THE CONFIRMED DRUNKARD'S WIFE IN REPLY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 112, 11 May 1881, Page 4

THE CONFIRMED DRUNKARD'S WIFE IN REPLY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB.

Sir,— Our neighbor, Mrs. Martin, lent me your., paper last week, that had a letter in it written by a " Confirmed Drunkard." It is my husband that wrote it, that lam certain sure of, for it's just exactly' what I have heard him say, often and often, when Mr. Brown, the Good Templar, has been trying to convert him. He'd tell Brown " it was no use trying it on with him, for God Almighty had created him with a liking for drink, and that, therefore, he was bound to have it, or he would not be doing God's will"; and then he'd go on saying what a heavenly thing it was to be intoxicated, and how happy it made a man, and all that, just as the " Confirmed Drunkard " has written to your paper. It's my opinion that God Almighty had nothing at all to do with it, but the Devil had, and that it was he who made John take to drinking. When we was first married, he was a quiet, sober man, and had been well brought up, but he got to playing billiards, and the billiard room being at the publichouse, and the drink handy, he soon got tasting at it, and now these nine years' past he's been what he writes hisself — a confirmed drunkard. It is all very fine his talking about how heavenly it is being drunk ; but how is it for his poor wife and his five children that she has got to keep and do for? Many's the time I wish I was dead, and they and me laid in the graveyard, for my life's a misery, and has been ever since he took to the drink. The ways he goes on no poor woman could put up with. There was one Saturday night he came home ; I could see he was pretty well on ; and I was sitting up mending some of the bits of rags that belonged to the children, that they might go to school, next morning. Well, he bangs open the 'door with his foot, and when he sees me sitting there, he says, " What do you mean sitting up so late, wasting fire and candle light ?" " John," I says, quite quiet and gentle, " don't you see I'm mending the children's clothes?" Then he sits down by the fire, with his back to me, and he says to hisself, quite loud, "She's mending the clothes, she is," and then he takes off his hat and puts it on the fire. Then he says again, " She's mending the clothes, she is," and he takes off his coat, and puts it on the fire along with his hat ; and then he says again, " She's mending the clothes, she is ;" and he pulls off his trousers and puts them on the fire, and then his waistcoat, and his socks, and his boots, till he had nothing left but his shirt, and then he jumps up, and he says again, " She's mending the clothes, she is ;" and he bundles into bed, and rolls the blankets round him, and I had to lie on the two chairs all night, for I was afraid to speak to him. Next morning, when he woke, he says to me, " Mary, you go out and get me some clothes." Well, I had no money, and he had none to give me ; the publicans had it all; so I went out and begged of the neighbors for some old clothes. I thought the publicans, who had his, money, would have given me some, but no, not one of them would ; only one offered me an old waistcoat, and a barman's apron ; but I was not so low down as to accept that offer. Well, now, was not that a heavenly state of things for the confirmed drunkard's wife ? , Another night he came home quite late, and pretty far gone. I could see he'd been fighting by his face, and I suppose he'd had the worst of it, for he turns upon me, and says, "Where's

my supper?" Now, I'd had nothing to .eat all day, and the children they'd had but one meal, and had gone to bed crying for food, and had to cry their selves to sleep, for I'd none to give them ; so I just told him so, and he swore most dreadful at me, and he took and broke up the crockery, and the chairs, and everything in the room, and the windows, and knocked down the clock, and was aiming at me, but I got out of the door, and went to a neighbor's ; and that was the end that night. Wasn't that heavenly for the " Confirmed Drunkard's " wife ?

After that he had the del-trees, as they call it, and was crying out about the devils that were after him, and it took two men to hold him day and night, and the doctor had to be sent for, and he was days before he got better, and me and everybody worn out with nursing him and contending with him. Well, as he was getting better, Brown came in to argue with him, and try to get him to take the pledge. He promised Brown never to drink any more ; but when he asked him to take the pledge, he said no, that wasn't manly, and he would not do it — he'd be his own master, and not be pledged to nobody. Then Brown told him whenever he was passing the public-house to mind his resolution, and not go inside. So he said that would be his course. Well, Ido believe he meant it ; but the very next evening as he was coming home with five shillings he had earned, in his pocket, he had to come past the pub-lic-houses; there was four of them. Well, the first he came to, he says to hisself, "John, you mind your resolution" ; and so he gets past the door, and then he says, v Well done, resolution"; and "when he came to the next he says the same, "John, you mind your resolution," and then, "Well done, resolution"; and the same at the third; but when he got to the fourth he forgot to say, "John, mind your resolution"; but he says, " Well done, resolution — now I'll treat you.; and in he goes to the bar, and there was the end of his sobriety. He says his resolution would hold out for one or two bars, but they came so quick he had not time to screw his resolution up, and so he was sucked in before he could help it. It is a wonderful thing that the Government and the magistrates put those public - houses so thick together, so that no poor fellow that is fond of drink can get past them.

Now what do you think, Mr. Editor, of the heavenly life of the " Confirmed Drunkard's" wife? But that's just the way with you men. As long as it's all right for you, it's all right for everybody; and you never think of the poor wives and children, that has none of those heavenly pleasures, that the " Confirmed Drunkard " in your paper says is the consequence of drink. Well, if reeling, and staggering, and broken heads, and abused wives, and starving children, and smashed crockery, and del-trees be heavenly pleasures, no doubt, he is right, and the Government and the Magistrates are right to set these traps for working men. But, being a " Confirmed Drunkard's " wife, I have my own opinion on the subject ; and I say it's a sin and a shame for them to do it. How would the Magistrates, that license those places, like it if their own wives got drunk, and their children got to be drunkards ? Oh no, that would never do ! But when it is only poor working men, and their wives and children, that suffer, it's all right. That's one law for the rich, and another for the poor, and that's not fair in my opinion. The Confirmed Drunkard's Wife.