Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/394

380 The most pronounced product is found in the hopeless drunkard, who, in squalid rags, with rotten tissues, the embodiment of intellectual and moral degradation, utterly beyond hope, the line of possible restoration long past, hangs around the tavern-door, and, with the odor of alcohol floating on his breast, whiningly begs a copper from the mass of vitality around him, of which he himself is a withered and decaying branch. This man is incapable of labor; he is unwilling to entertain the idea of toil. He is beyond any capacity for labor; he is no longer capable of discharging his duty as a citizen; he is a social parasite of the lowest and foulest order, as useless as a tapeworm. He has abandoned all self-respect, because there is nothing left in him for himself or any one else to respect. He is a shameless liar, who will make the most solemn protestations as to the truth of what it is patent enough is false. There is no depth of moral degradation to which he will not descend for the means to purchase a little more of the fluid which has ever been his bane.

Betwixt him, however, and his patrons, many of whom enter the tavern to celebrate some little matter by a glass together, there is a potential association, not always at first sight readily apparent. The effect of alcoholic indulgence is seductive; and it often creeps on unobserved, doing much irretrievable mischief ere its presence is unmistakable. It is not the intention of the writer here to discuss the question of the moderate use of alcoholic beverages, but rather to point out the fruits, the evil consequences, of excess. Betwixt the hopeless drunkard and the casual taker of a social glass there are a thousand grades and modifications. Nor does it necessarily follow that the one shall degenerate into the other; very commonly he does not; but, unfortunately, he may, and not unfrequently does. Too frequently, indeed, the practice grows, especially in those who naturally lack self restraint, or cannot control their impulses, however capable in other respects. The dangers of alcoholic allurement are various in their degrees of potency in different individuals.

Not only that, but there is no little influence exercised by the immediate motives for which alcohol is taken. The future progress of the individual indulging in alcoholic excess is widely different, according to the mental attitude at the time. Thus, betwixt the man who has been taking alcohol to excess at intervals extending over many years, and the young woman who is just commencing to drink because she is unhappy, there is a wide gulf. The one, so far as the alcohol is concerned, will probably live to an advanced age; the prospects of life in the other are very poor, and the ruin will be swift and complete. In the one there are long intervals of sobriety, during which the effects of the debauch will, to a great extent, wear off; in the other the act will be repeated as often as opportunity will permit; one act of indulgence will lead to, indeed will induce another, and the oft and quickly repeated act will become a constant habit, whose effects are soon felt.