TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20346, 30 November 1929, Page 21

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.)

Little drops of porter, little drams of gut, , . , * Make the poor old drunkard poor, without, within; So the little pledge card, lonely though it be, Helps to snap the fetters, sets the drunkard free. THE WORSE FOR LIQUOR. You never by any chance hear of anv one who is “the better for liquor.” No, one thing is certain, drink is never an influence lifting upward, but always , pulling down. Here is a statement' worth pondering over. It was made recently by Mr Hamilton Fyfe, the late editor of the ‘Daily Herald’: — “Since the beginning .of the year five men of my acquaintance, and all more or less in the public eye, have died at early ages from-the effects of drink. Th’ree were connected with newspapers, one was a brilliant writer, and the' fifth was a prominent lawyer. Five out of one’s acquaintance in half a year! What is the number all told? You can’t check it by official returns. Death certificates never say, ‘ Cause of death—DßlNK.’ ” WAS HE AN ANCESTOR? Wo wonder if the famous Adam Ayles, of. the Arctic expedition _commanded by Captain Naresin 1875-76, was a forerunner of our friend of Bristol. Adam, who was the “ Champion Sledger,” enjoyed perfect health when his companions suffered from cold and frost-bite, and placed the Union Jack nearer the Pole than it had ever been up till that time. He was a teetotaler at a time when teetotalers were not so common as at the present day, and were indeed considered something of a curiosity. ‘ Punch ’■ recorded ■ the name and fame of the Arctic stalwart in the following verse; — A health to gallant Adam Alyes, Who o’er the topers still prevails From scurvy safe and Arctic gales, Through drinking only Adam’s Ales. DRINK IN PALESTINE. Before the mandate orer Palestine was given to the British Government there wore, in the whole country, only twenty-five places where intoxicating drink was sold. By the year 1926 there were, in Jerusalem alone. 300 licensed houses. The first thing a visitor saw when alighting from the train in Jerusalem was a bar. for part of the station had been fitted up as a’ drink shop. Not only so, but every important station in the Holy Land was similarly treated.

When we remember that the population of Palestine is chiefly made up of Jews (notoriously abstemious) and Moslems (abstainers bv religion), it would almost appear that the history of India is to be repeated in tbe land of the Bible. In India the Government practically forced drink upon a people taught by its religion to abstain, and much of the trouble there to-day may be traced to that terrible error._ In Palestine the mandate authorities seem to be following a similarly iniquitous course. With- the increased sale of liquor came—naturally—a corresponding increase in crime. Here is a table of criminal cases handled by the police during five years :

Year, Cases! 1921, 11,098 1922 ... 13,531 1923 ] 6,700 1924 16.833 1925 19,701

.These figures are taken from the report of tbs Mandate to the League of Nations, so they are authentic. PAYING A DEBT. Once two American schoolboys were working their way through Leland Stanford University. They were terribly hard up, and did not know where to get food and college fees. They did not mind what they did, or how they worked, as Jong as they could find the means to get through the term somehow. One day they had what might be called a bright idea. Paderewski was in the neighbourhood. Suppose they arranged a concert in the district and tried to make something out of it! Full of hope, they set to work. They found from Paderewski’s manager that ho must have a guarantee of 2,000 dollars, or .he would not come. “We will get much more than that,” said the boys. They worked very hard indeed to arrange the concert. When it was over they found, instead of having money to spare, they could only raise 1,600 dollars for Paderewski. After that there was expenses to pay. They went to Paderewski, told him the story, and gave him the 1,600 dollars, with a promissory note for the rest. By hook or by crook, they said, they would earn the money and send it to him as soon as they had got it. “ And what about your college fee? ” said Paderewski. “No, this will not do.” He took up the promissory note, and gave them back the 1,600' dollars, telling them to pay their concert expenses, take 10 per cent, each of the balance, and send tbe rest to him. The boys, intensely thankful, did as Paderewski said, and went on with their education. They grew up. The great pianist was heard of from time to time. He forgot all about them, of course, but they did not forget about him. A generation passed: The Great War came. Paderewski stopped playing, and tried to find food for starving Poland. The land he loved was in despair. Then Paderewski found that supplies were coming into Poland—tons of food and clothing, for the distressed. Manna was falling as from Heaven. Paderewski found that a man named Herbert Hoover was responsible for the relief. He went to Paris to see him

and thank him. Hoover smiled. “Come, now, Mr Paderewski,” he said, “ one must do what one can. Your Poland was in a terrible way. * Apart from that, you were once very kind to me when T was a college lad, and I have not forgotten.—The ‘ Children’s Newspaper.’ THE SINKING OF THE I’M ALONE. As a result of a searching investigation by the Law Department it has been proved that when the_ I’m Alone was challenged by the United States coastguard cutter she was within ten and a-half miles of the American coast —well inside the twelve mile limit. A DANGEROUS LUXURY. Alcohol at its best was a dangerous luxury, said Professor E. P. Cathcart, in an address on ‘ Alcohol and Human Efficiency.’ which he delivered on November 14 in the engineering department of Glasgow University. At the outset, Dr Cathcart contradicted the three common conceptions that alcohol was a stimulant, a food, and it provided warmth. Alcohol, he said, was a purely fictitious stimulant; it was u narcotic. Scientifically, he said, a moderate dose of alcohol was 30 cubic centrigianis. That represented the amount of alcohol that was contained in a pint of moderately heavy beer, or was equivalent to 220 z of ordinary whisky, half a pint of claret, or a quarter of a pint of port. _ Muscle was not influenced by alcohol in ordinary doses, but from scientific experiments made if was definitely shown that after a moderate dose there was a definite diminution in accuracy, and that diminution was governed to a certain extent by the amount of food that was present in the stomach. There was also evidence that as the result of that dose much of the higher intellectual power was less clear, and that a dose equivalent to four pints of beer taken at night would make a workman less effectso the following morning.