Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/395

Rh It is not in women alone that the hopeless nature of drinking habits in certain susceptible organisms is manifested; it is equally seen in men where the nervous system lacks stability.

The deceptiveness, the utter untrustworthiness, the subtle craft, the falsehood, which women of culture even will develop under the influence of alcoholic cravings, have shocked many persons. The habitual drunkard, however produced, always exhibits these characteristic signs of moral degradation. The deterioration of character produced by protracted drunkenness is notorious. While the intellect becomes enfeebled by excess, the moral character becomes profoundly modified; the forces which ordinarily restrain others are in abeyance—perhaps too often their influence has gone forever; the indifference toward the interests of others progresses alongside a waxing selfishness, a complete absorption in self. So long as they can procure what they themselves crave for, confirmed drunkards are indifferent as to how others may suffer for, or be injured by, their selfishness. The ordinary feelings of parent or husband are too often overruled by the consuming passion; the wonted consideration for those who used to be dear to them has given way to an inordinate egotism. Not uncommonly, indeed, there is developed a vein of devilish mischievousness which delights in injuring those whom they ought to protect—a sort of malice, closely resembling the viciousness of certain animals. Of course, all drunkards are not exactly alike; the ruin still preserves the general outline of the primitive structure.

These statements may seem to some to be unnecessary as being already too well known, and too notorious to need any reference to them. But it is just because they are so well known and so indisputable that they are adduced here. Having thus laid firmly down the well-marked consequences of persistent alcoholic excess, it is possible to proceed to consider the less pronounced conditions, and to trace the course of the downward progress. It is evident that there must be many intermediate stages betwixt the commencement and the end of such a course—that some of the deteriorating effects of alcohol must be experienced long before the final stage is reached.

It may be well to speak in general terms of the indication of this direction, of this retrograding and degenerative process. The best subjects for the study of the social effects of alcoholic excess are furnished by the humbler classes: firstly, because the effects are more palpable among them with their limited resources, where excess in one direction means deprivation in another; and, secondly, because they present fewer complications, fewer elements of error to be encountered, than is the case in the more complex condition of affluence. It must not, however, for one moment be assumed that the evil consequences of alcoholic excess are confined to the humbler classes. No position in life will secure the individual against the unpleasant consequences of such self-indulgence, or prevent his reaping as he has sown.