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Show Drinking Among Women. A NEW YORK doctor says that wo- men "the country over" are drink- . ing more and more every day, i while men are drinking less. The statement as to men is unquestionably correct, especially if limited to the j more intelligent, better educated and more prosperous male members of the I community. It is quite true, as this New York doctor says, that drinking 3 in business hours, so common once, is not viewed with favor now, and f that even the moderate drinker is re- i garded as undesirable by the business t world. Among many classes of men L whose excessive drinking was the rule fifty yearo ago extreme moderation is the rule now. Is it really the case, however, that f there is such an .increase of drinking among women "the country over" as to be "an awful or vital danger to the f well-being of the nation"? It is diffi- cult to believe that women, who have i learned from sorrowful experience the misery that the drink habit among i? men can cause, should themselves take to drinking at a time when men are - beginning to be more moderate in their K use of liquor? Il This is not the only alarming state- K ment which has been made of late M concerning American women. It has r been said that they are becoming, "all P over the country," the slaves of opium, k There is no reason to . believe in the P truth of either statement, especially i when so broadly made as to cover the entire United States. There are now, i as there have been in the past, women 1 who drink too much. That there is an t increased number of these is not im- a possible, in view of the large increase in the population. Whether the per- K centage has increased is quite an- l other matter. It is not impossible, p also, that tne feeling which so many American women once had that it was I sinful to drink a glass of, wine or beer has lost something of its strength, but it would not follow therefrom that the women of this country are on the eve of becoming drunkards. i Some doctors are emotional and have J not the scientific spirit. Tftey draw I sweeping conclusions from exceedingly narrow promises. It is altogether pos- i sible that the New York doctor wno ) has been referred to has met in his t practice of late with an unusual num- k ber of drinking women and has jumped y at the conclusion that women "all over f the country" are beginning to drink too 1 much. t |