TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1908, Page 12

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter for this column is supplied by a representative of tho local temperance bodies, who alone is responsible for the opinions. expressed in it.] - __ STONEWALL JACKSON'S ENEMY. About daylight of tho day before the second btvttle of Memassas (said a Confederato officer at a reunion of the Blue and* the Gray), I was ordered to report to Gerteral T. J. Jackson, with a detail of a hundred men, for special orders. I went at once to headquarters, and presented the orders I had received. General Jackson came out, and beckoning me to follow him, rode some fifty yards from his staff, and then turned to me and halted. "Captain, do you ever use liquor?" he asked. "No, gir," I replied. A smile lit up his rugged face as' he said, "I sent for a special detail of one hundred men under command of an officer who never used spirituous liquors. Are you that man?" "Yes, sir," I said; "I was detailed on that account." "Well, then," he continued, "I have ■ an order to give, upon the execution of which depends the success of the present movement, and the result of the battle soon to be fought." "If to keep -sober is all that is needed, General, you may depend upon me," I said. "No," he answered ; "that is not all ; but unless you can resist temptation to drink you cannot carry out my orders. Do you see that warehouse over there?" pointing to a large building a little way off. '"rake your command' up to that depot, have the barrels of bread rolled out and fcent down the railroad track, so that my men can get it as they pass, and then take your picked men into the building and spill ajl the liquor there ; don't spare a drop, nor let any man taste- it under any, circumstance. This order I expect you to execute at any cost." He turned, and was about to ride back to his staff when I called hastily: "One moment, General. Suppose an officer of superior ratlk should order me under arrest, and then gain possession of the warehouse?" Coming up close to me, and looking me through and through, as it seemed to me-, he said, with a look of, solemnity that I shall never forget: "Until I relieve you in person ,you ive exempt from j arrest, except upon my written order. I fear that liquor more than rope's army," ho added as he rode- rapidly away. I took my men clown to the warehouse ■which had become bo important, ar.j threw a guard around it, placing fiw> irien at each entrance, wi'h orders neither to allow any one to enter, no'to enter themselves. ' The rext thing was to roll out the bread, which we did. Just, as .wo 'were finishing thit task I was called to one of tJj«> entrances to find a general officer with 1 his .stiff dorriandihg that the guards should eilheallow him to enter or bring" him cut some liquor.: Oi course I refused to. comply "with the command, upon which hie ordered' his adjutant to place me under v arres%.' I told him I was there by General Jackson's personal orders, and "■■was epecinlly ■ exempt -.from arrest. He ordered his staff to dismount and enter the warehouse, and I gave my men the order ,' to- level -their guns and make ready., ( This- made the general halt, in spite ■of his thirst, 'and hold a consultation with His officer's, , They concluded to try {jersuas-jKin.^filnce they could not get whatf .they wanted » by * force. But they '.ffcund the 1 method of no more avail 'than ,the oth§r. Then they demanded 't&ljnowjmy.namo and what command I -belohge3 to,, and,; threatened to report, 'lMjft^for disobedience.' " should never have yielded, and •whether'-they would have pushed things to an extremity in their raging desire for the liquor. I do not know, but just at "that moment General' A. T. Hill came galloping up with his rUff, and naturally, wanted to kno.w what was the trouble. ' I explained the situation, which ho quickly took in at once, and oidered the thirsty squad off. "Have you orders to burn the building V he asked. "No," I answered, "I have not." Without a word he drove away, and within an hour there came an order from General Jackson to fire the warehouse, and when it was destroyed to report to him. I carried out the order to the letter. Not a man got a drink that day, and i'o- that time the- foe that Stonewall 1 Jackson most 'dreaded was vanquished. DRINK .AND MOTHERHOOD. The influence of the alcoholic woman is not only feit oy her children, but tenus to drive her husband from his home and to make him, even if he were not so before, a ready frequenter of the piiulic-house. Is it possible that from such homes as these we can bring forth tho men and women who shall hold high tfur national name before the nations of ths earth? Is it in them that can be bred the men and women of the mother-country to whom the younger nations 6f the Empire can look with admiration, and whose examples shall stimulate and nerve them to deeds of herdism, and to that noble self-respect that has hitherto made the name of England a talisman and a guard to her distant, children? The excuse of poverty is worthless. vVe learn from Mr. Suns that the poor children of ths ItaHan quarter about Eyre-street Hill are. amongst the poorest in London. Their parents, we are iold, are Organgrinders, roast chestnut sellers, and icecream vendors. They are poor with a poverty that is absolutely unnecessary amongst the British population. But then* children are said to be rosy, strong, and plump. Their rate of infant mortality during the period 1901-1903 was 140 per 1000, compared with a death-rate of 167 per 1000 among the English children of the same quarter. Tho English and Italians wore living in tho i'ame district under the same conditions of air, water, drainage, and housing, but the one difference was that the English mothers frequsnted the dram shop and took their babies with them, while the Italians, whatever theii' other faults, wore sober. The conssquonce of tho alcoholic habits of the English mothers is that the necessary deterioration of their health prevents them from suckling their infants, whereas the more sober Italians feed their children in the natural way. The Tribune says:— -What we Trant is a complete examination of the possibility of curing the drink habit carried out by an all-round collection of experts. Yet it must not bo forgotten in this matter as in any other that prevention is better than cure. Keep the child out of tho public-house and away from drink, and wheu he or she grows up the inebriate home will be far less likely to be required. Give the people good private houses of their own and the publichouse will bulk less largely in their lives. The twenty-ninth report of the General Prisons Board, Ireland (1906-7) has been issued as a Blue Book. It shows that the number of prisoners, committed to prisons in Ireland last year was 31,865, and the daily average number in custody was 2541, a decrease of 875 in the number of commitments, and a decrease of 60 in the daily average number compared "with tho previous year. Among the reports quoted is one from the church of Ireland Chaplain at Sligo Prison, who says: — "Drink is the great cause of crime m Irelacd."