Civilising Influence of Alcohol.

Evening Post, Volume XLII, Issue 92, 15 October 1891, Page 4

Civilising Influence of Alcohol.

In South Africa a gentleman named Morriman has been protesting against the liquor ' traffio carried on with the natives. Tho Johannesburg Star answers him in this strain :— " Mr. Morriman either lacks that saving brutality of disposition which is indispensably to the statosmon, or tho frank oynioism whioh would havo led him to boldly state . . . that tho question on whioh our politicians for tho next few generations will have to oconpy thomselvcs is how to proserve South Africa to tho white man, or, more plainly, .how, with the maximum of expedition and the minimum of inhumanity, they shall get rid of tho black. The normal increase of tho black (in South Africa) as compared to the white population, is as' about two" to ono. and the plain fact stares us in tho face that eithor artificial chock will have to be resorted to, or civilisation in its highest aspects will become an impossibility in South Africa If the Caucasian bo not played out, it, of course, goes without saying that tho ultimate victory will be his ; but it is no less certain that his mode of warfare will hay« to ohange. He will have to rid himself of some of his humanitarian sentiments. • . . . In South Africa, legislation, as a general rule, has been direotea towards prohibition laws, ignoring the plain teaching of oxperienoe that in alcohol is to be tound the only influence whioh may bo trusted to sap the fund of seemingly infinite vitality which' will overcome civilisation if civilisation does not overcomo it. It is perfectly easy to denounce such a suggestion as cynical, but we are reaching the point at whioh the truth cannot bo concoaled muoh longer."

Mr. Labouchere having offored a prizo for the beet additional stanza for " God save the Queon " from an Imperial Fcderationist's point of view, it has been bestowed npou the following 1 effusion : — Far o'or the rolling main • Echoes the Boral «tr»in— God me the Qneon ! On« great united band, * Prty we through every land, God guard our Empire grand, God save the Queen I Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, chief of the Salvation Army staff in Amorioa, recently performed the marriago oeremony botweon Staff Captain Ida May Harris and Adjutant Wallace W. Winohell. This is the first time on record that a woman has been known to tie the nuptial knot, but the aotion is supported by the beet legal advice in New York, on the ground that Mrs. Booth ia, by virtue of her position in the army, which is now accepted as a regularly constituted roh'gious body, entitled to rank with tho ministers of any other persuasion, and as suoh fully authorised to baptise, marry, or bury anyone needing benefit of clorgy in those respects.