-palace, with its counter-attractions, be closed on the day of
rest. As potent as any of the agencies named is the spread of national
education, and a movement which has recently been set on foot to instil
the importance of temperance into the minds of children in Board and
other schools, coupled with the action of the existing “Bands of Hope,”
will certainly operate to advantage upon the drinking habits of the
rising generation.
But all these agencies are at present more or less paralysed by the
alliance, already, referred to, between the ruling power of the state
and the “drink interest.” It is hardly conceivable that any political
party should in the nineteenth century desire to retain its predominance
through the corruption of the masses, but the fact is undeniable that
the Conservatives, who have always claimed “social reform” as one of
the functions of their party, have ranged themselves on the side of the
drink-sellers, and have largely availed themselves of the Englishman’s
love of his beer, or rather of his spirits, to seize and hold the reins
of office. They were allowed to gain that position through the apathy
of the people, and as we have had a “Long” Parliament and a “Rump”
Parliament, so the present House of Commons will go down to posterity
labelled the “Grog Parliament.”
And this brings us once more to the subject of drink legislation. There
has been an infinite amount of law-making on the subject of intemperance,
but the law-breaking has been equally unlimited. Of all the Acts that
have been passed in England, the only one that has produced any visible
effect was that of 1872, which reduced the time allowed for the sale
of intoxicating drinks about four hours, namely, from twenty-one to an
average of seventeen in the twenty-four. It also increased the penalties
for the infringement of the law by publicans, for one of its clauses
enacted that “any licensed person” who permitted drunkenness, or any
violent, quarelsome, or riotous conduct to take place on his premises, or
who sells any intoxicating liquor to a drunken person, shall be liable to
a penalty not exceeding £10 for the first offence, and not exceeding £20
for any subsequent offence, and any conviction under the section shall be
recorded on the license of the person convicted, unless the magistrate or
justices shall otherwise direct.[385]
Here it will be seen that two principles were recognised by the
Legislature: first, that the opportunities for obtaining drink might, on
the score of public policy, be curtailed with advantage, and secondly
(as in the United States), that the sober but mercenary publican who
supplies the drink is violating the law even more than the miserable
drunkard who consumes it. But now let us look at the results which have
been obtained from this Act. It was passed in 1872, and for the five
years ending 1877 the convictions for drunkenness in Liverpool amounted
altogether to 90,339, whilst the whole number of publicans who were
convicted for supplying drink contrary to law during the same years was
289, being rather less than one-half of those against whom information
was laid by the police.[386] And in London the state of affairs is
equally deplorable. In the report of the metropolitan police for 1876,
we find the statement that, whilst 32,328 persons were arrested for
drunkenness in that year, the convictions against drink-houses amounted
to 186. The question which naturally suggests itself when one reads
these figures is, where do all those drunken men get the liquor which
brings them within the pale of the law? It is right to add that the
London report states that the Act of 1872 has enabled the police to close
a great number of objectionable houses; still the figures speak for
themselves.
And now as to the clauses which refer to the restriction of the hours of
sale. Not even the most thorough partisan of the drink interest will deny
that the moral effect of those clauses has been very great. For there
has been no option. The Act was one for the suppression of the liquor
traffic at very unseasonable hours (they are still very unreasonable and
unseasonable, for that matter), and, generally speaking, that portion
of it has been effectually carried out. The result has been comparative
quiet and decency in our streets during the prohibited hours, and a
diminution of the worst forms of drunkenness. But the clause for limiting
the hours of sale contained provisions which gave some little latitude
to the magistrates, and the time of closing and opening was modified to
suit the wants and wishes of particular neighbourhoods, the opening hour
in some large manufacturing towns, for example, being so regulated as
to withdraw temptation from men going to their work. But that did not
suit the books of the publicans, and as soon as the present Government
came into power, it was found expedient to make the hours “uniform”
throughout the country. In other words, the Conservatives threw a “sop
to Cerberus,” and extended the hours of opening and closing, so as to
increase the profits of the publicans as far as it was practicable
without too great an outrage upon public opinion. All parties excepting
those who instigated the change objected to it, and the evidence given
before the Lords’ Committee shows that it has caused great annoyance
and inconvenience to employers of labour, and a material loss of wages
expended in morning-drinking and its consequences.[387] The truth is,
that the various associations which have been formed throughout the
country for the protection of “the trade” saw in this small instalment
of “permissive legislation” great cause for alarm, and they accordingly
directed all their energies to its repeal.
The same line of policy has been adopted by the present Government
whenever it was called upon to decide between the wishes of the community
and those of the “trade.” The people of Birmingham desired to adopt a
measure resembling that known as the “Gothenburg system,” described
elsewhere; the Government thwarted their wishes. A resolution was
passed by a large majority of the House of Commons in favour of closing
public-houses on Sundays in Ireland, but the Government set the wishes of
the House at defiance: and why? Because the necessary sequence of Sunday
closing in Ireland and Scotland would be a similar measure in England;
and it has only been the fear of grave complications which has at length
forced the Government to listen to the demands and give a half-hearted
acquiescence to the wishes of the Irish people. Have they not a right to
complain that their true interests are sacrificed to the corrupt policy
of their neighbours, and to clamour for a larger share in the management
of their own affairs?
Nothing indeed could be more clearly defined than the attitude of the
two great political parties on the drink question. The whole of the
sympathies of the Conservatives (so far, at least, as the Legislature
is concerned) are with the drink-sellers, and they have constituted
themselves the champions of intemperance. The drink-sellers know this
but too well. Quite recently three deputations waited upon the Home
Secretary to seek his influence and support. The first two were “drink”
deputations, one being from the “Brewers’ Association” of certain
northern towns; and the other from the “Licensed Victuallers’ National
Defence League.” The first came to ask the Home Secretary to protect them
from prosecutions to which they were being subjected for adulterating
beer with salt, notoriously one of the chief incentives to drunkenness in
this country. The second deputation sought his protection from similar
prosecutions for adulterating spirits with water. The Home Secretary
told the first deputation that he was sorry he could not interfere, but
he volunteered the advice to them to take a case into the High Court of
Justice; and as to the second deputation, he not only gave them similar
advice, but promised to save them from harassing legislation by putting
himself in communication with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the
Inland Revenue upon the subject, with a view to introducing an “Amending
Bill!” The third deputation was of a different stamp. It represented the
great religious bodies of the Church of England, Nonconformists, and
Roman Catholics, headed by a Rev. Canon of very high position, and it was
ushered in by several members of Parliament. The object of the deputation
was to ask the Government to introduce a bill for closing public-houses
in England on the Sunday. The reply of the Home Secretary was that no one
was more alive than he to the evils of intemperance (a profession which
the author heard him make shortly before he extended the hours of sale),
but he added, with unconscious irony, that he “had to look at the matter
as one of practical politics and policy, and he considered it would be
unwise to promote such a bill.” Of course he refused to do anything, and
when one of the members of Parliament present expressed a desire to test
the opinion of the House on the subject, he said. “Oh, decidedly: then I
should give my own opinion on the subject.”
This is the political attitude of the Conservatives on the question
of intemperance, and their social position is much the same. With
few exceptions, their public utterances are usually made at Licensed
Victuallers’ dinners, and the question of intemperance is treated with
great levity; but, on the other hand, the liberal leaders, such as the
Duke of Westminster, Earl Granville, Lord Aberdare, Mr. Gladstone, and,
it is needless to add, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, are all more or less actively
engaged in the crusade against drunkenness.
But irrespective of these party abuses, it is only right to admit
there is a conscientious reluctance on the part of a few statesmen and
private individuals to interfere with what they consider the liberty of
the subject to get drunk when and where he pleases; and there are some
who consider that it would be a truly “liberal” policy to allow free
trade in drink, so far as to remove all restrictions from the sale,
excepting (and here lies the difficulty) such as are necessary for the
prevention of crime. As to the “liberal” policy, we are quite at a loss
to comprehend it. As we understand the fiscal policy of the Liberals, it
has been to remove _all_ obstructions to free trade in those necessaries
or luxuries of life which are either produced in or imported into this
country, and therefore the mere extension of facilities for the sale of
drink is not worth a thought. Such politicians as we have referred to,
if they wish to be consistent, ought to agitate for the repeal of all
imposts on intoxicating drink, which now swell the revenue, so much to
the satisfaction of our Chancellors of the Exchequer, and which save them
such a deal of trouble and anxiety.
The fact is, that the Liberal party has a more important platform
even than free trade, and that is “Reform” in its most comprehensive
sense, and no reform can be accomplished without great inconvenience to
individuals. One of the chief articles of food consumed by the poor in
every part of the three kingdoms is bacon; and yet when pigstyes became
a nuisance in our towns, as “tippling-shops” are pronounced to be in some
of the United States, they were mercilessly suppressed, notwithstanding
that in so doing the authorities interfered with “the liberty of the
subject.” And although a glass of beer is a legitimate indulgence,
for it is by no means a necessary of life, yet if in any particular
neighbourhood it is found that the existence of gin-palaces has become
a public nuisance, and that those places lead to breaches of the law,
or to such neglect of social duties on the part of a large number of
individuals as to cast unnecessary burdens upon the whole community,
it is anything but a “liberal policy” to foster them, or in any way to
provide for their continued existence.
Any one who will take the trouble to review the legislation of the last
twenty years in connection with sanitary and educational matters must
feel convinced that “permissive” legislation in regard to the sale of
drink is sure to come sooner or later. That it will be accomplished by
the Liberal party there can be little doubt; for whilst the stronghold
of the Conservatives has been the protection of all vested interests,
and their weakness, distrust of the masses, the Liberal leaders have
ever been ready to repose confidence in the people, and, even at the
risk of offending powerful supporters whose interests were prejudiced by
their action, they have cheerfully accorded to the masses the power and
facilities for self-government, and for the reform of national abuses.
At the present time there is no permissive measure before the country,
excepting that of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, which, in its inceptive form,
proposes to confer upon majorities of two-thirds of the ratepayers
in cities, boroughs, parishes, or townships, the power of entirely
suppressing the sale of intoxicating drinks, and that bill has been time
after time rejected by the House of Commons on the second reading. But
then almost every other measure that has been introduced into Parliament
for mitigating the evils of drunkenness has met with a similar fate,
partly on account of the predominating influence of the publicans,
and the fear on the part of members of the House of Commons of giving
offence to a formidable body of men who, once at least, have been mainly
instrumental in upsetting a Ministry, and also from the apprehension that
if such a power as that sought by the bill were granted, it would become
the instrument of tyranny and oppression.
But with all deference to the British House of Commons, we venture to
think that many of its members have not in this matter maintained the
high reputation which they have earned as practical men, and that they
are year by year defeating their own aims. The publican power in England
is no doubt very real, but it is rendered far more formidable than it
would be otherwise through the timidity of those by whom it should be
controlled; and that timidity, if it continues, will some day force the
members to take part in a reaction, which is sure sooner or later to set
in against the drink trade, and which might be greatly diminished in its
severity by the exercise of a little timely vigour and determination.
But let us look at the bill itself, and supposing that it became law as
it stands at present, what would be its effect upon the community? The
reply of objectors is very well known: “It would enable a tyrannical
majority in small places to prevent a poor man from getting a glass of
beer, whilst it would not preclude the wealthy from keeping a stock of
wine or spirits; and in large towns it would be altogether inoperative,
as it has been in the United States.” Assuming these to be the real
objections to the bill (which they are not), what do they amount to when
they are dispassionately considered? Surely no one will deny that there
is a great deal of drunkenness even in small towns and country places;
and if it would be less difficult to suppress it in such places than in
large towns, would it not be a very practical mode of proceeding to win
the outworks of intemperance before storming the citadel? It might even
at first increase the amount of drunkenness in towns, as it has done in
Gothenburg, through the influx of visitors from the country, where no
drink could be procured; but that would be a proof of its necessity and
a tribute to its efficiency. Has the objection ever been urged against
the closing of public-houses in towns at certain hours on Sundays that it
compels a few sots to walk miles in search of drink into a neighbouring
country parish, where the law is not carried into effect so rigorously on
account of the absence of police supervision?
But it would be a waste of time to protract the discussion. To pass a law
is one thing, to enforce it rigidly is another; and it may be admitted
once for all that it would be to a considerable extent evaded, as the
Maine Law has been in America. But we have seen that hitherto, with one
partial exception, namely, the limitation of the hours of sale, that
has been the fate of all legislation against intemperance. Therefore in
that respect the Act would be no worse than its predecessors, and it
might be much more successful. On the other hand (still regarding the
bill in its inchoate form), it would make the sale of intoxicating drink
illegal; and as we are a law-abiding nation, a great many people would
give up the trade, and a very considerable number who have hitherto
thought it unnecessary to refrain from taking alcohol would feel it to
be their duty to become partial or total abstainers. In other words, it
would cease to be the fashion to drink and to invite others to do so: it
would no longer be necessary for a man to imbibe liquor in order to get
on in the world, as it is too frequently the case at present. As soon
as the trade itself became illegal, it would, _as it is now conducted_,
become very disreputable, and its open encouragement would cease.
For it cannot be too frequently repeated that a very large number of
respectable and influential men, who would consider it discreditable to
keep a public-house themselves, do not hesitate to associate on terms of
equality with publicans if they are only in a sufficiently large way of
business, and thereby to foster a grave source of national danger.
But suppose the bill were read a second time, which is only an
acknowledgment of its principle, does any reflecting reader who has
followed the changes in our laws and constitution with ever so little
attention, believe for an instant that a real injustice would be
permitted against any important section of the community? For, as already
stated, no great reform can be accomplished without inconveniencing
individuals, who in this case would in all probability be either habitual
drunkards, or those who are enriching themselves at their expense. It
may be that in the present condition of society the bill aims at too
much, and it is quite certain that in its passage through Parliament it
would be loaded with safeguards against oppression and the possibility
of arbitrary proceedings on the part of total abstainers, by honourable
members who would be anxious to prove their devotion to a certain class
of their constituents, so that no poor man would be “robbed of his
beer,” and no legitimate interests would be sacrificed. For permissive
legislation, as we have seen, has been found the most effective in that
country where the rights of citizens are the most jealously watched.
On the other hand, the official sanction which the bill would give to
the cause of temperance would make that cause “diplomatically strong;”
and the very prospect of its passing into law would have the effect of
greatly diminishing some of the evils, and of entirely sweeping away
other existing abuses of which it is intended to be the corrective.
