A MODEL BOROUGH.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3736, 6 July 1883, Page 4

A MODEL BOROUGH.

At the temperance meeting recently held in tho Guildhall, London, under the presidency of tho Lord Mayor, Mr J. M. Kenriek, Mayor of St. Iv'es (Cornwall), in tho course of his address imido the following remarkable statements : — My Lord Mayor, the various magistrates hcro'Juive told you about the evil of strong drink, but I cannot tell you much about, it in the borough in wliich I reside. In 1808 wo began the struggle against the liquor traffic. We were only two of us in a population of 7,000 people, and wo madu up our minds that, live or die, the drink traffic in that town should come to an end ; and, my Lord Mayor, in less than two years we closed up half tho public-houses in the town of St. Ivcs, and I am proud to tell you that in less than twelve months such was the wave of religious feeling in that town that upwards of 1,100 were added to the Christian churches of various denominations. ' 1 -"A of those converts have gone to New ~ have gone to Australia, ~" . "^ost; and some ' -vMif.

ttu. ■■■■•.■ with the mv,. hardly believe it, but j. kard in the borough, and I two years the chief magistrate, and I only had one solitary individual brought before mo in connection with drunkenness ; and I can assure you, my Lord Mayor, that not one individual for these two years has been sent to the county prison or the county gaol, or has been committed to take his trial at the sessions or the assizes. I say it is wonderful; and what God has wrought and what He has done for my native town Ho can do for the vast Empire of Great Britain. I say to this assembly, and through them to the people of this count.ty, what Lincoln said in the American war—"Peg away, peg - away," Fight on, struggle on, and as certain as you struggle and as certain as you fight and grapple with this gigantic evil it shall totter and fall to its iinal overthrow. We have only one policeman for 7000 people, and I toll you, gentlemen, we have nothing for him to do. We- employ him about other tilings that his time may be filled up. The Government the other day wanted us to have more policemen, and I told them, in the language o? Dr Watts, that wo had nothing for them to do, and said that— Satan finds some mischief still I

For idle hands to do. My Lord Mayor, and you my hearers in this vast assembly, our present policeman has got something to do as a "Wcslcyiin class leader, ami lio employs his time in order to promote Die spiritual benefit of his fellow-countrymen. Wo tiro the scat of the μ-reat mackerel trade of the West, and we have about 800 men engaged in that ii.shory, unci they go from week to week out in the Atlantic—about .seven or eight leagues to the west of Scilly—to get mackerel for the population of London to eat; and in 120 Ikkil.s, lnmnud by seven or cujJit men crtch, there in not a drop of inlo.vicat'uir/ ttrink. They know better than to put their money into the publican's bank, where they neither get principle nor interest; but they take their money home and put it in the savings bank, and not into the " sinking fund " of the publican. Ladies and gentlemen, mind your work. If you have adopted the blue ribbon, which I have not already donned, but which I shall don, stand fast to your colors—or rather color. I have never been ashamed of tectotalism for forty-six years. There is not a town in my native country, but in its .streets, whon the synagogues had been closed against me, In its fairs, in its markets, amongst its fishermen and its minors, my voice has been heard, and I have denounced the Inillio in unmeasured terms. I have been hissed at and pelted, and have had guns pointed at me—but . what for that. If a teetotal advocate can't live down that, lie is not worth anything, Wo must bo able to stand powder, and shot, and fire, for wo arc engaged in a mortal combat, in a glorious warfare—and we shall win. Wo shall wave the flag of victory on the turret of the foe, and by-and-byc wo shall shout, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen to rise no more."