Show THE THIRST OF EUROPE some statistics on the average amount of alcoholic beverages colsum ad by each citizen of tho the various european countries are given by the post which thus attempts to classify in some measure he peoples of the old world by the capacity and quality of 0 their thirsts what they drink and how much of it As might be ba expected the germans are the greatest beer drinkers and the french the largest consumers ot of wine but there are other interesting facts brought out which are more surprising wo we quote an abstract that appears in cosmos Cos most t paris oct ocl ath says this paper the dane drinks annually ats ot of beer little or no wine and 24 auts ot of brandy tho the swede absorber ab SG 66 ats of beer and 9 ats of 0 alcohol while tho tha norwegian on whom sobriety Is imposed by very severe laws Is content with 31 quarts ot of beer and 3 quarts ot of brandy the russian requires only 3 quarts of 0 beer and 5 ot of brandy vodka the frenchman must have 32 quarts of beer of wine and 10 of brandy the englishman consumes 6 quarts of on kin or whiskey little wine scarcely 2 quarts and quarts of I 1 beer aw nr stout tho the dutchman 38 quarts quart 0 o beer und and 8 of brandy the belgian quarts of beer and 9 of r the austrian absorbs 16 quarts quarta of wine SO quarts of beer and nearly lla 11 of brandy the hungarian the same quantity of brandy and wine but oil only 7 11 quarts of beer the italian drinks little beer scarcely 2 quarts quart sj 98 quarts of wine and 13 quarts of brandy he is the least alcoholic of europeans As for the german he lias has the right from his astonishing capacity to a prominent place in these statistics lt it is hardly possible in his case to confine oneself to averages to T 0 pass pl over ove r I 1 tho the extent of the empire including the grand duchy of luxemburg the consumption per head amounts to 1 7 quarts 0 of f wine 61 0 of or brandy and aej quarts of beer but the alsatian and the north german drink 98 quarts of beer while tho the babener drinks the and the bavarian As for the dwellers in the great cities some of them are veritable bottomless pits at atlin af quarts ot of beer are drunk by each inhabitant annually at nuremberg quarts at frankfort and munich when we realize that there arel abeln ln munich as elsewhere children women old persons youth and perhaps even among the adults some drinkers ot of average thirst we may ask ourselves with some trepidation what is tho the dally flow of the river of 0 beer rolling its tumultuous waves down the esophagus of a loyal disciple of Gamb gambrinus rinus evidently it is proper to ask what is the true significance of 0 tho the table thus prepared by the post As a matter of fact the meaning Is somewhat vague the averages given by the german journal have been obtained by dividing by tho the number of inhabitants ot of each country the figures representing ng for that country the annual total consumption 0 ot f the e anted or alcoholic drinks we can can not lot by this very meth od be led to any except the most general mose agen results to say for instance that t on the average a subject of the czar drinks only 5 quarts of vodka per year is not to tako take tak o into int recount account sufficiently the fact that SO per cent at least ot of our allies are temperate because of age sex or poverty in these conditions the terri territorial toral il extent of a country la Is a factor that intervenes to falsify most provokingly the result obtained by calculation we should not accept the above figures therefore too seriously translation made for the literary digest |