Aside from the bad quality and insufficient quantity of the food, very often the working family do not know how to give an agreeable taste to the dishes they eat; and in families where the married woman herself is employed away from home they often have to content themselves with cold viands. In these cases spirituous drinks serve to counteract the discomfort of the monotony and bulkiness of the food. Among a number of proofs which may be brought in support of what has been said above, we may cite the researches made by a Swiss inspector of factories, M. Schuler, upon the relation between alcoholism and the food of the working-classes.[189] In this investigation the following facts appear.
In the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, and Neufchâtel the condition of the people with regard to food is the best; a small consumption of potatoes and a large consumption of meat. Little brandy is drunk there, the use of alcohol being mainly limited to a large consumption of wine. The workmen in the canton of Neufchâtel, except those employed in watch-making, live in poor circumstances, eat many potatoes and also drink much brandy. [[361]]
In the cantons of Berne and Lucerne the living conditions of the working class, and especially their food, are very bad; they consume much grain and little meat, and in these districts they drink an extraordinary quantity of brandy. In Aargau there is a great difference between the condition of the industrial proletariat and that of the proletariat engaged in agriculture. The food of the former is insufficient, potatoes forming the main resource; furthermore the working day is very long, and the consumption of brandy is correspondingly great. The food of the agricultural laborers, on the other hand, is much better (a greater consumption of meat and of milk) and the consumption of brandy is much less than among the factory hands. In the canton of Zürich the conditions are much the same as those in Aargau.
All this shows clearly that it is the bad material condition of the proletariat which causes alcoholism, for everywhere that the condition of the industrial worker is raised above that of the agricultural population (as, for example, among the skilled workmen at Winterthur), the consumption of brandy is less among the factory people. Just so the material condition of the small rural proprietors in the canton of Zug is worse than that of the factory hands, and the consumption of brandy there is considerable.[190]
d. Bad housing conditions. These conditions often bring it about that the workman, returning from his work, goes to the dram-shop instead of to his home. The dwelling is ordinarily small, too small for a large family, without comfort or attractiveness, gloomy, and often cold in winter, whereas in the dram-shop there is light, warmth, and gaiety; comrades are there, and other topics of conversation than the perpetual cares of life; and, above all, for a little money there may be procured the means of forgetting for the moment the miseries of life.[191]
e. The uncertainty of existence and forced unemployment. The continual difficulties, the anguish of not knowing what the future [[362]]has in store, produce a depression which may be driven away for the moment by the consumption of alcohol. In the article by Richard Holst already cited, is found the following answer given by a workman to the question: What are the principal causes of alcoholism? “One of the principal factors is the difficulty of earning a living for one’s family, and also—and especially—care, the eternal care for the morrow, which fastens upon the life of the working-man like a bur, and which, as work becomes more rare, drives him to desperation. This is the principal cause of alcoholism. Remove this care and men will drink much less alcohol, for then the heart can open itself to joy instead of deadening itself, as is at present almost a necessity. For many persons this deadening is the only, although the fatal, means of ridding one’s self for a moment of the terrible thought, ‘What will happen if I have the misfortune to be thrown out of work, or fall sick?’ ”[192]
Unemployment leads often to alcoholism. “Idleness is the mother of all the vices”, says an old adage; but among all the vices, that which arises most directly from idleness is without doubt drunkenness. What can a man do in the long hours when he has no work? The rich man, educated, well brought up, finds the means of passing his time agreeably; but the poor man has only the dram-shop, and is drawn thither irresistibly. The first time he goes for a change from boredom; then from habit, and finally from a necessity now become instinctive to his organism, which at a given moment feels the need of something to stimulate the nerves. It is in alcoholic drinks that he finds what he lacks.[193]
f. Ignorance. The lack of other means of enjoyment. One of the lesser causes of alcoholism, but important enough to be named, is ignorance. There are a great many persons who think that the regular consumption of great quantities of alcohol is not harmful, who even believe that alcohol has nutritive value, and that consequently the consumption of it is even useful.[194]
From another point of view, however, ignorance, the lack of culture, emptiness of life, are very important causes if not the most important causes of alcoholism. The desire for pleasure is innate in every man, including the working-man, whose life is a hard one in every way. But for him there are almost insurmountable difficulties [[363]]in enjoying all that is truly beautiful, all that nature, art, and science can offer to man. This is due first, and principally, to material difficulties. In our present society one can enjoy these things only with plenty of money. The wages of the working-man are not enough for this. Often he is too tired when the day is over to take up anything which requires effort, and his abode is too small and too badly arranged for reading or any other form of distraction. However, the principal reason why the proletarian enjoys the products of civilization but little is that his intelligence is not prepared for it. His capacities have not been cultivated in this direction, for capitalism has developed in a great number of people only the capacity for manual work to the detriment of everything else. Dr. Augagneur, in his article already cited, has expressed it as follows: “The true cause of alcoholism is entirely of the intellectual and moral order; it is the insufficiency of cerebral activity, the intellectual indigence and distress, the mental unemployment.
“Every individual who, after the business of his calling is completed, is incapable of busying himself with something else, is a fruitful soil for alcoholism. How many, aside from their technical efficiency, are unfitted to think, to comprehend, to explain anything whatever. When the workman, after ten or twelve hours of mechanical work, leaves the factory, he is confused, does not know how to kill the time that must elapse before he goes to bed; he drinks.…