The managers of philanthropic inebriate homes have a difficult task, for they must consider ways and means, and are bound to look at the financial aspect. They naturally want strong, healthy, and industrious women, for the labour of these must be an important factor. The conduct of each woman must have an important bearing on the morale of the institution; and there must be, I feel sure, the temptation to ‘license’ out the inferior and badly-behaved women, and keep for longer periods such as are decently behaved and fairly industrious. With the State these things can have no weight, for the State only can afford to disregard the conditions I have named. But the State, having the care of these women during their detention, might easily have an arrangement with philanthropic societies for the after care of their patients, and so prevent their discharge until suitable arrangements are made for their future.
CHAPTER VIII
AMONG DIPSOMANIACS
It is commonly believed, and accepted as an article of faith among temperance workers, that there is much less hope of reforming a drunken woman than of reforming a drunken man. My experience of both men and women leads me to the opinion that the chances are about equal. In both men and women physiological and pathological causes very often lie at the roots of their condition, and make it difficult—almost impossible—to deal successfully with the drink habit. Some of the best fellows I know are constantly getting into trouble, and creating terror and misery at home, not because they have any love for drink, or any uncontrollable impulse to take it, but because there is something wrong in their mental or physical organization.
I have studied these men, watched them, made friends of them, and the more hopeless I have seen my task to be, the more has my sympathy and desire to help them been enlarged. Ill-health, lowness of spirits, vacancy of mind, and often delusions, coupled with loss of memory in many variations, come upon them, and at such times they are apt to take drink, with terrible results. These men are not what they are because they drink, but the reverse: they drink because they are what they are. In a word, drunkenness is not the cause, but the result, of their condition. Doctors will not, of course, certify them to be insane; until, therefore, the State makes some provision for the half-mad, their case is hopeless, and frequent tragedies will continue; for matters are often ended by murder or suicide, and sometimes the latter course would undoubtedly give relief, and even comfort, to the suffering and distracted friends. But the dipsomaniac pure and simple, the man who at intervals of a few weeks or a few months has a passionate and overwhelming, uncontrollable desire for drink, is a strange being and a pitiful object. Cases of this kind almost fascinate me, for they are such tremendous contradictions.
Time after time in my own house I have sat in front of such men. I have seen their earnest—undoubtedly earnest—desire to be delivered from their enemy; I have listened to the poor pleas for help in their struggles; I have seen them and felt them clinging to me as if for life and hope. But I have perceived at the same time their fearful cunning and devilish resolve to frustrate any effort made for them, and to get drink at any cost. I have seen their trembling, eager joy when they have obtained drink; I have seen their shame, penitence, tears, and remorse even after they have swallowed the drink. ‘I am in hell! I am in hell! Give me a hand out! You tried to save Cakebread—save me!’ So from the depths of a ‘shelter’ wrote such a man to me. I wrote to him, telling him to come and be saved. He came, white and tremulous from his last debauch. I found him a clever man and a gentleman and most powerful in physique. He was a chartered accountant, and undoubtedly clever at his profession. He had swept streets in San Francisco; he had had delirium tremens in the Transvaal; he had driven bullocks in Mexico; but go where he would, and occupy himself as he might, the drink fiend stuck to him. Back to London, friendless, homeless, with the fiend still in possession, he came. ‘If I had the friendship of a man like you, I could conquer; I am sure I could conquer.’
