WHY RUDYARD KIPLING BECAME

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11279, 21 May 1902, Page 3

WHY RUDYARD KIPLING BECAME

A PROHIBITIONIST. In bis "American Notes," page 121, Rudyard Kipling, the English author who has obtained a world-w-ide celebrity, tells how, in a concert ball in Buffalo, "he saw two young men g.t two girls drunk, and then lead them reeling down a. dark street. Mr Kipling has not been a total abstainer, nor have his writings commended temperance, but of that scene he writes: — "Then, recanting previous opinions, I became a Prohibitionist. Better it is tbat a man should go without his beer in public places, and contest himself with swearing at the na_-Ow___-_-dn__s of the majority: better is it to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young folks such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said: ' There is no harm in it, taken moderately.' ' AND YET MY OWN DEMAND FOR BEER HELPED DIRECTLY TO SEND THESE TWO GIRLS REELING DOWN THE DARK STREETGOD ALONE KNOWS TO WHAT END. If liquor is* worth drinking, it is worth a little trouble to come at. —such trouble as a man will undergo to compass his own desires. It is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes cf our children, and I have been a fool in writing to the contrary."