Part 10

But some doubt does yet remain as to what the exact nature of the influence is which the ardent spirit exerts, when it has been introduced into these inner recesses of the living body in small quantity, and as much diluted by admixture with water as it is in most beers. Some persons, whose opinions can not be held to be without weight, believe that diluted spirit is capable of aiding the nourishment of the body—of acting as a sort of food. Others of equal authority are convinced that it can do nothing of the kind.

But however the matter may appear regarding the power of ardent spirit to nourish, no doubt can be entertained of the fact, that it certainly is not a necessary food. There is actually nothing of a material kind in the bodies of human creatures, which is not also present in the frames of the irrational animals. The same kind of structures have to be nourished, and the same kind of bodily powers to be supported in oxen and sheep as in men. But oxen and sheep fatten, and grow strong, and are maintained in health without ever touching so much as a single drop of ardent spirit. There are hundreds of men, too, who preserve their vigor and health up to great ages, without even tasting fermented liquors.

It must also be admitted that there are great numbers of people who use fermented liquors in moderation every day, of whom the same can be said. But it is to be feared that those who are safely moderate in their employment of these treacherous agents, are a really small band compared with those who allow themselves to be continually within the reach of unquestionable danger. In the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population amounting to rather less than thirty millions of individuals, when the numbers were lately reckoned, there were yearly sixty-one millions of gallons of ardent spirit consumed as beer; thirty millions of gallons as spirits; and nearly two millions of gallons as wine.

There is, yet again, another very important point of view from which the habitual moderate use of fermented liquors must be contemplated. A pint of strong beer is in itself no very great thing. Many people swallow it almost at a single draught, and in less than a minute. The trifling act, however, entails one serious consequence when it is performed day by day. A pint of strong beer cannot be bought at a less cost than threepence. Threepence a day, at the end of a year, amounts to £4 11s. 3d. If it be only laid by and made no use of, at the end of sixty years, it amounts, under the same circumstances, to £273. If employed, instead of being laid by, it might be improved at the end of sixty years into a large fortune. Hundreds of men have made thousands of pounds with smaller means.

Money, of course, is of no great value in itself; it is only of value when applied to good service. But herein lies the gist of the matter. Money always can be made good use of. If a young man at the age of eighteen begin to lay by threepence every day, instead of buying a pint of beer with it, and continue to do the same thing for two years, he may purchase with the saving an allowance of £10 a year, to commence at the age of sixty-five years, and to be continued as long as he may thereafter happen to live. If he laid by threepence a day for five years, he could purchase with his savings, at the end of that time, an allowance of ten shillings a week, to commence at the age of sixty-five years. If a young man at eighteen begin to lay by threepence a day, and continue to do the same thing from year to year, he may at once purchase the certainty of being able to leave behind him a little fortune of £300 for his wife or children, or any other relatives who may be dear to and dependent upon him, whenever death puts an end to his earthly labors! Surely no rational and prudent man would ever think even 22,000 pints of profitless beer an equivalent for such a result of his industrious labor. It is by no means too strong an expression to speak of the beer as profitless, for this reason: A gallon of strong beer contains a quarter of a pound of nourishment, bought at the cost of a couple of shillings. Two shillings would purchase more than three pounds of meat and bread! The direct money value of ardent spirits, swallowed every year by the inhabitants of the British isles, exceeds ninety millions of pounds sterling.

Although there may be question and doubt as to the character of the influence this fiery substance exerts, when poured out to the living human frame through the supply pipes, in moderate quantity, and weakened by mixture with a large proportion of water, all question and doubt disappear when its action in greater strength and in larger quantity comes to be considered. An inquiring physician, Dr. Percy, once poured strong ardent spirit into the stomachs of some dogs, to see what would happen to them. The poor animals fell down insensible upon the ground directly, and within a few minutes their breathing had ceased, their hearts had stopped beating, and they were dead. Some of the dogs were opened immediately, and it was then found that their stomachs were quite empty. All the ardent spirit had been sucked out of them in a few short minutes. But where was it gone to? It was gone into the blood, and heart, and brain, and there it was discovered in abundance. It had destroyed life by its deadly power over those delicate inner parts.

Human beings are instantly killed when they swallow large quantities of strong ardent spirit, exactly in the same way as Dr. Percy’s dogs. A few years ago two French soldiers made a bet as to who could drink the largest quantity of brandy. Each of them swallowed seven pints in a few minutes. Both dropped down insensible on the ground; one was dead before he could be picked up, the other died while they were carrying him to the hospital. A man in London soon after this undertook to drink a quart of gin, also for a wager. He won his bet, but never had an opportunity to receive his winnings. He fell down insensible, and was carried to the hospital, and was a dead body when he was taken in.

