364 GRAPE CULTURE AND 



CHAPTER XVII. 



WINE AS A TEMPERANCE AGENT. 



This may seem a strange heading to our total abstinence 

 people, who see in wine only an enemy in disguise, not quite 

 so intoxicating but therefor all the more dangerous, than 

 whiskey or brandy. Yet the greater part of their aversions 

 would vanish, if they would for a moment enquire into the 

 condition, morally and physically, of the nations in Europe 

 who use wine as their daily drink, and those who use distilled 

 liquors largely. They would find sobriety, health, good tem- 

 per and merriment prevailing in those countries where wine is 

 the daily drink ; and desolation, physical ruin and wretched- 

 ness among the lower classes, where distilled liquor is about 

 the only consolation of the poor ; a wretched one indeed, I 

 grant them, but still too often resorted to, to deaden the feel- 

 ing of utter despair and desolation of the outcasts of Society. 



Then their objections arise in some degree from misconcep- 

 tion. They have learned to know as " wine " only those de- 

 leterious compounds, which are brought on the market as 

 Sweet Catawba, Angelica, Port and Sherry, often only mix- 

 tures of logwood, syrup, and alcohol, and which are about as 

 strong and far more injurious than whiskey or brandy; sweet- 

 ened so as to disguise the bad liquor they contain,' and which 

 bring an overdose of dullness, headache, and intoxication to 

 all the unfortunates who may partake of them. Let me be 

 understood, once for all, that I do not call such stuff wine, 

 and that it is as different in its effects from pure light wine, 

 with only ten per cent, of alcohol, its pleasant acidity, fine 

 flavor, and enlivening and invigorating effect on body and 

 mind, than quinine is from a fine Mocha or Imperial. I am 



