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Show t b Yoot rink KB ? I UK defendant stated thai he was a - J walking down the street, when the . complainant, who was total J' stranger, came up to him and said: "Young man, what Is vour drink bill "In his annnynnco at what ho regarded re-garded as an impertinent question, Conveying nn offensive Imputation! defendant admitted, lie knocked the complainant down." That account appeared in a ttMRraj newspaper the other day. The mag- l&aHgJ ' I I j .' lie . arrl.-.l nn L crusade, and .11?- ..'lCSj n . I - u . -nt Th . wmU of tem'i.-ranei n seema to mi is ZMl frequently damaged by the manner T of Its most an i ... ..f.-.N repr.-. in the "Iphclr lancu.. is .-.ft. n in.j vigorous and Drhik, sir." I IWradcs ih - take it to the levol vwlend of mine , had hi Lrd aorae- kin. I. I'T lllr'l I M 1 : . ant to n life is not won on brand.v hih-balls. he raid: If you r going to rail me a beast and preach a .sermon I m off I m not going to do anything of the Kind i know of no boast that spends it? time its Inanely as he does- most of his. Drinking stimulants is n habit common to most people ue are apt to become slaves of our habits. " said (,,-n -rordoti only wish people would sit down occasionally an. I see whether they have become slaves, and If so Wbat their masters are " It mav not be a particularly agreeable occupation. It is one In which a man Is ant to meet with shocks. My i.rllef Is that a vast majority of men and women drink more than Is compatible with their being as well fViw" "lrl as nnPPV as they otherwise would be The drink habit, then fore, sterns decidedly on 'he Increase In-crease Reports show that while drinking has greatly declined among the better classes, It has got a bigger grip on the poorer masses of tho people. I am surprised mv-self, mv-self, while there Is such evidence of Increased drink consumption, con-sumption, at the large Increase of those I meet In society who never drink alcoholic liquor nt all. Drinking has quite ceased to be one of the necessary qualifications of a gentleman Strict lempernnce has come to h. recognized In all cd a. ai.-d assemblies as by no means svnonymous with bigotrv. I have a friend who is possessed of a beautiful silver tankard, which has been In his family for several generations. genera-tions. He has this filled twice during dinner. His ances tors did so, and he observes the family custom. T be-llee be-llee that an enormous amount of our drinking arises from the mistakes we make. People drank, we read and why should not we drink too? As I once heard a gentleman gentle-man express It, Drinking Is a good old established custom. cus-tom. I don't pretend to be wiser than my forefathers so I drink as they did." As a matter of fact, he does nothing of tho kind His life is entirely different from the lives his forefathers led, and his drinking is dono under totally different conditions con-ditions If his forefathers were alive today I dare say that a considerable number of them would be total abstainers. ab-stainers. Because Mary Queen of Scots drank a quart of beer for breakfast would he held no satisfactory reason for a modern woman doing anything of the kind That men used to drink two or threo bottles of wlno with their dinner does not convince me that It was either good for them or that It would be good for me I am certain that it would be worso for me than It was for them u B.Uj t,ncrc ,s no doubt about It that tho stories of tho Indulgence of distinguished people in past days have as It were, Invested a specie of halo around the drink habit, and that a good many drink a great d-al more than they otherwise would because they believe that It Is quite the proper thing" an old custom general!) observed ob-served bj geniuses, wits and good fellows. They make no allowance for the changed conditions under "which we live today. ' The rush to the towns," said a physician to m'c. ' has led to an enormous increase in the alcohol habit I am not speaking of drunkards, but of people who, however, drink sufficiently to do Injury to themselves Socletl brings Increased temptations; the stress of business and the strain upon one's courage to fare the demands of life make th. tn more alluring And the worst of It Is that the sedentary life of the townsman renders the habit more peculiarly Injurious to him. What heaps of Dutch courage there Is about ' It was his belief that half the people, who drank did so In order to keep up their courage to meet the calls of tho dayl A short time bark the world was fill-d with indignant indig-nant contempt for a fleet which required vodka to amust It to courage It aroused It to a good deal else. 1 wonder how many thousands of gentlemen there were who expressed ex-pressed their contempt for the offenders as they gulped down their morning drink In order to give thorn courage to face their work! A great number of people appear possessed of the notion no-tion that ihry can never le happy, ready, and fit pure.lv of themselves. They are like one of our greatest public oiators. who wan possessed of the notion that he eonld n- ver make nn effective speech unless he had had threo glasrcR of Whisk: to "prime" him. Ho lived under that delusion sev. 11 years, when one day ho was called upon to address an audlenco In an out-of-the-way part of tho I country Arrived at tho place, ho discovered that he hac j forgotten his pocket flask. To his inimeme astonishment lie found that he made one of the best speeches of hli llfel He gave up his ' fortifier" from that day. While I am often a-stonlahed at the amount some o my acquaintances spend In what tiny term "refresh. 1 ment," I am also equally astonished at the number oi men I meet who are not only temperate, but total abstainers ab-stainers Once it was regarded aa an excellent qualltv In a business man to have a head which was unaffected by liquor Now, it is regarded as an excellent quality tc have a head that eyes liquor a.'kance To drink. It hae been discovered, ie not an essential to transact business Nothing speaks more eloquently to tne rcct that business busi-ness and tho drink habit have been found to be two quit separate things than that a lnrge number of the most successful commercial travelers are total abstainers Many of the big houses prefer teetotalers, not that theV have any particular conscientious objection to drink, but from the fact that they find more budness results "What is my drink bill?" Is, therefore, it sccras to me a remarkably penslblo question for a man to aak himself ' " occasionally I usk it myself cometlmes, Juct as I do "What amount am I paying for clothes?" But clothes ore a necessity, and the winec and spirits I drinu arc nothing Of the kind. They arc luxuries. like turtle Eoup, and lux-lines lux-lines that are responalble tor one lunatic out of every five I In our asylums. I |