ABUSIVE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12364, 1 December 1905, Page 10

ABUSIVE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Many reasonable men, quit© a number of religious teachers and preachers, are not proclaiming their anti-prohibition views to-day, because of tho abuse they ■would havo to submit to from the unruly members of prohibitionists generally. Generally, the prohibi.ionist denounces the publican, and avows his hatred of all wine-bibbers and friends of publicans and sinners. It is tho special privilege of the prohibitionist to abuso his neighbour -who does not happen to agree with him, and when he cannot find someone to argue wifch. about his fad, he sets, liimself deliberately to abuse and scandalise th© publican and Lis friends. At the Newtown meeting the other evening, Mr Hindinarsh, one of tlio candidates, struck a. healthy note in denouncing tho abusive methods resorted to by inhuman prohibitionists in their trades again the trade. Mr Hindinarsh had spoken to the Rev. Mr Dawson, who is a prohibitionist of the less fanatical order, and asked him ''if he thought Christ would use the savage terms -which some prohibitionists used towards publicans?" Mr Dawscn. being a cleTgj-man, and remembering that his Master was called "a wine-bibber and a friend of publicans and sinners," replied that ho did not approve, saying, " No, I am often ashamed of them." When the Rev. Mr Dawson is ashamed of his associates in this anti-Christian cause,' he should "come out from amongst them." Dr. Howard Crosby, an eminent divine, says:—" The niaifc effects of prohibition, where tried, arc poor liquor, largo prices for it, an increase in the inmates of lunatic asylums, poverty for the farmer, nnd a system of semi-thievery and deliberate falsehood on tho part of the inhabitant?, and transients, which unfit them foi prayer and church-going." Xo-lioensr-advocates excite to passion, hatred, and all uncharitableness in the community. They divide families and send the peop;. into* hostile camps, and the chief featun of the conflict is the abuso of the publican. In the name of religion, No-lieenst or prohibition is a sham. 15