Regarded in this light, then, it is earnestly to be hoped that all
classes of our readers will carefully weigh the national importance
and value of the so-called “Permissive Bill,” and that when it is next
brought before the Legislature, its promoters may succeed in enlisting
for it a larger amount of support than it has hitherto enjoyed. At
present the real but partially concealed forces which militate against
drinking reform are the bitter hostility of an unlawful section of
the trade which it would injure, and the disinclination of fiscal
administrators to reduce a very material but a very iniquitous item in
the public revenue resulting from the traffic. The statesman has yet to
stand forward with the courage needful for initiating what will assuredly
be the most important moral and financial reformation of our country.
CHAPTER XVI.
RETROSPECT—CONCLUSION.
The hasty survey which has been made in the preceding chapters, of
the drinking habits of our race in various lands and ages, will, we
trust, have had the effect of modifying some of our theories, based
upon preconceived ideas, concerning the causes of intemperance. That
climate is not a permanent source of that evil has, we think, been
clearly proved. Nor is the popular theory tenable that barbarism and
an aboriginal condition of mankind mean purity and sobriety, but
that drunkenness is the invariable concomitant of a high state of
civilisation. For, at the time when man is supposed to have been in a
state of paradisiacal innocence, the standard of his morality was very
low indeed, both as it concerned his indulgence in drink, as well as
in other respects; and although purity and simplicity of faith appear
at all times to have been accompanied by similar moral qualities, yet
religion alone, excepting in one or two cases, has not exercised an
important controlling influence upon the passion for drink in the human
race. On the other hand, however, the superstitious rites and ceremonies
with which religion has been more or less encumbered in all ages have
countenanced if not patronised the use of intoxicating beverages.
It is quite true that every phase and form of civilisation has at one
time or other been debased by its association with intemperance, and has
frequently ministered to man’s self-indulgence. Music and the arts have
not disdained to become the handmaids of debauchery; poetry has been
degraded by its influence; the artifice of politics and the designs of
priestcraft have found it a convenient tool. And as to science, she has
consented in a hundred different ways to multiply man’s opportunities
for self-debasement or to furnish him with palliatives for mitigating
the evil effects of his dissoluteness. But, on the other hand, if we
can trust our imperfect knowledge, we see already that the wave of
intemperance has invariably reached its highest point, not when nations
have been the most highly civilised (if any nation can be said to have
attained that condition), but either before it was fairly educated, or
during the national decadence.
Nor is the expression “waves of intemperance” purely imaginative, for
they have had a real existence in the history of the past. One or
more such waves rose high in ancient China, and probably overwhelmed
dynasties, and yet modern China is not reckoned amongst inebriate states.
Another reared itself in India, where it broke against the barriers which
were opposed to it by Buddha and his disciples. The pure descendants of
the Indian and Persian races, the Hindoos and Parsees, who are the best
educated, are at the same time amongst the most temperate of the Eastern
races. In ancient Rome, on the other hand, the wave of intemperance
reached its greatest altitude when the arts were languishing, when
her military prestige was waning, and when the barbarians whom she had
subdued were becoming in their turn her conquerors. That wave was never
broken, but for the time being it helped to wreck the civilisation of a
large section of the human race over which it passed. Another smaller
wave travelled from Central Asia towards the south-west, and there
Islamism was the rock upon which it burst. This is, perhaps, the most
conspicuous instance in which religion, aided, however, by the sword, has
offered an effective resistance to the spread of drunkenness. The same
tide which had submerged the Roman empire rolled on with undiminished
force, and nearly overwhelmed the empire of Germany. But there, for
the first time, we clearly apprehend the fact that drunkenness does
not run side by side with true civilisation, at least if the latter is
represented by all that is noble and refined in æsthetic tastes, all that
is enlightened in literature, science, and philosophy. For the Germans
were the greatest drunkards at the time they were mere fighting men; not,
perhaps, when they faced the legions of Germanicus, and certainly not
when they stood opposed to those of Napoleon III.; but whilst they were
still a nation of uncultivated boors, submissive followers of a band of
robber-barons, whose highest conception of human greatness consisted in
feats of arms and deeds of chivalry. But with the extension of commerce
and intercourse with surrounding peoples came habits of temperance and
frugality, in which the nation was soon confirmed by the spread of
knowledge, by intellectual culture in the upper classes, and by the
education of the great mass of the people.
And so, too, it has been in modern Scandinavia, in England, and in the
United States of America. In each of those lands the tide of intemperance
rose to its highest before the masses began to be educated, and in all
three the ebb appears to have set in with greater or less rapidity. So
far, then, it would appear, from a careful study of the history of drink
and its influence upon the various races and upon the different classes
of society, that barbarism and religious credulity are accompanied by
immorality and unbridled intemperance, whilst sobriety, virtue, and
self-restraint are the concomitants of pure religion, and of the arts of
civilisation.
But we must not content ourselves with the negative proposition that
intemperance is not the necessary outcome of civilisation, nor even with
the general statement that the latter brings with it self-restraint and
sobriety. The most potent check upon immorality, especially in recent
and modern times, has been enlightened public opinion, which is the
expression of advancing civilisation; and it is upon the conduct of those
who have moulded public opinion that the morality of every age has been
largely dependent. Evil examples in high places and a disregard of public
propriety have done as much to encourage the vice of intemperance as the
passion from which it springs. Whilst the priests of the ancient faiths
intoxicated themselves at the altar, and portrayed the deities whom they
served with tastes similar to their own, it was not likely that the crowd
of worshippers would practise sobriety. In those days the priesthood to
a large extent represented public opinion, and, as we have seen, they
not only countenanced drunkenness, but hallowed its exercise. When the
military heroes of ancient Rome gave away a hundred thousand congiaria of
wine to the mob, or kept cellars of 10,000 casks, or devoted whole days
and nights to drinking bouts, it is no wonder that the ragged plebeians,
without shoes or a mantle, spent the hours of the night in obscene
taverns and brothels in the indulgence of gross and vulgar sensuality;
for it was the great military leaders of that age who moulded public
opinion. And so, coming nearer to our time, when, in our own country,
the installation of a shepherd in the fold of Christ was commemorated
by a feast at which 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine were swallowed
down, and when the ladies of the court of Charles the dissolute “rolled
about in a state of intoxication,” it was only a necessary sequence
that the lower orders should get drunk upon gin at a penny a head, and
whilst in that condition they should herd together upon straw in dark
cellars which would have been unfit receptacles for the brutes, below
whose state they had fallen. And although in our day the public feeling
is expressed rather than created by those who occupy high places, still
the utterances of ministers of state such as those we have quoted, and
the open countenance and encouragement which is given by influential
party-leaders to persons who profit by the intemperance of the ignorant
and depraved, cannot fail to produce a very pernicious effect upon public
sentiment, and to militate against the exercise of its due influence upon
the national morals.
Looking at the other side of the question, we find that all great
temperance reformers have appealed to public opinion to aid them in
their efforts. Confucius did not say to his disciples, “Be careful not
to drink wine to excess, for it will enervate your bodies and debase
your intelligence.” He was more practical than that. “The superior man
when he is at table does not glut his appetite,” he said; and “when you
go abroad be not given to excess in wine.” In other words, “Don’t lower
the standard of morality, nor degrade yourselves in public estimation,
by setting a pernicious example; for, remember, you are superior men,
the leaders of society.” The Buddhist priests were ordered not only
themselves to refrain from using strong drink, but they were told that
“there is no reward for him who gives intoxicating liquors.” And St. Paul
advised abstention from drink lest others should be “made weak” by the
example. Pliny, too, denounced the public drinking practices of his age,
and the scandalous conduct of the great military leaders, who, as we have
already said, moulded public opinion; and Mahomet said of drunkenness,
that it diverted the attention of mankind from its highest and noblest
occupations, prayer and the remembrance of God.
And if this has been the policy of temperance reformers in past ages,
much more conspicuously is it so in the present day, when public opinion
is becoming the censor of morals and the approver of merit and virtue.
That it is absolutely essential for them to have the popular sentiment
on their side has been conclusively shown in connection with every phase
of the question. It is futile for earnest men to lecture to drunkards
amongst the lower classes, so long as the great mass of the electors,
guided by unscrupulous party-leaders, choose publicans to represent
them in town councils, and promote them to the aldermanic or civic
chair. Equally idle is it for clergymen to preach temperance sermons to
decorous congregations whilst those who are enriched by the results of
drunkenness are permitted, in consequence of their wealth and influence,
to hold a higher rank than the parishioner whose calling is innocuous,
and even above him whose profession ministers to that health and
comfort which are undermined and uprooted by the gin-palace. Repressive
legislation, however wise and however indispensable it may be, is, as
we have seen, quite inefficacious unless supported by public opinion.
It is in those countries where not only the upper ranks, but the whole
mass of the people, enjoy the benefits of education, where, in fact, an
enlightened public opinion is a possibility; in Sweden, Norway, and the
United States of America, that the interference of the State authorities
has proved of any avail in the work of temperance reform. The duty of
Englishmen, in what is by many believed to be an important crisis in
our history, is therefore very plain. It is because the abuses to which
frequent reference has been made are tolerated and sanctioned in our own
country, that our people abroad as well as at home are stigmatised as—the
words come most reluctantly from the pen of one who is proud of his
nationality—as a nation of drinkers; and it is the duty of men in every
rank and station to express their disapproval of intemperance and the
causes which lead to its prevalence, and so to influence public opinion
in favour of sobriety.
And now let us say, in conclusion, that if the perusal of these pages
should have removed any misconceptions, or have suggested any important
truths, in connection with the subject of which they have treated; if
it should induce any who have hitherto been calculating, or timid, or
indifferent, to extend a warm and disinterested support to the cause
of temperance reform; or if it should afford help and encouragement to
those who are already labouring to raise the standard of morality and
to ameliorate the condition of the poor and ignorant, their publication
will not have been in vain, and we shall certainly have no cause to
regret having invited our readers to bear us company in this cursory and
imperfect glance over the history of drink in every age.
FOOTNOTES
[1] On the Action of Alcohol on the Mind, pp. 11, 12. W. Tweedie.
[2] Results of Researches on Alcohol, p. 6 (“An Inbred Enemy”). W.
Tweedie.
[3] Descent of Man, i. 12.
[4] Brehm, Thierleben, b. i. 1864, a. 75, 86. Also on the Ateles, s. 105,
and elsewhere.
[5] Morewood’s Inebriating Liquors, p. 55 and subsequent pages, which
contain numerous references. Dublin: W. Curry, jun., & Co. 1838. In
referring to this work, we shall in future simply say “Morewood.” An
earlier but much less perfect edition was published by Longmans in 1824.
[6] Researches in South Africa, p. 411. Murray.
[7] Researches in South Africa, pp. 186, 630, &c.
[8] The Malay Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 102.
[9] Striking instances will be found in the chapter on America in the
present work.
[10] Morewood, p. 65, where Malte Brun, Whittington, and other travellers
are referred to as authorities on the same subject.
[11] The Heart of Africa, vol. ii. p. 13. Sampson Low & Co.
[12] Heart of Africa, vol. i. p. 183.
[13] Morewood, who quotes authorities, p. 349.
[14] Ibid., p. 350.
[15] History of Europe, vol. i. 7th ed. p. 21.
[16] This will be further strikingly shown in the chapter which relates
to the habits of the tribes on the River Plate.
[17] Herodotus, iii. 20-22.
[18] Keller’s Lake Dwellings, p. 344, Longmans; and Nilsson’s Stone Age,
edited by Sir J. Lubbock, pp. xxiii., xxix., Longmans.
[19] For full information, see abstract of the treatise on the plants of
the lake-dwellings in Keller’s book (cited), p. 336, where illustrations
will be found of a great variety of plants in use at that early age.
[20] Keller’s Lake Dwellings, pp. 41, 342.
[21] One of our leading ethnologists, Mr. J. Crawfurd, F.R.S., expresses
the view, in a paper read by him before the Ethnological Society, March
10, 1868, that the discovery and art of manufacturing some kind of
intoxicating drink may be said to be coeval with the first dawn of social
development, for it has soon been made by barbarians of every race in
possession of the requisite raw materials; it is mere wandering savages,
he says, that have been found ignorant of it. The same author considers
that the vine is indigenous in several parts of Western Asia and Southern
Europe.
[22] Confucius et Mencius, par M. G. Pauthier, p. 152. Paris: Charpentier.
[23] Wright’s Homes of Other Days, p. 269. Trübner & Co.
[24] Confucius et Mencius, p. 153, _et seq._: “dejà entrées en
putréfaction.”
[25] Confucius et Mencius, p. 108.
[26] Ibid., p. 114.
[27] Ibid., p. 144.
[28] Ibid., p. 148.
[29] Ibid., p. 333.
[30] Ibid., p. 355. This game was made an excuse for gambling, a vice
still prevalent in China.
[31] Legge’s Chinese Classics. Trübner & Co.
[32] Legge’s “She-King, or Book of Ancient Chinese Poetry.” Trübner & Co.
[33] Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. iii. pt. i p. 274.
[34] Other accounts are to be found in the “Shoo-King” of the condition
of China at the time, and one (vol. iii. pt. i. p. 274) describes the
people as being given up to highway robberies, villainies, and treachery;
the nobles as violating the laws; and that there was no certainty of
the apprehension of criminals. All this was attributed to the growth of
drunkenness.
[35] The She-King, pp. 182, 183.
[36] The She-King, p. 252.
[37] Ibid., p. 308.
[38] Ibid., p. 314.
[39] Ibid., p. 207.
[40] The She-King, p. 375.
[41] Ibid., p. 261.
[42] Ibid., p. 322.
[43] Ibid., p. 195.
[44] The She-King, pp. 266-268.
[45] The great reformer known to us as Buddha was born at the foot of the
mountains of Nepaul, and his death took place according to one writer 543
B.C., according to another 477 B.C., consequently about a year before the
date assigned for the death of Confucius. See Max Müller’s “Chips from a
German Workshop,” vol. i. p. 247.
[46] Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, p. 24. Partridge & Oakey.
[47] Ibid., pp. 80-82.
[48] Morewood, p. 231, and elsewhere. This author gives interesting
details of the distilling processes in China.
[49] Social Life of the Chinese, by the Rev. Justus Doolittle, p. 500.
Sampson Low & Co.
[50] Ibid., pp. 500-512.
