NARCOTICS 201 



trates very vividly the difference between British and Italian 

 drinking : 



337. "I see here in Italy a nation whose ancestors are 

 known by every school-boy to have been an awful example 

 of intemperance, living amidst abundance of wine a life of 

 sobriety. When I return to my own country I find myself 

 among a people surpassed by none in the virtue of self- 

 control, but whose alcoholic habits are notorious all the 

 world over. 



338. " I have met time after time Italians who confess 

 without shame that they have never drunk anything but 

 wine ; they are never drunken. Drunkenness upon Italian 

 wine I have seen, but only amongst my fellow-countrymen 

 and women. Amongst my own servants I find that water 

 as a drink is considered bad for the stomach, and is feared 

 just as water as a bath is feared as a peril and a danger. A 

 male servant, whom I have never detected under the influence 

 of alcohol, drinks a flask of Chianti (containing 10 per cent, 

 of alcohol) daily, and each female servant drinks about half 

 a flask (the flask contains about two and a half English 

 bottles). This is the custom of Tuscany, and on inquiry 

 from old residents in the country districts I learn that how- 

 ever abundant the vintage the contadini preserve always 

 their temperate habits, drinking their fill, but never becoming 

 drunken. Drunkenness in the British sense is so rare as 

 to be a matter of great interest and discussion when it 

 occurs. 



339. " It is surely likely that in a country where every 

 peasant has access to as much wine as he likes, there would 

 be much drunkenness if self-control were the only restraining 

 influence. The peasants (contadini) receive a half of every 

 product of the farm, including the wine ; they have it always 

 beside them, and can drink how and when they please. 

 Now-a-days wine is grown especially for export and for con- 

 sumption in the rapidly growing towns ; but even thirty 

 years ago, when the export trade was practically nil, and 

 there was a great excess of production over consumption, 

 there was no drunkenness. In those days, I am told, wine 

 was given to horses, and whole barrels would be poured out 

 in the road to make way for the new vintage, when the price 

 was only a few coppers per flask. Even now, when the price 

 is about one frank a flask, and much is said to find its way 

 to Bordeaux to be re-labelled as cheap French wine, there is 

 ample wine in the country to permit drunkenness in presence 

 of the desire. But no ; it is given to infants, children drink 