There can be no doubt, therefore, what strong ardent spirit, in large quantities, does for the living body. It kills in a moment, as by a stroke. It is a virulent poison, as deadly as prussic acid, and more deadly than arsenic. Even when it is not taken in sufficient abundance to destroy in the most sudden way, it often leads to a slower death. Striking illustrations of this truth are presented continually in every corner of even this civilized land. It has been fully ascertained that not less than one thousand persons die from the direct influence of ardent spirit, in the British isles, every year.

When people do not die directly upon swallowing large quantities of ardent spirit, it is because they take it so gradually that nature has the opportunity of washing the greater portion of it away through the waste-pipes, before any sufficient amount of it has gathered in delicate internal parts for the actual destruction of life. Nature has such a thorough dislike to ardent spirit in the interior of living bodies, that the instant it is introduced into their supply-pipes and chambers, she goes hard to work to drive out the unwelcome intruder. When men have been drinking much fermented liquor, the fumes of ardent spirit are kept pouring out through the waste-pipes that issue by the mouth, the skin, and the kidneys; the fumes can commonly be smelt under such circumstances in the breath.

When fermented liquors are drunk in a gradual way, but yet in such quantity that the ardent spirit collects more rapidly in the blood than it can be got rid of through the waste-pipes, the fiery liquid produces step by step a series of remarkable effects, growing continually more and more grave.

In order that all the actions of the living human body may be properly carried on, three nerve overseers have been appointed to dwell constantly in the frame and look after different departments of its business. One of these has its residence in the brain; that nerve-overseer has charge of the reason, and all that belongs to it. Another resides under the brain, just at the back of the face; that nerve-overseer looks after all that relates to feeling or sense. The third lives in the nerve-marrow of the backbone; that has to see that the breathing and the pumping of the heart go on steadily and constantly. Of these three superintendents the brain-overseer and the sense-overseer are allowed certain hours of repose at night; they are both permitted to take their naps at proper times, because the reason and the sense can alike be dispensed with for short intervals when the creature is put safely to bed, or otherwise out of harm’s way. Not so, however, with the breathing and blood-pumping overseer. The breathing and the blood-movement require to be kept going constantly; they must never cease, even for a short interval, or the creature would die. Hence the nerve-marrow overseer is a watchman as well as an overseer. No sleep is allowed him. He must not even nap at his post. If he do, his neglect and delinquency are immediately discovered by a dreadful consequence. The breathing and blood-flowing, which are his charge, stop, and the living being, served by the breathing and the blood-streams, chokes and faints.

These three nerve-overseers have been fitted to perform their momentous tasks in the entire absence of ardent spirit, and they are so constituted that they cannot perform those tasks when ardent spirit is present in any great amount. Ardent spirit puts them all to sleep. The reason-overseer is overcome the most easily; he is the most given to napping by nature, so he goes to sleep first. If more spirit be then introduced into the blood, the sense-overseer begins to doze also. And if yet more be introduced, the nerve-marrow watchman ceases to be a watchman, and at length sleeps heavily with his companions.

Now, suppose that you, my attentive reader, were in an unlucky moment of weakness to turn aside from your usual course of temperance and sobriety, and to drink fermented liquor until its fiery spirit gathered in your brain, and put your reason-overseer to sleep, what think you would be the consequence? This would be the consequence—you would for the time cease to be a reasonable being. You would probably still walk about the streets, and go hither and thither, and do all sorts of things. But all this you would accomplish, not with a proper and rational knowledge of your actions. Your reason and understanding being fast asleep while you were walking about, you would properly be living in a sort of brutal existence, instead of a human and reasonable one. You would have laid aside the guide who was intended to be your director in your responsible human life, and you would be rashly trusting yourself in a crowd of the most fearful dangers, all your responsibility still upon your shoulders, without the inestimable advantage of the advice and assistance of this experienced director. Like the brutes, you would then find yourself to be easily roused to the fiercest anger, and set upon the worst courses of mischief; you would find yourself readily filled with the most uncontrollable feelings of passion and violence, and liable to be run away with by them at any moment, and caused to do things that a rational creature could not contemplate without the deepest anguish and shame.

