Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1886. CHRISTMAS AND CONVIVIALITY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7626, 25 December 1886, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1886. CHRISTMAS AND CONVIVIALITY.

wish all our readers "A Merry Christmas "—a season of rational enjoyment, all the pleasanter if it be spent, not in the inure seeking for sulf-indiilgonco, but in striving lo .share happiness with otliorii. Jf thoro bo one season in (ho year when men's hearts open, when business habits can for the time bo cast completely on one side, when tho sternest parent can unbend and be as one of his children, when even old feuds, assume 'such insignilicaneo that a friendly approach on ono side can bo met with ft hearty reception on the other, that season is Christinas. Families, scattered for the rest of the year, meet again, and yearly renew by association llio feeling of kinship. Even the poorest, if their wants be known, need not. lack the means to share in the general feasting and merriment, for who, possessing superabundance, would refuse to give of his .surplus to a needy brother at this jovial season '! There may be such curmudgeons— men to whom Christmas is just as other seasons— but wo .seek to know none .such, To us Christmas seem.s to bring onco more a touch of javenilily, with its capacity for enjoyment, its single-hearted. ness, and, tendernes'i of feeling unblunled by rough contact, with a crabbed, bargain-driving, and care-ridden world. Christinas Is pro-uiiiinontly tlioscasoii for

enjoyment. Let it be with snow on the ground outside, and roaring fires within, or in the sweltering heat of tropical or semi-tropical climes, the Englishman seeks to mark Christinas by an abundance of good cheer. Here, in the height of summer, roast beef and plum pudding will be as universal as in England, with its sleet end cold, and somehow the fare does not seem less seasonable. If the climate be different, men's feelings niAj the same, and that which has been Christmas fare from lime immemorial will reign as Christmas faro when both writer and readers of tlicse lines shall have long gone to their last rest. Yet in the celebration of Christmas, as of other festivals, there has been a change— and it is a change all sensiblo men will welcome, and seek to extend. Nol many years ago Christinas was not only a season of roast beef and plumpudding, but of hard drinking' as well. Perhaps tho world is not getting better so f;i.*>l :i-s moralists desiio, but at least with iV'-neot to oxesfisivo indulgence in intoxicating drinks there has' been a marked elmm;o fov the better during late year.-!. Tlio'.h who can glance back half a century and contrast the habits of lb.it t ;-.;,• with tboso of the present, must w. a wonderful change iv the fooling with which undue devotion to (■i! bottlo is regarded. Then occasional dri'.keiiiio.-is was regarded rather as an

.■•■liiibU 1 weakness than otherwise. It is .■■•■•ii.'f'i!' 1 --- said that people in tlie bulk v. (..•! iii-.hc .v.iber then. If so it wns because they bad nol the means ol indulging in excess. They worked bard for six long days every week to gain food and covering which would be looked upon with contemptuous discontent by the laborers and artisans of to-day. There was no margin for heavy potations, except now and again, and the cup was not then spared. In higher circles drunkenness was looked upon as almost a virtue. The old saying "as drunk as a lord," shows how tho aristocrats of the last century demeaned themselves, and in the works of contemporary authors we have abundant evidence of the drinking habits of " .society. " From King and Court downwards tliore was no shame felt in the admission of drunkenness — men made light of it, and treated it as a joke. A man who could "put away" his four or five bottles of wine after dinner was regarded with a kind of admiring respect, and brain-power was tested by the capacity lo absorb alcohol. Fielding, Smollett, and their contemporaries, writing of society ns they found it, draw pictures of every-day debauchery which must sicken and disgust the gentleman of this half of the nineteenth century. Bench and Bar were saturated with the prevailing vice, and how judicial business was transacted at all after their nightly saturnalias is a marvel to ns when we try to realise it. ■ Even the ministers of religion wore not ashamed to countenance, and also engage in, debaucheries which at the present day would drivo out of decent society all known to take part in them. In Scot* land matters were even worse, and to dip no deeper than the ever-fresh Reminiscences of Dean Ramsay is to read of a state of affairs almost incredible to tlie generation of to-day. The Dean quotes a round dozen of authors, men of wide attainments and note in their day, who speak of nightly drunkenness as the natural condition of a " gentleman," and even clergymen are irravely described as owing part of their inllucnco and popularity to the power to drink deeply. Dickens, writing of only one generation ago, introduces us lo Mr Pickwick and his

friends in all stages of vinous indulgence, and, ns showing us the bent of his own mind, by bis power of language and descriptive humor, draws a glamour over tho scenes. Who does not love Mr Pickwick, the genial, kindly, benevolent old soul? Yet Mr Pickwick was not proof against the seduction? of punch, and more than once he is presented to us undeniably drunk. Only the masterly pen of " Boz" prevents a grave shake of the head, and a feeling that Mr Pickwick was anything but a desirable inmate of a quiet, household. But, though JDickcr.s has described excesses, the very fact that be felt it necessary to throw over them a kindly veil of humor, and to withhold all grosser details, shows how the general feeling on the question of intemperance had undergone a great change when the "Pickwick Papers" first delighted the readers of the defunct Morning Ckronielo, and his later works are all but free from tlie blemish which is noticeable in all his earlier ones.

Now in decent society drunkenness is regarded as little slioit of a crime. It is a deep disgrace to him who drinks, and even vellects upon his connections as a Wot on the family escutcheon. That there is drunkenness— a very great deal of drunkenness— yet existing is only too patent to every observer. But year by year excessive indulgence is looked upon, especially in middle-class society, with more active disfavor, and a young man who cannot control his appetites, or has not sufficient; self-respect to do so, finds tlio door of every respectable house closed to him, though he may have wealth and position at his back. Education is having its effect. At first only a mere outward polish which a scratch removed, ■to reveal the half-civilized savage, it li.is gradually penetrated deeper, and carried with it a more genuine refinement and appreciation of a higher life than that of a brawling, lighting debauchee. By the term education we do not moan the more book - learning of the schools. • We include under it the awakened influence of the churches, and of the temperance and teetotal societies which abound in our midst. The fight has been a long oho and a hard one, but there is reason to hope for ultimate victory. In high places, where drunkenness and other vices once ruled supreme, they are now banished or hidden from sight by the participant as a conscious disgrace. Many positions have been won from the enemy, and though ho may have his fastnesses left his outworks are being undermined, and sobriety and decency are surely replacing drnnkpnncss and debauchery in their grosser phases. Is there not reason for encouragement in what has been gained ? Does not each Christmas as it conies mark a further advance, a greater tendency to healthy recreation, and a lcos desire to indulge the mere animal appetite ? Wo say it does, and anyone looking back along the vista of half a century must concede thai we are light, ami that by so much humanity is better than it was in the days of our grandfather.*;, May our grandchildren nay the same in reference to their day !