Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1911 — WOMEN AS TIPPLERS [ARTICLE]

WOMEN AS TIPPLERS

British Reformers Present Some Startling Facts. Moat Remarkable Development of All if Way In Which Those From Middle Class Patronize the -> Public Houses. London.—Once more the ultra temperance folk of England are “appalled by the growth of the drinking habit among society women,” and as if this were not bad enough the Band of Hope conference at Swansea is fairly aghast at the increase of tippling among women of the middle classes Samuel Manger, one time postmaster general of Australia, while deploring the fact that the society woman drinks, says that as a rule she is careful—not from any particular morality, but as a matter of expediency and to preserve her looks —and that, moreover, she usually confines herself to choice wines and liquors. It is the middle class woman who has become the “dram drinker.’’ Quoting the vicar of a select residential London suburb, Mr. Manger declares the reverend gentleman said: “If only you could see into the draw-ing-rooms of my well-to-do parishioners you would find in 75 per cent, of them women, tn many cases young girls, sitting round playing bridge, smoking and drinking whisky and soda. "Go into any restaurant patronized by the middle classes," said Mr. Manger, “and you will see well-dressed women and even young girls drinking spirits, not only at dinner, but at luncheop.” As if this were not sufficiently shocking, the announcement is made that "the most remarkable development of all is the'way in which mid-dle-class women patronize public houses." In London we are told the womankind of even professional and business men make free use of the "pubs,” while thirty years ago the upper middle class woman rarely touched wines, and spirits not at all. and would have been ashamed of herself if seen in a public house. According to the reformers,, this remarkable change in the customs and tastes of the middle class women is the outgrowth of the practice of dining at restaurants. Society set the fashion of restaurant meals and the middle class women followed their example, finding In whisky and soda at the. “pub” a convenient medium between the expense of wine and the plebeanlsm of beer.

The hotel smoking lounge, too, we are told, has made dram drinkers of many women. Formerly, according to the temperance folk, if a man staying at a hotel wanted to smoke he went to the smoking room, but now he joins the ladles in the lounge and if he feels inclined to have a drink be -naturally asks his fair companions to join him, and the modern woman makes no b.ones about asking for a "peg” or a “whisky and.” After declaring that drunkenness in a woman is much harder to cure than in a man. Mr. Manger announces that of 3,031 persons admitted to inebriate reformatories during the last few years no fewer than 2,548 were women.