ITALIANS AND JEWS 301 



sacrifices to the gods were permitted in wine, it was declared, with 

 a view to encourage the plantation of vineyards, that all wine so 

 offered should be the produce of such vine plants as had been cut 

 and pruned." 1 The elder Pliny, Petronius, and other historians of 

 later Roman times, mention great excesses. The sobriety of the 

 modern inhabitants of the vine countries, including Jews, who until 

 lately dwelt mainly in the warmer parts of Europe, is well known. 

 For example, until lately, the Italian peasants drank at their 

 taverns, for a very trifling sum, by the hour, not by the quantity. 

 A publican who adopted such a custom among Englishmen would 

 be ruined, amongst Red Indians he would be murdered. An 

 English physician resident in Italy writes 



500. " 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. Among my 

 servants I find that water as a drink is considered bad for the 

 stomach, and is feared just as water in a bath is feared, as a peril 

 and a danger. . . . On inquiry from old residents in the country I 

 learn that, however abundant the vintage, the contadini preserve 

 always their temperate habits, drinking their fill, but never becom- 

 ing drunken. Drunkenness in the British sense is so very rare as 

 to be a matter of great interest and discussion when it occurs ; . . . 

 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 ; ... it is given to infants, children drink it regularly, and 

 babies are bathed in it, but drunkenness in the English sense does 

 not exist." 2 



501. The sobriety of modern Jews has been the subject of 

 numerous homilies. In London, for example, a drunken Jew or 

 Italian organ-grinder is practically unknown. Hebrew sobriety 

 is often attributed by the members of that community to "the 

 fact, recognized by many non-Jews, that the absence of drunken- 

 ness amongst Jews is, in the main, due to their training, from their 

 earliest childhood, in the principles of their religion, which, amongst 

 other things, inculcates temperance and moderation in all things." 

 The Jews have the reputation of being as much addicted to 



1 Morewood, History of Inebriating Liquors, p. n. 



* Dr H. Laing-Gordon, British Journal of Inebriety, Jan. 1904. 



