Reading for Everybody.

Gisborne Times, 17 October 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

Reading for Everybody.

A*YEAR OF NO-LICENSE.

AYiHAT THE WOMEN SAID

(By Emma .Brush, "in. '‘Collier’s J Weekly.”)

[This essay was awarded the first prize of £2O given by the /proprietors of the American Magazino, 1 Collier’s Weekly” tor the best essay on the “Saloon in. our . Town.” There were 3000 competitors.] . The women have been congregating unusually of late in our southern tier New York town, mul a wise one, with ten words, lias turned the ordinary clattery-splattery thought bubbling into a stream. She eaid: “Bast month ended our first no-license year. What of it?” • It mi ay be worth riQ+;'''S that no woman, in the discjju uS AT engendered, has backed up r Ti ny man s fireside, in the matter. Perhaps lonethiinking carries in itself the first modest tally-one for the new order. The lineman’s wife, who has hyed in many /places, emitted the first rounded opinion : “Wo had the best saloons in the State, I think. Where else would a saloon-keeper come, .a« did Mr Kern, and tell me my boy was there too /much? I’d rather my husband would stop' in at a /place like that than to ho finding bottles about the house 1 , as I do now. ’ The next clear word came from a iftJtrm four -miles in the hills. Only strong feeling and Jong thought \ cou-kl have pulled the quiet woman out to say: ‘T will come down and work day -and night, any way I can, on my knees in the street if need be, to hold the to-wn dry. You know why. It’s been :a new kind of year for .ns — the first prospering one in ten. Yes, there’s-more.hard cider drunk —-sometimes too much- —and every one knows - how it was Oust Fourth. But the habit .is broken —the habit of running to town, with all its paltry excuses, deserted work and miserable niglit

hours of waiting, keeping us all poor, sick, and sour.' Ob ! it’s been a good year, np our way—-a new kind of year lor .us.” “Best of ’all, I think,,(and any girls think so, too,” said Mrs Van Ness, \ “.is the feeling—the clean feeling as one walks the town. No -more dodging round to avoid Hanson’s and the other comers. They may be drinkingjust behind the walls, but the streets _ - are ours mow anyway, and the. ’ somehow ling a different feel to, me- _ .clearer, prouder—and mv girls notice’ it too.” . . . “Those that want it .will get ®t, said the lineman’s wife. “-Mrs Hurd’s Bennie was" carried home helpless Saturday night.” ' ; “And the mother takes it- cheerfully,” broke in “Sirs Hurd’s neighbor. “ ‘What’s , a spree now and ithen?’ says Mrs Hurd. ‘lt s the so many h day and '"increasing every year, that breaks the hearts. ißemne’s all right: it will be a long time before he 11 want -■ to.be so sick“iagain. A man’s got to blow-off everv so often, somehow; and we can take /that and laugh. But at s the .coming with four drinks m every mi flit that eats the vitals out or a home—and then eats the home. And that’s the saloon every time, Ivt lived them both, and I m for the spree.’ ” . ■ . - . /So the talk has run. nut for the most part the women have become unwontedly diutious and thoughtful, knowing as never, before that tilt problem -is a little more than halt theirs: The sudden change in our lrttle civic machine caught some finger« even crushed and crippled in rare’ places. So/me fine dreams have done up arid.out like our yard-engine smoke; and we could wish ibj it- many of our last year’s brave predictions and promises had been -{ess loudly

We know that drink is being sold, as in rear rooms at the lower hotel, bv one druggist, strangely at the hai--ness-sliop, and a,t a harm a mile out. . AVe know that the drinkers _ 11111 drink, our, old liars wall go on lying, our consumotives are hound to cough ' But youth! youth remains to usl'. Youth is the field—the hope o, -all temperance. Somewhere, in youtn, the drinkers learned to drink, m saloons, .and, with few exceptions, pot readily, but through repeated sick--nesses, pains, mental Imd physical disgusts, self-denunciations, kept on because the path was well graded.and nearly respectable, and the other., were going that way, until the bodj and mind adjusted themselves to the new conditions and Another habit. . climbed to the driver.s seat and laid life-long hand upon'the steering-gear. ' I knew a maA jn the country who ' formed the habit of gding each after supper to a neighbo. s porah and just sitting, with nothing to give or take. AVhen the neighbors moved leaving the house empty he stall went .to the porch. After the house ■burned he would go and sit on the AA’e had good saloons, if one may so use the words. The keepers and their families were our friends and hors. But they were too many, tliej «xrew insidiously upon us. - Tlliey took the best corners; they interpenetrat- . ed- and clutched the town. 1 hear Qiold was'increasing upon /all the forces of our lives. But, worst of all, they stood open there day and aught .to our youth —easy schools of hiibit, with no* entrance requirements -ana “ jninimum fees —sanctioned by us, ap- ■ i-\d .now, a year without them and what of it? AVell, mo one disputes that ithe gross quantity of alcoholics consumed in the community—farms -and quarries o*id all—as greatly diminished;. a definite' physiological gain, anyway. hrmed ch'ilike rs have drnfic^Wc ; l il { ad been drunk more times. TFwsf-Ayre tell us that s better for IthenJf ASome have f>liou'ii considerable periods of sobriety. Tilie ", generally, with Mrs Hurd, prefer tlie “spreed” career. Variety, even in pusillanimity, is worth something.- 'Hurd cider has been in in-, creased demand, and one thoughtful’tourist son sent to his disgruntled and dyspeptic father a full Siogs- . head of Jamaica i'uni. Only tlie sto ? macli pump saved some of them after ! tliif. But to -our .young men with habits ifornling (and our girls .are, of con rse, eq ui 1 11 y ' i n vol ved),' ‘wnth too much mother-feeling yet, and.blood, '.to s neak for drinks, who were going to the bar man ahead • -went—to these we tuaYliSnd .find such > a year’s Orecord bf advancement,; and >- -social gdod-living,' of increased town •, pride, .and athletic, success and right . parrying, that T’o;' these alone wo pro

ready, with' the- f< ter’s /wife, to g< down in tlio dirt keep the saloor from reestablishmcn jmurjtown, WHEN A MAN IRUNK.

