GERMANS, BRITISH, AND CHINESE 305 



508. "After the establishment of Christianity the monks, who 

 needed wine for sacramental purposes, introduced the cultivation 

 of the grape to Gaul and Germany." l Drunkenness increased 

 enormously, both amongst men and women. 2 German intemper- 

 ance became " a byword amongst the nations, as the edict of Karl 

 IV. declared." 3 The papal official at the court of Frederic III. 

 wrote to his master, " Nilhic est aliud vivere quern bibere," 4 " Living 

 here is nought but drinking." So plentiful was the wine that a 

 contemporary rhyme declares 



"In fifteen hundred and thirty-nine 

 The casks were valued at more than the wine." 



People of all classes drank the whole day long like modern 

 soakers. " Amongst the vices," said a preacher in Germany in the 

 ninth century, " feasting and drunkenness especially reign, since not 

 only the rude and vulgar people, but the nobles and powerful of 

 the land are given up to them. Both sexes and all ages have made 

 intemperance into a custom . . . and so greatly has the plague 

 spread, that it has infected some of our own order in the priest- 

 hood, so that not only do they not correct the drunkards, but 

 become drunkards themselves." 5 Charlemagne and his successors 

 vainly attempted, by means of numerous edicts and laws, to control 

 the prevailing intemperance. At the present day modern Germans 

 and Frenchmen of the vine regions are as temperate as modern 

 Greeks, Italians, and Portuguese. 



509. Great Britain has always been intemperate, and has sought 

 as long, as often, and as vainly as Germany to cure the evil by 

 laws. Though the vine was never cultivated to any considerable 

 extent, yet alcohol gradually became cheaper and more accessible 

 as the wealth and civilization of the country advanced. British 

 intemperance reached its culmination, therefore, at a later period 

 than that of Germany. However, since the eighteenth century, 

 when men got " drunk for a penny and dead drunk for two 

 pence," and had clean straw in which to sleep away the effects for 

 nothing, it has steadily diminished. At the present day, though 

 not so temperate on the average as the inhabitants of the vine 

 countries, most Englishmen are sober, notwithstanding the fact 

 that they are not abstainers. 



510. At the present time the Chinese are very temperate in the 

 use of alcohol. The teachings of Confucius and his disciple 



1 Samuelson, History of Drink, p. 104. 2 Op. cit., p. 109. 



3 Op. cit., p. 112. 4 Op. cit., p. 112. 5 Op. cit., p. 114. 



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