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.