There is no lack of proof that human beings do the most brutish things when their reasons and understandings are put to sleep by strong drink, while their sense-overseers and their animal powers still remain active. Every place and every day afford such in wretched abundance. One impressive instance, however, may perhaps be related with advantage. On the night of the 28th of June, 1856, two drunken men, whose names were James and Andrew Bracken, rushed brawling out from a beer shop in one of the suburbs of Manchester. They ran against two inoffensive passengers, and in their blind and brutish rage began beating them; one was knocked down and kicked about the head when on the ground. He was picked up thence a few minutes afterward and carried to the hospital, where it was found his skull had been broken. The poor fellow died in the course of the night.

In the next assize court, at Liverpool, James and Andrew Bracken stood in the dock to be tried for their brutal act. The counsel who defended them said that it was only a drunken row, and there was no murder in the case, because neither of them knew what he was doing. The judge and the jury, on the other hand, decided that this was no excuse, because they _ought_ to have known what they were doing. They had laid aside their reason and become brutal by their own voluntary act, and were therefore responsible for any deed they might perform while in the brutal state. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Andrew Bracken, and the judge passed sentence of death upon him, coupling the sentence with these words: “You did an act, the ordinary consequences of which must have been to kill. It was a cruel and a brutal act, and you did it, wholly reckless of consequences. You have therefore very properly been convicted of wilful murder.” The wretched man was removed from the dock shrieking for mercy, with upraised hands, and exclaiming in heartrending tones, “Oh! mother, mother, that I should be hanged!” No doubt he was very much surprised to find himself a condemned convict and a murderer, and had never intended to be so. He had no spite against his victim, and had probably never even exchanged a word with him. No drunkard, therefore, when about to put his reason to sleep by intoxicating liquor, should ever overlook the fact that he will for the time cease to have control over his actions, and that when that reason awakes, he may find himself like Andrew Bracken, a prisoner and a murderer. Whether he do so or not will depend on no will or determination of his own, but upon the mere series of accidents that will surround him while in his self-inflicted, helpless, and brutal state.

The case of Andrew Bracken, sad and striking as it is, by no means stands alone in the annals of crime. At the assize, held at Lancaster in March, 1854, it was shown that in that single court 380 cases of grave crime had been detected and punished within a very short period, and that of the 380 cases 250, including nine murders, were to be directly traced to the influence of drunkenness.

But if having ceased to be sober, my strong-bodied reader, you did not happen to commit murder, or do any other act of gross violence while in the brutal stage of drunkenness, yet nevertheless went on swallowing more and more of the intoxicating liquid until your sense-overseer was put to sleep as well as your reason-overseer, what do you think would chance to you then? Why, you would have ceased to be dangerous to your neighbors, and have become in a like degree dangerous to yourself. You would no longer have power to commit murder, or to do any other act of cruelty, because you would sink down on the ground a senseless and motionless lump of flesh. You would be what the world calls dead-drunk. But you would not in reality be dead, because the nerve-marrow watchman still continued at his post, and awake. The lump of prostrate flesh would still breathe heavily, and blood would be made to stream sluggishly from its beating heart. In this insensible stage of drunkenness, however, you would have ceased to be able to exercise any care over yourself. In it the drunkard is sunk as much lower than brutal life as the brutes are beneath reasoning life, inasmuch as he ceases to be able to exert the power which all brutes possess of perceiving the threatening danger, and turning aside from its approach.

But yet again, rational reader, let us suppose that when you became for the time a lump of insensible flesh, you had already swallowed so much stupefying spirit, that there was enough to put the nerve-marrow watchman to sleep, as well as the reason- and sense-overseers, before any fair quantity could be cleared away out of the waste-pipes of the body. Under such circumstances breathing would cease, and all heart-beating would stop. You would then be dead-drunk in the full sense of the fearful term. Senseless drunkenness is dangerous to the drunkard himself, not only because he could not get out of the way if danger were to come where he is lying, but also because he of necessity is placed in an insensible state upon the brink of a precipice, from the depth beneath which there could be no return if he once rolled over. Whether he will ever again awaken from his insensibility, or whether his earthly frame shall have already commenced its endless sleep, is a question which will be determined by the accident of a drop or two more, or a drop or two less, of the stupefying spirit having been mixed in with the coursing life-streams. The man who kills a fellow-creature in a fit of drunken violence, commits an act of murder; the man who dies in a fit of drunken insensibility, is guilty of self-slaughter. In its first degree, drunkenness is brutality; in its second degree, it is senseless stupidity, of a lower kind than brutes ever know; in its third degree, it is suicidal death. It will be felt that it is important this matter should be looked fairly in the face, when the statement is made that there are not less than seventy thousand confirmed drunkards known to be living at the present time in England and Wales.

