'HUMPTY DUMPTY.'

Evening Star, Issue 13092, 27 October 1908, Page 7

'HUMPTY DUMPTY.'

MR L. M. ISITt'S APPEAL. " ->••-• ENTHUSIASM! .Vi' At first blush title is: 9 curipus pne for- a appeal, but Mv L. M.' Isitt speedily dovetailed it with hi<3. : smV ,ject, to the amused''satisfaction of the very large audience which greeted him so 'enthusiastically in the Garrison Hail'-fet night. "Humpty Dunypty sat on awall, Humpty Pumpty: bad a great fall." The Humpty Dunipty who sat on the. wall in the pantomime poster .was quite a-'wrongly-concejved character,. Mr Isitt pointed out. He was too perky and cocky and self-satis-fied. The real Humptv Dunipty Was a whining, miserable,, pukey bay that his nurse av father stack on the top of a wall because he would not behave hm.seli. He was "dumped" there.—(Laughter.) ' Having thus characteristically introduced his thesis, the speaker proceeded to 6tato it. They were there, he said, to consider what claim No-license reform, ;bad upon the young women and young men, and his first point was "Don't be dumped on this question of the drink traffic and the drink habit." It was easy to be dumped. Indeed, he ventured'to say that if analysis were made of the basis of opinion and conviction of the men and women who had not yet seen light on this question, it would he found to be a conviction that they had been dumped into. Let no one .-n <iuinped i ' nto ifc Decause of its antiquity. 'jGod knows it is ancient," said Mr Isitt. "It has a long record, and a; very blackguard record."—(Applause.) ' In the time of pur Lord Pliny had Complained that the wliolo civilised world of his day seemed to be given up to drunkenness, "and now in their <>wirda.y the late Dean Farrar had said.- '• I am so conscious of the widespread degradation induced ,by strong drink that 1 sometimes wonder whether the possibility of repentance has not already passed us by, and the handwriting is not upon the wall. Unless in the next ten yea.is the Church of Christ bestirs herself and finds some remedy for this ill, drink will blot out our very name and place amongst those of the leading nations of the earth."—(Applause.) "This god Bacchus," Mr Isitt thundered—" supposing ho were materialised, how woidd be appear? Beside that Gorgon head the very -Medusa is robbed of her terror. . His hands drip with the blood of murder, this god, his head towers to the heavens, and hus feet lay hold of the nethermost neljs. Upon his head js the gathered iniquity of centuries, and he is the blood of slaughtered millions. I see him spitting in the face of the Christ, I hear him deride the work of the Christ and mock at the travail of Him who died that men laight live. I see him point to his slaughtered millions and cry: 'These have I taken from thy saving hands.'" Mr Isitt Cropped back to the matier-of-fact plane. Let no one be dumped because of the magnitude of this drink traffic. Let no man say fo himself, that this was a big thing to interfere "with'.' Nor vet Jet any man flunk that the,,thing could be improved by refining the.; environment. Jhe liquor bar in'the swellest hotel was doing the fame dirty, disreputable work that was done by the filthiest little beer shop in the back streets, surrounded bv wheezy, greasy men waiting for the door to open.—(Applause.) Remember, as Dean Kiehardson said, that if a pig were put 111 a drawing room ho would make the drawing room into a pigstye. The people who talked of reforming the traffic b.v improving the environment knew nothing of the power of drink. A little while a*o one of the members of the Temperance League who was a leading merchant, came into Mr Taylors office and said that he had made up his mind that he Mould have nothing further to do with drink. For the first time in many years" he had gone into a liquor bar, where he did not find drunkenness, . but found the bar ciammed to the' ' doors with the young men of Christchurch, drinking freely That merchant had been' acevstomed to keep a little liquor at home for his friends, should they think it is-cessa.rv to have-some, but that night he' Vent home and destroyed it.—(Hear, hear.) He had said that the vast majority of the men of the Dominion who were opposed to the INo-hcense movement had been dumped into their convictions. Now to prove it When a person had been familiarised with the oxuteuce of an evil by the years of its life he would brook it. whereas if it were suddenly sprung npon him as a new thing he would not bear with it for five minutes, lor example, if 6laverv were introduced into the Dominion to-morrow who would say it could lust for one week? Yet sixty years ago, when a churchwoman died and left a slave to the Church, it was decided by the clergy to sell him and u.«e the Gale money m aid of foreign missions.— (Laughter.) In the same way, supposing that the early colonists had wieelv barred drink from this colony, and the 2,'Q00 bais had never been opened, and supposing that the Government' suddenlv licer-sed these 2,000 bars to serve drink, with all the evils and ruin they had brought, how long would it be tolerated? In- the last seven-years 35,000 first offenders had been brought before the courts for drunkenness. The 'Lyttelton Times' estimated that one in every twenty-nine people had been arrested for drunkenness in that period. Then, were the No-licenso party guilty of exaggeration when they said that the youth of the Dominion were being demoralised ?—(Applause.) The terrible feature of drunkenness in Now Zealand was the huge proportion of vouug men in its clutches. ■ ' And now, if they knew that the men who represented drink had sold it to drunkards, had ruined public morals, had lowered public intelligence, had outraged public decency; if they knew that these men, in their greed for gain, had turned the deaf ear to the prayers and tears'of the widow, and had steeled their hearts' against the wretchedness of the drunkard's children, would they not act in the name of Christ and humanitv and put an end to the evil?—(Applausej Oh! for enthusiasm. There was enough latent force in that meeting to shake Dunedin to its very centre and win the battle. —(Applause.) \ •.,. The speaker concluded a most enthusi-astically-received address by appealing to all to "strike out the top line." The Rev. C. Dallaston moved—"That in view of the fact wired by the United' Press Association throughput the Dominion 'fhit the number of first." offenders for drunkenness during the last seven years in'-New Zealand exceeded,. 35,000, we each and everyone pledge ourselves to do our utmost to carry the forthcoming Local Option poll." The Rev. R. N". Havis seconded. When the motion was put the audience rose en masse. The contrary was put, and one Voune man found hie feet. '* The Rev. S; '.Bailey (president, of the Christian Endeavor Union) presided. " ;