THANKS TO R. J. CREIGHTON, ESQ.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVII, Issue 4224, 27 February 1871, Page 3

THANKS TO R. J. CREIGHTON, ESQ.

TO TITE EDITOR, Sir, — When thanks were to be given publicly to Mr. Creighton for having conferecl oa women the light; of voting for the sup. prcssion of the liquor traffic, I longed, for the fiist timn in my life, to make a speech — a tip-top speech, though not a grandiloquent one. I would have women keep silence till they can do better— incomparably better than the average of public speakers. If, after the sa no training, I could not do better as a i speaker than the majority of our collegetauyht men, I would hide my head in deepest shame, and never set the public longing to toll me to "shut up." I do mosb sincerely thank Mr, Cicighton, and should like to have done so personally. lam thankful to know that gentlemen of education and position cvctywhsie are < eginning to give the subject of drunkenness grave consideration ; that | they do nob now sneor at its reported evils as monstrous exaggerations. Mr. Croighton's letter to the United Kingdom Alliance made me glad and grateful : for his just and kindly. expressed aj>]>r tici n ti on of women. I think ho sees that women ai c no longer to be held in by bit and btidlo. Penonally I take no intercbt in the femalc-suffi ago question. I am no politician. I am Conservative ; but it's tho conservatism of ignoiance. I have a keen sense of justice, and believe that woman's influence is always good wherever it is brought to bear. Why should it work only harm in the political world ? "To wait for freedom, till a people have learned how f-o use it wisely is like a man refusing to go into the water till he has learned to swim." We are constantly sent to the busy boe for lessons of order and industry. I wonder how much of their beauty and usefulness is due to the fact a queen rules absolutely i lam afraid tho working 1 man is not fully alive to the value of the Permissive Bill. Pot-house politicians are trying to get up a cry of "class legislation, '' "It'ou mean to taka away the poor man's pint," and so on. Suiely, the working man having had full and free trial of the use of intoxicants, Government, marking its baneful influence, may, like a wi3o careful mother, step in and say, I will save my children from themselves ; they have so long tampered -with evil, they know not right from wrong. Mr. Eclifcoi, ought men to'be allowed to kul themselves thiough drink? For Heaven's sake shut the bar of every publichousc, or give us an asylum. Is there a doctor in Auckland who believes this dreadful thirst to be disease capable of cure ? If so why does he hold his peace ? I believe this same man would be thankful to get away from his boon companions and temptations for a month, in order to see what careful medical treatment would do for him. Even teetotallers scout the idea of an asylum. Yes, in this very room a staunch abstainer strode about and raved ab the mere mention of an asylum. "What! lock a man up for getting drunk! It's un-English," &c, &c. It is not j at all un-English to lock up the " scum of. society " for this offence, as our dtvi'.y Police Com t shows, but they aie " paupers whom nobody owns " Alas that it i 3 English to punish, uu-English to prevent. It is very English to turn a man into a brute, unEnglish to turn him back again into a man. to long as a man is enslaved by intemperance every avenue to his soul is closed ; ho is not open to good influence ; in vain is every effort to help him, except you first remove the thirst : avc cannot deal with sin in detail, we must go to its roots. We are told that all good things are slow of growth : perhaps that explains why men generally are &o good, for they are awfully slow ? Women's surplus energy might spur them on beneficially. The morally healthy man has no need of restrictions : the strait waistcoat is necessary for the insane. I feel sure that many a wife who has clone her utmost to save her husband will, ere long, wake up to the painful conviction that her husband, and such as he, might have been saved, only that men were so slow, so unwilling to try in the right way. Wo shall in a few years have asylums everywhere, I believe, because what must be will be. Again I ask most earnestly, ought men and women to be allowed to kill themselves? —I am, &c, A Woman.

Whatever will thove be a championship of next ? A champion of the P.P V , a champiou billiaul-playei", a champion che^-player, a champion jigger, a champion " comique," a champion oarsman, a champion swimmer, a champion yachtsman, and champion lots of other things, wo already had heard of, but not till we read the following did we know that a Bone Champienship -was in existence : —"A Challenge to Bone Players: Toby Brown, the celebrated amateur of Brighton, challenges the whole of the bone-playera of England, professional or amateur, for the bone championship, for £10 a side. Address, Toby Brown." There h the fact, in print, and doubtless, ere this, all the "Bonesea" of all the "Christy's" — original or otherwise — have entered the lists But why draw the line at Boned ? — why not a trombone, or a banjo, or a bicycle, or a big drum championship ? Why not, indeed, a " special corres. pondent" championship V What keen competition there would be !