The habit of wine drinking at meals, besides conducing to a general healthful action of the digestive and assimilating organs of life, and producing a cheerful temper, promotes many social reforms. After hard labor, man’s nature seeks relaxation, restoration from exhaustion, and a pleasurable reward. It is useless to mor- alize about it, unless we recognize this want of his system. We have two antagonistic schools of moralists who treat upon the subject of in- temperance. Intemperance results simply from ill timed, excessive, careless, unreasonable, or compulsory habits of dieting. What one drinks is part of his diet. There are those whose doc- trine is, that man should obtain the least possi- ble physical enjoyment from the greatest possi- ble exertion. Others think that the greatest possible reasonable and sane enjoyment should be the reward of labor. The latter do not affect to consider physical enjoyment as degrading; they do not think it beneath their dignity to discuss what they eat and drink, as critics; they rejoice in an invention which causes twen- ty-five cents to produce a more agreeable sen- sation to the palate and a greater comfort in digestion. The true cook is an inventor who
endeavors, not to procure the greatest amount of enjoyment at unlimited cost, but the greatest
from a given and limited expenditure. He is an eclectic; he rejects woody radishes, rank water-cress, and heavy wines, and selects young and tender esculents, and dry tonic wines, with bouquets that make the lips smack before they touch the glass.
Wine is a civilizer in the family. It makes the dinner eventful, and prolongs its period of enjoyment. It brings man and wife into full sympathy, and lets the woman into the man’s most entertaining moods. He does not save his wit and smiles for the bar-room and club It clinches matrimony after the church ratifies it. It brings a sense of satisfaction, peace, and comfort, and invites to repose, and not to ex- citement. Wine drinking families are not di- vorced every evening. Their enjoyments are in close communion with freedom, frankness, and congeniality. Home is better than any club or bar room, and the bachelors seek such homes to visit. Pater familias does not need to seek the bachelor at the club or the saloon. Moreover, his luxuries become cheap and eco- nomical in this way, and he becomes hospitable. The bottle of wine makes the table cheerful; the tired and over-anxious wife is not troubled about what she has to offer to her guest. Such tables offer no apologies, and need none.
Wein, weib, gesang; these are the results. Wine is not jealous, nor timid. It unites man and wife, and they sing;“their hearts sing if their voices can not. Without wine, stimulus comes from behind doors and screens. It is secretive and ashamed of itself. Whisky, and even beer, to a great extent, divorce the fam- ily relations, destroy home society, become ill timed and unreasonable, and lead to discord and complaint. A man leaves an ill digested and poorly enjoyed silent dinner, to wander in search of some relaxation. He ceases then to control his actions, because other houses and places are not under his control. He ceases to know what he drinks, and is imposed upon. He goes home relaxed, perhaps jelly; he for- gets that his wife has not had the same relaxa- tion, and his jolly temper is turned acid by her habitual tired expressions and coolness. Wom- en fight the saloons partly from fear, partly from jealousy; neither habitual fear nor habit- ual jealousy are promoters of peace, good will, and contentment. The women then begin to think of rights of all kinds, and women’s rights in particular. Wine at the table would make it all right.
When we talk of “wine and women,” too many think only of champagne and hilarity. This is not what we mean by wine drinking. Champagne is an exceptional luxury; but nat- ural wines, such as sound dry Zinfandel, or Riesling, are never boisterous. They lead to no more excesses than tea and coffee, and are rarely as dangerous to the stomach. The con- dition of the stomach and liver rule the head. Avoid distilled spirits, regarding them as drugs, useful when intelligently prescribed; avoid al- coholized wines and heavy beers; and there will be no danger of intemperance. Let pro- hibitory legislation reform itself. Seek out spe- cific dangers, and restrain them, as the sale of drugs is restricted. Punish adulterations and adulterers, and society will be very safe and happy. The vine has been called “the friend of man;” it should be called the mutual friend of man and wife. It is an anti-divorce pre- scription.
There has never yet been a good opportunity to observe the effect of habitual wine drinking upon an Anglo-Saxon community. No coun- try mainly composed of Anglo-Saxons has yet been a wine producer, to the extent of provid- ing sufficient to supplant spirits as a beverage. We are to test the question in this State, and perhaps in the United States. The student of temperaments, however, has much to base opin- ions upon. The Frenchman and the Irishman, when judged on equal terms, differ mainly in their habits, which control thought and senti- ment. What might not wine have done for Ire- land? What might not whisky have done for France? There are wine-drinking English-
