The Author Speaks of Prohibition.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9823, 24 July 1900, Page 5

The Author Speaks of Prohibition.

The matter printed under this heading is supplied by the Temperance Party in Napier, who have arranged for the space occupied.

In its issue of June 7th, 19C0, the London Christian World publishes a breezy account of an interview with the Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, who is one of some thousands of American delegatea who have been attending the International Convention of Eudeavorers just held in London. As might be expected, Mr Sheldon is in great demand for sermons, lectures, interviews, etc. In Liverpool, he was the guest of the wellknown Baptist Minister Charles E. Aked, who interviewed him immediately on arrival on behalf of the Christian World. We give below a closing paragraph or two of the interview : — " I am going beyond my allotted span, but you must not strike out the little that I have yet to record. Prohibition prohibits in Topeka. The liquor traffic is prohibited. It does not wholly prevent the secret sale of drink. You've got a law against stealing shoe 3in Liverpool, but I guess there are some stolen. Nevertheless, the man who steals shoes is a criminal and an outlaw, and society will put him under a ban. It is so with the drink seller in Kansas. He is a criminal, and he is punished as a criminal. He could no more get a place in society than a thief could. The whole business is under a ban, everybody knows it."

"But," I interrupted him, " Hold on," I said, " just look at these sheets," and I brought him my lists of clerical shareholders in breweries.. His "face grew very saci; those dreary blue eyes looked wistfully from the sheets to me, and from me to the sheets, and then down to the carpet, and I thought of Christ writing on the ground ; aud he said, " It is all very dreadful, very. It could not happen in our country. I don't understand it, anyway. When my father began his ministry, the whisky was put on the table by Christian people; hospitality demanded that he should drink. But if I were to drink a glass of wine in the privacy of my own house, if that fact became known, my reputation would be blasted, and I should have to resign, my position as pastor of the church." And then he resumed—" There are boys who have attained their majority, who are on the voters' lists, and will vote at the coming elections, who have never seen the sale of liquor. They don't know what a saloon is. Those who have not been to a license city don't know what a' saloon is like. And those who do go, when they see a 3aloon have to ask what it is for."