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Press, Volume L, Issue 8479, 10 May 1893, Page 6

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS,

Sir, —After carefully reading "Jason's" letter in your Friday's issue, I can come to no other conclusion but that he takes all teetotallers to be idiots. He says a man rises to a grander elevation by triumphing over temptation. I quite agree with him, and when I am tempted to drink that which I know, "and which 'Jason' knows, and which every man possessing a grain of common sense knows," is ruining both here and hereafter a very large percentage of my fellow-men and Women, and I resist the temptation, according to "Jason's" own showing, I am rising to a grander elevation; moreover, I am taught by a greater One 'than " Jason " when I pray, to tay, " Lead [mc not into temptation." How could I be •Justified in using those words if I poured ' down my throat a liquid which is causing -tny fellow-man "and may cause mc" to commit the greatest crimes and abominations 'the human race is guilty of. I have been a teetotaller eighteen years, and I have no reason to be sorry for it, rather the other •way, and I don't know a teetotaller that was «ver sorry for having become one. Can the ■came be said of the moderate drinkers, or rather those who try to bamboozle others •into tbe belief that they are moderate drinkers? "Jason" says a man may degrade himself by abusing his whiskey and •beer, and yet in his sober moments be found a lover of truth, scrupulous in his consideration for tbe feelings and sentiments of others. Just so, and yet "Jason" argues that when he ceases to degrade him3_elf and becomes a total abstainer, by some .psychological phenomena " which ' Jason' .don't explain, and which would puzzle a lawyer, too," he becomes a worse man. This kind of reasoning may. »do for men whose brains are muddled with .alcohol, but it will take more than the proverbial grain of salt to get it down teetotal 'throats. " Jason" has been a close observer |of teetotal methods for the last twenty Shears. I have been a close observer in : these colonies of the doings of the drink •traffic for over forty years, and I say em•phatically it is the cause of more misery ftban all other causes combined. Let ["Jason" read your account in Saturday's issue of a modern man hunt, six persons .all in respectable positions, while under the -influence of liquor, chasing another unforhcanate man to death. I wonder if the •"profits from the liquor those men drank '•went towards a Judge's income or a Bishop's i-tipend. If this story alone, and it is only one of 'thousands occurring daily, is not sufficient i-to cause Judges to withdraw their money jfrom the traffic and Bishops to cease praising fthe use. of intoxicants. "Jason" finishes •by asking if your readers are fully alive to the fact that what is now sought to be •established is an ignorant tyranny. Well, air, as one of your readers, I am not aware of the fact ; but I am aware of this, that Mr Isitt and his followers, •* of which I am •proud to be one," are using every honest and lawful endeavour to eradicate from our midst the greatest evil that ever cursed the Imman family. Thanking you, sir, in anticipation, and hoping " Jason" may yet see •-tie error of his ways and join our crusade, lam, _tc, J. D. H.