Temperance

TEMPERANCE. The word "temperance," which strictly means moderation, has acquired a particular meaning in connec tion with intoxicating liquor, and it is here used in that sense.

Historical.

Ever since man in some distant age first discov ered that process of fermentation by which sugar is converted into alcohol and carbonic acid, and experienced the intoxicating effects of the liquor so produced, there has been, in a sense, a temperance question. The records of the ancient oriental civilizations contain many references to it, and from very remote times efforts were made by priests, sages or law-givers in India, Persia, China, Pales tine, Egypt, Greece and Carthage to combat the vice of drunken ness. But the evil appears never to have been so great or the ob ject of so much attention in the ancient world as in Western countries and our own era. Two circumstances mainly differenti ate the modern problem ; one is the use of distilled waters or spirits as a beverage, and the other the climatic conditions pre vailing in the more northern latitudes which are the home of Western civilization. The intoxicating drinks used by the ancients were wines obtained from grapes or other fruits, and beers from various kinds of grairi. These products were not confined to the East, but were known to the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Peru and even to primitive peoples who used the sugar-containing juices and other substances indigenous in their country. In the time of the Romans the barbarians in the north of Europe used fermented liquors made from honey (mead), barley (beer) and apples (cider) in place of grape-wine. All such drinks produce intoxication if taken in sufficient quantity; but their action is much slower and less violent than that of distilled spirits.

Distillation of essences from various substances seems to have been known to the ancients and to have been carried on by the Arabians in the dark ages; but potable spirits were not known until the 13th century. The distilled essence of wine or aqua vitae (brandy) is mentioned then as a new discovery by Arnoldus de Villa Nova, a chemist and physician, who regarded it, from the chemical or medical point of view, as a Divine product. It prob

ably came into use very gradually, but once the art of distillation had been mastered it was extended to other alcoholic substances in countries where wine was not grown. Malt, from which beer had been made from time immemorial, was naturally used for the pur pose, and then gin or Geneva spirits and whisky or usquebagh (Irish for "water of life") were added to grape brandy; then came corn brandy in the north and east of Europe, rum from sugar canes in the Indies, potato spirit, and eventually, as the process was perfected, rectified ethyl alcohol from almost any thing containing sugar or starch.

The concentrated form of alcohol, thus evolved, for a long time carried with it the prestige of a Divine essence given to it in the middle ages when chemistry was allied to all sorts of superstitions. It had potent properties and was held to possess great virtue. This view is embodied in the name "water of life," and was at one time universally held; traces of it still linger among the very ignorant. Ardent spirit seemed particularly desirable to the habi tants of the cold and damp regions of northern Europe, where the people took to it with avidity and imbibed it without restraint when it became cheap and accessible. That happened in Englan in the early part of the 18th century (see LIQUOR LAWS) ; and out of the frightful results which followed there eventually arose the modern temperance movement. The legislature had been busy with the liquor traffic for more than two centuries previously, but its task had been the repression of disorder ; the thing was a nui sance and had to be checked in the interests of public order. It is significant that though drunkenness had been prevalent from the earliest times, the disorder which forced legislative control did not make its appearance until after the introduction of spirits.