IS LIQUOR-DRINKING AMONG WOMEN ON THE INCREASE?
THE question, "Is liquor-drinking among women increasing?" is hard to answer. We surely hear more about drinking women than formerly, perhaps from the fact that the drinking habit attracts more attention than it did in the days when nearly every one used liquor in one form or another. Speaking of intemperance among women, and that much of it comes through the use of alcohol in medicine, Sir Thomas Barlow, physician to the King of England, is reported to have said: "The only remedy is total abstinence; half and half measures are useless; we must banish alcohol entirely." The most pitiful dipsomaniac I have ever known is a woman, and she acquired the appetite by first taking alcohol as a medicine. Quite recently my attention was called to an inebriate who had occupied a good position in life and who never tasted alcohol until he took it in the form of one of the many patent medicines which to-day flood our market, crowd our newspaper advertising, and harm more than help humanity. The amount of alcohol that many patent medicines contain varies from 5 per cent to 11 per cent. This fact alone should be sufficient to lead all total abstainers to decide that they can not use patent medicines themselves nor advertise their use for others.—Union Signal.