Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Indian hemp, is extremely common, and the exchange from alcohol to
these narcotics can hardly be looked upon as a gain. The result of
this State instruction may be confidently looked for, and can not
possibly do harm. It is too early as yet to procure data for
discussion of the amount of good accomplished by this legislation. We
must wait until the adolescent pupil has grown to man's estate, to
middle age, until his mortal change, and search his record, and the
record of the family he leaves behind him, for the benefits of the
paternal legislation. In short, it is exceedingly doubtful if data
upon this subject, in the nineteenth century at least, will ever be
collected at all. It is noticeable, however, that in the States'
scheme of education the peripatetic temperance lecturer, with his
lurid colored charts of the human stomach in the horrors of suffering
from what he calls "the flowin' bowl," have no place, and no salary is
provided for such "university extension" processes. A suggestion
lately made in these pages that temperance lecturers as well as liquor
dealers being obliged to take out licenses (at least as caterers to
the public amusement) is conspicuous by its absence from the
educational plan.
IV. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF TRAFFIC.--The idea of a government monopoly
in liquor is from continental Europe, and, like most ideas from that
source, is paternal and monarchical pure and simple. The idea reached
perfection in what is known as the Gothenburg system, which,
attracting considerable attention from students of the liquor problem,
was introduced into the statutes of Georgia, where after a brief trial
it was discarded. The State of South Carolina, however, adopted its
principal features, calling it the "dispensary system," and is still
maintaining it.
The story of the Gothenburg system is as follows: Since the days of
Gustavus Adolphus III there had existed in Sweden and Norway a policy
making the distillation of a liquor called _bränxin_, or brandy, a
right running with the ownership of land first, afterward with a
tenancy of land, and ultimately a right secured to tavern-keepers.
This brandy being distilled from grain or potatoes, and containing
about fifty per cent of alcohol, was cheap, and in consequence of the
poor food supply grew into universal use, until not only men and women
but very young children drank it. Drunkenness became the rule, and
pauperism and crime prevailed in startling proportions, outrunning the
range of either charity or police to control them. In this state of
affairs a Dr. Wisselgren, Dean of Gothenburg, a Swedish city, arose,
and from his exertions grew the famous Gothenburg system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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