PROHIBITION.

Hastings Standard, Issue 66, 13 July 1896, Page 3

PROHIBITION.

[To the Editor.] Sir,—With reference to an effusion appearing in your columns oji Thursday and subscribed " John Hosking," I desire to say that the rev. gentleman is evidently confounding the use of alcoholic liquors with their abuse. Each product of the earth has been given to us by an All-wise Power for a rational use, and if we don't be guided by our reason in availing ourselves of them we must certainly suffer, as Nature insists upon a strict adherence to her laws. Beer and whisky may be taken to excess, so also may milk, cold tea, or turtle sou]), and each case will carry its inevitable penalty. Even one may have too much religion, and I venture to say that that commodity drives more people hopelessly insane than does drink. The writer taunts me with writing anonymously, but if he was situated as I am under an employer who looks on these matters as through a glass darkly he might consider it advisable not to flourish his name in print. Not that I am in any way ashamed of the subject that I am writing upon, but it would hardly be expedient for me under the circumstances to sign my name. However, before leaving the subject of anonymous writing, I have a challenge to throw out and that is—if John Hosking will deny that he is the author of a certain scurrilous article "Plymouth Brethrenism Exposed," by '■ A Brother," which appeared in a recently-issued scurrilous pamphlet, I will consider the advisabienes? or otherwise of appending my full name. The effusion in question is so very, very much like the expressions used by tkat gentleman when lecturing in (iisborne a few weeks ago that I cannot help making some connection between the two. "John Hosking" quotes a number of names—some famous, some very otherwise—of those opposed to the liquor trafiic. What litter nonsense! I could give him a list, dating back from the time of Julius C;esar to the present day, of men who have sung the praises of " wine that sparkles " a list that would fill several columns of your journal. He does not dare to answer my remark about practical temperance work, and I again repeat that instead of trying to pick a man from the gutter, he seems to delight in finding in him a subject for a half-hour's temperance sermon. If I thought Prohibition would benefit the colony one jot, I would support it, but as it is likely to prove an abject failure, I say " control the traffic," and there will be nothing to cry out about. Talk about getting under the influence of the Upas tree, it is nothing compared to getting under the influence of a fad. Mr Hosking is now intoxicated with a fad, and his judgment is evidently warped. To his contention that beer and whisky in themselves are poisonous and pestilential, I do not think I can do better than quote the following article from the Sydney Bulletin—a paper containing more religion in its columns than some of the so-called goody-goody pamphlets. Apologising for trespassing so greatly on your space.—l am, &e., No Lover of Shams. " Within the last few weeks New South Wales has suffered an unpleasant awakening in rr the mysteries of the drink-traffic. The awakening has had no sort of connection with teetotalism, and has not served to bring the Cold Tea millennium one whit nearer. The public is already aware that water, even allegedly 'pure' water, contains germs, and mineral salts, and traces of decayed vegetation, and dead horse, and old defunct dog, and deceased 'possum, and native bear that has joined the great majority, therefore the rampant apostle who demands that the world shall drink nothing save cold water does not appeal strongly to the cleanliving section of the community. It knows also that tea is a strange substance which may have been trodden on by leprous feet and packed by scaly hands, and which is eminently calculated to arouse suspicion. It has learned that milk is a substance which is very often squeezed by a dirty man out of a "dirty, tuberculosed cow ; that the milk, even when it is not exposed to the atmosphere in an unclean dairy, and put in an unwashed can, and deteriorated through the cow getting its hind foot in the pail, is a substance which gathers infection almost faster than any other ; and, therefore, it has begun to view this fluid also with a distrustful eye. Also it has learned at different times, strange and objectionable facts about almost everything else which it eats and drinks. And lately the people of Australia have ascertained that their various alcoholic beverages are as unwholesome and as badly adulterated as the rest, and that art is just about as unclean and as objectionable as nature. This discovery doesn't help on the temperance cause, for the fact that whisky is poisonous doesn't make milk any less poisonous, and the fact that beer is dirty doesn't make tea, or the Chinaman by whom it is packed, any cleaner. But it creates a feeling of vague unrest, and a shadowy idea that something not very well defined should to done to alleviate the gigantic evil."