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Show I 1 RECOMMENDED ! SUBSTITUTES j j j By Frederic J. Haskin. t WASHINGTON, July y. Now that lienor ; no more and the head of him v.-.-o f.p-.-l it is cle.ired for struuTi-.t Ihirik-I Ihirik-I ing, some really w-jrth whde sabst:tu:ed are being i :upot d. Fo:ks are remov-; remov-; mg the trur.nnnu's and :'acin Lie one j fact o: aV.hol stimulation, it is stimu- j lation that is wanted. They are abandon- I Ing the Mra vi getting i: t-m i e;n: i iunsiy. 1 unlaw-; u". y. Is tnere not a le-.J:t:mate i sum mam to take l'us piaci- -music, for J instance. Tiie recent funeral of John was at- j tended by a larae number of kindly seals, I who jr. st buntdf-d over with consoling snggesiions. You must have noticed i tht-m. "My dear man," you could hear I them gently explaining to some sad an 1 j embittered follower of the deceased, "you j must not let tiiis loss blight your ii'e." Pe uple of this peculiar, rollyanna typ3 never can b suppressed. Tt.cy insist upon seeing yood in everything, even an empty buttle. You simply cannot make them see any difference between cocktails cock-tails and candy. They riso I ru.m pliant over the worst snubs and cynicism and go r'ght on assuring you that you must bow to tiie will of the prohibitionists, that in time you will forget your grief in the joys of chocolate or concert music. It is complained that in the Imnie-date Imnie-date pas:, when the swinging door was still a conspicuous feature of our largo cities, our concert halls were sadly devoid de-void of male listeners. "While most o the musicians were men, their audicneos were almost completely women. Musicians Musi-cians themselves will tell you that they would have to give up their art and open, grocery stores or something if it were not for the women of tiie nation. Obviously, the ma-jority of American men .-.hare the view of the distinguished novelist who, upon being questioned as to what he thought of music, said, "Oh, 1 see no harm in it." But now the mourners of the late John are requested to take the o, nosiion of music as a solace under advisement. Why, they are asked, have women been such ardent devotee of music? Is it not because be-cause they discovered in it Die same stimulation, elation, that men find in alcohol? It ts admitted that there are eases which seem to point to this conclusion. con-clusion. For example, the famous singer, Malibran, was no overcome with emotion the first lime she heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that she swooned and had to be carried out of the hall. Then there was the case of Berlioz, who swore that he became absolutely intoxicated upon hearing certain pieces of music. In describing his symptoms of intoxication, intoxica-tion, he wrote: "My vital forces fieem at first to be doubled. I feel a delicious pleasure in which reason has no part; my arteries pulsate violently." Then come tears, "followed by spasmodic conditions con-ditions of the muscles, trembling In all the limbs, a total numbness in the feet and hand.s, paralysis of the optic and auditory au-ditory nerves vertigo almost swooning." swoon-ing." It is suggested that music as a means of intoxication has one advantage over alcohol, in that it produces no depressing aftereffects. On the other hand, !.he victim vic-tim is rejuvenated and refreshed. Flato wisely assorted that music clean sod 1 lie soul as a bath did the body. Since j'lato's time the psychological offer L of music has been carefully studied, and as a result re-sult music is now being introduced as a therapeutic measure into a iarue number of hospitals. In the Japanese-Ku-ssinn war the beneficial effect of music on wounded soldiers was noticed and studied, white in the European war it was a common com-mon occurrence to have wounded men ask for music before drink or medical ! help. Again, there are those who assert that I I he best substitute for booze is books. ! While no great degree of physical Inioxi-I Inioxi-I cation is claimed for them, it is well known that in books men have always 1 found that relief from the pressure of ! Life which is the chief lure of alcohol and ; the narcotic drug. "Mien drink becauss 1 they are bored, because t hey lack excitement," ex-citement," declares one authority, "and yet locked up in books there is more stimulant, more excitement, than in many bottles of whisky. A' Chicago bookseller calls attention to the fact that a store ,.in his city regularly sells 