The Woman Drinker.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 107, 1 November 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Woman Drinker.

As the country prospers, drunkenness increases. A year of high wages and good trade is also a year of deep drinkiug. The year 1899— the latest for which we have complete statistics — was a year of great prosperity. Jt was also a year of unprecedented drunkenness. Yet to some extent this was foreshadowed by the preceding years. For during the five years from 1892 to 1896 there annually occurred 175,628 prosecutions for drunkenness. During the next tw,o years they rose to 20<5,35/ per annum. Then in 1899 they sprang up to 214,298. Now the late Sir Andrew Ulark stigmatised alcohol as "the enemy of tlie race." Applied to men — potential fathers — he regarded the increase of drink as alarming ; but applied to women — potential motneis — he deplored it as a national disaster. * That the vice of drunkenness is on the increase among women is admitted on all hands. It is admitted by tl'ie most careful and expert of medical men, as well as by thos>e whose zeal for philanthropy has procured them the necessary evidence. Unfortunately, however, police statistics are of little avail. 'I'hey do not touch those who are drunken only, but apply to those who are both drunk and disorderly and) are arrested in' the ' streets. As a rule, too, they only reier •to one class. Yet even in this class — • lrom .which practically all the women of the, middle and upper sections of society are excluded — no iess than 38 per cent, of London's drunkards- are Avomen. Of Manchester's prosecuted drunkards women form 56 per cent. But there is another test which may reach a little further, and on occasion overlap into the middle class. It is the inadequate test alforded by the registration oi the cause of death. [Since 1877 the deaths of women iroin intemperance have increased from 31 to rto per cent. Since the same year the ratio to population ot such deaths has increased lrom 25 to 51. During the period' in which the deaths of men from the same cause have increased 43 per cent., those of women have increased no less than 104 per cent. As a serious criminal, woman is not comparable to man. Of those, for exainjue, who are convicted at the assizes and quarter sessions — that is, of the graver crimes — women ouly form about 11 per cent., and that percentage is decreasing. On the other hand, as a comparatively petty offender, woman must be taken seriously. The returns of the last few years show a steadily increasing number of female offenders, and the great majority of their offences consist of drunkenness or acts committed when drunk. In the last ten years theif number has increased 19 per cent. More remarkable, however, are the figures provided by, the "incurable class" — i.e., by those wUo have been in prison more, than ten times. About 80 per cent, of their otlences consist of drunkenness or acts of violence committed when drunk. Now, while 4300 men belong to this class, there are no fewer than odUO women placed in it. Does any one doubt it? Let him listen to this, the report of a City Missionary : — "In thirty minutes I saw 74 persons enter a publichouse in my district. Of these 65 were women and nine were men." In one year Lady Henry Somerset had to refuse, on the scoie ot want of room, 3200 female applicants for her inebriate homes at Duxhurst. The chief constables of the cities and counties of England are practically unanimous >in agreeing that the increa&e is really far greater than their own statistics reveal. It is oßvious, -of course, that statistics are not available to prove the increase of drink among women of a superior class, for they drink within doors, and are carefully looked after by relatives and attendants, whose chief aim is to keep the fact unknown. In addition to this, many women drink secretly, unknown to their relatives, until they have reached a stage when shame is loa.. and the veil is flung aside. Even m the case of the very worst dipsomaniacs, they are either guarded at home by a professional nurse or incarcerated in retreats under conditions of the most rigorous privacy. Unless some untoward circumstance occurs, at no point in their career do they come within the cognisance of the police, and consequently they are entirely unrepresented in the criminal statistics. In order, then, to ascertain the prevalence of drinking among women of this class, recourse must be had to the medical and nursing professions. And here I find emphatic evidence. For, with special reference to women of good social standing, both the late Sir William Gull and Dr. Norman Keninsisted that the habit was swiftly increasing. Dr. Sullivan, one of the hignest authorities on the point, tells the same tale. Sir John Williams and Sir Lauder Brunton — whose experience of the "highest class" of women is perhaps unique — echo it. Sir Henry Thompson and Mr. Gould are emphatic on the truth of it, and so is Professor Victor Horsley. Still more emphatic, perhaps, is that memorial which stated that tne increase of drinking among ladies is an undeniable fact, and was signed by no fewer than 914 doctors.

Now, these doctors are not arguing from isolated cases, occurring occasionally, but from a large number of such cases, met with continually. How large that number in the aggregate must be, and how_weighty, in consequence, the conclusions ot the doctors, may be gathered from the single fact that Dr. Norman Kerr had at one time no fewer than 1200 private inebriate patients. Let me here give the testimony of Sir Andrew Clark, whose "fashionable" practice was the greatest of his day. Just before his death. he wrote: "The extent to which the abuse of alcoholic drinks exists in private families is very great, and the consequences are fearful. When tne vice has become a habit it is all but impossible of cure in women. The misery — the horrible misery — I have sometimes to witness is something that we could scarcely believe if it were fully related. It is continuous and terrible." And, again, he wrote to a lady: — "I am appalled at the increase of drinking among women in all classes of society. Put the evil clearly before women wherever you can, for if the present tendency is not checked I tremble to think of England and her homes." And the lady to whom he wrote adds : — "Four of my acquaintances in a most fashionable London district, all ladies under forty, and all with good husbands and happy homes, died, to my own knowledge, of delirium tremens. Of course the manner of death was not known." Of individual examples there is no end. Here are three, typical of a multitude. "One of my most intimate friends— a girl of nineteen — and belonging to a wealthy and cultured family, is actually drunk every day, and scarcely any one knows of it. She is engaged to be married, and is going out to India.' A West-end doctor found a lady, who had been an occasional patient, on the border of delirium tremens. The family said she never drank. But under the bed he found sixteen large straw-covered bottles of eau de Cologne — all empty. The third happened only the other day. A young lady went to stay with a distant relative. On arriving at the house and reaching her bedroom, she sent down for some brandy. A bottle was sent up, and an hour later she sent down for some more. Her hostess, herself young, was so frightened that she declared there was no more in the house. So the guest a beautiful and popular girl—deliberately went out and brought in a bottle. "Headache" was the excuse for not appearing" at dinner. Now, if the effects of drink could be confined to the unhappy inebriate, there •would still exist in our midst a great evil. But it cannot be and is not so confined. It spreads and infects; it is transmitted to posterity; and it directly renders not only miserable, but unsafe, the children who may be under her care. — A.8., in the Daily Mail.