The Liquor Question. 



H5 



treated by none with affection, received by none with respect: such is 

 the ordinance of Manu." 



" Since the spirit of rice is distilled from the mala, or filthy refuse 

 of the grain, and since mala is also a name for sin, let no Brahmin 

 drink that spirit/' 



" When the divine spirit, or the light of holy knowledge, which has 

 been infused in the life of a Brahmin, has once been sprinkled with 

 any intoxicating liquor, even his priestly character leaves him, and he 

 sinks to the low degree of Sudra." 



The Greeks dealt with drunkenness in a very determined manner. 

 Archons of the court of Areopagus were made inspectors of the pub- 

 lic morals, and authorized to rigorously punish intemperance. To 

 have even dined at a public house disqualified one for a seat in that 

 renowned senate and court. For an Arch on to be intoxicated was a 

 capital offense, punished with death. Isocrates is quoted as saying of 

 this period in the history of Athens that not even a servant in the city 

 would be seen eating or drinking in a public house. 



The Spartans, according to Plutarch, made their servants drunk 

 once a year, in order that their children might see how foolish and 

 contemptible men looked in that state. Plato says that the vice of 

 intemperance was effectually rooted out of the republic of Sparta, and 

 that if any man found another in a state of intoxication, he was, 

 under the stern laws of Lycurgus, brought to punishment, and even 

 though he might plead that the feast of Bacchus ought to excuse him, 

 his defense availed him nothing. A law was enacted punishing with 

 death any man who should drink wine, unless by a physician's pre- 

 scription. The Massilians had a law that no woman should drink 

 anything stronger than water. Pittacus made a law that he who 

 when drunk committed any offense against the laws, should suffer a 

 double punishment, one for the crime itself, and the other for the 

 intoxication which prompted him to commit it; and the law was 

 applauded by Plato, "Aristotle and Plutarch, as the height of wisdom. 



The evils of intemperance which pervaded ancient Rome necessi- 

 tated the enactment of stringent laws by those in authority. Pliny is 

 authority for the statement that women in Rome were forbidden to 

 drink wine in the year 650 B. C, and that the penalty for disobedi- 

 ence was death, the same as the penalty for adultery; and the reason 

 given was that wine was a certain incitement to lewdness. It was the 

 usage for women to salute all their male relatives with a kiss, in order 

 that it might be ascertained if they had been indulging in intoxicants. 

 The Roman censor had general supervision of the morals of the 



