He held a
glass of wine in his hand.
"You speak with the precision of a trained pathologist," replied the
person addressed, bowing gracefully and with considerable manner as
he spoke. "I could not have said it better, Mr. Elliott."
The clergyman received the compliment with a pleased smile and bowed
his acknowledgments, then remarked:
"You think as I do about the good effects that must follow a large
product of American wines?"
Dr. Hillhouse gave a little shrug.
"Oh, then you don't agree with me?"
"Pure wine is one thing and too much of what is called American wine
quite another thing," replied the doctor. "Cheap wine for the
people, as matters now stand, is only another name for diluted
alcohol. It is better than pure whisky, maybe, though the larger
quantity that will naturally be taken must give the common dose of
that article and work about the same effect in the end."
"Then you are not in favor of giving the people cheap wines?" said
the clergyman.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders again.
"I have been twice to Europe," he replied, "and while there looked a
little into the condition of the poorer classes in wine countries. I
had been told that there was scarcely any intemperance among them,
but I did not find it so. There, as here, the use of alcohol in any
form, whether as beer, wine or whisky, produces the same result,
varied in its effect upon the individual only by the peculiarity of
temperament and national character of the people.
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