TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20322, 2 November 1929, Page 23

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.) A genius cut with a diamond bn his own wine glass these significant words: Within this cup destruction rides, And in its depths d _ ruin swim; Around its foam perdition glides, And death is dancing on the brim. CHANGING HABITS OF THE NATION. What is the cause of the decreased consumption of alcohol in_ Great Britain (asks the London ‘Daily News’)? For some years the figures have revealed a steadily reduced consumption of both spirits and beer. In 1913 the people of England drank 22,004,432 gallons of spirits, compared with 10,412,921 last year. Beer shows a similar decline—3o,7sß,Boo bulk barrels in 1913, compared with 23,418,640 in 1927. The figures for the present year are believed to show a further decline. Opinions vary as to the cause. One view is that the greatly increased taxation since the war, which has trebled the price of a bottle of whisky and doubled that of a glass of beer amplv explains it. The other view is that "there is a genuine change in the attitude of the people. It is, significant that the Earl of Iveagh, presiding recently at the meeting of a brewing company, said that “a change in the Lahrts or the people” was one of the chief causes or decreased consumption. Motoring, the increased popularity of outdoor games, the general desire for physical fitness, the advent of wireless, have all been given a share of the credit for the reduced amount of drinking. At the recent manoeuvres in Sussex the small quantity of beer drunk was noticed with surprise by some ser-geant-majors of the old school. “ Most of the men,” said a Guards sergeant major, “ prefer a cup of tea or coffee. It was very different in the old days.” PAYMENT BY RESULTS. In these days we hear quite a lot about payment by results. Tunney got £198,000 for pounding Jack Dempsey into the realm, of the “has beens ” and £105,000 for handing hefty hits to Tom Hcenoy, John Milton got £5 for writing * Paradise Lost.’ And, incidentally, Mr Booze gets nearly £8,000,000 from the, people of New Zealand, and gives us poverty, misery, disease, crime, and death m return. INDIA. The Government of the Indian province of Madras has inscribed on its Budget for 1929 to 1930 a sum _ of £30,000 sterling for the fight against alcoholism, the organisation of which will be entrusted to a central bureau working under the control and with the co-operation of the State. TOTAL ABSTINENCE IS SCIENTIFIC. . The pursuit and publication of scientific knowledge—nothing else— is the one aim of the National Medical Temperance League. It makes its appeal not to sentiment, but to fact. Its members cannot bo indifferent to the great social evils wrought by excessive “drinking,” nor are they insensible of the claims of other than scientific considerations in the difficult task of dealing wisely with the drink problem that seems to hamper our personal and national . advancement. But it has taken as its own one part of the great task—the discovery and the publication of the scientific data which, after all, must underlie and support any really successful solution of this problem. It desires from this point of view alone to make its appeal to the medical profession as to the one most able to respond to it, and whose responsibility in the matter is therefore heavier than lies upon any other class of the community -Sir Alfred P. Gould, K.C.Y.0., M.D. FOR MOTOR DRIVERS. A police sergeant in England is reported to have said “ that a man in charge of a car was not socially intoxicated, but mechanically drunk.” Good sense on the part of the policeman, and almost equal to ‘Punch’s’ constable, who declared: “No, sir; he was not drunk, but he was insufficiently otherwise.” NO LIQUOR FOR BYRD. Those deluded mortals who imagine that alcohol is good for keeping out the cold and maintaining vigour under, hardship, may be surprised to know that Commander Byrd in New York stated that ho had issued the same order on this South Pole - xpedition that had been made on the North Pole expedition against the use of _ intoxicating liquor, and that it was his practice to request his personnel to drink no intoxicants after the expedition started. The Arctic explorers nave no use for the rum ration. GREAT MEN’S VIEWS. Lord Wolseley: “ Drink kills more than our newest weapons of warfare.” Thomas Edison: “ I am a total abstainer from alcoholic liquors. 1 always felt that I had a better use for m j. Ramsay MacDonald; “The liquor trade has become a menace to the public life, of the country, and it corrupts politics.” Sir Wm. Joynson-Hicks: “Even daring the short time I have been in office I find that drink is at the bottom of an enormous proportion of crime, t-nd particularly crimes of violence. Richard Cobden: “The temperance cause is the foundation of all -ocial and political reform.” • Sir Hall Caine: “I can hardly icmember a* case of a wreck and ruin that has not been directly or indirectly caused through drink.. It is a terrible roll call my memory goes back through, of men of good and brilliant gifts, and of bright and glorious opportunities, who are dead, or worse than dead, at the hands of the great hypnotist— Drink.”

LORD DEWAR DOESN’T TOUCH IT. LONDON ‘ DAILY GRAPHIC ’ SAYS SO. In previous issues of ‘ Common Sense’ we have stated, and produced the necessary evidence to prove that hotelkeepers, brewers, etc., demand sober and abstemious employees. Of course they do‘ And, further, quite a nu’ 4'er "abstain from the beverages they hand out over , their counters. It is proverbial that bar tenders, brewers, and distillers are often teetotallers. In proof of this t-b o following extract from a sketch describing the reopening of an old London tpefcnirant is reprinted from the ‘Daily Graphic ’: — “ A table away, however —most, interesting of all—was a middle-aged man lunching alone and sipping ginger .beer, with droll solemnity, through a couple of straws. It was Lord Dewar,, and I went over to His table.

“‘Do you always drink that?” 1 asked the head of the distillery concern bearing his name. „ i .“ ‘ Usually,’ was reply. *ou know.’ ho continued, ‘it is not generally realised that, people in the whisky trade are the quintessence of sobriety. Personally, if 1 take # a single glass of port or champagne it makes me feel bad for three or four days afterwards. “ incidentally, Lord Dewar does not think that America will ever allow spirits again. . .... And then he told me how the British consumption of whisky has decreased from 32,000,000 gallons a year to 12,000,000 gallons.”