260 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



"What Will You Have to Drink?" 



Men must have something to drink. 

 In all the talk on temperance and pro- 

 hibition this important point seems to 

 be overlooked. I hear the reader ex- 

 claim, "Why, of course, they must, but 

 are there no water and milk and soda 

 drinks?" Yes, but the average man 

 craves something that gets a firmer 

 hold on the palate, something that has 

 a tang to it. The danger in beer and 

 whiskey is not directly in the drink 

 but in its cumulative effect. If one 

 should take a single glass of whiskey 

 or of beer and never take another, no 

 serious damage would result, but the 

 one leads to another and each lessens 

 the power of resistance. Like sliding 

 down hill it is easy to start, but some- 

 times difficult to stop. The moral is, 

 do not begin on these cumulative 

 drinks. 



Recently I had thrust upon me a 

 realization of the fact that a man may 

 be forced into a saloon. I was stop- 

 ping for a week in a small town in 

 Ohio where the water is particularly 

 bad on account of its limy hardness. 

 The town had recently voted "dry." I 

 arrived intensely thirsty on one of the 

 warmest days of summer- I went to 

 the most attractive drug store that I 

 could find and asked for a glass of 

 mineral water. None was on sale. I 

 realized, as most men do, that thirst 

 is not allayed by the "soft sweet stuff" 

 sold under the name of soda water. 

 I inquired where I might get some of 

 the bottled temperance soft drinks 

 such as ginger ale and sarsaparilla. 

 The druggist said, "You mean 'pop.' 

 You will find that at the restaurant." 

 A diner in the restaurant said, "That 

 ginger ale is not fit to drink." I agreed 

 with him heartily. My temperance 

 principles are strong, but I could 

 understand the dilemma of any man 

 with less radical principles and in my 

 situation. There was not, in that en- 

 tire town, a glass of anything fit to 

 drink. I was told that a local factory 

 had put in a cistern to catch rain 

 water, because the water of the town 

 contained so much lime that it en- 

 crusted the boilers and made them use- 

 less for steaming. No one seemed to 

 care about my personal "boiler," which 

 just then was painfully on duty under 

 high temperature and pressure- My 



favorite drink is ginger ale; it 

 quenches thirst and has a snap and 

 a tang that gratify the palate of a 

 thirsty man. 



At that moment more acutely than 

 ever I realized that it is not enough 

 only to tell men to stop drinking 

 whiskey and beer; something must be 

 substituted. 



While I was in that town a famous 

 temperance lecturer arrived. He at- 

 tracted a crowd in one of the churches. 

 He shouted for votes for prohibition 

 and I agreed with him, but not a word 

 did he say of the subject just then up- 

 permost in my mind. At the close of 

 his lecture he invited questions. 1 

 asked, "What do you advise a thirsty 

 man in this town to drink?" "Why, 

 water, of course." "Yes," I said, "but 

 the water here is undrinkable ; it is ill 

 tasted; it is injurious even to steam 

 boilers, and my stomach is not 

 stronger than an iron boiler." Then he 

 suggested "pop." "Yes," I said, "if 

 the 'pop' is fit to drink, but this town's 

 'pop' according to the standard of the 

 eastern man is undrinkable." He 

 could suggest nothing else for a 

 strong man intensely thirsty. Even 

 much of the milk sold in that town was 

 skimmed. 



Talk on temperance and prohibition 

 is right, but it should not end with pro- 

 hibition. Drink is as necessary to the 

 human system as food. The man that 

 puts on the market a harmless palat- 

 able drink does work quite as good as 

 the man that gets red in the face and 

 yells for "prohibition." 



Practice is more valuable than the- 

 ory. A commendable promoter of 

 temperance and a good friend to 

 thirsty men is the faithful, hard-work- 

 ing, genial Mr. Gray, known as "Gray 

 Brothers," New Canaan, Connecticut. 

 I have known him personally for many 

 years. He loves his work, he has put 

 his heart and soul into it and produces 

 many a high-class temperance drink. 

 He uses only the purest Artesian 

 spring water; his flavors and spices are 

 as pure. I should like to present every 

 drinker of that despicable "pop" with 

 a bottle of Mr- Gray's ginger ale. 

 That "pop" seemed to be sweetened 

 with molasses and spiced with 

 Cayenne pepper. Its taste suggested 

 such a mixture. 



