Better than Alcohol?

The fact that alcohol is less a stimulant than a releaser of the inhibitions was bemoaned last week before the Royal Commission on Licensing by that grand old Victorian snorter, Viscount D'Abernon of Stoke D'Abernon.

As one who has been almost everything, from Governor of the Imperial Ottoman

Bank in Constantinople (1889-97) to Britain's first ambassador in Berlin after the War (1920-26), the noble lord knows alcohol of most nationalities. "Alcohol does badly what it sets out to do," said he last week. "It is not a true stimulant. The result it brings is not exempt from disagreeable and injurious reaction. Therefore I continue to believe in the eventual concoction of some preferable substitute." Asked to be more specific Viscount D'Abernon said, with the air of a man who dreams dreams and sees visions: "A vast fortune would reward the discoverer of this preferable beverage, this true stimulant, and upon him would descend the gratitude of humanity."

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