PROHIBITION OR REDUCTION ?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 18, 1 August 1902, Page 3

PROHIBITION OR REDUCTION ?

To the Editor of the "Evening Mail. ' Sir— A few nighls ago, our mutaal friend Mrs Sharpbeak, the greet spiritualist and patriot, came wildly rushing into my room with the cry, " Oh '. Mr Borax bave you heard the news ? ' I dr-»p my specs and the report of our parliamentary debates, in which with enrapture and admiration I was lost, and sez : " What's up ? Das ypur speckled hen begun to lay ?'" "No such luck, no, but the editor of the * Mail ' has turned Prohibitionist ?'' " Well, well, why not ? If he has, it should be a good losson, and you, as his old friend ought to follow suit : Your gin bottle wants rest. Ploase give me the paper ? ' After looking over your leading articles under the heading Prohibition and Reduction a second lime, I inform Mrs S. that you bad not gone bo far as to recommend Prohibition at once, but that you recommend Reduction. "You ser, it is this way." I sez to Mrs S. " The Editor does riot want to leave off drinking at once, but he wants to have it done by degrees, just as Job Whitefoot I did when he cut off his dog's tail by inches. It did not hurt tbe poor beast so much, as if he had cut off the tail all at once. You understand Mrs S., I will say four glasses of beer one day, three the next, and < wo the following and so on till the man is cured or reformed. The good old Prohibitionißts who never smoke and never drink, except tea, water, and ginger-beer cannot understand this [ way, and want the Moderates to come over to their version unconditionally — just as the Boers did, " You will see now, Mrß S." I went on, ' thai in a month or two, as was the case fonr years ago, the parsons in all the chapels will preach and teach yon bow lo strike"— Here Mrs S. new into a huff, saying that no parson should teach her ho w to strikeif— tbe rest of tbe sentence was happily lost to me. With a Borrowful heart, I regarded the depth of our moral and social degradation, and returned to my mind-ref rest ing parliamentary debates,—l am, eto. MARTIN BORAX. Creen Hills, July 30.