The Thames Advertiser. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 1874.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1871, 7 October 1874, Page 2

The Thames Advertiser. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 1874.

The jury yesterday in the case of John Drew were evidently inclined to go further than the. evidence warranted, and to find that deceased must have had some liquor adulterated with some poisonous ingredient to have caused his death. This is scarcely to be wondered at perhaps, for the quantity of liquor he was known to have swallowed, and the state he was in when he lay down, would not imply a stage of drunkenness so deep as to lead to death. But when all the circumstances are considered, the death appears to have followed quite naturally—or, if that phrase is objected to, to have been a sequence quite to be expected. All those who visit the Police Court, or who watch the Police Court reports, will- know that the deceased was frequently before that Court for drunken-, ness, and there can be little-doubt that his constitution was affected by his life. From the fall which he sustained lately, or from some other cause, -he had become ill, so that when he took even a comparatively small quantity of liquor, and fell into a deep sleep, it was quite natural that he should become comatose, that syncope should follow, aud that he should die. His state of body aud the fall he had had made the drink he had taken affect him as much perhaps as six times the quantity would have done if he had been in a different state. Alcohol needs no poison put in it to kill—at least indirectly. A man who is, to use the common phrase, "dead drunk," is nearer death than is commonly imagined. He is as helpless to succour himself as the newly-born infant who may be overlaid in bed. The drunken man may be suffocated almost as easily. He is like a man lying on the verge of a precipice, whom the slightest push may send over, and in this case it would appear thab the state of the mau's health was sufficient to operate as that push. No doubt if a man were to drink a quantity of rum which had been dosed with tobacco or some other noxious ingredient, he would' be far more likely to fall into that deep and stupefied sleep, which would have a tendency to sink into death; but in this case we have no direct proof that the liquor was bad, and the fact of the j

man having died is, under the circumstances brought out in the evidence, not at all surprising. It is believed, and probably on good grounds, that a large quantity of liquor is consumed on this field which hurtful from adulteration with noxious f? substances. Last year the Government had analyses made of liquors procured in Wellington from respectable shops, with the result of showing that there was less adulteration of spirits than had been supposed. We are promised for next year a series of aualyses of liquors sold on the different goldfields, and we hope that care has been taken to get a large number of samples from the Thames. Bushmen aud sailors are popularly supposed to be the readiest victims to adulterated liquor. Bushmen spend weeks in hard and monotonous work, having nothing to vary their existence and nothing to amuse them, feeding chiefly on bad biscuits and adulterated tea. It is quite to be expected that when they come .to town they should feel a craving forstimulants; aud for men who have their comfortable meals day after day, with their food varied as their fancy may dictate, to preach teetotalism at fchem, seems to belabour wasted-. , . >■>*