CARE OF THE INEBRIATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 67, 18 March 1908, Page 8

CARE OF THE INEBRIATE.

CTo the Editor.) Sir,—l am glad to see that the speakers at the Liberal and Labour Federation meeting last week, amongst whom were the Hon. W. Beehan and Mr. A. Kidd, M.P., recognised that drunkenness is a disease. Abstainers have long held that opinion, and all our efforts are based upon that assumption. Is it any wonder, then, that when we see the city rightly spending thousands of pounds in the effort to remove the supposed cause of one disease we are anxious for the removal of the cause of a disease which the late Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone asserted is worse than war, pestilence, and famine combined. Experience has proved that it is next to useless to send men to gaol, hospitals, homes, asylums, and far country districts and cure them of this disease, if they are to be brought back to the towns to be surrounded by the liquor temptations. Hence we propose to send the poisoned liquor to Bell's Island, and keep the men here with their wives and families. Ninety per cent of the men afflicted with this disease are fine fellows when away from temptations, and many of them are most capable, for it is a scientific fact that the more brain a man has the more easily does he become a victim to the disease —alcohol having a strong affinity for the. brain. I begin to hope that thousands more in our Commonwealth will make I a small sacrifice for the many innocent | sufferers through the disease of others, and if it is a great sacrifice, then they ought to make it for their own sakes, for they are on dangerous ground. So ruv common-sense prayer is that we may soon see the cause of the drink disease sent adrift, while we retain the most valuable asset of any young country— the men, women, and children.—l am, etc., W. J. MACDERMOTT.