3i8 THE EVOLUTION AGAINST NARCOTICS 



appetite, headache, thirst, 'hot coppers,' nervousness, delirium 

 tremens, and the rest, is under any such delusion. 



536. It is true, of course, that, if a soaker of the lower classes 

 be questioned, he may lie, and, like sots of a higher social standing, 

 may excuse himself by declaring that he takes alcohol for his 

 health's sake, or his work's sake, or his stomach's sake ; but the 

 last to believe him will be his own mates, who perceive in 

 him the consequences of heavy drinking. To ascertain his real 

 sentiments it is only necessary to ask his opinion of some other 

 soaker of one who drinks to the same excess as himself. Indeed, 

 when sick, sorry, and repentant, he will admit his fault, and swear 

 an amendment, which, as a rule, temptation subsequently annuls. 

 He knows, of course, that " a hair of the dog that bit him " will 

 temporarily mitigate the unpleasant feelings aroused by previous 

 drinking ; but he knows also that the only permanent cure for 

 his miseries is abstinence or moderation. In many cases, lack of 

 money will afford experience of the advantages of sobriety. 

 That his virtuous assumption of drinking for his work's sake is 

 a pure fiction is proved by the fact that, when he has lost his job 

 and is idle, he drinks, if he can, as much as or more than ever. 

 Moreover, for thousands of years laws against excessive drinking 

 have been common, and denunciation of it an everyday affair. 

 Almost every pulpit, schoolroom, and reputable newspaper conducts 

 a campaign against it. The temperance question is, and has long 

 been a burning one with the public. Our workmen have a collo- 

 quialism, " drinking himself to death," which is commonly applied 

 to chronic soakers. Slums, workhouses, prisons, and asylums are 

 full of the victims of alcoholism. Whenever possible, employers 

 insist on sobriety. In every workshop and factory the men who 

 abstain, at any rate during working-hours, are known to achieve 

 better results and greater prosperity than their fuddled comrades. 



537. In spite of all this by way of proving that there is no 

 such thing as alcoholic selection we are now assured that the 

 British workman who imbibes to excess, drinks, not because he 

 enjoys drinking, but merely as an aid to labour. "This is the 

 fundamental factor." 1 It is supposed that he is poisoned day by 

 day and ultimately perishes, not because he is tempted by pleasure, 

 but on the altar of duty; whence it follows, that the people 

 eliminated by alcohol are not those who are especially tempted by 

 it. The fact that every race is temperate precisely in proportion 

 to the length and severity of its past experience of drink is quietly 



1 Alcoholism, by W. C. Sullivan, M.D., pp. 115 ; see also pp. 61, 114, 116. 