[51] Chinese Sketches, by H. A. Giles, of H.B.M. Consular Service, p.
154. Trübner & Co.
[52] This is explained by Mr. Doolittle, who says that many games are
played, in the course of which the loser is compelled repeatedly to empty
his cup of wine.
[53] Chinese Sketches, p. 12.
[54] History of the Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 523, 572. Williams &
Norgate.
[55] Haug’s Essays on the Religion, &c., of the Parsees, pp. 280-283.
Trübner & Co.
[56] The Bases of Temperance Reform, p. 113. Rev. D. Burns, M.A. London:
Tweedie & Co.
[57] Rig-Veda, 1. 4. 2. Most of these extracts from the Rig-Veda
have been translated for this work from the original Sanskrit by Dr.
Myriantheus, an able Sanskrit scholar, and compared by the author where
it was possible with Wilson’s and Langlois’ translations of the Rig-Veda.
With respect to the foregoing quotation, Dr. Max Müller translates it
(in a letter to the author): “The intoxication of a wealthy man bestows
wealth;” that is, a wealthy man when intoxicated is generous. Nothing can
be more convincing than this rendering that the Aryan conception of the
gods was but a reflection of the character of the people themselves.
[58] Rig-Veda, 1. 9. 1.
[59] Ibid., 1. 52. 5.
[60] Ps. cxxxvi., and Rig-Veda, Langlois’ translation, p. 174.
[61] Rig-Veda, 8. 1. 23.
[62] Ibid., 10. 119.
[63] Ibid., 10. 112. 3.
[64] Ibid., 3. 58. 6.
[65] Rig-Veda, 1. 54. 8, and 3. 43. 5.
[66] Ibid., 5. 43. 3.
[67] Aitareya Brahmána, vol. ii. p. 507.
[68] Rig-Veda, 1. 191. 10.
[69] Ibid., 8. 2. 12.
[70] Chips from a German Workshop (R. V. 7. 86. 6).
[71] Manu was a religions and moral lawgiver, whose doctrines united the
spirit of Buddhism with that of the Brahmans. One of his translators and
commentators, Sir William Jones, believes him to have lived in or before
the ninth century B.C. Professor Wilson, one of the translators of the
Rig-Veda, places him about the sixth century B.C. Gautama Sâkya (Buddha)
is, however, supposed to have lived in the sixth or fifth century B.C.
These are discrepancies which we cannot attempt here to reconcile. The
extracts in the text are from Sir William Jones’s translation of the
“Institutes of Hindoo Law, or the Ordinances of Manu,” chap. xi. Allen &
Co.
[72] Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xlii. p. 10 _et seq._
[73] Morewood, p. 162, and Table, p. 717.
[74] Ibid., p. 182.
[75] The Natives of India, by James Kerr, pp. 171-173. Allen & Co.
[76] Wanderings of a Pilgrim, vol. ii. pp. 147, 148. Pelham Richardson.
[77] India and its Native Princes, by Louis Rousselet, p. 173. Chapman &
Hall.
[78] In Doran’s Table Traits, p. 300 (Bentley), will be found a
drinking-song which was sung in the army not very long since during the
prevalence of cholera, when, the author says (not defining the exact
period), drinking in India was fearful. We extract two verses to show the
callousness that prevailed.
“Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,
Not a tear for the friends who sink,
We’ll fall ’mid the wine cup’s sparkled,
As mute as the wine we drink.
Come, stand to your glasses steady!
’Tis this that the respite buys.
One cup to the dead already;
Hurrah! for the next that dies.
“Who dreads to the dust returning?
Who shrinks from the sable shore,
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul can sting no more?
No, stand to your glasses steady;
This world is a world of lies!
One cup to the dead already;
Hurrah! for the next that dies.”
[79] Avesta, Die heiligen Schriften der Parsen, by Dr. F. Spiegel, vol.
i. p. 8. Leipzig: Engelmann.
[80] Haug, Essay on the Religion of the Parsees, p. 282. London: Trübner
& Co.
[81] Vendidad, by Dr. Spiegel, vol. i. p. 207.
[82] Vendidad, vol. i. p. 253. See also vol. iii. p. xlix.: “Die Daevas
Kunda, Banga und Vibanga als Gegner des Craosha, es sind die Dämonen der
Trunkenheit.”
[83] And judging from the Zend-Avesta, to other gross forms of immorality.
[84] Born at Halicarnassus, B.C. 484.
[85] Herodotus, i. 133.
[86] Ibid., i. 126.
[87] Ibid., i. 212.
[88] Ibid., iii. 20-22.
[89] Sale’s Koran, p. 84. F. Warne & Co. “Lots, and images, and divining
arrows” are explained to mean “all inebriating liquors and games of
chance.” See also sec. v. and chap. ii. p. 23, where it is said that “in
lots and wine there is great sin.”
[90] Sale’s Koran, p. 199.
[91] Ibid., pp. 95, 96. Also the present chapter and the chapter on the
Egyptians; also Morewood, p. 721, table, from which it will be seen
that there were imported into Turkey between the years 1827 and 1834
inclusive, 229,460 gallons of spirits, besides wines, beer, and ale, and
that 11,272 gallons of wine were exported from Turkey during the same
period.
[92] Morewood, pp. 85-89.
[93] Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft, by Dr. G. Klemm, vol. ii. pp. 338,
339. Leipzig: Romberg.
[94] Fraser’s Persia, p. 332. Oliver & Boyd.
[95] Through Persia by Caravan, by Arthur Arnold, vol. ii. p. 322.
Tinsley. See also Klemm’s Culturwissenschaft, p. 323: “Man geniesst den
Wein vornehmlich gern des Abends,” he says of all Moslems.
[96] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 20.
[97] Ibid., vol. i. p. 283.
[98] Max Müller’s Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i. p. 161.
[99] The Parsees, by Dosabhoy Framjee. Smith, Elder, & Co.
[100] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine.”
[101] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, by Rev. W. Ritchie,
D.D., p. 224, and elsewhere, Houlston & Wright; and “The Basis of
Temperance Reform,” by Rev. D. Burns, chap. v., Pitman; and “Bacchus
Dethroned,” by F. Powell, chap. vii. Kempster.
[102] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine.”
[103] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, p. 68.
[104] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, p. 65.
[105] Exod. xxix. 40, 41; Lev. xxiii. 13; Judges ix. 12, 13: “Then said
the trees unto the vine, Come thou and reign over us. And the vine said
unto them, Should I leave my wine, _which cheereth God and man_, and go
to be promoted over the trees?”
[106] The Talmud, by H. Polano, pp. 349, 355. F. Warne.
[107] The Mishna, De Sola and Raphael, pp. 7-9. The author has to thank
the Rev. M. Joseph of Liverpool for some of these references.
[108] Babylonian Talmud, Treatise _Berachot_, fol. 35 a.
[109] The Mishna, De Sola and Raphael, p. 48.
[110] Lev. x. 9.
[111] Num. vi. 3, 20.
[112] Jer. xxxv. 7.
[113] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. “Wine;” also note at end of
chapter i. of this treatise.
[114] Polano’s Talmud, p. 261; also Isa. xxii. 14.
[115] Gen. xxvii. 28, 37; Deut. vii. 13, xi. 14, xxvii. 51; 2 Chron. xi.
11; Ps. civ. 15; Song of Solomon v. i.; Lam. ii. 12; and Hosea xiv. 7,
where wine is named amongst the blessings to be restored to Israel.
[116] Isa. lv. 1.
[117] Polano’s Talmud, p. 247.
[118] Gen. xiv. 18.
[119] Polano’s Talmud, p. 291.
[120] Gen. xviii. 9-20.
[121] Gen. xix. 35.
[122] Prov. xxiii. 29-32.
[123] Isa. v. 11.
[124] Poland’s Talmud, p. 254.
[125] Joel iii. 3.
[126] Luke i. 15; Matt. iii. 4; Mark i. 6.
[127] Luke vii. 33, 34.
[128] John ii. 7 _et seq._
[129] Scripture Testimony against Intoxicating Wine, p. 184.
[130] Tim. v. 23.
[131] 1 Tim. iii. 2, 3, 8.
[132] Rom. xiv. 21.
[133] Rom. xiv. 2-4.
[134] Rom. xiii. 13.
[135] 1 Cor. vi. 10. The early Christian fathers, to whose teachings
concerning drunkenness we shall refer hereafter, found the vice to
prevail almost wherever they went as missionaries, in Africa, Gaul,
Britain, and elsewhere, and they denounced it in the most vehement terms.
[136] See the remarks on Inebriate Asylums in our chapter on America.
[137] Gen. xl. 11. This was, however, the unfermented juice of the grape.
[138] Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 4. Murray.
[139] Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. pp. 45, 46, 52, 53.
[140] Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 127. Bohn.
[141] Pliny’s Natural History, vol. iii. p. 247. Bohn. Those who are
disposed to study the conflict of evidence further should refer to
Bishop H. Browne on Gen. xl. 9, &c., and Wilkinson’s note to Rawlinson’s
Herodotus, ii. 77.
[142] Athenæus, vol. i. p. 55. Bohn.
[143] Athenæus, vol. i. p. 56.
[144] Dionysus is considered by some authors to be the same as the
Egyptian Osiris. Diodorus, i. 11. Wilkinson’s Egyptians, i. 285.
[145] Smith’s Larger Dictionary of Antiquities, Art. “Dionysia,” by Dr.
L. Schmitz.
[146] Buckley’s Odyssey, Book ix. p. 118 _et seq._ Bohn.
[147] Odyssey, p. 292. Circe, too, intoxicates her admirers with
“Pramnian wine” (Ibid., Bk. x.) and drunkenness is a constant theme
throughout the book.
[148] Bohn’s Athenæus, vol. ii. p. 682.
[149] Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, Art. “Helotes,” by Philip Smith.
[150] Athenæus, vol. i. p. 229, and vol. ii. p. 731.
[151] Athenæus, vol. i. p. 59.
[152] Athenæus, vol. i. p. 59.
[153] Pliny was born in the north of Italy, A.D. 23. He served as a
soldier in Germany, and practised as a special pleader in Rome. He was
killed at the age of fifty-six whilst observing an eruption of Vesuvius,
for he was an ardent lover of nature. Our extracts and references are
found in his “Natural History.” Bohn.
[154] Natural History, vol. iii. pp. 252, 253, _et seq._
[155] About 220 B.C.
[156] Pliny, p. 252. See also the account of the miracle of Cana, John
ii. 10.
[157] A measure of about six pints.
[158] Pliny, p. 255.
[159] Pliny, p. 215.
[160] For farther particulars concerning the process of wine-making in
Rome, the reader is referred to Smith’s “Dictionary of Antiquities,”
Art. “Vinum,” by W. Ramsay, which contains a large amount of useful and
interesting information on the subject.
[161] Pliny, vol. iii. p. 218 (Book xiv.).
[162] Ibid., p. 222 _et seq._
[163] The “Kölnische Zeitang,” Friday, November 23, 1877. “Vermischte
Nachrichten.” See also “The Chemistry of Wine,” p. 374, by Mulder.
Churchill.
[164] Pliny, vol. iii. p. 239.
[165] Pliny, vol. iv. p. 259.
[166] Athenæus, vol. ii. p. 772.
[167] Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, Art. “Vinum.”
[168] Athenæus, p. 738 _et seq._
[169] Ibid., p. 747.
[170] Petronius (Bohn’s Classical Library); Athenæus, &c.
[171] Athenæus, p. 729.
[172] Petronius, Trimalchio’s Feast.
[173] Originally the skeleton was carried round to remind the feasters
of their mortality, and to warn them _not_ to indulge too freely in the
pleasures of the table.
[174] In England it was customary in the Middle Ages to pour the wine
down the offender’s sleeve. At Haddon Hall there is still an iron clasp
fixed against a wall, which was used for the purpose of holding the wrist
whilst that operation was performed.
[175] Book iv. cap. 28.
[176] More than two gallons at a draught! It seems an incredible feat.
[177] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. p. 215. Edinburgh:
Strachan, 1782.
[178] Bohn’s Tacitus, vol. ii. p. 312 _et seq._
[179] J. W. Petersen. Geschichte der Deutschen Nationalneigung rum
Trunke, p. 7. (History of the German National Tendency to Drink,
originally published in Stuttgart, 1782.) Stuttgart: Scheible, 1856.
[180] Klemm’s Allgemeine Culturwissenschaft, vol. ii. p. 326, Leipzig,
Romberg, 1856; and Petersen, p. 9.
[181] Readers who are desirous of following the extension of vine-culture
in Germany and Europe generally, will find full details in a work by H.
von Carlowitz, Leipzig, 1846; and a fair list of all important works on
the subject published in past times in Germany is to be found in Klemm,
p. 327 _et seq._
[182] All the chief vineyards on the Rhine were planted by the monks. See
“Speise und Trank vergangener Zeiten in Deutschland” (Food and Drink in
Past Times in Germany), by Dr. A. Schlossar, p. 23. Vienna: A. Hartleben,
1877.
[183] For an account of the preparation of mead, see “Speise und Trank
vergangener Zeiten,” &c., p. 24.
[184] “Ut nullus ebrius suam causam in mallo possit conquirere, neo
testimonium dicere. Nec placitum comes habeat, nisi jejunus.” See
Petersen, Appendix, p. 128. Also Klemm, pp. 342, 343.
[185] “Ut in hoste nemo parem suum, vel quemlibet alium bibere coget, et
quicunque in exercitu ebrius inventus fuerit, ita excommunicetur, ut in
bibendo sola aqua utatur, quousque se male fecisse cognoscat.” Petersen,
p. 128.
[186] “Jus Potandi,” from the original, published in 1616, by “Dr. M.
Oberbreyer,” Introduction. Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger. Whether “Jus
Potandi” be a satire, as it probably is, or a serious production, it very
faithfully reflects the drinking habits of the time.
[187] Studenten-Lieder des Mittelalters. Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger.
[188] Jus Potandi, p. xvi., Introduction.
[189] “Das Leipziger gekräuterte, bauchzerreissende Rastrum.”—_Jus
Potandi_, clause 8, p. 13. See also, “Speise und Trank vergangener Zeiten
in Deutschland,” p. 46, where many other kinds of beer are mentioned.
[190] Jus Potandi, clause 24, p. 31.
[191] Ibid., clause 25, p. 34.
