t without fear or shame? They learn it from
the aged, and unrestrained they disgracefully and wantonly injure
themselves in the very bloom of life, destroying themselves as corn is
cut down by hail and tempest. The majority of the finest, most
promising young people, particularly the nobility, they of court
circles, ruin their health, body and life, before arriving at
maturity. How can it be otherwise when they who should restrain and
punish commit the same sins themselves?

11. Hence Germany has always been a wretched country, chastised and
plagued by the drink devil, and completely immersed in this vice,
until the bodies and lives of her people, as well as their property
and honor, are shamefully consumed and only a sordid existence
remains. He who would paint the conditions must portray something
swinish. Indeed, but a small proportion of the inhabitants of Germany
are undebased by this evil. These are children, girls and women. Some
sense of propriety in the matter remains to them, though occasionally
we find even under the veil some intemperance; however, it is with
restraint. Enough modesty remains to inspire the universal sentiment
that so disgraceful a thing is it for a woman to be drunk, such a one
deserves to be trampled upon in the streets.

12. In the light of their example, let us men learn to see our own
shame and to blush for it. While noting how disgraceful is drunkenness
for women, let us remember it is much more so for ourselves. We ought
to be saner and more virtuous; for, according to Peter, the woman is
the weaker vessel. Because of the weakness of women, we ought to have
more patience with them. Man being endowed with a broader mind,
stronger faculties and firmer nature, he should be the saner being,
the farther removed from the brute. It stands to reason that it is a
much greater disgrace for him to indulge in the vice of drunkenness.
In proportion to the nobility of his creation and the exalted nature
wherewith God has endowed him, should be the disgrace of such
unreasoning, brutish conduct on his part.

13. What can be said for us? So complete is the perversion of all
manly virtue and honor in our conduct in this respect that it cannot
be surpassed by any other possible degradation of manhood. There
remains to us but an atom of good reputation, and that is to be found
among the women. The occasional instance of drunkenness among them but
emphasizes our own disgrace. All countries look upon us