TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 14531, 6 December 1910, Page 8

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

[By Arrangement.] PROHIBITION FOR 400 YEARS. A RIGID" LAW. The, Chicago 'Record' publishes an interesting statement from Wm. E. Curtis, a member of its stall', who is now travelling in the FJa6t. He has visitod the city of Bokhara, and describes the operation of '.he law prohibiting liquor which has made that city practically free from drunkenness tor four hundred years. Milk and water xro the common beverages. A man who ■.ells liquor in violation of the law is publicly whipped in the market place as punishment for a first offence, and is liable to death if he persists in committing the ;rime. CATHOLIC AND SOCIALIST FIGHT SIDE BY SIDE AGAINST DRINK. Local Option has been carried in East Aurora, tho New York community made famous by enterprises of Filbert Hubbard. This could easily have been anticilwted from the- fact that at tho preceding Local Option paracb in the town the progressive Mr Hubbard and the conservative Catholic priest of the community marched side by side. Commenting on the incident the Michigun 'Local Option Press' says: The contest against the saloon includes so much that is related to home love, to patriotism, and to common interests as citizens that it secures and holds the favor of men who from their early childhood have boon taught to uphold &uch sentiments. Local Option represents an affirmative sentiment, an upbuilding purpose, and a helpful inclination. It seeks to unite, the best elements oi every community in a purpose that provides tho best possible solution for a long-existing problem. AN ANCIENT WARNING. Tho oldest Egyptian papyrus, which contains a series of moral aphorisms of the iifth Egyptian dynasty (3566-3533 8.C.), is s.iioj to afford the earliest instance of the moral treatment of intoxication, and the first warning in writing against the, drinking in wine shops. '* My son," runt? the injunction, "do not linger .in the wine ?hop or drink too much vine. . . Thou fullest upon the ground; thy limbs become weak as those of a child. One ometh to do trade with thee, and findetii thee so. Then say they: 'Take away the fellow, for he is drunk.' " WHAT JUDGES SAY. I;ord Coleridge: "Tho shortest, way of -hutting up half our gaols and diminishing rlci mass of our crimn::'! population would ti- to make England roUt. Persons occupying the position which I have tho honor :o till should call attention to a fact, which ii unquestionably the fact that drunkenness, whatever its morality may bo, to.nds I > crime, and increases the expenditure of the sober people of this country." Justice Grantham: "Twelve murders, .•ighloeu attempts at murder, and woundii.gs without number that were just as likely to hive ended in murder as lor as :he conduct of the criminal was concerned, i.ave lieeu mine and my brother judge's .Lilly fire for the last four weeks in one. circuit ; and in almost every case, as appeared in evidence, drink war. the cause — drink served by publicans ;uid not at clubs, and drink proved to have been served in the public-house, where the man was openly drunk." OPEN LETTER Xo. 1. WHY NOT BE SATISFIED WITH EDUCATION? Sir.—Your main contention is that we ought to rely more on natural and gradual developments following naturally on education than "u such a law as local No-license. jr Dominion Prohibition. It is just here lhat we who a ? e so closely at the work of ::ducation find the brick wall of difficulty. You cannot educate the people against their will. A large proportion of them do not want to be educated upon the matter. When we publish matter in the papers they wi'l not lead it, but avoid it. When we send leaflets they throw them away. When we canvass them they cither listen politely or are rude, and it really seems as though they took about as mneh notice of our efforts as of the wind blowing., As regards the education in the public schools/while that is excellent as far as it goes, ilia finding of places licensed to .-ell,, the stuff they have been taught is pdson, and the fashion of the day as to drinking, entirely, or at any rate mostly, destrov the after effect of the school teach-

