Absinthe and Drunkenness on the Champs Elysees
A Paris correspondent says: “The other day I saw a sad sight on the Champs Elysees, and which, with all my experiences of Parisian life, I never saw in this city before. It was a party of three persons, two men and a woman, all well—nay, even handsomely—dressed, and all three in a reeling, beastly state of intoxication. The men went staggering along, disputing and gesticulating after the manner of drunken men generally, now and then stopping to hail the passing unoccupied carriages, not one of which would consent to stop for them, while the woman reeled along in company, sometimes clutching wildly at the arm of one of her companions, and at other times stopping to address them in words of tipsy remonstrance. She was handsomely dressed in a costume of black silk and cashmere, trimmed with jet, while her companions wore high hats, broadcloth suits, and kid gloves. Finally the party made up their minds to cross the street, a difficult feat for anybody to attempt to execute in the full possession of their senses, so dense is the throng of passing carriages, and so rapidly are they driven, but the drunken trio got across somehow, and disappeared among the crowd of promenaders. Such is a specimen of the changes wrought by the lapse of a few years in the manners and customs of this people. Before the introduction of absinthe, who ever saw a drunken person in the streets of Paris? Now who is it that does not see them? Not drunkenness in rags alone, but drunkenness with goodly apparel and mien of ought-to-be-respectability.