766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



disregard the warnings of bis instinct. The economical housekeeper 

 probably thought it a shame that bis (giving poor Eve the benefit of 

 tbe doubt) servants should grumble about a slight difference in tbe 

 taste of the must, and the servants had to submit, had to drink the 

 " spoiled stuff " again and again, till habit more than neutralized their 

 disgust, for they found that tbe sickness induced by the effects of the 

 putrefaction-poison (alcobol) could be cured by a repetition of the dose. 

 Tbey began to hanker after fermented must, and, by drinking it in 

 larger quantities, induced a delirium which they described as anything 

 but unpleasant ; and their master, after repeated experiments, probably 

 arrived at the same conclusion, namely, that must could be improved 

 by fermentation. The next year they gathered grapes for tbe delib- 

 erate purpose of manufacturing an intoxicating drink, and the fatal 

 precedent was established. Nature exacted the just penalties : the 

 votaries of the poison-god were stricken with physical and mental 

 nausea weariness, headaches, fits of spleen and hypochondria but 

 still tbey found that all these symptoms could be temporarily relieved 

 by a draught of fermented must ; and the neighbors were astonished 

 to learn that the servants of Goodman Noah had discovered a panacea 

 for all earthly afflictions. They, too, then tried the receipt with in- 

 different success at first, but the experience of the habitues encouraged 

 them to persist, till the manufacture of wine became an extensive 

 business. 



The first traffickers in stimulants (like our lager-beer philanthro- 

 pists) had a personal interest in disseminating the habit, but, whatever 

 may have been the birth-land of the alcohol-vice, its first growth was 

 probably slow, compared with the rate of increase after its exportation 

 across the frontier. The history of tobacco, tea, coffee (and opium, I 

 fear), has repeatedly illustrated the influence of imitativeness in pro- 

 moting the introduction of foreign vices. The rarity and novelty of 

 outlandish articles generally disposes the vulgar to value them as luxu- 

 ries, especially while a high price precludes their general use. Foreign 

 merchants and a few wealthy natives set the fashion, and soon the lower 

 classes vie in emulating their betters, the young in aping their elders. 

 In England, James I tried his utmost to suppress the use of smoking- 

 tobacco, but, after his young cavaliers had become addicted to the habit, 

 no penalties could prevent the London apprentices from imitating them. 

 "In large cities," says Dr. Schrodt, "one may see gamins under ten 

 years grubbing in rubbish-heaps for cigar-stumps, soon after leaning 

 against a board-fence, groaning and shuddering as they pay the re- 

 peated penalty of Nature, but, all the same, resuming the experiment 

 with the resignation of a martyr. The rich, the fashionable, do it ; 

 those whom they envy smoke : smoking, they conclude, must be some- 

 thing enviable." 



Similar arguments, doubtless, aided the introduction of the alco- 

 hol-habit, and, after the vice had once taken root, its epidemic develop- 



