tone of society has changed, and intemperance, while still unfortunately prevalent, is nothing like as common as it used to be.
Indeed, it is hardly possible for us to imagine the state of affairs in our grandfathers' times. A hundred years ago a gentleman who went out to dinner, and was not brought home in the bottom of a cab or in a wheelbarrow, was a very poor-spirited fellow indeed. So with the poorer classes. Just a century ago George Washington was engaging a gardener, and in his contract it was expressly stipulated that he should have "four dollars at Christmas, with which he may be drunk for four days and four nights; two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide, to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner at noon." Nor was the sum mentioned a niggardly one, when George Washington was distilling his own whisky, and selling it, probably, for thirty or forty cents a gallon.
And now, just think of the change. We can hardly imagine a gentleman perceptibly exhilarated with wine at a dinner table. He certainly would never get a second opportunity, if the fact were known. And as for the working classes—a clerk, an engineer, a coachman, or even a gardener whose breath smelt of whisky, or who was seen often dropping into a saloon, would run a good chance of losing his position.
For the world has at last found out what intoxication means. Alcohol in large doses is a poison, but it is a poison which injures the family and neighbors and friends of the inebriate more than the victim himself. It, to some extent at least, causes him discomfort, but think of the discomfort it causes his family! It shortens his life, to be sure, but think of the other lives that it shortens! And while some attack the problem with fierce and violent denunciations, and others by quieter and not the less effective arguments and appeals, the world certainly owes a debt of gratitude to those who are doing so much now, and who have done so much already, to relieve mankind from the burden of inebriety.
