were jimmy-johns in the cellar; and down at the place on the corner twenty
standard varieties of bottled Bourbons and ryes were to be had at an
exceedingly moderate price. Bar-rail instep, which is a fallen arch
reversed, was a common complaint among us.

Even elderly ladies who looked with abhorrence upon the drinking habit
were not denied their wee bit nippy. They got it, never knowing that they
got it. Some of them stayed pleasantly corned year in and year out and
supposed all the time they merely were enjoying good health. For them
stimulating tonics containing not in excess of sixty per cent of pure
grain alcohol were provided by pious patent-medicine manufacturers in
Chattanooga and Atlanta and Louisville--earnest-minded, philanthropic
patriots these were, who strongly advocated the closing-up of the Rum
Hole, which was their commonest pet name for the corner saloon, but who
viewed with a natural repugnance those provisions of the Pure Food Act
requiring printed confession as to fluid contents upon the labels of their
own goods. It was no uncommon thing in the Sunny Southland to observe a
staunch churchgoer who was an outspoken advocate of temperance rising up
and giving three rousing hiccups for good old Dr. Bunkum's Nerve Balm. And
distinctly I recall the occasion when a stalwart mother in Israel,
starting off to attend a wedding and feeling the need of a little special
toning-up beforehand, took three wineglassfuls of her favorite Blood
Purifier instead of the customary one which she took before a meal; and,
as a consequence, on her arrival at the scene of festivities was with
difficulty dissuaded from snatching down the Southern smilax and other
decorations that she might twine with them a wreath to crown herself. She
somehow had got the idea that she was the queen emeritus of the May. It
was reported about town afterward that she tried to do the giant swing on
the parlor chandelier. But this was a gross exaggeration; she only tried
to hang by her legs from it.

Reared, as I was, amid such surroundings and in a commonwealth abounding
in distilleries, rectifying works, blending establishments, bottle-houses,
barrel-houses, and saloons, I should have been a hopeless inebriate long
before I came of age. The literature of any total abstinence society
would prove conclusively that I never had a chance to avoid filling a
drunkard's grave. Yet somehow I escaped the fate ordained for me. As I
say, I drank sparingly