[192] Ibid., clause 48, p. 69. See “Speise und Trank,” &c., p. 38, where
the drunkenness of females is referred to.
[193] Ibid., clause 18, p. 22.
[194] Jus Potandi, clause 34, p. 45.
[195] Ibid., clause 15, p. 20.
[196] Ibid., clause 45, p. 64.
[197] Similar codes will hereafter be referred to, of an undoubtedly
serious character, as existing in France and England.
[198] Full confirmation of this state of things is given in “Speise und
Trank,” &c., pp. 10, 11, 28, 31, 32, and at p. 34, where an account is
given of a hundred and ten persons drinking four tuns of beer and one and
half ohm of wine at a sitting.
[199] “Saus und Braus” in German is equivalent to “revelry” in English.
[200] The same practice prevailed even amongst women. Speise und Trank,
&c., p. 38.
[201] Speise und Trank, &c., pp. 11, 12, 18.
[202] Eckehardus, jun.: De Casibus Monast. St. Galli, cap. ix. p. 41;
also Speise und Trank, &c., p. 17, as to monasteries in the Black Forest.
[203] Rabanus Maurus. The Discipline of Drink, by Rev. T. E. Bridgett.
Burns & Oates.
[204] _Loc. cit._, p. 141.
[205] As to the luxury and drunkenness of priests, see also “Speise und
Trank,” &c., pp. 10, 11, 17.
[206] Speise und Trank, &c., pp. 47, 48. The first coffee-house was
opened in Vienna in 1683; in Augsburg, 1713; in Stuttgart, 1712. This
part of the subject will be fully treated of in one of the chapters on
England.
[207] Petersen, “Concluding remarks.”
[208] The German Working Man. Longmans & Co.
[209] Discipline of Drink, p. 255. All the German Culture Unions are
practically temperance societies, although alcoholic drink (chiefly
German beer) is freely obtainable in them.
[210] The events which have happened in Berlin whilst this treatise is
passing through the press lead the author to add, “without assassination.”
[211] Discipline of Drink, chap. xi.
[212] Homes of Other Days, by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., p. 294,
Trübner & Co.; British Monachism, by T. D. Fosbrooke, p. 47, Nichols &
Son and Rivington, 1802.
[213] Homes of Other Days, p. 42.
[214] Discipline of Drink, p. 77.
[215] Harleian, Cottonian, &c.
[216] Homes of Other Days, pp. 45-47. The various instrumentalists
of the Anglo-Saxon period are called by the author _hearpere_, the
harper; _bymere_, the trumpeter; _pipere_, the piper or flute-player;
_fithelere_, the fiddler; and _horn-blawere_, the horn-blower.
[217] Legend of St. Juliana, Homes of Other Days, p. 50.
[218] Discipline of Drink, p. 135.
[219] Ibid., p. 135.
[220] Ibid., p. 136.
[221] Fosbrooke’s British Monachism, vol. i. pp. 16, 17.
[222] Ibid.
[223] Fosbrooke’s British Monachism, vol. i. p. 24.
[224] Homes of Other Days, p. 25.
[225] Homes of Other Days, p. 119.
[226] The reader must remember that noon was the dinner-hour.
[227] Justiciar was equivalent to our Lord Chief-Justice.
[228] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, by T. E. Tomlins
and J. E. Rokewode. Whittaker.
[229] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 27.
[230] Homes of Other Days, p. 94.
[231] Homes of Other Days, p. 288.
[232] Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 124.
[233] Discipline of Drink, p. 80.
[234] Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 124.
[235] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, pp. 30, 31.
[236] Ibid., p. 35.
[237] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 44; also
Fosbrooke, vol. i. p. 83.
[238] Beer and wine were both made by the monks. In the time of William
Rufus there were four brewers, and five servants in the vineyard at
Kresham monastery (Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 102). A most amusing record
for posterity, by the by, of the customs of our day will be the
advertisements which appear from time to time in our English papers, of
the right of certain monasteries to the sole manufacture of well-known
liqueurs—Gin and Gospel!
[239] A Book about the Clergy, by J. C. Jeaffreson, vol. i. p. 354. Hurst
& Blackett.
[240] Discipline of Drink, p. 113.
[241] It is but right to say that decrees were from time to time
promulgated by the synods and bishops against the practice of holding
“ales” in churches, but they seem to have had little effect.
[242] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 356.
[243] Homes of Other Days, p. 368.
[244] Homes of Other Days, p. 427.
[245] Ibid., p. 445.
[246] Homes of Other Days, p. 346.
[247] Ibid., p. 397.
[248] Discipline of Drink, p. 175; see also p. 176 and elsewhere. Also,
British Monachism, vol. i. p. 66. For some time after the Reformation
some of the poorer English clergy kept taverns. ‘Miscellany Accounts of
the Diocese of Carlisle’ (1703-7) by William Nicholson, late Bishop of
Carlisle, ed. by R. S. Ferguson. (“Contemporary,” May 1878.)
[249] King Henry IV., Part II. Act ii. sc. 4.
[250] Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century, p. 25.
[251] British Monachism, vol. ii. p. 122.
[252] Homes of Other Days, p. 181; MS. Sloane Museum, No. 2435.
[253] British Monachism, vol. ii. p. 167.
[254] British Monachism, vol. i. p. 121.
[255] Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 71. Murray.
[256] British Monachism, vol. i. pp. 138-140.
[257] Ibid., vol ii. p. 19.
[258] British Monachism, vol. ii. pp. 32, 33.
[259] Ibid., pp. 42-47.
[260] Ibid., p. 177.
[261] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 91.
[262] Canons of Œlfric, A.D. 970; Discipline of Drink, p. 150.
[263] Decree of Giles of Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury, A.D. 1256,
against “Scot-ales,” _loc. cit._, p. 176.
[264] Synod of Kilkenny, A.D. 1614, _loc. cit._, p. 180.
[265] Nationalneigung zum Trunke, p. 97.
[266] Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 348-350; in Lingard’s History of England, vol. ix.
p. 109 n., 2d ed., 1825.
[267] Macaulay’s History of England, vol. i. chap. i, Longmans, 1873;
Scott’s Peveril of the Peak; Brooke’s Manners and Customs of the English,
Blackwood, &c.
[268] John Evelyn, one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, A.D.
1620-56, quoted in Doran’s “Table Traits,” p. 458. Bentley.
[269] Kindly given to the author by Sir Sydney Waterlow, Bart., M.P.
[270] From Memoires de l’Angleterre, A.D. 1698, in Homes of Other Days,
p. 473.
[271] Doran’s Table Traits, p. 66.
[272] Doran’s “Table Traits,” where a more detailed account is given of
the clubs here named, along with many others.
[273] Alphonse Esquiros, “The English at Home.”
[274] Those who are curious to know which of the political and social
leaders of the period were drunkards should read Lecky’s “History of
England in the Eighteenth Century,” vol. i. chap. iii. pp. 476-482.
Longmans & Co., 1878.
[275] Morewood, p. 25.
[276] The Chemistry of Wine, p. viii., by C. J. Mulder. Churchill.
[277] Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, vol. i. p. 42, 6th ed.
[278] Morewood, p. 560.
[279] The table is compiled from Mulder’s “Chemistry of Wine”
(Appendix), Bloxam’s “Chemistry,” and the author’s own article on “Beer
Scientifically and Socially Considered,” Quarterly Journal of Science,
1870, vol. vii. p. 315, and from other sources.
[280] Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A., Metropolitan Superintendent of the United
Kingdom Alliance. From the Journal of the Statistical Society, March
1875, p. 13.
[281] Morewood, p. 560.
[282] Macfarlane and Thomson’s History of England, vol. iii. p. 258;
Lecky’s History of England during the Eighteenth Century, pp. 476-482.
[283] It should be mentioned that in 1751 more stringent regulations were
enacted, but none that in any degree approached the “Gin Act” in severity.
[284] Fraser’s Life of Berkeley, pp. 332, 333, in Lecky’s History of
England.
[285] The Upas Tree in Marybone Lane, by James Smith (1775-1839).
[286] The High Street of Edinburgh, by Sir Alexander Boswell, the oldest
son of Johnson’s biographer (1775-1822).
[287] Meaning Welshman.
[288] From an old poem, in the “Discipline of Drink,” p. 84.
[289] A.D. 1678. Ibid., p. 182.
[290] Jeaffreson’s Book about the Clergy, vol. i. p. 91 n.
[291] Lecky’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 93.
[292] A.D. 1698-1762.
[293] The Court of Death. Gay lived 1688-1732.
[294] Lecky’s History of England, p. 476 and notes, where numerous
authorities are quoted.
[295] Third Report of the Lords’ Committee, p. 954, Q. 10,116.
[296] For further details as to the sale of alcoholic drinks to females,
and reputed drinking practices amongst them, _vide_ First Report of
Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, evidence of Captain Palin, Chief
Constable of Manchester, p. 166, Q. 1601; also Third Report, evidence of
Sir William Gull, M.D., p. 254, Q. 10,116. In the work on “The Uses of
Wines in Health and Disease,” p. 8, by Dr. Anstie (Macmillan), the author
refers to secret dram-drinking by women; but medical men, like police
magistrates, usually have before their eyes the worst side of human
nature.
[297] First Report of Lords’ Committee, p. 16, Q. 184.
[298] Third Report, p. 32, Qs. 8311, 8312.
[299] It must be clearly understood that the above remarks are not
intended to disparage the evidence that was tendered by Mr. Chamberlain,
M.P., who replied to the questions of Lord Aberdare, and whose efforts
in the cause of licensing reform merit, in the author’s opinion, greater
appreciation than they have received.
[300] First Report, p. 240, Qs. 2416-2418.
[301] Table No. 22, Extract from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of
Police of the Metropolis for the year 1876.
[302] In the same report (1876) the reader will find that Colonel
Henderson attributes the additional number of arrests to “the increased
activity of the police,” but he believes there has been some increase in
drunkenness during the last six years. Of course he can only judge of the
class which comes under the notice of the police.
[303] Table laid before the Committee of the House of Lords on
Intemperance, by the Head Constable of Liverpool, being a compendium of
the facts relating to the subject for twenty-one years.
[304] “Instructions” for 1845, pp. 34, 35; 1867, p. 33; and 1878, p. 42;
kindly supplied to the author by the Chief Constable.
[305] Journal of the Statistical Society, March 1875.
[306] P. 7.
[307] Return to a canvass of working men made by sixty-seven of the
largest employers of labour in Liverpool, and verified by the President
of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. See also the remarks on the
extension of the hours by the present Government.
[308] It may be added, as an expression of opinion, that the Rev.
Canon Ellison considers there is a diminution of drunkenness in the
agricultural districts. See his evidence before the Lords’ Committee,
Third Report, p. 105, Q. 8930. From other evidence, also, the author
has satisfied himself that one of the chief objects of the Agricultural
Labourers’ Union, like most other trades unions, has been to prevent the
payment and expenditure of wages in drink. In many parts of England a
considerable proportion of the labourers’ wages is still paid in cider—an
infamous system, which ought long since to have been abolished along with
other forms of “truck.” The three reports also contain many expressions
of opinion, very conflicting, however, on the prevalence of drunkenness
amongst miners, quarrymen, &c., which are well worthy of the reader’s
perusal.
[309] The English at Home, by Alphonse Esquiros, pp. 271-273. Chapman &
Hall.
[310] Whilst writing these pages the author read the following narrative
in the “Liverpool Daily Post,” April 25, 1878, which illustrates the
condition of the poor in some of the lowest parts of that town:—
“On Tuesday afternoon the attention of a constable was drawn to the not
very unusual phenomenon of a drunken man and woman in Johnstone Street.
The woman had a child in her arms. It was taken from her, and found to be
in a shockingly diseased and neglected state. The constable afterwards
visited the ‘home’ of the inebriates. The sole piece of furniture was
an old table. In the top room the woman’s father was lying on the bare
boards, without a vestige of clothing upon him, and covered only by an
old rug. In another part of the house was an aunt, who was much the worse
for drink. Around her were three young children. There was not a particle
of food in the whole place, and when the children were given some buns to
eat, they devoured them savagely. Drunken parents reeling in the street
with an unhealthy and neglected baby; a house in a court, with only an
old table in it; an old man lying on the bare boards, with simply a rug
for clothing or covering; a tipsy aunt, and three hungry, dirty children
around her, make up a picture which would be considered unusually
terrible if the scene were laid in the hut of a savage, and which is
certainly a bitter satire on nineteenth century civilisation. The father
and mother were brought up at the Police Court yesterday, and remanded;
and the court ordered that the children should be removed forthwith to
the workhouse.”
[311] Mr. Carnegie’s evidence before the Lords’ Committee on
Intemperance, First Report, p. 262.
[312] Alison’s History of Europe, vol. xv. p. 191, 7th ed. Blackwood.
[313] Morewood, p. 477.
[314] A.D. 1771-92.
[315] History of Europe, vol. xv. p. 191, 7th ed.
[316] First Report of Lords’ Committee, p. 262.
[317] In his first edition (1824) he does not refer to the smaller
stills; indeed, his remarks are of no interest. His second edition is
dated 1838.
[318] Morewood, p. 480.
[319] Morewood, p. 481.
[320] Rev. Dawson Burns’ paper before Statistical Society, p. 17.
[321] Morewood, p. 481.
[322] Carnegie, _loc. cit._, p. 263.
[323] We shall find precisely the same state of things to exist in
certain parts of America.
[324] See the evidence on the “Gothenburg System” in the Report of the
Lords’ Committee.
[325] A good deal of information concerning the sale of brandy (Bränvin)
in Sweden may be gleaned from the Acts of June 26, 1871 (Stockholm,
Norstedt & Söner), and from those of 18th September 1874 and 16th May
1877, for which the author is indebted to Mr. Oscar Dickson of Gothenburg.
[326] The author is indebted for these particulars to Mr. S. P. Wilding
(son of a former American Vice-Consul at Liverpool), who has resided many
years on the River Plate.
[327] _Macropiper methysticum_: Miquel. See Lindley’s Medical and
Economic Botany, p. 133. Bradbury & Evans.
[328] P. 250; also Lindley’s Medical Botany, _loc. cit._
[329] P. 325, and Addenda. This table also appears in the first edition
(1824), p. 177.
[330] America, Historical, Statistical and Descriptive, by J. S.
Buckingham, vol. ii. p. 304. Fisher.
[331] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 417.
[332] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 36.