In America teaching as to alcohol of a. nn* f . thorough character has been almost univeieal no»v for m:my years. It has not made the people sober, though it has improved many. In America there have been no barmaids, either. I am convinced that, ?ve'i now, the truth about alcoholic drinks ■in.! their dangers and hurtfulness is well known to tho great majority who use- them in New Zealand. Those who really believo they have any value a.; sustenance, etc., are" few and 'far between. I hardly eve? nv.;t them. The ground for drinking is that they like it whether it lvurta them or nut. Thus :t seems to n.e that the education • of the people is practically complete now. It will onlv a little better in the future. The campaign for Dominion Proliibition wo shall put" up this nest year mil about finish the '■ducation of the New Zealand people ,i 6 to tho u.-v'lessncs-e and dangers of drinking alcohol. THE BRITISH NATIONAL VICE. WHAT DOES DBINK DO TO THE NATION?. „ Seeing that Hospital Saturday has been so lately with us, it is suitable that one of the temperance extracts for this week should be from the -Hospital Saturday Fund Journal.' In the issue of September ;>O. 1910, there is a powerful article on ' Temi>erance,' of wlueh wo give part: WHAT IS TEMPERANCE? "Temperance implies habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions; restrained or moderate indulgence; abbtinenco from all violence or excess from inordinate or unleasonablo indulgence, or from the use- or >ursuit of anything injurious to moral or • physical well-being." Tho article then, i iter a, general dissertation on the advisability of exercising always a strong restraint upon our actions, continues: OUR NATIONAL VICE. Tho manifold and great evils of our national vice were thus clearly and graphically stated by Cardinal Manning in the "Fortnightly Review' in 1886: " Our nation has i multitude of vices. Is thero any vice that cannot be charged against us? But is there one vice that is head and shoulders above all others? Is there one that by its stature and rte sway dominates o\;er all around it? To answer this let ns ask: (1) 16 there any vice in the United Kingdom that slays at least 60,000, or, as others believe and affirm, 120,000, every year. (2) Or that ]uy6 seeds of a whole harvest of diseases of the most latal kind, and lenders all other lighter diseases more acute and perhaps even fatal in the end? (3i Or that causes at least one-third of all ine madness confined in our asylums? (4) Or that prompts directly or indirecily 75 per cent, of all crime? (o) Or that produces an unseen and secret world of all kinds of moral evil and of personal degradation, which no police court ever knows and no human eye can ever reach? (6) Or that in tho midst of our immense and multiplying wealth produced, not poverty, which is honorable, but pauperism, which is a disgrace to a civilised people? (7) Or that ruins men of every cities and condition of life, from the highest to the lowest, men-of every degree of culture and of education, of every honorable profession, public officials, military and naval officers and men, railway and household femnts, and, what is worse 'than all, that ruins women of every class, from the mast rude to the most refined? (8) Or that, above all other evils, is the

most potent cause of destruction to tbo domestic life of all classes? (9) Or that has already wrecked, and is continually wrecking, the homes of our agricultural and factory workmen? (10) Or that has already been found to paralyse the productiveness of our industries in comparison with other countries, especiaJly the United States? (11) Or, as we are officially informed, renders our commercial seamen less trustworthy on board ship? (12) Or that Kpread these accumulating evils throughout the liritish Empire, and is blighting out fairest colonies? (15) Or that has destroyed and is destroying the indigenous races wheresoever the British Empire is in contact with them, so that from the hem of its garment out, not the virtue of civilisation and of Christianity, but of degradation and of death? / There is not one point in the above questions which cannot be shown by manifold evidence to meet in one, and one only, of our many vices. Of what ono vice, then, by which we are all afflicted, can all this truly be said? Is it not the language of soberness to say that if such a vice there bo it is not one vice only, but the root of all vices? Mr Gladstone has- said, in words that have Woirie a proverb, that the intemperance of the United Kingdom is tho source of more evils than war, pestilence, and famine; and to this it muist be added that the intemperance that reigns in our nation does not visit us periodically, like war, but is, year by year, in permanent activitv.

It is not rhetoric, therefore, not exaggeration, not fanaticism, to affirm, that intemperance in intoxicating drink is a vice' that stands head and shoulders above all other vices by which we are afflicted.