HARD TO DETER 1 DEGREES OF A GENI TAG.

(From the “Prov

’ “Your honor, tl

d on the charge

ton rival.”) vas .arrestindecently

ll *MGuUty d 'or not guilty?” asks the judge. “Guiltv,” replies the .prisoner. “I line' vou 2dols. and costs. Tint is the scene enacted frequently iii a Rhode Island police court on ‘the morning after/’ and is the 01linary charge, or in the of putting at, a “plain drunk. A repetition of the offence 'vitl.ui a short time brings a penalty of a laa-ger-fine, and continued sprees make the tippler a “common drunkard, , who in ay be sentenced to a team of imprisonment. - . . • - There are various- opinions as .to ■ what constitutes drunkenness, or intoxication, using the word to express the effect on a man produced by spirituous liquors, and not bj d "_ I V. t opiates. The law on the s/bjec reads- “A person as drunk, m a legal sense, when he is so far iindev Jho influence of intoxicating liquor that his passions are visibly excited or Ins judgment impaired by the R < P l ° l ' . But if a man is taken before a justice on the charge of and pleads “not guilty, evidence must he adduced to prove tlrat he ivas drunk. A law m regard to proof is a s follows: '“The simplest -and anos latisfactory evidence of drunkenness will be the statement- of witnesses as to the appearance,. ner language, or acts of tiie accuseu, or’’other attendant circumstances from which a state of intoxication gpav. be dresumed. .7 , . The paragraphs above quoted pu the case us plainly' as it can be put; there is no loophole. Legal and lay opinions, however, are two rent things, and a man may he diunK Wally when, according to Ins on 1 idlls and that of »no or t,vo others he is sober, and vice versa. One may be as drunk as a lord and nalk stca dilv while another may stagger, over the walk and yet-have a perfect-. lv cleir head and a'definite destination Thev .are both “under the in-, flimnee of'liquor,” but/no policeman wUI arrest aman who is going along without outward evidence vluit lie i* anything but sober.. irfc-t a man who is not a hit un steady, provided he is not-annoying ueonle bv lurching into them. Ii other words, they Are drunk P O ' callv but not legally, as tai as oux ward appearance is concerned. , Ru+ (-ranting that a- man is dr phfl'hTlv i» he also drank Jshis iudgment impaired. As a iule, ■»? Bl j? : !n i ra =es where one lias drunk t 9 of liquor dispensers. .He; M. ~~m d “the - greatest good of t.ll *=> . “'Jn’ere ore, it is ! ai<l ;,,“ s ;jofftaice'of of W- * tlie im fug' his displeasure 0 beats or kills his wife and children. ; nsta " n ce 5 when There are manj have So mtSai bed gre.it literary artist masterpieces "h® law i^oes, &asatto&m ancV have no appearance ■ot bem„ people nmkeTouble or start a ‘rougß svsaiit merelv that the liquor creates high drindcenr story of the man who had ahsoio „ larce' quantity of liquor and on LTfome wandered off .the road; mto a meadow. He then lay g.'f falling held to the grass to keep tiom tai 1 0 man-was without doubt le gdly drunk, for .his pidgment was very much impaired. 3he in a this place and another barkeeper in a somewhat similar resort ; ittV&i MftS&SSL ■ 6«o of them, added decision <'iven m a court or laiv New York, hut was unable to prove *Th is* vrasvthe idea in the-olden days of Merrie England. Asman was ah e to stand, and even tcnvjtrd, as long as he wasn t dead the world, he/was comparatavdy her. According to the old cl “ 011^ r lers, gentlemen of that day gatlicied around the Wassail bowl and u assailed, until they . fell under The .table “dvouken.” , c - * A .polico -official-.expressed -himsclL to the' effect that it ; was not for a policeman .to determine whether a man was drunk, hut for the judge of the court. All that a patrolman could'or .should do was to c present the charge against the man. “There is a tendency,’-.’ said' the' -official, to £ive tfie man n sfittw.” •

o “If a man should pass, along the 11 street who A had - been drinking, or who seemed to have-been, doing so, be would bo let alono unless no was making himself obnoxious to. others, or unless lie was-, known as si hard character. If lie was staggering all over the sidewalk, falling down, and was absolutely- helpless, the policeman would take charge of lufn, lodge him overnight in the station- house, and if lie appeared to be a respectable man and not- a, common biinvy let him off the next morning with a small fine and no publicity. “Every man who is 'arrested and brought- before the court on a charge of drunkenness has presumably been drinking in excess, and the policeman brings him to court on that charge, and makes tlio accusation. It is the opinion of that particular policeman that that particular mah was* drunk. AVhether or not lie was, the judge s.hoitKKdecidc.” There are various degrees of drunkenness, in the generally accepted definition of tlio term,-but there, art only two in the f iw—the “visibly excited passions” and “impaired judgment.” In the speech of the day, tin; layman indicates a certain degree Of drunkenness when he says a man has a “skate,” “i ig,” “edge,” “genial,” “bun,” “till,” “Toad,” and a few others. - To anyone who desires to decide for himself liis condition, tlio following ribald rhyme is recommended : “AVhen your'heels hit hard and-your head feels queer, ' And your thoughts rise up like the

froth on beer; When your knees are weak and your

voice is strong, And you laugh all v night at- some darn-fool song— You’re drunk, by gad 1 You’re drunk!” '