FRENCH DRINKING HABITS,.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 885, 21 February 1907, Page 21

FRENCH DRINKING HABITS,.

Visitors to French towns must have noticed a striking difference in the way that Frenchmen enjoy social drinking from the practice in England and America, where most people indulging in a lew drinks wish to be closed from public view, and where opaque glass and screens are used to keep the drinkers f rom being seen. In France, and on the continent of Europe generally, most of the drinking is done outside, in from of the cafes and hotels.

Another strange thing that old travellers notice is the increase of beer drinking where light wines were formerly the favourite tipple. The consumption of beer in France has increased by more than 40 per cent, during the past five years, and reached during the past year the imposing tota. of 12,000,000 hectoliters, or 317,040,000 gallons.

The result can b >-diy surprise any one who has noted in .ris and other large cities of France th pid development of the “brasserie,” ... .cafe restaurant, w'here beer .is sold. Much of this beer is imported (or purports to be so) from Pilysen and Munich, though most of the leading breweries in other German cities have Paris agencies and distribute their beer to retailers. This entails high prices to consumers, as there is an import, duty of from 1.73 dollars to 2.31 dollars per 100 kilograms (220 pounds), weight of cask included on ah foreign-brewed beer brought into the country, and under the stimulus of this protection the brewing industry of France has developed both in respect to quantity and quality of its product. It does not appear that the increased use of beer has diminished in the slightest degree the consumption of swine and cider, and the one encouraging feature of the situation is found in the fact that the consumption of alcohol, especially in the perilous form of absinthe, is slowly but steadily decreasing. The statistics of

1904 show that during that year 177,439 hectoliters (4,687,938 gallons) of absinthe were sold for drinking purposes in France, 1 whereas 1905 showed a fallingoff to 172,503 hectoliters (4,557,529 gallons), or 28 per cent. This is not a sweeping or conclusive reform, as the absinthe habit is still one of the gravest perils that threaten the manhood of France; but the statistics show that the maximum danger point has been passed, and the decline of even so small a percentage in absinthe consumption is accepted as ground for encouragement and hope.