Temperature Column. THEY LIVE LONGER THAN THE TOTAL ABSTAINERS

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 88, 14 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

Temperature Column. THEY LIVE LONGER THAN THE TOTAL ABSTAINERS

The Chroniole says: "Temperance reformers should take a hint from a lecture by Dr. Arthur Newsholme, the Medical Officer of Health fur Brighton, which has just been published in the papers of the Sanitary Institute. In 1838 the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association undertook an elaborate inquiry iuto the respective longevity of | drunkards and teetotallers, from which the extraordinary rosult was obtained that to be habitually intemperate gave you on the average one year more of life than to be a total abstainer. No wonder the brewer's drayman throw up his red cap with delight. We need hardly add that Dr. Newsholme ridicules and demolishes these statistics." Dr. Newsholme points out that one method of getting at the truth is to inquire into the relative longevity of clergymen (who are always taken as the standard in these comparisons, their death-rate being the smallest of all) and .publicans. Such figures show that between the 25 and 45 eighteen publicians die to one clergyman, and from 45 to 65 thirty-three to fifteen. "Iv fact," adds Mr. Newsholme, "the pursuit of the occupation of tapnian and publican in the majority of iustances implies a slow process of suioide." The hint for { Temperance reformers is that there is little or no hope of getting at the real facts about deaths from alcoholism until a medical practitioner is required by law to send his certificate of death in a sealed envelope direct to the Registrar, instead of handling it open to the relatives of the deceased." JOHN BURNS' PLAIN SPEAKING. Mr. John Burns, in addressing a crowded "and enthusiastic gathering of Government wo'^-people at Woolwich, said : " The ' lanMitne J came to the Arsenal, a dirty, bare-footed little boy put into my hands, not th« news of an eight hours' day having been oonoeded in franca or Germany, but the result of a brutal prize-fight, or a race. Men of Woolwioh, I have earned the right to speak plainly to you on this point. lam sorry to say we have not got to fear so much the machinations of our employers or the indifference of the Government, but worse than these is tho coquetting of the forces of reaction with the betting and and gambling which are eating the heart out of Woolwich and Plumstead and the and the labour movement everywhere. I I hope the eight hours' day you have got may lead to the abolition of drink and betting, and to the extension of the brightness, contentment, peace, and happiness of every artisan's home in Plumstead and Woolwiok." The Methodist Times say: "Mr John Burns deserves well of country for^ such plain and timely utterances on tho side of nodal morality. There can be no doubt that the very fact that the workmen have increased leisure will become an unspeakable cur»e to them if they use it for the purpose of drinking and gambling. It is of the greatest importance that all friends of tho working-classes should emulate Mr. Bums' plain speaking. We are all anxious to do what we can to secure ample wages and ample leisure for the working classes, but they must remember that all our efforts will be utterly frustrated if, when they gain money and leisure, they spend both in betting or drinking."