LEGAL PREVENTIVES OF ALCOHOLISM. 391 



is not as oppressive as in tlie North, thougli the air is as balmy as 

 that of Italy. History does not show that a softer air and sky 

 are less favorable to intellectual growth in any line than a more 

 harsh and uncongenial clime. Italy is not only the land of 

 Michael Angelo, of Raphael, and of Titian, but of Volta, Galvani, 

 Torricelli, and Galileo as well, and the atmosphere that excites 

 the imagination is as favorable to inventive genius, as applied to 

 natural science or mechanics, as to painting, sculpture, or music. 

 Of the Southern States we may say that no section of the Union 

 gives promise of greater achievement ; indeed, none is so rich in 

 what the future has in store. 



LEGAL PREVENTIVES OF ALCOHOLISM.* 



By M. J. BEEGEKON. 



WE have met to study together the means of combating alco- 

 holism, to which we can not refuse the well-merited title 

 of the scourge of the nineteenth century, for it has produced and 

 is still producing more victims than the plague and the cholera 

 combined. We all know that it is what multiplies assassinations 

 and suicides, populates insane asylums, crowds hospitals, and 

 contributes to the sterilization of the race. We are not here to 

 repeat what has been said over and over again till it has become 

 tedious, since the days of Magnus Hus, or to indulge in sterile 

 lamentations over the ravages of alcoholism, but to seek a remedy 

 for the terrible evil. 



I do not bring you this remedy, but come to ask for it ; for I 

 hope that this congress more fortunate than its predecessors 

 may be able, if not to shape the details of a law or of measures 

 applicable to all civilized states, at least to point out, in a more 

 precise fashion than has hitherto been done, a way to reach most 

 promptly and surely the end we are all aiming for. We ought 

 then, first, to inquire into what has already been attempted in 

 some of the states of Europe : and I shall begin with the country 

 I know the best, France, which has not, more than the northern 

 states, escaped the invasion of alcoholism. It is of recent origin 

 there, it is true, but its progress has been frightfully rapid ; yet it 

 was not till after the delirium and crime of the Commune, during 

 which it played a terrible part, that our thoughts became fixed 

 on the study of the means of arresting the spread of the scourge. 



It was toward the end of 1871 that M. Theophile Roussel pre- 



* A paper read at the Fourth International Congress against the Abuse of Alcoholic 

 Drinks, held at The Hague in August, 1893. 



