University students on the whole are careful judges of good liquor and usually drink moderately and well, an inquiry into Harvard's better-known warehouses of supply revealed recently. As one proprietor put it, "they drink much more conservatively than men in other colleges, except in special cases such as football weekends or the end of an exam period, when the boys do a quick and thorough job of getting themselves drunk."
The slightly more expensive brands of Scotch and Rourbon are the most frequent purchases of college students, except during the football season, when rum punches for celebration in victory or solace in defeat are first in popularity. As another owner of a "provision" store revealed, "Harvard drinkers collectively are gentlemen in their drinking. They spend a lot for the best, so we haven't any kick coming."
One Hawaiian undergraduate is reputed to have limited his alcoholic refreshment exclusively to a unique native brew whose inspiring taste and disastrous after-effects he attributed to the dead, green snake which was allowed to "mildew" inside each bottle of the unusual fluid.
The average student is so filled with Christian good spirit that he frequently gives money, and occasionally even a drink or two, to drunks he meets when patronizing neighboring liquor emporiums, two merchants stated.
When asked about selling "stimulants" to college members under 21, the manager of one store said. "Theoretically minors don't got the stuff, but a few slip under the wire because we can't ask them all their ages as soon as they walk in the door. We could get in big trouble if some boy got in a jam sometime, and it came out we had sold him liquor, even if we never knew how old he was."
Students will have to pay more for the same brand of liquor, or else drink less or a cheaper quality, now that the war has lowered the supply and raised the price of all alcoholic beverages. Government tax alone in many cases accounts for over 35% of the total cost played by liquor buyers.
Read more in News
Keeney, History Instructor Volunteers As Army Private