LIQUOR AND HOW IT IS MADE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3528, 28 October 1882, Page 4

LIQUOR AND HOW IT IS MADE.

The following report of a lecture on temperance by Mr Eli Johnson, who is shortly to visit this colony, i 3 from the Melbourne Leader of a recent date :— Mr F.li Johnson, a temperance lecturer from America, but who has also travelled in the same capacity throughout England and the greater part of Europe, was welcomed on Tuesday at the Assembly Hall, Collinsstreet, by a well attended meeting. MiDavid Beath occupied the chair. The lecturer was well received, and after thanking them for their welcome, stated that 1113 mission was to preach the Gospel of Temperance, which to him was a labor of love. The theme of hie remarks for the evening would be ' What they drank and how they made it.' In this he proposed to show the adulteration used in the liquor trade throughout the world. He exhibited a number of diminutive bottles containing essences for making brandy, whiskey, gin, port wine, and every other liquor known to the trade. These, he said, he had purchased from drug stores in various parts of the world, and the drugs which they contained ■were used in the manufactured of liquor supposed to be brewed legitimately. In addition to the bottles he also exhibited several books giving recipes for the manufacture of liquors from the drugs. Some of the chemicals and the publications were purchased from well-known firms in Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand. To such an extent were chemicals used in the production ot spirits that he said the failure of grape or other crops made no diminution in the supply of liquor. More than this, he challenged anyone to produce a gallon of pure brandy in the United States at the present day. He referred graphically to the poisnous effects which were produced by the use of these drugs, and slated that it was the artificial liquor now so largely produced that made men commit murder, instead of lying down in the gutter to sleep off the effects of drink. In Sydney and Melbourne he had collected samples of the best wine placed before Christians at the communion table. These he showed to the audience, and announced that they all contained a hirge sediment of logwood. The lecturer next referred to the great strides made by the temperance cause within the the last few years. He mentioned America, ■where traffic in liquor was prohibited, and informed his audience that half the churches of that nation used only unfermented wine at the communion table. The Methodists, which were the most numerous denomination in America, would, he said, just as soon think of putting a minister into a pulpit who drank a glass of wine a day as of putting a minister there who stole a sheep a day. In conclusion, he stated that his mission was to open the eyes of the moderate drinker, and to induce the Christian people of the country to take up the cause of temperance as they had taken it up in America. A cordial vote of thanks was, at the close of his remarks, accorded to Mr Johnson, on the motion of Dr. Singleton, seconded by Dr. Lucas.