How drunk was the defendant? That is a question which often puzzles the police witnesses and the defendant himself in cases before the Courts. Nowadays it has a new significance in motoring cases. I remember reading of an action in which a medical witness attempted to segregate the stages of drunkenness. His divisions were as follow:
1st Stage - Genial contentment, well-being and happiness;
2nd Stage - Flushing of the cheeks, bright eye and hilarity;
3rd Stage - Inability to exercise the muscles of the brain as directed; power of co-ordinated muscular movement lost;
4th Stage - Drunk and incapable;
5th Stage - Coma!
In another court a solicitor described four stages - the jocose, the bellicose, the lachrymose, and the comatose. He was asked by the magistrate if he could fit in another, the Bolshicose.
That was when Bolshevism was as great a bogey as is Fascism today.
The Irish Times, March 15th, 1939.