[333] Sketches on the Prairies, by Captain A. H. Markham, R.N., in “Good
Words,” May 1878.
[334] Liquor Laws of the United States, p. 21. National Temperance
Society and Publication House. New York.
[335] Liquor Laws of the United States, p. 43.
[336] New York Herald, 18th April 1878.
[337] New York Herald, 16th April 1878.
[338] The San Francisco weekly “Alta California.” The author has not
named any other papers. He has studied whole files of them, in some cases
without even finding drunkenness mentioned, and the reader who desires to
consider the question carefully can easily do the same.
[339] “Prohibitory Liquor Legislation in the United States,” by Justin
M’Carthy, “Fortnightly Review,” August 1871, p. 166. Although a writer on
America is here quoted, the author has not trusted to printed testimony
in any of these observations upon the drinking habits of the United
States. He has verified them from the experience of numerous friends and
acquaintances who have travelled and resided in the States, Englishmen,
Germans, and Americans themselves.
[340] By some it is affirmed that the middle classes of the United States
consume more _spirits_ than the same class in England.
[341] The Americans at Home, vol. ii. p. 306. By D. Macrae. Edinburgh:
Edmonston & Douglas.
[342] The Americans at Home, vol. ii. p. 305.
[343] The Americans at Home, p. 307.
[344] Liquor Laws of the United States, p. 15.
[345] Liquor Laws of the United States, p. 20.
[346] Ibid.
[347] Ibid., p. 22.
[348] Liquor Laws of the United States, p. 131. It is right to mention
that the publication from which these particulars are taken was issued
in 1877, since which time no doubt many changes have taken place in the
liquor legislation of the various States, but these the author has been
unable to learn from trustworthy sources. The tendency of legislation
seems to be towards “local option” or “permissive prohibition.”
[349] Greater Britain, vol. i. p. 202. By C. W. Dilke. Macmillan.
[350] Prohibitory Legislation, &c. “Fortnightly Review,” Aug. 1871, p.
166.
[351] This was, of course, some years after Mr. M’Carthy’s visit.
[352] _Vide_ Third Report of the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, pp.
211, 212. Evidence of Professor Leone Levi, where the essential part of
the Consul’s report is given.
[353] Mr Caine says that he has seen Boston under prohibition with nine
hundred drink-sellers deliberately inserting in the Boston Directory
their names and addresses _as_ drink-sellers, and a far greater number
openly defying the law. He, however, favours “prohibition by local
option.”
[354] Reports on the Subject of a License Law, by a Joint Special
Committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Boston: Wright & Potter,
1867. The author is indebted to the Secretary of State of Massachusetts
for this and other valuable printed reports on the subject of the liquor
traffic in that State.
[355] Reports on the Subject of a License Law, &c., p. 16.
[356] In his book on the German working man, the author of this treatise
said (p. 109), “Beer” (meaning the German beer), “means sobriety; wine
and spirits mean intoxication.”
[357] Liquor Laws, p. 26.
[358] Boston: Wright & Potter.
[359] Report of Governor’s Address, p. 54. The circumstances are,
however, we hope, different in the two countries, otherwise there is a
poor chance for the American bill. According to the Third Report of the
Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, p. 195 (Mr. Patterson’s evidence), in
Liverpool, the town most in need of temperance reform, the aldermen, who
in the U.S.A. decide the question of granting licenses, have in their
body, besides a large wine and spirit merchant, two publicans who occupy
between them from sixty-four to eighty-four public-houses.
[360] Governor’s Address, p. 57.
[361] Governor’s Address, p. 58.
[362] The Maine Law Vindicated, p. 7.
[363] Prohibitory Legislation, p. 174.
[364] Ibid., p. 176.
[365] Ibid., p. 169.
[366] The Americans at Home, vol. ii. p. 315.
[367] Third Report of the Lords’ Committee on Intemperance, p. 3;
Evidence of Rev. R. M. Grier.
[368] The Great Country, by George Rose, M.A. (Arthur Sketchley),
Tinsley. A very graphic account of a visit to an inebriate asylum,
extracted from the “Atlantic Monthly,” will be found in this work, pp.
385-401.
[369] Alcohol, its Place and Power, pp. 46-109, &c. Glasgow: Scottish
Temperance League.
[370] Dr. Anstie’s two works, “Stimulants and Narcotics,” and “The Use
of Wines in Health and Disease.” See Also Dr. T. P. Lucas on “The True
Action and Physiological Results of Alcohol,” pp. 140, 141 (a strong
temperance work); “On Chronic Alcoholic Intoxication,” p. 9, by W.
Marcet, M.D., F.R.S. (Churchill); “The Effects of Alcohol on the Nervous
System,” by Dr. Hammond in “The Psychological and Medico-Legal Journal,”
July 1874, New York. The records of discussions amongst guardians of
the poor where objection has been made to the use of beer as an article
of diet also tend in the same direction. At a recent meeting of the
West Derby Board, for example, the medical officers, one of whom is a
total abstainer, distinctly expressed their determination to continue
administering alcohol as a medicine.
[371] See the Report of the Temperance Hospital, “Daily News,” May 31,
1878.
[372] Richardson’s Researches on Alcohol, p. 6.
[373] Miller’s Alcohol, its Place and Power, p. 92.
[374] Pope’s Homer’s Odyssey, book ix.
[375] Tom Moore.
[376] Anstie, Uses of Wine in Health and Disease, p. 11.
[377] Ibid., p. 40.
[378] Morewood, p. 339.
[379] Rev. D. Burns, to whom the author is indebted for some of these
particulars.
[380] Morewood, p. 340.
[381] Ibid., p. 341.
[382] Third Report, p. 25, Q. 8242.
[383] Readers who are desirous of pursuing the question of temperance
societies will find a vast amount of information in Graham’s “Temperance
Guide.” London: Pitman, &c.
[384] Speech of the Duke of Westminster, Free Trade Hall, Manchester.
[385] The Licensing Act 1872, Section 13.
[386] Report of the Liverpool Police, 1877.
[387] See especially the evidence of Mr. Robinson (Chief Constructor),
Second Report p. 117.
INDEX.
A
Abbot Sampson, actions of, 127, 131.
Abbots, vices of, 144.
Aberdare, Lord, on drinking amongst the working classes, 176, 177.
Abstinence total, not recommended by ancient Chinese, 20.
of Buddhist priests, 27, 28.
of Mohammedans, 53.
not universal, 55.
in Koom, in Persia, 55.
of Nazarites during noviciate, 62.
of Rechabites, 63.
of Lacedæmonians, 81.
amongst native Americans in the United States, 222.
of English temperance societies, 241.
Addison, at Button’s club, 156.
on intemperance in his day, 164.
Adulteration, of wine, materials used for, in ancient Rome, 89.
in Germany, 90.
of beer with salt, in England, 249.
of spirits with water, in England, 250.
Agreement to hold ales, 135.
Agromanyus (Ahriman) drunkenness supposed to be the work of, 50.
Alcohol, first obtained by Villeneuve, 159.
table of percentage in various intoxicating drinks, 160.
Ales, agreement to hold, 135.
“bid,” 134, 136.
“bride,” 134.
“church,” 134, 136.
“clerk,” 136.
held in churches, 135.
forbidden to be held in churches, 137.
“help,” 134.
Whitsun and Easter, 134.
Ale-wives of mediæval England, 139.
Alexis, on cabbage as an antidote to drunkenness, 75.
Alison on drunkenness amongst savages, 10.
on former drunkenness in Sweden, 196.
America, South, study of drunken habits in, 201, 202.
United States of, 205-227, (see “United States.”)
Americans, drinking habits of, 205-227.
_Amphoræ_, ancient Roman wine-holders, 88.
Anglo-Norman, politeness, 125.
fabliaux, 126.
wood carvings, 126.
knights, stories of drinking amongst, 126, 127.
drinking, William of Malmesbury on, 128.
ladies, drinking etiquette for, 129.
ecclesiastics, luxury of, 130.
Anglo-Saxon intemperance, 119.
mode of pledging, 120.
feasts, 121.
music, 121.
legends, 122.
women, intemperance amongst, 122.
taverns, 122.
clergy, 122.
monasteries, drinking in, 123.
nunneries, irregularities in, 124.
drinking, William of Malmesbury on, 128.
“Announcement about drunkenness”, the, an ancient Chinese edict,
19-21.
_Annus mirabilis_ of drink, the, (1736), 161.
Anstie, Dr., on dram-drinking amongst women, 173.
on moderate drinking, 238.
Apes, taste for drink in, 2, 3.
_Apothecæ_, Roman apartments for storing wine, 88.
Arch, Joseph, on improved habits of agricultural labourers, 187.
Archbishops, drinking at installations of, 137.
Aristocracy, drinking habits of Roman, 99.
mediæval German, 105-111.
English, of the present day, 171, 172.
Arnold, Arthur, on Mussulman intemperance, 55, 56.
Arrack, of modern India, 43.
Persia, 55.
Aryans, “Soma,” drink and sacrifice of the, 35.
their belief in the drinking propensities of their gods, 35.
drunkenness of their priests, 39.
the laity, “Sura” and other drinks used by, 39.
drunkenness of, 40.
_Asclepias_, a creeper used for making “Soma,” 36.
Asylums, inebriate in the United States, 227.
Athenæus, authorities quoted from, 75 (verses), 82 (verses), 83
(verses), 91, 92, 94 (verses).
Egyptian wines named by, 74.
on Egyptian intemperance, 75.
Atlantic Monthly, the, on inebriate asylums, 227, 228.
B
Bakers, improved drinking habits of, 184.
changes in drinking habits produced by machinery, 184.
Ballot, decrease of drunkenness through the, 173.
Bands of Hope, a remedy for drunkenness, 245.
_Banga_, An ancient Persian drink, 51.
Bangor (Maine), state of the drink question in, 220.
Barley, its early use in making an intoxicating drink, 11, 12.
its early use in making “Sura,” 39.
its use in Egypt, 73, 74.
its use by the ancient Germans, 103.
_Bassia Latifolia_, used in an intoxicating drink of ancient India,
41.
Beer, of ancient Egypt, 74.
of ancient Germans, 103.
various kinds of, in mediæval Germany, 108 and _note_.
Erfurt, praised by Rudolph of Hapsburg, 111.
table of alcoholic strength of, 160.
light, considered a temperance drink by Committee on Maine Law in
Massachusetts, 222.
adulterated with salt in England, 249.
_Bengueh_, a drink of mediæval Persia, 54.
Beni-Hassan, monuments of, 73.
Benson, Bishop, on drunkenness and crimes in the eighteenth century,
164.
Bhang, or Bang, a narcotic drug of modern India, 44.
Bid-ales, 134, 136.
Bloxam on alcoholic strength of liquors, 159.
Boiler-makers, improved drinking habits of the, 183.
Bolag, the Gothenburg, 198.
Bond, Major, his statistics of intemperance in Birmingham, 179.
on treatment of “quiet drunkards,” 180.
Boston (Massachusetts), drinking in, 210.
establishment of antidotes to intemperance in, 210.
failure of Maine Law in, 220, _note_, and 221.
regulated licensing in, 222.
inebriate asylum in, 227.
Boswell, Sir Alex., on Scotch drinking in the eighteenth century, 166.
Bouza, a Nubian drink, 4.
Brahmans, sacred hymns of, 34.
intemperance of, 35-39.
drinks forbidden to the, 41.
punishments of, for drunkenness, 42.
Brehm, on the drinking propensities of certain apes, 3.
Bride-ales, 134.
Bridgett, Rev. T. E., on penalties for drunkenness amongst mediæval
priests, 114, 120.
apology for drunkenness of Anglo-Saxon Monks, 123.
on an agreement to hold “ales,” 135.
on drinking amongst monks of the Middle Ages, 140.
on canons against drunkenness amongst priests, 148.
an old poem, quoted, on drinks of all nations, 166.
Brooke, on Roundheads and Cavaliers, 150.
Buckingham, J. S., on former crime and pauperism in the United
States, 206.
on the ill-treatment of Red Indians in the United States, 207.
Buddhism, and total abstinence, 27, 28.
and mendicancy, 28.
Burns, Rev. D., statistics quoted, 160, 182, 183, 197.
on temperance societies, 240, 241.
C
Cabbage, a supposed antidote to drunkenness, 75.
_Calix_, a Roman drinking-vessel, 91.
Caine, W. S., account of his visit to Portland (Maine), 219.
a temperance meeting in Bangor (Maine), 220.
Boston under “prohibition,” 220, _note_.
his views on American liquor legislation, 219, 220 and _note_.
California, crimes in, 211.
“The Alta” quoted, 211.
Campanius, Antonius, reports the state of drunkenness in mediæval
Germany to the Pope, 112.
_Cannabis sativa_ (the hemp plant), where used, 45, 51.
Canvass of working men concerning restriction of hours of drink in
Liverpool, 187.
Carnegie on former Swedish intemperance, 195, 196.
on Swedish licensing, 198.
Casks, enormous, of Germany, 113.
worth more than the wine (sixteenth century), 113.
Causes of drunkenness considered, 229-239, 257.
_Cella vinaria_, ancient Roman apartments for fermenting wine, 88.
Cellarer, duties of the, 131.
court and prison of, at St. Edmundsbury, 131.
Jocell, the, ordered to drink only water, 131.
Charlemagne, his sobriety, 105.
his temperance legislation, 105.
Chatham (Co. Morris, U.S.A.), effective suppression of taverns in,
217.
China, hard drinking in ancient, 17.
capital punishment for drunkenness in ancient, 21, 22.
deplorable condition of ancient, 22.
intoxicating drinks in modern, 29.
taverns in modern, 30.
dinner parties in modern, 31-32.
opium smoking in modern, 32.
Chinese, sobriety of modern, 32.
Christ, Jesus, his views concerning wine, 66.
the miracle of the conversion of water into wine considered from a
temperance point of view, 67.
Christianity, vineyards introduced into Western Europe along with,
103.
Church-ales, 134, 136.
held in churches, 135.
forbidden in churches, 137.
Church of England temperance societies, 244.
Cider truck, the, 188.
Claret, influence of increased importation on intemperance, 182, 183.
Clerk-ales, 136.
Clarke, J., on improved habits of millers, 185.
Clark, Alexander, on improved habits of operatives, 186.
Clerics, character of the mediæval, 145.
Climate not a permanent cause of drunkenness, 229, 230, 257.
