TEETOTALLERS AND TOPERS.
It is not a little curious, and perhaps not a little amusing in its way, to mark the feelings with which these two very different classes contemplate each other. The introduction of teetotallism was a thing for which the toper was wholly unprepared. It was a thing of which, a priori, he could have formed no conception—a thing of which he never dreamt. It therefore took him quite by surprise; and when it came, his opinion of it was, and to this good hour is, that it is one of the most absurd and monstrous ideas that ever entered into the human head.
That a class of men should arise who would forswear the use of those exhilarating stimulants in which he himself so much delighted—that there should ever appear on the face of the earth such an ass as the man who would refuse a glass of generous liquor when offered him, is to him a thing surpassing belief; and in fact he does not, or rather will not, believe in it. He insists upon it that it is all humbug, and that its professors, the professors of teetotallism, may say what they please, but that they can and do take their drink as freely as he does; the only real difference being, that they take theirs secretly. No evidence whatever will convince him that it is otherwise, or at least will induce him to admit that it is so. He is, in short, determined not to believe in so monstrous a doctrine. But should conviction at any time be too strong for him, he then falls back on the consolatory belief that it cannot long prevail—that it will not, can not stand. An association whose rules should enjoin every member always to walk backwards instead of forwards, or which should enjoin any other equally ridiculous absurdity, might live and prosper; but teetotallism, the abstaining from the dear potations—no, no, that cannot stand any time—ridiculous, impossible—not in the nature of things.
As might be expected, the toper entertains a most cordial hatred of the teetotaller; he abhors him, and detests his principles—he in fact cannot hear him spoken of with any degree of patience. Oh, what a triumph to him when he catches a teetotaller tripping! With what delight he treasures up anecdotes of backsliding on the part of the professors of abstinence! And of such anecdotes he has a large store; for he is constantly on the look-out for them, and is not very particular on the score of authenticity. With what glee he relates these anecdotes to his club! and with what glee his club listens to the edifying and refreshing relation! They will chuckle over a story of this kind for a month. Nor, in the matter of anecdote, is the teetotaller a whit behind his unregenerated brother. The two parties, in fact, carry on a war of anecdote against each other—the teetotaller’s being stories of ruin and misery resulting from dissipation—the toper’s, facetious little tales of hypocrisy and backsliding. Both collect their anecdotes with great industry, and propagate them with great zeal and diligence.
The toper’s attitude, as regards the teetotaller, is of course a hostile one. But it is not a bold one. There is nothing of defiance in it, although he sometimes affects it. For although he hates the teetotaller, he also stands in awe of him; being oppressed with an awkward consciousness that the latter has the right side of the argument, and the weight of general opinion is on his side—that, in short, the teetotaller is right and he is wrong.
This consciousness gives to his hostility a sneaking and timid character, and induces him to confine himself in the matter of retaliation to the facetious joke and sly insinuation. On more open warfare he dare not venture. The teetotaller is thus the assailing party: he takes and keeps the field manfully, and with bold front and loud voice dares the toper to the combat. The latter, in conscious weakness, shrinks at the sound, as do the small animals of the forest when they hear the roar of the lion; and getting out of his way as fast as he can, retires to his fastnesses, the drinking-shops, and hedges himself round with bottles and quart-pots.
The toper always carefully eschews any thing like direct and open personal contact with the enemy, in the shape of discussions on the merits of the question of abstinence. There is, in fact, nothing he so much abominates as any attempt at reasoning on the subject, where such reasoning has for its object to show the advantages of temperance or intemperance. The toper thus at all times prefers keeping out of the teetotaller’s way, and, although professing the most entire disregard of him, will at any time go a mile about to avoid him. He has an instinctive dislike of him, and this because he is a living personified reflection on himself.
Turning now to the teetotaller, we find two or three things in his conduct, too, with reference to the toper, that are rather curious in their way. In the first place, it is curious to mark the deep interest he takes in what may be called the tippling statistics of his neighbourhood; and the amount of knowledge which he contrives to acquire on this subject is really amazing. He knows all the topers in his vicinity, and keeps a sharp eye on their proceedings. He knows every one of their haunts too—knows the different degrees of dissipation to which each has attained, and could almost tell on any given day what quantity each drank on the preceding night. In short, so vigilantly does he watch all the outgoings and incomings of these marked men, and yet without seeming to notice them, that they can hardly swallow a single cropper without his knowing it. The whole thing, in fact, is a sort of private study of his own, and one to which he devotes a great deal of quiet observation and secret reflection: he takes a deep interest in it, and hence the proficiency he makes out in the knowledge of its details.
But our teetotaller not only knows all the professed, undisguised topers of his locality; he knows—much more striking proof of his vigilance—every man also whose habits, although not yet sufficiently intemperate to attract the attention of any one but a teetotaller, exhibit signs and symptoms of becoming gradually worse. The tippling progress of these persons he watches with the deepest interest, and keeps himself accurately informed regarding the extent and frequency of their debauches. The teetotaller, in short, keeps a vigilant eye over the entire drinking system of his neighbourhood, and professes an astonishing knowledge of what every one is doing in this way. If the teetotaller’s residence be in a small town, his surveillance then embraces its whole extent, and hardly can a single bumper be swallowed within its limits, of which he does not, somehow or other, obtain notice.
Abhorring dissipation itself, the teetotaller naturally extends that abhorrence to its signs and symptoms. On flushed and pimpled faces he looks with aversion and distrust, but on a red nose with absolute horror. We once saw a curious instance of this:—A gentleman with a highly illumed proboscis one evening entered a teetotal coffee-room in which we happened to be seated. The nose—for we sink the gentleman, its owner, altogether, as an unnecessary incumbrance—passed, although with deliberate movement, like a fiery meteor, up the entire length of the room, exciting in its progress the utmost horror and dismay amongst the teetotallers with whom the apartment was thronged. The sensation, in fact, created by the red nose was immense, although not noisy in its expression.
It was indicated merely by an extensive and earnest whispering, by a shuffling of feet, and a general fidgetty sort of movement, giving, though in an unobtrusive form, a very vivid idea of the presence of some exceedingly disagreeable object. The whole room, in short, was shocked by the red nose, although they refrained from expressing that feeling by any more marked demonstration than those we have mentioned. The red nose seemed for some time unconscious of the effects it was producing, but the detection of a number of horror-stricken faces peering eagerly over the edges and round the corners of boxes, to get a glimpse of the detestable object, betrayed the real state of the case. The red nose, however, evinced no emotion on making the discovery, but passed quietly into an unoccupied box, took up a paper, and ordered a glass of lemonade. The landlord looked queer at the nose as he tabled the order, but of course said nothing.
Now, we thought at the time, how different would have been the reception of the gentleman with the red nose by a club of topers! In such case, his nose, in place of being looked on with horror, would have been viewed with respect. It would have been a passport to the highest favour of the jolly fraternity, and would have at once admitted its owner to their confidence and good-fellowship. We do not know, indeed, that its entrance would not have been hailed by a shout of acclamation; for, viewed as one of the chief insignia of a boon companion, it was truly a splendid nose.
C.