RACIAL DIFFERENCES 119 



the abstainer from moral motives of enjoying 

 alcohol. 



The better classes of England have greater 

 opportunities for indulgence in alcohol than the 

 lower, and the penalties they incur are smaller. 

 To a man with a thousand a year the cost of 

 habitual drunkenness is as nothing ; to a man 

 with fifty pounds a year it is ruin. Both suffer 

 in health and reputation, but the latter, in addition, 

 reduces himself and his family to destitution. 

 Nevertheless the poor, when they have the oppor- 

 tunity, are generally much less temperate than the 

 rich. It is argued sometimes that the rich have 

 loftier ideals and greater opportunities for 

 "rational" enjoyment. But, again, loftier ideals 

 and rational enjoyments cannot change sensations. 

 If a man, however educated, have the "alcohol 

 diathesis," he still finds pleasure in deep indulgence. 

 I have not heard that the better classes seek 

 pleasure less eagerly than the lower, or that Jews 

 and Italians seek it less eagerly than the English 

 or Scotch. The better classes are not all " in- 

 tellectuals " ; we hear something of "men of 

 pleasure." Even " intellectuals " have been known 

 to be intemperate, and men of pleasure are often 

 temperate. We cannot, by giving a man sugar, 

 satisfy his desire for salt, nor abolish a longing 

 for water with food. Similarly, we cannot sub- 



