Health and Temperance by H. T. Sell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 47.

Health and Temperance.

By H. T. Sell

Bits of Experience in the Wine and Beer Drinking Countries of Europe.

THERE seems to be a general impression that the lighter beverages, beer and wine, will drive out the more intoxicating. Discriminating license laws are made so as to favor them. For argument and example to support this impression we are bidden to look to the wine and beer districts of France and Germany. Travelers coming home tell us many stories of delightful evenings spent in beer gardens, and of pleasant afternoons at the café. They say that they saw no intoxicated person. Further, they tell us that the water is so bad that it is impossible to drink it with safety to one's health; that wine is very cheap, and always placed upon the hotel table free. All this has an influence upon the minds of men, and makes one think that nothing would be so beneficial to real temperance as the establishment of the beer garden and café in every town and city.

Are these things so? For one, I saw a very different state of things. The ordinary traveler goes with a friend, or friends, and sees the best side of things. I went alone, without even a guide or courier, depending upon my guide-book for information to get about the highways and byways and cities. My eyes looked upon a very different state of things in regard to these drinking customs.

Never was there a greater fallacy promulgated than that it is necessary to drink wine in Europe on account of the water being so bad. I drank the water everywhere freely, even in Venice, where all the drinking water is brought from the mainland in boats, and experienced no difficulty or unpleasant effects. There is no better water, I believe, than that found in Europe. While travelers unaccustomed to wine at home, drinking it in Europe, were continually on the sick-list, I enjoyed splendid health, and had no difficulty in taking the longest tramps in every city and town that I visited.

As to wine at the hotel table, at many table d'hôte dinners, wine is furnished free, but it is generally as poor as it is cheap. For even poor wine you will pay from fifty cents a pint up.

It seems strange to hear men speak of there being no drunkenness in Germany. I have sometimes asked myself where were their eyes, or what was their definition of drunkenness. I shall certainly never forget a certain Sunday spent in Cologne, where I saw more drunken men on the street than I had ever seen in any one day in any American city. As it was a special feast day, this might have been the cause of more drinking.

But the beer garden! Its home is in Munich; there it flourishes in all its glory. There are beer gardens, and beer gardens. But I wish to speak not of the lower, but of the higher class. The higher class in Munich are all open to the street, protected from it, however, by a high iron railing. If you wish to enter, you go through an iron gate, take your seat at a small table, and order a glass of beer; that is the entrance fee. The place is beautifully lighted with colored lights, and a band plays there as only a German band can play. The lights and music make the place seem like fairyland. I started one evening from the "Hotel of the Four Seasons," not to go in, but to look on from the outside at three or four of these beer gardens. (Everything can be seen from the street.) As I looked on at eight or nine o'clock, I said, "How delightful it is in there! Men seem to be enjoying themselves so much. There are women and children, too. What a happy time they are having over their beer! I think I must be wrong. I am too old-fashioned in my ideas." Then the thought occurred, "Watch these gardens until they close up; come around every hour and see how these people act."

So I did. I took my rounds every hour. At ten o'clock still everything was pleasant. At eleven o'clock the crowd had thinned a little, and I noticed that here and there a head was on the table, the talk was less lively. At twelve o'clock but half remained. At about one o'clock the musicians were putting up their instruments and men were coming out of the entrance walking unsteadily and talking thick or laughing loudly. As I looked through the iron railing, I could see men, women, and children stretched out upon the greensward, and some with heads upon the table. If I had asked a waiter, he would doubtless have told me that they were asleep, but the heavy breathing told that it was something more than sweet natural sleep; it seemed like the sleep of drunkenness. They were overcome by a drunken sleep. I was glad that I had watched for the dark side of the picture.

They tell us that it is a beautiful picture to see a man in a beer garden with his family. But who wants his child brought up in a beer garden? Will we be any better off when our statesmen and theologians discuss the great topics of our time, and all time, with brains that are muddled with beer?

England, a few years ago, thought to drive out the stronger liquors by encouraging beer-shops, but found that it only increased the sale of the stronger liquors. How is it in that great wine-producing country, France? Paris—for France is Paris and Paris is France—Paris, years ago, may have been partial to wine, but she is not so to day. Walk through the streets of Paris any Sunday afternoon (for that is the festal day), and watch the little groups collected around the tables that obstruct the sidewalks in front of what used to be the wine-shops. What are they calling for? Wine? No; but absinthe. Look up at the signs, and in large letters you will see upon all these shops the word "Absinthe." This is the drink of Paris to-day. The light wines have not driven out the stronger liquors, but have brought in the strongest and most destructive liquor known to man.—H. T. Sell, in Christian Union.

THE best supper for a tired workingman is oatmeal porridge with a little warm milk. A carpenter who worked for me frequently, talked in a very unhappy way about his stomach. He could digest nothing, his food all turned sour, wind came up in torrents, "there was a big stone right here in the pit of my stomach," and so on. It was a dose to hear him. I inquired about his table habits, and learned that at supper he filled his stomach, when, like other parts of his body, it was tired, with fried pork, hot biscuit and butter, and preserves. I said to him, "I will cure you in a month if you will follow my prescription faithfully." John replied, "I will swallow ten cats every day, if it will cure me." I proposed economy in cats, and that instead he should eat for supper oatmeal in hot milk. Within a month the other men said John was perfectly crazy about oatmeal and hot milk,—that he thought these for supper would take a man straight to Heaven. It will certainly cure many dyspeptics among workingmen.—Dio Lewis's Nuggets.