2500 pounds of peanuts every Saturday, and not twenty-five twenty-five pounds of books during the whole week." This does not prove. s might be claimed, t ha t peanuts offer an even better substitute for alcohol lhn books, but that Americans are neglecting: their opportunities. (See De Maupassant or Ambrose Blerce or Compton McKenzle or Algernon Blackwood.; An even deadlier substitute for alcohol than either of these, urged by the consoling, con-soling, is candy. The candy store pro- prietors themselves are keeping discreetly discreet-ly silent on the subject, but there are plenty of others to do their advertising for them. Men who have experience in climbing on and off the water wagon assert as-sert that candy is the only hope of the faithful when the last descendant of John Barleycorn has been dragged from the cellar and destroyed. This statement is also upheld by scientists, who have studied the effect of various foods on the human system, and who point out that a piece of candy in the process of digestion diges-tion becomes alcohol, in which form it is distributed throughout the system. Eat a few chocolate drops on an icy winter day, and you get almost the same effect as if you had tapped the flask in your Inside pocket. But candy, in large quantities, quan-tities, is capable of causing almost as much damage as alcohol itself, according to our best dieticians, so that the nation is now faced by another danger the bonbon bon-bon drunk. Our jaiis will all be filled with candy-eaters; candy-eaters; a new society will have to be formed for the suppression of candy manufacture, and the movie scenario writers can go right on writing the same drunken scenarios of heroines lured away from home by candy and of young men who take their first chocolate drop and thereafter rapidly go to wreck and ruin. Already are suggestions for dramatizing the candy vice beginning to appear. In one of -these, scene one shows a pathetic little group, consisting of a sad little woman and her children, who sit sobbing about the kitchen table, where the evening eve-ning meal is growing cold. The mother rises and looks mournfully out of the window, shaking her head. "I fear father is eating" again," she sobs. Although the night is cold and stormy, as you can see by the way everything in the room is being blown about by a cleverly concealed electric fan, little Angela, An-gela, aged rises nobly to the occa- sion and assumes her mother that she will j go and bring her father home. Follow several feet of film showing little Angela braving the storm outside,, searching the dark streets of the big city, passing ribald groups of men with candy on their breath, and finally discovering her bleary-eyed, sodden father, just as he is about to fall off the wharf into the I river, clutching a candy carton firmly in ! one hand. "Oh, father," says little An- ; i geia, "you promised us you would stop , eating candy." And, leading him gently i by the hand, Angela guides her father through a thousand or more feet of film ; which ends -with his miraculous reform 1 and the singing of the candy prohibition ; pledge. Beside the vivid pictures candy con- ' jures for the imagination, buttermilk. ; weak beer and even cologne are pale and i inconspicuous. Automobile press agents ; have proposed joy-riding as a substitute for the usual week-end" spree, but this is obviously illogical, since joy-riding has j always been the effect and not the cause of intoxication. There is one other sug- 1 gestion. however, which appears to con- tain merit. That is travel. Beginning July 1. there was a large increase in the number of requests for passports, and it 's stated that thousands are barely hold- ing themselves in until the passport sit- ! nation loosens up and they are able to ; emigrate in whoiesa ie quantities to Eu- 1 rope. Some, who are unable to restrain themselves that long, are already on their !' way to China, where American brew- ! j . eries are now doing a large business. Ac- i 'cording to the testimony of an American 'I who has just returned from China, every ij attempt is being made to popularize J I .-Vinci lean ncer iiuM l.tlir. wim-s in tnat country, and so far tiie results are so successful that many more American bre'.vers are talking of movinp their plants to the Or:ent. Under these circumstances, cir-cumstances, it is quite eomprehensibie why so many American business men are suddenly evincing such a tremendous Interest In-terest in China. , |
