g. Now I take it, this
word _grise_ contains the essence of the superiority of wine over
whiskey. It means fuddled, a condition from which one recovers more
readily, than from downright drunkenness, and of which the physical
effects are not so injurious. I believe the consequences of even total
inebriety from wine, are not as bad as those which follow inebriety from
whiskey and rum. But your real amateur here is no more content with wine
than he is with us; he drinks a white brandy that is pretty near the
pure alcohol.

The cholera has laid bare the secrets of drunkenness, all over Europe.
At first we were astonished when the disease got among the upper
classes; but, with all my experience, I confess I was astonished at
hearing it whispered of a gentleman, as I certainly did in a dozen
instances--"_mais il avait l'habitude de boire trop_." Cholera, beyond a
question, killed many a sober man, but it also laid bare the fault of
many a devotee of the bottle.

Drunkenness, almost as a matter of course, abounds in nearly all, if not
in all, the armies of Europe. It is peculiarly the soldier's and the
sailor's vice, and some queer scenes have occurred directly under my own
eyes here, which go to prove it. Take among others, the fact, that a
whole guard, not long since, got drunk in the Faubourg St. Germain, and
actually arrested people in the streets and confined them in the
guard-house. The Invalids are notorious for staggering back to their
quarters; and I presume I have seen a thousand of these worthies, first
and last, as happy as if they had all their eyes, and arms, and legs
about them. The official reports show ten thousand cases of females
arrested for drunkenness, in Paris, during the last year.--But to return
to our vineyards.

Although I am quite certain drunkenness is not prevented by the fact
that wine is within the reach of the mass, it is easy to see that its
use is less injurious, physically, than that of the stronger compounds
and distillations, to which the people of the non-vine-growing regions
have recourse as substitutes. Nature is a better brewer than man, and
the pure juice of the grape is less injurious than the mixed and fiery
beverages that are used in America. In reasonable quantities, it is not
injurious at all. Five-and-twenty years since, when I first visited
Europe, I was astonished to see wine drunk in tumblers. I did not at
first understand that half of what I had up to that time been drink