Clubs, the “Mermaid,” the first founded, 155.
eminent men who frequented, 155-157.
Johnson’s passion for, 156.
the “Turk’s Head,” 156.
“Button’s,” 156.
“Crown and Anchor,” 157.
“Bird Fanciers,” 157.
“Thieves,” 157.
“Lying Club,” 157.
“Bold Bucks,” 157.
modern, wine consumed in, 158.
workmen’s social, an antidote to drunkenness, 243.
Cocoa rooms and social clubs, 243.
need of improvement in some, 243.
Coffee-houses, first established in Germany, 115, _note_.
England, 115.
attempt to suppress, by the Puritans, 156.
Royalists under Charles II., 156.
Coldingham, irregularities of nuns of, 124.
Confucius, personal habits of, 17.
on excess in drinking, 18.
Crawford on antiquity of drinking in the human race, 14, _note_.
Crimes caused by drinking amongst savages, 4, 5.
“Sura” in ancient India, 40.
and drunkenness in ancient Rome, 98-100.
Germany, 103-111.
of Anglo-Saxons, 121, 122.
of monastic orders, 124, 144.
in mediæval England, 128.
committed in mediæval taverns, 139.
sanctioned by friars, 145.
and drunkenness in the eighteenth century, 158.
increase of, from introduction of spirits, 160-165.
in the metropolis, eighteenth century, 161-164.
English gin-shops the chief cause of the worst, 191.
in the United States formerly arising from drink, 206.
comparative absence of in connection with drunkenness, 210, 211.
Cyrus intoxicates and defeats an enemy’s army, 52.
D
Danes, the intemperance of ancient, 125.
Darwin, C., on drinking propensity of certain apes, 2, 3.
_Datura stramonium_, used in India and England, 44.
Davis, Judge, on breaches of the Maine Law, 221.
valuable results of the Maine Law, 222.
Death, punishment of, for drunkenness in ancient China, 21, 22.
“the Court of,” poem by Gay, 167.
Delirium tremens amongst modern Mohammedans in Persia, &c., 55.
in ancient Rome, 99.
Dilke, Sir C. W., on drunkenness in Virginia City (Nevada), 218.
Dinners in modern China, 31, 32.
carrying men home drunk from, in ancient Egypt, 73.
in ancient Rome, 93.
Anglo-Saxon, 121.
at St. Edmundsbury, 127.
Anglo-Norman, 128.
Dinner, a prior’s, 130.
Lord Mayor’s in 1663, 153.
wine drunk at, in 1782, 153.
wine drunk in the present day, 154.
little drinking after, in England, 172.
no drinking at, in the United States, 212.
Dionysius of Sinope, his catalogue of drinking vessels, 92.
Dionysius (Bacchus), the supposed inventor of wine, 78.
Saturnalia of, 79.
Doctrinal des filles, the, a book of etiquette for mediæval English
ladies, 138.
_Dolia_, ancient Roman wine-holders, 88.
Doolittle, Rev. J., on Chinese drinking customs, 31.
Doran, Dr., on drinking in the Indian Army (verses), 48.
account of early English clubs, 156, 157.
Dram-drinking in Sweden, 196-200.
Drinking “_ad unguem_,” 109.
Drinking habits (see “Drunkenness”).
of ancient Chinese, 16, 17, 23-26.
moderate, of Confucius, 16.
of modern Chinese, 29, 30.
supposed, of Aryan divinities, 35.
of Aryan laity, 40.
of ancient Persians, 50-52.
Hebrews, 61.
Greeks, 81.
Romans, 83 _et seq._
Germans, 103.
of mediæval Germany, 105 _et seq._
of modern Germany, 117.
of Anglo-Saxons, 121 _et seq._
of Anglo-Normans, 128 _et seq._
of mediæval England, 134 _et seq._
of monastic orders, 140 _et seq._
after the Reformation, 147.
of the English aristocracy to-day, 171, 172.
of the English middle classes to-day, 173.
English ladies, 173.
the lowest classes, 177 _et seq._
English working classes, 177 _et seq._
Swedes, 194 _et seq._
races on the River Plate, 201 _et seq._
United States, 204 _et seq._
Drinking vessels, horns and gourds the first, 24.
of ancient Greece and Rome, 91, 92.
of ancient Germany, 113.
presented to brides in Germany, 113.
Anglo-Saxon, 119, 121.
given to monasteries, 119.
in monasteries, 142.
Drunkards, various modes of treating, 178-181.
Bond on quiet, 180.
seldom seen in the streets in America, 215, 216.
relatives of, have right of action against liquor sellers in
America, 216, 217.
damage caused by, in America, recoverable from liquor sellers, 217.
reformed, paraded at a temperance meeting at Bangor (Maine), 220.
Drunkenness, inheritability of, 2.
in certain apes, 3.
amongst savages in Africa, 4, 5.
Malay Archipelago, 5.
Alison, on savage and civilised, 10.
of Lapps at Tromsoe, 10.
“The Announcement about,” an ancient Chinese edict, 19-22.
of Brahmans, how punished, 42.
at modern Indian festivals, 45, 46.
suppression of, by Mahomet, 53.
the supposed work of Agromanyus, 50.
of ancient Persians, 51.
partial, of modern Persians, 55.
of wandering tribes in Persia, 55.
early mention of, in Scripture, 64.
amongst the ancient Hebrews, 65, 66.
St. Paul’s denunciation of, 68.
of ancient Egyptians, 73.
cabbage believed to be an antidote to, 75.
in the heroic age, 80.
of the Lacedæmonians, 81.
Eubulus on, 82.
Epicharmus on, 83.
in ancient Rome, 86, 87.
at Roman feasts, 96-98.
crimes resulting from, in imperial Rome, 98, 99.
of eminent Romans, 99.
of the plebeians in imperial Rome, 100.
and the fall of the Roman empire, 101.
ancient German, 102, 103.
edicts against, by Charlemagne and Frederick III., 105.
Karl IV., 105.
German, in the Middle Ages, 107-112.
amongst women, 109, 111.
of monastic orders in mediæval Germany, 113, 114.
punishment of, in mediæval Germany, 114.
decline of, in Germany, 115 _et seq._
amongst the Anglo-Saxons, 119-121, 128.
clergy, 124.
of the Danes, 125.
of Norman knights, 126, 127.
Anglo-Normans, 129, 130.
in monasteries, 131, 141-144.
in mediæval England, 138, 139.
amongst nuns, 144.
of friars and clerics, 145.
of the cavaliers, 151.
in the eighteenth century in England, 158, 160 _et seq._
increase of, in the eighteenth century in England from the
introduction of spirits, 160.
frightful, in the early part of the eighteenth century, 161.
Bishop Benson on the, of the eighteenth century, 164.
Scotch and Irish, of the eighteenth century, 166, 167.
in England at the present time, 169 _et seq._
origin of English, 169.
in English seaports, 170.
in the lowest classes in England, 170, 174-5.
lower middle-classes, 173.
in Liverpool, 170, 175.
controversy concerning increase of, 175 _et seq._
arrests for, in London, 177, 247.
in Liverpool, 178, 247.
in Birmingham, 179.
apparent increase of, in large towns, from figures, 177-179.
probable decrease of, 177-181.
decrease of, from Mr. Gladstone’s fiscal measures, 182, 183.
fostered by old trade customs, 183.
diminished by reformed trade customs, 183-186.
improved feeling of working classes concerning, 186, 187.
probable increase of, in prosperous times, 189.
multiplication of gin-palaces, the chief cause of, 190.
in Liverpool, graphically described, 191.
and insanity, 191.
probable general decrease of, 192.
excessive, in Sweden this century, 195.
diminution of, through the licensing system, 199.
amongst the half castes and Indians of the States of the Plate,
202, 203.
in the remote States of North America, 209.
in New York, 210.
in Nevada, 218.
in Bangor (Maine), 220.
canons of, propounded by superintendent of inebriate asylum, 228.
causes of, 229-239.
not attributable to climate, 229, 257.
fostered by medicinal use of alcohol, 231.
arises chiefly from passion for drink, 234.
effects of, attractive to many, 235-237.
various antidotes to, 239-256, 262.
fostered by the policy of the Tory party in England, 245, 249.
discountenanced by the Liberal party, 251.
probable effect of permissive legislation upon, 255, 256.
not the concomitant of high civilisation, 257, 260.
diminished by civilisation, 260.
Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, his monastic regulations, 125.
E
Edinburgh, the High Street of, in the eighteenth century, described,
166.
Education, cure for drunkenness in Germany, 116.
effects of in Scotland, 182.
in England, 193.
in the United States, 206.
of the young, cure for drunkenness in England, 245.
its influence on repressive legislation, 263.
Egyptians, early notices of wine amongst the, 72, 73.
drinking habits of the ancient, 73-76.
Elephant, the, an enormous Roman drinking vessel (verses), 92.
Elizabeth, Queen, helps to suppress “ales,” 136.
Eminent men of imperial Rome who were drunkards, 99.
who frequented clubs in the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
155-157.
England in Anglo-Saxon times, 118-125.
in Danish times, 125.
in Anglo-Norman, 125-130.
mediæval, drinking in monasteries of, 131, 132.
drinks of, 132, 133.
“ales” and merry makings of, 134-136.
suppression of ales in, 137.
clergy of, their intemperance, 137, 139, 140.
etiquette for ladies of, 138.
taverns of, 139.
tapsters and alewives of, 139.
inns of, 122, 141.
monasteries of, 141.
inquiry into monasteries of, 143, 144.
inquiry into nunneries of, 144.
court of, under the Stuarts, 149, 150.
under the Commonwealth, 151.
under Charles II., 151.
in the eighteenth century, 154 _et seq._
coffee-houses opened in, 155.
improvement in upper and middle classes of, this century, 168.
drinking habits of, in the present day, 169 _et seq._
probable decrease of intemperance in, 192.
temperance societies in, 241-244.
indirect aids to temperance in, 243-245.
liquor legislation in, 245-256.
the publicans and their relations with political parties in,
247-251.
Epicharmus, a Greek comedy writer, on hard drinking (verses), 82.
Epitaph, a publican’s, 214.
Esquiros, Alphonse, on wine consumed in English clubs, 158.
on English gin-palaces, 190.
Eubulus, a comedy writer, on cabbage an antidote to drunkenness
(verses), 75.
on hard drinking, 82.
Eucharist, the, probable origin of, in the Vedic age, 36.
Evelyn, John, his anecdote of William of Orange, 152.
F
Farm Labourers, improved habits of, 187, 188 and _note_.
probable effect of enfranchisement on, 188.
“Footings” formerly spent in drink, 183.
Fosbrooke, on irregularities of nunneries, 124.
on eating and drinking customs of monks, 130-132.
satires on monastic drunkenness (verses) 143, (verses) 145.
on friars and clerics, 145.
Framjee, Dosabhoy, on the modern Parsees, 57.
Fraser on the saturnalia of modern India, 45.
Persian drinking customs, 54.
Friars, character of, 145.
G
Gay’s “Court of Death,” 168.
Germany, ancient, drinks of, 102, 104.
ancient, intemperance in, 102, 103.
effects of drinking, 104.
mediæval, laws against drunkenness in, 105.
temperance societies of, 106.
students’ drinking songs, 107.
drinking code of, 107, 110.
universality of drunkenness in, 112.
introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate into, 115.
modern, sobriety in, 117.
Gibbon on drunkenness in imperial Rome, 100.
Giles on modern Chinese drinking customs, 31, 32.
Gin Act, the, 161, 162.
failure and results of, 163.
repealed, 162, 163.
Giraldus Cambrensis, his account of a prior’s dinner, 130.
the Irish clergy, 130.
Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., effects of his fiscal legislation on
intemperance, 182.
on heroic remedies for drunkenness, 244.
Glasgow, causes of drunkenness in, 170.
reputed to be the most drunken town in Britain, 174.
Gloucester (Massachusetts), bitters said to be advertised in cemetery
in, 214.
Gothenburg, licensing system in, 199.
causes of intemperance in, 199.
taverns in, 199.
Greece, supposed origin of wine in, 78.
wines of, 89.
Greig, Major, Liverpool statistics of intemperance by, 178.
Gull, Sir W., on drinking habits of upper classes, 171.
H
Hallam on the immoralities of mediæval monasteries, 144.
Hardy on Buddhist total abstinence, 28.
Hashish, various names of, 51.
Haug on the Vedic Soma sacrifice, 36.
on the sacrifices of the modern Parsees, 50.
Healths, French views concerning the drinking of, in the seventeenth
century, 154.
Hebrews, various intoxicating drinks of, 59, 64.
drunkenness amongst the, 65.
sobriety of modern, 70, 71.
Help-ales, 134.
Henderson, Colonel, statistics of Metropolitan Police, 178.
Henry VIII., dissoluteness of his court, 149.
makes a German envoy drunk, 149.
Herodotus on palm wine, 11.
on drinking habits of ancient Persians, 51, 52.
Herodotus denies existence of grapes in ancient Egypt, 73.
Hogarth, his pictures of debauchery, 167.
_Homa_, drink of ancient Persians, 50.
Home Office, reception of publicans and ministers of religion
compared, 250.
Homer, mention of wine by, 79, 80.
Honey, fermented drink from (mead), made by the Romans, 90.
ancient Germans, 104, and _note_ 3.
English in Middle Ages, 132, 133.
Horns and gourds, the first drinking vessels, 24.
Hospital, temperance, 233.
Hospitaller (guest-master), duties of, 141.
Hospitality of mediæval Germany, 104.
Anglo-Saxons, 122.
mediæval monasteries, 140.
mistaken, in Ireland last century, 167.
_Hura_, an ancient Persian drink, 50.
Hydromeli, Roman, 90.
I
India, drinking in, in the Middle Ages, 43.
native arrack of, 43.
sobriety of natives of, 43, 44, 46.
saturnalia of modern, 44, 45.
indifference of Englishmen to welfare of, 47.
former drunkenness in the English army of, 47, 48.
Indians, drinking amongst North American, 8, 207.
of the River Plate, drunkenness of, 202.
corruption of North American, by whites, 207.
present condition of American, 208.
Indra, supposed drinking habits of the god, 35, 37, 38, 39.
Insanity and drunkenness, 191.
Installations of bishops, drinking at, 137.
Instinct for drink, Richardson on, 2.
in children, 2, 3.
in domesticated and feral animals, 2.
