Those old credulities, to nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of History?
TIME IS RIPE FOR SALOON’S SUBSTITUTE.
After Three Months’ Abstinence, San Francisco Finds That It Has Lost Its Old-Time Thirst.
San Francisco, after its terrific shake-up, dropped the liquor business temporarily. The man in control foresaw the dangers of alcohol to a homeless community.
After three months saloons were permitted to open. What was the effect? A simultaneous rush for the swinging doors? Not at all. People seemed to have got out of the way of drinking; and this was true in spite of the fact that, during the period of “enforced abstinence,” they could always get liquor from outside the city limits, if they wanted it.
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
Liquor drinking is with most people not the gratification of an appetite, but a mere habit. There is no liquor and few wines which taste good. Even the toper who takes his whisky straight washes the taste out of his mouth with water as quickly as he can.
With a comparatively few there is a real craving for liquor, or at least for its stimulating effects, but the vast majority of those who drink in saloons do so merely because in the poverty of their intellects they know no other way of manifesting good fellowship toward friends whom they meet. So the drink habit is formed, which, in some cases, degenerates into dissipation and the drunkard’s craving.