AS COMMISSIONER AT PARIS-1878 519 



at all, the worse for it. If he ever takes any distilled 

 liquor, he sips a very small glass of it after his dinner, 

 to aid digestion. 



It is my earnest conviction, based upon wide observa 

 tion in my own country as well as in many others during 

 about half a century, that the American theory and prac 

 tice as regards the drink question are generally more 

 pernicious than those of any other civilized nation. I 

 am not now speaking of total abstinence of. that, more, 

 presently. But the best temperance workers among us 

 that I know are the men who brew light, pure beer, and 

 the vine-growers in California who raise and sell at a very 

 low price wines pleasant and salutary, if any wines can 

 be so. 



As to those who have no self-restraint, beer and wine, 

 like many other things, promote the &quot; survival of the fit 

 test, and are, like many other things, i fool-killers, aid 

 ing to free the next generation from men of vicious pro 

 pensities and weak will. 



I repeat it, the curse of American social life, among a 

 very considerable class of our people, is &quot;perpendicular 

 drinking 7 that is, the pouring down of glass after glass 

 of distilled spirits, mostly adulterated, at all sorts of in 

 opportune times, and largely under the system of &quot;treat 

 ing. * 



The best cure for this, in my judgment, would be for 

 States to authorize and local authorities to adopt the 

 &quot;Swedish system,&quot; which I found doing excellent ser 

 vice at Gothenburg in Sweden a few years since, and 

 which I am sorry to see the fanatics there have recently 

 wrecked. Under this plan the various towns allowed a 

 company to open a certain number of clean, tidy drink- 

 ing-places ; obliged them to purchase pure liquors ; forbade 

 them, under penalties, to sell to any man who had already 

 taken too much ; made it also obligatory to sell something 

 to eat at the same time with something to drink ; and, best 

 of all, restricted the profits of these establishments to a 

 moderate percentage, seven or eight per cent., if I re- 



