DO YOUR DUTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 899, 1 October 1866, Page 5

DO YOUR DUTY.

To tno Editor of the New Zealand Hebald. SjKi—Will you allow me a small space in your valuable paper to comment on tho above text, as the HeiialiD has tried to set many of our grievances to rights. Sir, —[ think all who hold that a principle is good for himself should persuade others to hold the same, more so, when tho principle is good for the country at large; and I think you will hold with me when I say that total abstinenoe iB a good principle for health and wealth. I think these principles Bhould be advocated, We have a Total Abstinence Society in Auckland, but, perhaps, there is no occasion for this work in Auckland. I think, in the first place, you will find that there are about 1200 drunkards committed annually—[No. 1200 committals. Tho same parties figure over and over again.—Ed., N.Z. 11.] and I believe there are as many more who aro not committed, and this is only a slight sketch of the evils you have had to place before us lately. One, in particular, that of the poor unfortunate who died in tho hospital, who fell down in her own house with her baby in her arms, while, at the Biime timo, the husbind oso drunk that be could not l.oip her up. Sir. this is a bad state of things ; all our accommodations aro getting so small for this class of people. We have built a fine asylum —wo have enlarged our gaols, and our hospital is too small, and some fancy they want a workhouse for the poor, and yet your teetotallers can look or\ al! this and take no notice of it. They say " what is to be done ?" I say let overy man do his duty. Is your Teetotal Society dead Plf it is, I would say,'' awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and force that great demon that is filling your asylum and gaols and your city with poverty and rags." But they say wo must have a law made to stop this great domon. I say no! Let men give up this accursed drinking, and down come the signboards. For example, look what your Newton teetotallers are doing. They liavo ciused one or t\\fo Bigns to come down, and that, too, by moral suasion, ciir, it is well known to every man of common Bcnse tint strong drink makfis a bad man worße, and that total abstinence makes a good man better. It is a pity such a society should go to sleep. You have a society in Auckland, you have a secretary, and you have a committee, and you have all kinds of meetings in Auckland, but one of the best must be allowed to go to sleep. Sir, you will think it strange when I say I have been at a meeting held in a church, and I heard six ministers speak, and not one of them said one word about that dreadful demon that is the cause of so much degradation. I fancy I hear the poor drunkard Baying, with "No man careth for my soul." Sir, I could say a great deal more, but I am afraid I am intruding on your worthy columns.—l ain, &c., Father Matthew. Auckland, Sept. 29, 1860.