I gave him that friendship, and he came to live with us. His intellect was in good order, his strength was magnificent, he seemed open and honest; so I felt hopeful. He told me that the drink craving would not come on him again for two months, or perhaps three. He lied to me, for it was on him then, and at that moment he was lusting and planning for drink. But I believed him. He took up his abode with us on a Thursday, employment was found for him, and his duties were to commence on the following Monday. On the Saturday at mid-day he went to his bedroom drunk. I went up to him, and found he had more drink with him. For this we had a struggle, but he was too strong for me. So I let him drink it, hoping he would go to sleep. But he did not; he became violent, and wanted to go out. This I was determined to prevent, so I locked the room door. Then he raved and swore, and declared he would stay no longer. ‘How dare you lock me in! What right have you to make me a prisoner?’ he indignantly asked. I told him that he had come to me for his own pleasure, but that he was going to stay for mine, and that I was not going to lose sight of him till he went to his work on Monday. So through Saturday night I stopped with him. All day on Sunday I was out in the open air with him, when he walked as if a fury were upon him. Every now and again I pulled him up, and gave him a soda-and-milk, and by degrees got him fit for a decent dinner, after which he had a dose of medicine and a cigar. When he had finished it, he came to me and took my hand, and with tears in his eyes said: ‘By God, Mr. Holmes, but you are a man!’ Yes, and next week-end (for he continued at work during the week) I had it all to do over again.
For twelve months he stayed with us, and if ever mortal man tried to help another, I was that man. Every bit of intelligence I possessed, every bit of time I could spare—in fact, the whole of my being—was pressed into his service. He liked chess, so in the evening I played with him; he liked whist, so we formed whist parties for him; he loved books, so we discussed literature together; he liked church, so he went to church with us. If I went for a day in the country, he went with me; when I went for my holidays, I took him with me; if he bordered on d.-t.’s I doctored him. When he earned money he paid us honourably; if he did not, we never asked him for payment.
We all liked the man, but one night I had an experience that made me afraid of him, and we all agreed that it was time for him to leave us. He came home very late, and he had been drinking heavily. He soon discovered that the clock was making strange faces at him, so we covered it up. As he sat with us till the early hours of the morning, he produced a large bottle of eau-de-Cologne, which he drank as if it were water. When I got him to his room, he promptly locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. I was inside, and he kept me there. For an hour he paced the room, cursing the day he was born, and the mother that bore him. After a while he stopped in front of me, and said: ‘Do you think I can help it? I tell you I can’t! If I could, I should not be a man. I stood in the street to-day and called for you. I shrieked your name. I called to the skies for help, but they were dumb. I could have gone on my knees, and with my teeth have gnawed the very stones for drink!’ There was no mistake about his meaning what he said.
Presently he stopped again, and said: ‘Mr. Holmes, I like you, but I am going to kill you.’ I felt uncomfortable, but said nothing; it was no use, I knew, for me to ask for the key. I was, however, glad to remember that there were no knives or razors in the room, for I had previously removed them. ‘Yes,’ I heard him say to himself, ‘I’ll kill Mr. Holmes and myself.’ Things began to look serious for me; it was no joke to be locked in a small room with a homicidal madman for a companion. Force I knew could not avail me; argument, I felt certain, would only exasperate him. So I had to try guile. I asked him how he meant to kill me. He was kind enough to give me my choice. I told him that I thought if my throat were cut with a razor, I should die easier, so he looked for the razors, but could not find them. I told him that I knew where to find them, and borrowed the key from him, that I might fetch them. He did not seem to suspect anything; for he gave me the key, and I was quickly outside the room after telling him to wait quietly till I returned. I locked the door from the outside and went to bed. I felt persuaded after this that he was another of my brilliant failures, so I told him he must leave us, which he accordingly did. I suppose that some day his brain will become affected or his body, strong as it is, will be stricken with paralysis, for neither iron constitutions nor strong brains can escape the Nemesis of Nature.
At the time when this man was living with me I had on hand as fine a selection of dipsomaniacs as could be wished. One by one in the years of my work I had picked them up, and from different police-court cells they had gathered round me. They were mostly educated men who had considerable abilities, and held positions of trust, and they kept me alive. Some of the employers of these men looked upon me as a ‘keeper,’ for no sooner was one of them absent from his duty than I received a wire to that effect. Not unfrequently I had to effect a capture and bring one to my house for treatment. They were a strange lot, and their outbreaks occurred at varying intervals.