There have been other names; less genteel, derived more directly from the Saxon, but still--other names. Police records describe the state as that of "intoxication." The Innocent bystander is content to analyze it as merely "drunk". And the young collegiate, ever ready to increase his vocabulary, has a host of terms in stock, from the concise "tight" to the quaintness of "potted". But it has remained for the W. C. T. U. or its New England branch, to define the condition with due branch, to define the condition with due respect to the recent amendment. If or when one indulges in such activity one is "suffering from alcoholic poisoning." One does not drink "liquor", for there is not real liquor any longer, a statement that will be heartily seconded by others besides members of the W. C. T. U. one may, however, and some do, drink "poison."
"To suffer from alcoholic poisoning"--like "to be hanged by the neck until dead", the phrase has an ominous connotation. The sufferer may be blissfully unconscious of his pain. He may shout joyfully--he may even sing; but these external manifestations of an inward laceration mean nothing. No lady will look upon him other than as on one whose punishment is that of the damned and whose torture knows no alleviation. And so, as the damsel said, "He may be boiled to you but to me he's an unfortunate victim of alcoholic poisoning."
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President Lowell's Sunday Reception