p. 8 | INSIDIOUS ALCOHOL by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 23, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 25.

INSIDIOUS ALCOHOL.

By W. N. G.

THERE are many ways in which the Satanic agency, alcohol, finds entrance to the human system. Some of these ways are decidedly insidious, taking unawares many honest people who even desire to prohibit its use in any way. Comparatively few of the many users of delectable perfumes realize that they are taking in the essence of deadly alcohol in what they deem a pleasant and refreshing inhalation of some favorite brand. No one knows how many otherwise temperate people have acquired a taste for alcoholic drinks through the perfume “habit.” No doubt many ladies whose sudden addiction to strong drink has been deemed unaccountable, owe their unfortunate fall to the use of perfumes.

These thoughts are suggested by an incidental remark of Congressman Platt, of Connecticut, in a recent debate on the question of taxing corporations to raise means for defraying war expenses. He was showing how some of the corporations were already taxed, and how they would be affected by the proposed legislation. He stated, for instance, that he knew a manufacturing perfumery corporation that pays a tax of $50,000 on the alcohol it uses. No one can fail to see that that corporation uses an enormous amount of alcohol, when its tax on the stuff alone amounts to such a sum. Then when we reflect that this is the consumption of only one manufactory, and consider that large quantities of these concoctions are taken into the systems of people who never dream of their dangerous contents, the insidious deception becomes appalling.

We are informed also that many ladies become so infatuated with some of these perfumes that they actually sip them from the bottles. Surely there must be something unusually alluring about such preparations; and what is more so than the treacherous alcohol? And ladies are often sorrowfully disappointed to find that their gentlemen friends have suddenly broken vows of abstinence, never dreaming that the desire to imbibe may have been renewed by the odor of the alcoholic perfumes with which they themselves were liberally douched. We have heard of saloon-keepers who spilled their stale beer about their doors in order that the fumes might catch and overcome those who were endeavoring to break loose from the grasp of the alcoholic demon. May it not be that the pleasant odors of the perfumes with which the ladies at all kinds of social gatherings are redolent, have the same effect?

We must beware of the “little foxes” that spoil the vines, as well as the “roaring lion” that goes about “seeking whom he may devour.” The souls that are lured into the snares of the evil one through the delicate perfume are as surely lost as tho they went headlong into the pit at one dread bound.

W. N. G.