Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1879 — Intoxication Among French Children. [ARTICLE]

Intoxication Among French Children.

Sylvanus Urban, in the Gentleman's Magazine , says: “1 shall, I doubt not, startle not a few of my readers when I state that during a recent visit to France I have frequently seen French children intoxicated. Strange as such an assertion may seem, I deliberately make it and stand by it. Again and again at tables d* hole I have seen children scarcely more than babies suffering distinctly from alcohol. It is, as travelers in France know, the custom in all districts south of the Loire to supply wine gratis at two meals, breakfast and dinner, at which the residents in an hotel eat in company. Repeatedly, then, in the hotels in French watering places I have watched children of five years old and upward supplied by their mothers with wine enough visibly to flush and excite them. At Sables d’OlonDe one little fellow, whose age could not be more than six, drank at each of two consecutive meals three tumblers of wine slightly diluted with water. The result was on each occasion that he commenced to kiss his mother, proceeded to kiss the person on the other side of him,.continued by sprawling over the table, and ended by putting his head in his mother’s lap and falling asleep. It never seems to enter into the mind of a Frenchwoman that water may be drunk at a meal. When long journeys by rail are taken there is always in the neat basket in which the French mother carries provisions a bottle of wine, or wine and water, out of which those of her children who have passed the stage of absolute infancy are allowed to drink. I can indeed say with truth that in the course of a pretty long series of observation of the French, chiefly made, I admit, in public vehicles and hotels, I have rarely & ever seen a flass of cold water, unqualified with ny admixture, quaffed by a native. It is now the faslvion to mistrust water even when blended with wine, for which purpose the various springs of the Eau St. Galmier are largely employed.”

—A neat little charcoal -sketch appears in the columns of a St. Louis journal. As a justice of the peace was sitting in his office and biting off the end of the second cigar, a man covered with charcoal grime tumbled over the chair nearest the door and asked how much it would cost to be married. The price was too high. The poor but honest bridegroom said that he lived in Jefferson County, that he and his intended had oome to the city peddling charcoal, and wanted to get back as man and wife. A barrel of charcoal was still on hand, and this was offered as the marriage fee. The kind-hearted justice concluded that it would be a good thing to make them man and wife, and the barrel of charcoal was dumped into the cellar, according to agreement;