The Apparently Temperate Habits In The United States Form Another Very
Pleasing Feature To Dwell Upon.
It is to be feared that there is a
considerable amount of drunkenness among the English, Irish, and Germans,
who form a large portion of the American population; but the temperate,
tea-drinking, water-drinking habits of the native Americans are most
remarkable.
In fact, I only saw one intoxicated person in the States, and
he was a Scotch fiddler. At the hotels, even when sitting down to dinner
in a room with four hundred persons, I never on any occasion saw more than
two bottles of wine on the table, and I know from experience that in many
private dwelling-houses there is no fermented liquor at all. In the West,
more especially at the rude hotels where I stopped, I never saw wine,
beer, or spirits upon the table; and the spectacle gratified me
exceedingly, of seeing fierce-looking, armed, and bearded men, drinking
frequently in the day of that cup "which cheers, but not inebriates."
Water is a beverage which I never enjoyed in purity and perfection before
I visited America. It is provided in abundance in the cars, the hotels,
the waiting-rooms, the steamers, and even the stores, in crystal jugs or
stone filters, and it is always iced. This may be either the result or the
cause of the temperance of the people.
Ancient history tells us of a people who used to intoxicate their slaves,
and, while they were in that condition, display them to their sons, to
disgust them early with the degrading vice of drunkenness.
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