20 | XX | THE HOUSE OF PERNOD AND SONS | XX | XX |
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of alcohol, with contempt for freedom of commerce and |
industry. |
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It is primarily absinthe which is the target of their efforts;
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it is it upon which they hang their blanket accusation, |
and which they proclaim as the cause of all the evils |
that afflict humanity. In addition to the reprobation which |
they slap other alcoholic drinks, absinthe, if you believe |
certain characters among them, is guilty of special |
crimes for which they create special columns in the |
newspapers; by the fact of the plants which compose it, |
it apparently constitutes a true poison and, in support of |
these statements, they announce strange recipes |
containing all manner of ingredients, which have only |
one error: to be without any connection to the |
manufacture of absinthe, at least as it is practiced in the |
House of Pernod Fils. |
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However laudable the objectives of the absinthe |
detractors, it doesn't authorize them to disguise the |
truth and to represent the drink as the product of a |
malevolent chemistry, whereas its components are |
honest plants, all well known, whose beneficial |
properties are universally admitted. How could the |
union of these inoffensive or salutary plants produce |
harmful effects? That, the adversaries of the green |
liqueur forget to explain, which is usually the case when |
passion derails logic. |
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It is scientists, however, we must say, who want to |
discover toxic properties in various of the plants used to |
make absinthe;
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(Translated by "Artemis" for your pleasure.) |