Darwin on, 2.
conclusions concerning, 11, 234, 257.
Intoxicating drinks of Africa, 4-7.
of Tartary, 15.
of ancient China, 19, 23, 25.
of modern China, 29-31.
of the Aryans (Soma), 36.
(Sura), 39.
(other drinks), 41, 42.
of modern India, 43, 44.
forbidden by Mahomet, 53.
of the ancient Persians (Homa and Hura), 50, 51.
of the Koran, 53.
of mediæval Persia, 54.
of the ancient Hebrews, 61.
and religion, 69.
of the ancient Egyptians, 72, 73.
of ancient Rome and Greece, 78, 86, 87, 89, 90.
of ancient Germany, 103.
of mediæval Germany, 108.
of mediæval England, 132, 133.
European, alcoholic table of, 160.
of various nations (verses on), 166.
of the Argentine Republic, Caña, one of the, 202.
native, of the Indians of the River Plate, and South Sea Islands,
203.
preparation of Cava, an, 203.
of the United States, 205, 213.
in the United States, not to be obtained in certain places, 209.
not often seen on dinner tables, 212.
not often used in families, 214.
restrictions on sale of, in Maine, 216.
New Hampshire, 217.
Massachusetts, 217.
New Jersey, 217.
other States, 217, 218.
no restrictions on sale of, in Nevada, 218.
secretly sold at Portland, Maine, 219.
used as a medicine in ancient Rome, 84, 86.
opinions concerning their use as a medicine in modern times, 231,
232.
in surgery, 233.
enjoyable nature of some, 234.
nauseating character of other, 235.
love of, in all ages, 234-237.
Iron-moulders, changed habits of, 185.
J
James I., licentiousness of the court of, 149, 150.
Jeaffreson, J. C., on holding “ales” in churches, 135.
on the attitude of the church towards drinking, 148.
on drinking amongst the Irish clergy last century, 167.
Jehovah, sacrifices of wine to, 62.
Jesus Christ not a total abstainer, 66.
sanctions the use of wine, 67.
conversion of water into wine, 67.
John the Baptist, a total abstainer, 66.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his love of clubs, 156.
Jongleurs, Anglo-Norman, 128, 129.
_Jus Potandi_, a professed drinking code of mediæval Germany,
106-110.
Beers, named in, 108.
K
Kerr, on sobriety of Hindoos, 44.
Kiss, the Anglo-Saxon mode of pledging, 120.
Klemm on Persian drinking habits, 54.
on the introduction of the vine into Germany, 103, 104.
on the edicts of Charlemagne and others, 105, and _notes_.
Knight, R., on improved habits of boiler-makers, 184.
_Kokemaar_, a mediæval Persian drink, 54.
Koom, a temperance city in Persia, 55.
_Koomiss_, a Tartar drink made from mare’s milk, 5.
Koran, interdiction of wine in the, 53.
apparent sanction of wine in the, 53.
L
Lacedæmonians, total abstinence of early, 81.
subsequent intemperance of, 81.
Lake, dwellings, account of the, 12, 14.
grapes and other fruits traced in the, 14.
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, his Permissive Bill, 252.
his Permissive Bill commended, 256.
Lecky, on eminent drunkards in the eighteenth century, 158, _note_.
on English drunkenness in the eighteenth century, 161.
on Irish drunkenness in the eighteenth century, 167.
on the origin of English drunkenness, 169.
Legge, Rev. J., his “Chinese Classics,” quoted, 19-22.
his _She-King_, quoted, 19, 23, 26.
Legislation, liquor, in Sweden, 198, 199.
the United States, 215-227.
England, 246-249.
Liberal Party, leaders of the, support temperance reform, 251.
the drink policy of, 251, 252.
_Liberalia_, ancient feasts of Bacchus, 79.
Liberals, the mistaken policy of certain, in regard to unrestricted
licensing, 251, 252.
Licensing Act of 1872, 246, 248.
tampered with, by Tories, 246, 247.
Lindley, on the “cava” plant, and its effects, 203.
Lingard, quoted concerning licentiousness of court of James I., 149,
150.
Liverpool, causes of drunkenness in, 170.
tables of arrests for drunkenness, 174, 247.
opinion of Chief Constable and of Rev. J. Nugent on drunkenness,
175.
temperance work of Rev. J. Nugent in, 242.
canvass of working men in, 187.
_Daily Post’s_ graphic account of drunken scene in, 191.
operation of the Licensing Act 1872 in, 247.
Livingstone, Dr., on drunkenness in Africa, 4.
London, lawless state of streets in, in eighteenth century, 157.
frightful debauchery in, in 1736, 161.
dangerous state of suburbs from drunkenness, 161-164.
police statistics of drunkenness in, 177.
operations of Licensing Act 1872 in, 247.
Lord’s Committee on intemperance, quoted, 172, 173, _note_, 175, 176,
177, 178, 179, 188, 195, 196, 198, 199, 219, 223, 227, 242, 248.
Lord Mayor, Charles II. and the intoxicated, 152.
banquet of, described by Pepys, 153.
1782, wines consumed at, 153.
Lot, intoxication of, 64.
Louisville, Kentucky, drunkards not seen in streets of, 215.
Lowest classes in modern India, drunkenness of, 44.
in imperial Rome, drunkenness of, 100.
in England, drunkenness of, 173 _et seq._
_Lütertrank_, a mediæval German drink, 113.
M
Macaulay, on Cavaliers and Roundheads, 150.
M’Carthy, Justin, on absence of drink at table in U.S.A., 212.
his account of failure of Maine Law in Portland, 219.
his belief that the Maine Law checks drunkenness, 225.
his account of hotel-keeper’s strike at Rutland (Maine), 225.
Macfarlane and Thomson on drunkenness in the eighteenth century, 161.
Macrae, H., on the classes who drink at bars in the United States of
America, 212, 213.
advertising bitters in U.S.A., 214.
amusing account of devices of drink-sellers to evade Maine Law, 226.
Maine Liquor Law, the, 216.
failure of, according to M’Carthy, 219.
failure of, according to Caine, 219.
failure of, according to British Consul at Portland, 219.
partial failure of, according to Judge Davis, 221.
opposition to, in Massachusetts, 221.
report against, in Massachusetts, 221.
failure and repeal of, in Massachusetts, 222.
beneficial results of, in Maine, 224, 225.
ludicrous evasions of, 226.
Mahomet, his laws concerning drink, 53.
Malmesbury, William of, compares Anglo-Saxons and Normans, 128.
Manu, institutes of, on drunkenness, 39-41.
Markham, Captain, on present condition of Red Indians, 208.
Massachusetts, regulated licensing in, 217.
opposition to, failure and repeal of Maine Law in, 221, 222.
address of Governor Rice on liquor legislation in, 223, 224.
Medicine, alcohol as a, in ancient Rome, 86, 91.
modern views concerning, 230, 232 and _note_.
Mencius, on drinking and gambling in ancient China, 18.
Middle classes, drinking habits of English, 172, 173.
of Swedish, early this century, 195.
of Swedish, in the present day, 200.
of the United States frequent drinking saloons, 212.
spirit drinkers, 213.
Miller, on the medicinal use of alcohol, 232.
effects of alcohol, 234.
Millers, improvement in the habits of, 185.
Mnesitheus, a Roman physician, recommended occasional hard drinking,
91.
Moderate drinking in Germany, 117.
considered, 237.
Anstie on, 238.
the _Lancet_ on, 238.
Mohammedan, reform of drunkenness, 53.
intemperance, partial, 53-56.
sobriety, 56.
Monasteries, (see also, “Priests,” “Abbots,” &c.)
drinking in, 131-133.
hospitality of, 140.
enquiry into the state of, 143, 144.
Morewood, his book, preface vii. viii.
drinking amongst Red Indians, 8.
Chinese liquor traffic, 30.
Indian liquor traffic, 43.
Turkish liquor traffic, 53.
on Persian mode of distilling brandy, 54.
origin of distillation, 159.
first importation of arrack into England, 159.
Swedish intemperance in his day, 195-197.
intemperance in his day in the United States, 204.
temperance societies in the United States, 240.
Mulder, quoted, on first preparation of alcohol, 159.
chemistry of intoxicating drinks, 159, _note_.
Müller, Max, on Aryan drinking habits, 37, _note_.
Museums, and art galleries, Sunday opening of, an antidote to
drunkenness, 245.
_Mustum lixivium_, an ancient Roman wine, 87.
_tortivum_, an ancient Roman wine, 88.
N
Nazarites, the, total abstainers during noviciate, 63.
New Hampshire, liquor laws of, 217.
drinking saloons of, declared to be common nuisances, 217.
New Jersey, liquor laws of, 217.
New York, contest in, between authorities and liquor sellers, 209.
_Herald_, account of attempt to break into liquor saloon, 210.
drunkenness and crime in, 212.
inebriate asylum of, 227.
Newspapers, of United States, estimate of drinking from, 210, 211.
license in United States, 211.
Noah, intoxication of, 64.
Nugent, Rev. James, his opinion concerning decrease of drunkenness in
Liverpool, 175.
on American temperance societies, 242.
his temperance work in Liverpool, 242.
Nunneries, mediæval, drunkenness in, and inquiries into condition of,
144.
Nuns of Appleton, injunctions to, 144.
O
Odyssey, mention of wine in, 79, 80.
Opium smoking in China, 32.
traffic in India and China, 47.
Orange, William of, anecdote of, 152.
Owen, on changed habits of iron-moulders, 185.
P
Palm Toddy, an Indian spirit, 44.
Palm wine, in Africa, 3, 4, 6.
in the Malay Archipelago, 5.
Herodotus mentions, 11.
of the Aryans, 42.
of ancient Persians, 52.
of Mohammedans, 53.
_Panicum_, a grass used for making “sura” drink, 39.
Panyasis, a Greek comedy writer, on hard drinking (verses), 82.
Parliament, the “grog,” 246.
Act of, 1872 in England, 246.
and the Permissive Bill, 252-256.
Parsees, their temperance, 57.
in Bombay, large number of liquor sellers amongst, 58.
Patterson, John, on Liverpool publicans, 223, _note_.
Permissive Bill in Sweden, 199.
in New Jersey and other States, 217.
Sir W. Lawson’s, considered, 252.
probable modifications of, 255.
commended, 256.
legislation, Governor Price (Massachusetts), on, 223.
successful in the United States, 224.
probable future of, in England, 252.
Persia, drinks and drinking customs of ancient, 50-52.
of modern, 54-56.
Petersen, J. W., on ancient German drinking habits, 103.
on the introduction of non-alcoholic drinks into Germany, 116.
his story of Henry VIII. making an envoy drunk, 149.
Petronius quoted in account of Roman feast (verses), 93, 94.
Philadelphia, proposal to allow drawback on spirits exported from,
210, 211.
inebriate asylum at, 227.
Picnic, origin of, 138, 139.
Plate, States of the, drinking habits of civilised people of, 202.
of half-castes of, 202.
of Indians of, 203.
Pliny the elder on Egyptian drinking habits, 73.
on Roman drinking habits, 83.
anecdotes of drinking in ancient Rome, 84.
on scarcity of wine in ancient Rome, 85.
on vine-culture in ancient Rome, 85.
on wine manufacture in ancient Rome, 87.
on varieties of wine in ancient Rome, 89.
on effects of wine, 90, 98, 99.
on medicinal use of wine, 91.
on drunkenness in ancient Rome, 99.
on delirium tremens in ancient Rome, 99.
on ancient German drinking habits, 102.
Plunkett, Archbishop, on intemperance of Irish priests last century,
166-167.
Police, increased activity of, in large towns, 177, 179.
arrests not uniform, 180.
Police statistics, misleading character of, 177.
of drunkenness in London, 177, 247.
in Liverpool, 178, 247.
in Birmingham, 179.
Politics and drink, 173.
Politics and publicans, 192.
Polyphemus made drunk by Ulysses, 80.
Pomegranates used for making an ancient Hebrew drink, 64.
Portland (Maine), ease with which liquor can be procured in, 219.
Priests, abstinence of Buddhist, 27, 28.
sanction of drinking by Brahmin, 37.
drinking by Brahmin, 39, 40.
punishment (later) of Brahmin, for intoxication, 41, 42.
Hebrew, forbidden to drink during sacrifice, 62.
tithes paid to, in wine, 63.
sayings of, concerning wine, 64.
Roman, used wine in the sacrifices, 85.
German, forbidden to offer wine to penitents, 105.
intemperance of, 113, 114.
punishment of, for intemperance, 114.
mediæval English, said to have been the corrupters of domestic
virtue, 119.
mediæval English, intemperance of, 120, 123, 124, 141, 142, 143.
Irish, intemperance of, 130.
mediæval, irregularities of, 131, 144.
modern Catholic, exertions of, in favour of temperance, 242.
Prioress of Rumsey, a notorious drunkard, 145.
Pritchard, on changed habits of ropemakers, 185.
Prohibitory liquor laws of the United States, pamphlet quoted, 208,
209, 211, 216, 217, 218.
failure of, to suppress the sale, 218-221.
good, which has resulted from, 221-225.
Prosperity, and increased intemperance, 189.
_Protrupum_, an ancient Roman wine, 87.
Public opinion, support of, to prohibition, in America, 225.
influenced, for corruption and intemperance by leaders, 260, 261.
enlisted in all ages by drinking reformers, 260-263.
the greatest reforming agency, 263.
duty of Englishmen, in regard to, 263.
Publicans, false position of, in England, 191, 192, 215.
alliance of, with Tory party, 192.
political influence, of, 192.
beaten in New York, 209.
in the United States, status of, 215.
regarded as the chief law-breakers, 216.
right of action against, by relatives of drunkards, 216.
liability for damage done by drunkards, 217.
action of, under prohibition, 219, 221, 225.
denounced at a temperance meeting at Bangor (Maine), 220.
reception of deputation at Home Office, compared with that of
clergy, 249, 250.
Puritans, their sober demeanour and conduct, 151.
their reforms, 151.
suppress Christmas festivities, 151.
reaction against extreme measures of, 151.
attempt to suppress coffee-houses, 156.
the modern Nonconformists carrying out their drinking reforms, 243.
R
Rabbins, their rules concerning wine, 62, 63.
sayings of, concerning wine, 64.
Rechabites, the, total abstainers, 63.
Reformation, its influence upon intemperance, 118, 136.
state of the English court before, 149.