It is now a well-proved and unquestionable fact, that a young man of fair strength and health, who takes to hard drinking at the age of twenty, can only look forward to fifteen years more of life; while a temperate young man, of the same age, may reasonably expect forty-five years more! The habitual drunkard must therefore understand that, amongst other things, he has to pay the heavy penalty of thirty of the best years of existence, for the very questionable indulgence that he buys. The doctor also has a sad account to give of aches, and pains, and fevers, and weakness that have to be borne by the intemperate during the few years’ life they can claim. Whatever may be the true state of the case with the moderate use of fermented liquors, their intemperate use is a fertile source whence men draw disease and suffering. Intemperance is another of the influences whereby men cause sickness and decay to take the place of health and strength. The doctor has likewise, it must be remarked, a tale of his own to tell concerning the beneficial power of fermented liquors, when employed as medicines in certain weakened and already diseased states of the body.

There is one earnest word which has yet to be addressed to those who have satisfied their consciences that they may with propriety indulge their inclination to use fermented liquors in moderation habitually. Have they also satisfied themselves that they can keep to the moderation their consciences allow? Have they taken fairly and sufficiently into consideration their own powers to resist urgent allurements? Have they well weighed the possible influence, in their own case, of the enticements which agreeable flavors and pleasurable exhilaration necessarily bring into operation? Have they sufficiently pondered upon the admitted truth that there scarcely ever yet was a confirmed drunkard who did not begin his vicious career by a very moderate employment of the seductive liquors? If they have done this, then let them still nevertheless go one step further and carefully determine also for their own case, what moderation is, and while doing this, let them never forget that when the thirsty man drinks a pint of table beer, he pours a teaspoonful of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks a pint of strong ale he pours two tablespoonfuls of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks four glasses of strong wine, he pours one glass of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks two glasses of rum, brandy, or gin, he pours from three-quarters of a glass to a glass of ardent spirit into the channels of his supply-pipes.

The habitual drinker of port wine has a more or less strong fancy that his favorite and so-called “generous” beverage fills him with “spirit” and “fire.” This fancy is indeed not without some ground. Government has recently caused a very careful examination to be made of the strength of the port wines that are furnished to the English markets, and the investigation has disclosed the startling and unexpected fact that the weakest of these wines contains 26 per cent.; ordinary specimens of them from 30 to 36 per cent.; choice specimens 40 per cent.; and what are called the finest wines as much as 56 per cent. of proof ardent spirit. The port wine drinker therefore actually receives even more “spirit” and “fire” with his ruby drink than he is himself aware he has bargained for. There are rich flavor and delicious odor, no doubt, in his wine, and so much the greater is his danger. These serve only to conceal a wily enemy who is lurking beneath. A bottle of ruby port wine in the stomach commonly means half a bottle of poisonous fiery spirit in the blood, and heart, and brain.

THE PARIS WORKMAN.

By R. HEATH.

Like all the inhabitants of Paris, the workmen dwell in houses of five or six stories high. The ground floor is let out in shops, between which the principal staircase is entered by a narrow passage. At the back there is a small court-yard, skirted on one side by a wing from the main building, of from two to three stories high. Each flat of the main building and of its wing is occupied by several tenants, so that such buildings contain on an average 50 different tenants, with as many as from 120 to 150 inhabitants. In one that I have visited there were 47 tenants, the total number of persons in the building at night being 114.

Workmen inhabit all quarters of Paris, the better sort preferring to live at some distance from their work. The northeast of Paris is, however, peculiarly their quarter; the suburb of St. Antoine and that of St. Martin, with the districts known as La Villette and Belleville, are almost entirely inhabited by workmen, and the tradespeople who supply their wants. The neighborhood of the Canal Saint Martin is altogether a different Paris to that usually seen by the visitor. It has more of the cheerless look of our own manufacturing districts; however, the bright sun of Paris, the rows of trees, and the fountains prevent it from looking gloomy or sad.

In this neighborhood lodging is not so dear as in the older parts of the city. In very miserable and dirty streets in the Latin quarter, the workman has to pay as much as thirty dollars a year for a single room; two rooms cost him fifty-six dollars a year; and two rooms and a little place, which he can use as a kitchen, seventy-two dollars a year. This is enormous, and amounts to about twenty per cent. of his income, supposing him to work full time, and not to belong to one of the more skilled trades.

The question of rent is one of the greatest grievances of which Paris workmen have to complain. It keeps them in poverty and anxiety, and, it is alleged, often drives the whole family to moral ruin; the wife selling her honor to obtain means, and the husband giving himself up in despair to drink.

How impossible it is to settle questions which affect the tenderest feelings of humanity by an assertion of the rights of property, the following story strikingly illustrates: