A HOME FOR INEBRIATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10406, 2 April 1897, Page 3

A HOME FOR INEBRIATES.

Sib,— have 110 hesitancy in declaring drunkenness to be one of the heaviest curses to which humanity iB exposed. It has (inter alia), withered joys, blighted hopes, blasted prospects, brought degradation and ruin, sorrow and tears, sickness and premature' death to untold thousands ot the race. It is, moreover, sau to contemplate that multitudes of victims are more to be pitied than censured. Millions have been launched into being, it is to be feared, with au innate craving for strong drink— lust so powerful and imperious that nothing else than gratification appeases the clamant sufferer. Reason protests, conscience reproaches, the spirit groans beneath its terrible load— the creature is powerless to break away from the habit which has been thus generated, and holds him by its powerful chain. Prohibition, so far as 1 can see, brings no deliverance, nor points out to these unfortunates a city of refuge. Acts of Parliament, penal statutes, imposition of fines, temporary incarceration, must all fail in bringing back the inebriate from the land of captivity. I read with peculiar interest the evidence adduced by the Rev. Mr._ Wolfenden, of Victoria, in an interview which is recorded in the Herald of the 24th ultimo, anent the highly satisfactory operations which are now being carried on in a home for inebriates, situated at Yarra Glen. I commend these statements to the thoughtful consideration of all colonists who have at heart the well-being of their fellow creatures. I ask if, in the perusal of these facts, there is not sufficient to stimulate the public to prompt au energetic action herein, so that the large army of drunkards who now go through the farce of paying and imprisonment may be brought within the scope of an institution, wherein remedial measures are scientifically applied, so as to crush the viper in the egg, and quench within the drunkard that insatiable desire for drink which proves his bane and ruin. I may also add that in the Herald supplement of the '27th ultimo, there appeared a trenchant article herein, from the pen of " Uoloims," which threshed out this subject in an able and exhaustive manner. One rejoices that there are many earnestworkers in the noble cause of temperance; but are not the well-intentioned methods resorted to by this apostolate indequate to grapple with an evil of such gigantic proportions? Is not their modus operandi like cutting off twigs and lopping branches while the roots of this upas tree are altogether unaffected? If this is so, then the treatment spoken of in your columns and the marvellous results which have flowed therefrom, point to the conclusion that therapeutic treatment, in conjunction with moral suasion and congenial temporary occupation, must censtitute the agency by which deliverance is to be brought about. One looks almost despairingly on the condition of the dipsomaniac. He appears in a worse position than those creatures who have been buried alive, for he has descended to the dismal grave of his chronic habits. We ask, " Who shall roll for us away the stone from this sepulchre ?" I answer that philanthropy with her handmaid, Enlightened Science, is the great archangel of mercy who touches the stone which thereafter rolls away by the mighty force of gravitation. Get an Inebriates Home, resort to the said means for the exorcism of inebriate devils, and the result will be as gratifying to all lovers of mankind as it will Drove beneficial to those who. alas, through their vices havo " sold themselves for nought." In such an altruistic home, inebriates would be aroused from their fearful nightmare, liberated from the vampire of a lust which eclipses the intellectual faculties, blunts the moral sense, paralyses the will, saps the character, ruini the health, and brings gloom and darkness into a region which certainly should be irradiated with all that welcome and gracious visitation which is included in the Divine fiat, " Let there be light."l am, etc., John Abbott. Hurstmere, April 1,1897.