Restoration of Charles II., favoured by Puritan repressive measures,
151.
dissolute state of court, after, 151.
_Rhyton_, an ancient Roman drinking vessel, 91.
Rice, spirit distilled from, in China, 29.
India, 44.
Governor, on the liquor legislation of Massachusetts, 223, 224.
Richardson, Pelham, on temperance of Hindoos, 44.
W. B., (Dr.) denies existence of instinct for drink, 1.
on inheritability of desire for drink, 2.
_Rig-Veda_, sacred book of the Brahmans, 34.
accounts of Soma drinking on, 37-40.
Ritchie, on improved habits of bakers, 184.
Rev. W., on Scripture controversy concerning wine, 60, 61.
Robinson, W. B., (chief constructor), on morning drinking among
workmen, 248, _note_.
Rome, early mention of wine, in ancient, 83.
anecdotes of drinking amongst women in, 84.
the Posthumian law of, 84.
scarcity of wine in early, 85.
wine offered to the gods in, 85.
various wines drunk in, 86.
luxury of later, 86, 87.
manufacture of wine in, 87.
drinking vessels of ancient, 91.
symposia of ancient, 93.
account of a feast in ancient, 93-97.
surprises at feasts in ancient, 96.
fearful drunkenness in imperial, 99.
debauchery of lower classes in imperial, 100.
connection between drunkenness and fall of, 100, 101.
Ropemakers, improved habits of, 185.
Rose, George (Arthur Sketchley), “The Great Country,” quoted, 227,
228.
Rousselet on saturnalia in modern India, 45.
Royalists, dissolute character of (Charles I. and II.), 150.
Rudolph of Hapsburg, anecdote of, 111.
Rumsey, the Prioress of, a notorious drunkard, 145.
Rutland (Vermont), strike of hotel-keepers in, 225.
S
Sachs, Hans, on German drinking tournaments, 108.
Sampson, Abbot of Glastonbury, account of, 127, 128, 131, 141.
Saturnalia, of modern India, 45.
ancient Rome, 78.
modern England, 191.
Savages, drink and drunkenness amongst, 4.
of Africa, Livingstone on, 4.
Schweinfurth on, 6.
of Malay Archipelago, Wallace on, 5.
improvidence of, 7.
of Africa, orgies amongst, 7.
of North America, 8, 207.
Crawford on the discovery of intoxicating drinks by, 14, _note_.
of Persia, drunkenness of wandering, 55.
of the States of the Plate, drink and habits of, 202.
of the South Sea Islands, drink and habits of, 203.
Savory, W. S., on the use of alcohol in surgery, 232.
Schliemann, Dr., drinking vessels discovered by, 81.
Schlossar, Dr., on planting of vineyards by monks in Germany, 104.
on various kinds of beer in mediæval Germany, 108, _note_.
on drinking amongst women in mediæval Germany, 109, _note_ 3, and
112.
on excessive drinking in mediæval Germany, 111, _note_.
Schweinfurth on drunkenness in Africa, 6, 7.
Scott, Sir W., on Roundheads and Cavaliers, 150.
Scripture (see also Hebrews, Rabbins, Talmud, Schechar, Yayin,
Tirosh, &c.) controversy concerning wine, 59-62.
lessons concerning drunkenness, 65, 66.
commendation of total abstinence, 62, 63, 66, 68.
Seaports, English, chief causes of drunkenness in, 170.
Sheba, Queen of, represented by an intoxicated court lady (James I.),
149, 150.
_Schechar_, strong drink of ancient Hebrews, 59.
_She-King_, the book of ancient Chinese poetry, 19.
pastorals and drinking songs in, 23-26.
_Shiraz_, a Persian wine, 54.
_Shoo-King_, the, or ancient Chinese history, 19.
extracts from, 19-22.
Smith, Dr. Wm. (author of “Dictionary of the Bible”), on Scripture
testimony concerning wine, 59, 60.
_Soma_ sacrifice, the, 35.
drink, so-called, 36.
drinking by Indra, 37, 38.
Spirits (see also Gin Act, intoxicating drinks, &c.), an ancient
Chinese drink, so-called, 19-22.
of modern China, 29.
of modern India, 43, 44.
drunk by Mussulmans in Persia, 55.
distillation of, discovery doubtful, 159.
first known in England, 159.
extraction of pure, 159.
first importation of, 159.
table of alcoholic strength of, 160.
increase of drunkenness from, in England, 160.
decrease of drunkenness from, in consequence of raised duty in
eighteenth century, 163.
annual consumption of, considered, 181.
fluctuations of drunkenness, how affected by duty, 181.
early Swedish legislation concerning, 195.
early use of, in the United States, 204.
former price of, in the United States, 204.
effect of, on Red Indians, 207, 208.
drinking of, in the United States, 213.
American legislation concerning, 217, 222.
drunkenness, as compared with lighter drinks, 222.
freely sold under the Maine Law, 224-226.
adulteration of, with water, in England, 250.
St. David, his canons against monastic intemperance, 123.
St. Edmundsbury, anecdotes from the chronicles of, 127, 131.
St. Gildas the Wise, canons against monastic intemperance, 123.
St. Paul commends total abstinence, 68.
deprecated forced total abstinence, 68.
denies salvation to drunkards, 69.
Statistics often misleading, 177.
of police arrests for drunkenness, 177, 179, 247.
of fluctuations in duty on spirits, 181.
of French and Spanish wines imported, 182, 183.
of working men’s votes in favour of restricted hours of sale, 187.
erroneous, concerning Swedish intemperance, 197.
of police prosecutions of publicans, 247.
Statue formed of trunk of vine, 89.
Stockholm, drinking in, 200.
Stuarts, drunken revels of the court of the, 149.
Students, drinking songs of German (mediæval), 107.
habits at German universities, 115.
_Sura_, intoxicating drink of Aryans, 39.
Sunday closing of public-houses, 187, 245.
in Ireland, 249.
in England, refusal of Home Secretary to introduce measure for,
250.
Surgery, Savory on use of alcohol in, 232, 233.
Sweden, drunkenness in, early this century, 195-197.
multiplication of distilleries in, early this century, 196.
erroneous statistics concerning drunkenness in, 197.
first temperance society started in, 198.
licensing system of, 198-200.
success of licensing system of, 199.
Permissive Bill in, 199.
_Symposia_, ancient Roman drinking parties, 93.
T
Table of alcoholic strength of various drinks, 160.
Tacitus on ancient German drinking habits, 103.
Talmud, the, on drinking and drunkenness, 62-64.
Taverns in modern China, 30.
Anglo-Saxon, 122.
Anglo-Norman, 130.
mediæval English, 138, 139, 147.
priests warned not to frequent, 139, 148.
kept by priests of Middle Ages, 139.
English clergymen since the Reformation, 140, _note_.
the “Boar’s Head,” 140.
monks frequented, 144.
plea in favour of mediæval, 147, 148.
mediæval, haunted by certain friars, 145.
countenanced by the Roman Catholic Church, 147, 148.
of the eighteenth century in England, 158, 165.
Scotland, 166.
Ireland, priests drinking in, 166.
construction of modern, encourages drunkenness, 184, 190.
kept at the present time by warehousemen and foremen, 185.
attractions of, one of the chief causes of English drunkenness, 190.
Esquiros on English, 190.
needless multiplication of, 191.
the cause of the worst crimes, 191.
no appearance of, in Portland (Maine), 219.
Tavernier, on mediæval Persian drinking, 54.
Tea, introduction of, into England, 155.
_Temetum_, a Roman name for wine, 84.
Temperance of Mussulmans, 56.
of Parsees, 57.
of modern Jews, 70, 71.
of Puritans, 150.
enforced, of Puritans, 151.
reaction against, under Charles II., 151.
hospital, 233.
action of, by Father Mathew, 241.
in the United States, 242.
in Liverpool by Father Nugent, 242.
Roman Catholics generally, 242, 243.
Nonconformists and Society of Friends, 243.
Church of England, 244.
Liberal leaders, 251.
Temperance societies of mediæval Germany, 106, 239.
punishments inflicted by, 106.
in Sweden, 198.
in the United States, 205.
of ladies in Bangor (Maine), 220.
when first formed in U.S.A., 240.
effects of, in U.S.A., 240.
first formed in Great Britain, 241.
changes in policy of, 241.
Father Nugent on American, 242.
Church of England, Duke of Westminster on, 244.
Temple, supported by trunks of vine, 89.
Thebes, monuments of, 73.
Tiberius, the emperor, a great toper, 99.
_Tirosh_, the must of the ancient Hebrews, 59.
Tomlins and Rokewode, Chronicles of St. Edmundsbury, 127, 131.
on habits of mediæval monks, 131, 132.
Torquatus, “tricongius,” his drinking feat, 99.
Tory party, their alliance with the drink interest, 192, 245.
tamper with the Licensing Act of 1872, 247, 248.
their advocacy of the liquor trade, 248, 249.
their opposition to Irish Sunday closing, 249.
English Sunday closing, 250.
their drink policy generally, 249, 250.
Trade customs, effects of, upon intemperance, 183.
Trades’ Hall in Liverpool maintained by unionists, 186.
Trades’ unions, and public-houses, 183-186.
changed drinking habits of, 184-186.
agricultural, and public-houses, 187.
Truck, the cider, 188.
Tully, Raymond, first prepares alcohol, 159.
U
Ulysses and Polyphemus, 80.
United States, former intemperance in, 204, 206.
intoxicating drinks of, 205.
slang-mixtures of, 205, 213.
drinking at bars in, 205, 212, 213.
early temperance societies of, 205.
property of habitual drunkards in, how formerly dealt with, 205,
206.
effects of former drunkenness in, 206.
corruption by drink of Red Indians in, 207.
energy of the, in suppressing intemperance, 208.
first prohibitory law in, 208.
drunkenness in remote States of, 209, 218.
sobriety in New England States of, 209.
comparative sobriety in large towns of, 209, 214.
evidences of drunkenness in large towns of, 209.
temperance unions in the, 220.
evidences of intemperance in, 219.
drunkenness in, not coupled with crime to the same extent as in
England, 210-211.
proposal to grant drawbacks on spirits exported from, 210-211.
absence of alcoholic liquors from dinner tables in hotels of, 212.
chief drinking, by foreigners in, 212.
spirit drinking in, 213.
passion for advertising in, 213.
character and estimate of drinkers in, 215.
drink sellers in, 215, 222, 223.
absence of drunkards in the streets in, 215.
liquor laws of, 216-218.
partial failure of prohibitory laws and repeal in certain places
in, 219-223.
advantageous results of liquor legislation in, 224-226.
inebriate asylums in, 227.
Upas tree, the, of Marylebone Lane, by James Smith, 165.
V
_Varuna_, the god, appealed to, to forgive drunkenness, 40.
Vermont, failure or prohibitory law in, 217.
Vines, supposed discovery of, by Bacchus, 12.
in Egypt, 12.
planting of, by Noah, 12.
traces of, in Swiss lake dwellings of Stone Period, 14.
of ancient Egypt, 73.
absence of, in Egypt, alleged by Herodotus, 73.
culture of, described by Pliny, 89.
statue formed of trunk of, 89.
temple supported by columns, consisting of trunks of, 89.
various kinds of, in Greece and Rome, 89.
first planted in Western Europe, 104.
first introduced into the United States, 205.
Virginia City (Nevada), Artemus Ward’s account of, 218.
Sir C. Dilke’s account of, 218.
W
Wallace, Alfred R., on drunkenness in the Malay Archipelago, 5.
Wages, high, influence intemperance, 189.
Ward, Artemus, on “treating” in Virginia City (Nevada), 218.
Waves of intemperance, 258-260.
Westminster, the Duke of, on temperance, 244.
Wilding, S. P., on drinking habits in the States of the Plate, 202,
203.
Wilkinson on ancient Egyptian monuments, 73.
Wine, palm, in Africa, 3, 4, 6.
the Malay Archipelago, 5.
Herodotus, 11.
clubs in modern China, 30.
of the Eucharist believed to originate with the _Soma_ sacrifice,
36.
imported into ancient India, 42.
of the ancient Hebrews, 59.
controversy concerning, 59-61.
offered to Jehovah, 62.
Rabbinical regulations concerning, 62.
compared to God’s word, 63.
early mention of, in Egypt, 72, 73.
names and description of ancient Egyptian, 74, 75.
scarcity of, in early Roman times, 85.
offered to the gods in Rome, 85.
used as a medicine in Rome, 85.
manufacture of, in Rome, 87, 88.
names and descriptions of Roman and Greek, 86, 89, 90.
adulteration of, in Rome, 89.
made from honey, in Rome, 90.
of Pucinum, supposed to favour longevity, 90.
price of, in Rome, 91.
parties in Rome, 93.
cheap, in mediæval Germany, 113.
drunk by monks, 130, 142, 143.
names and descriptions of mediæval English, 133, 137.
great quantities drunk at religious feasts, 137.
at Lord Mayor banquets, 153, 154.
alcoholic strength of various descriptions of, 160.
in Irish taverns in the eighteenth century, 167.
change from strong to light, in England, 182, 183.
light, drunk in Buenos Ayres, 202.
license for light, lower in Massachusetts than for strong, or
spirits, 222.
allowance of, recommended by Anstie, 238.
the _Lancet_, 238.
Women, drinking amongst, in ancient Egypt, 73.
ancient Rome, 84.
mediæval Germany, 109, 111.
mediæval England, 138.
drunkenness amongst, in the Court of the Stuarts, 149, 150.
drinking habits of, in England, 173.
drunkenness amongst the lowest class of English, to-day, 174-175.
Wood carvings, Anglo-Norman, 126.
mediæval English, 139.
Working classes (see also Trades’ Unions), Lord Aberdare on drinking
habits of, 176.
improvement in drinking habits of, 176, 189.
in favour of early closing of public-houses, 187.
Wright, Thomas, on Anglo-Saxon drinking vessels, 119.
habits, 120, 122.
feasts and amusements, 121,
Norman intemperance, 127.
drinking amongst Anglo-Norman ladies, 129.
low morals of mediæval English, 138.
intemperance of mediæval monks, 142.
Y
Yayin, wine of ancient Hebrews, 59.
Z
_Zaŏtar_, the high priest of the ancient Persians, 50.
_Zend-Avesta_, drinks mentioned in, 50.
drinking habits of ancient Persians recorded in, 50, 51.
Zoroaster and his writings, 50.
THE END.
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