INEBRIATES’ HOMES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11885, 8 May 1899, Page 4

INEBRIATES’ HOMES.

The gentleman who writes to us this morning,, complaining of the treatment he received when remanded to Lyttelton Gaol for medical treatment, may not be the best judge of what is good for’ the victims of alcoholism, but he has the advantage' of personal experience, and his letter confirms a good deal of what has been previously written on the subject. We do not know that our, correspondent would be any better pleased if Magistrates ’'were empowered to commit unfortunate people of his class for two or three years to a place of detention, where they would be given a chance to subdue their insatiable thirst for alcohol and to recover the selfrespect that is necessary for their restoration to the ranks of respectable society; but to our mind this is the only remedy that offers any reasonable prospect of success. , The prevailing practice of sending habitual drunkards to gaol for short periods, or of committing . them to the Samaritan Home for as long as they may choose to stay, is little better than useless., .Two or three months’ treatment is not sufficient, except in the rarest instances, to destroy the habits of half a lifetime, and in nine cases put of ten the patients return to their old haunts, simply fortified by their enforced abstinence for another period of'

— ; ——— i indulgence. This sort of thing goes oj6 j year after year in every city in the colony, i and yet the - public are content to .let a few philanthropic people struggle in vain against the increasing evil. Last year, Mr Joyce, the member for Lyttelton, managed to get an Inebriates’ Institutions Act on to the Statute Book, and although it is not exactly what its promoter could desire, it provides the machinery for the establishment of homes that would be of the great- ; est use in the treatment , of habitual drunkards. Like most measures of the kind it leaves rather too much to the Governor: iii-Council, and until the Premier can be persuaded to set aside a considerable sum of money for the work there. WilH be little prospect of any salutary reform.; It is rather curious, by the way, that the. Act seems to have been framed on the assumption that only men were addicted to excessive drinking. This is a pretty, compliment, to the other sex, but unfortunately, it is not deserved. In Christchurch, a large proportion of the habitual drunkards are women, and it is .generally .recognised .that, they present the greatest difficulty to the; reformer. Without the power of compulsory detention their cases are, indeed, practically hopeless. They simply go from bad to worse, down a long course of ishamd and degradation, until they end at last, like poor Mary Moxham, in a melancholy death. The problem may be solved in some cases, as Mrs Cunnmgton suggested on Saturday, by committing these unhappy people to gaol as “ rogues and vagabonds ” ; but the law is very precise in the use of its terms, and it would hardly allow the habitual drunkard who could show that he had any legitimate means of support to be deprived of his liberty for a longer period than two or three months. The only,effect tive remedy, as we have already said, is the institution of inebriates’ homes, and - until these axe established tne responsibility for such occurrences as we had to chronicle last week, must rest, not, upon the police or upon the Government, but upon the ' community that allows both the police and the Government to neglect their duty.