Unfortunately, however, there was and still is one law for the rich and another for the poor. In the great restaurants where dinner with wine never comes to less than ten shillings a head, Grand Dukes, Generals and high officers can feast to their heart's content. And they do feast. The streets outside " Contant" and "Dinon" and the other "well" restaurants are blocked nightly with their motor-cars and carriages. Even in the first class restaurants and hotels wine is allowed if taken with food, but vodka is nowhere to be had. In private houses there is no longer any tipple but water, but in the houses which can boast of wine-cellars, drinking goes on as usual.
Contrary to what usually happens, it is only the common people, therefore, who gain by these temperance decrees. Some of the more hopeless drunkards take to swallowing eau de Cologne, benzine,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.