THE REV. W. J. WILLIAMS' ESTIMATE OF THE AUCKLAND PUBLIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10835, 19 August 1898, Page 3

THE REV. W. J. WILLIAMS' ESTIMATE OF THE AUCKLAND PUBLIC.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l do not think that there is much to add to your scathing leader on tho subject of Mr. Williams' letter. Mr. Williams is a monomaniac on the subject of prohibition, but he doubtless speaks the truth about the 1 effects of drink, as lie lias heard of them from the lips of tho repentant drunkards who tern tho mainstay and basis of the prohibition party. There are certain persons of nasty, impure minds, in whom drink does produce, oven in small quantities, the extremely unpleasant symptoms so graphically described in Mr. Williams' letter. But if ho thinks his prohibitionist friends, for whom every kind of alcoholio stimulant is poison, axe fair specimens of the average civilised European, Le is quite mistaken. TRoy are the awful examples of decadency. In contrast to Mr. Williams' dreadful picture of tho effect that he thinks will bo produced by selling alcoliolio stimulants in the Exhibition, allow me to stato what I have personally witnessed for more than three years. I have lived next door to a place v.'hero they actually sell alcoholized drinks to all comers, and are open to do so from seven a.m. to ten p.m. For tho nimble 3d (which ought to lie sacred to the offertory plate) you can procure a glass of that highly-intoxicating compound-colonial beer -and feel that wild delight (too short, alas!) which half-a-pint of that popular beverage produces. Or yon may get whisky, beloved of Scotchmen, or wine, either Australian or European. And yet there are no indecent exhibitons there—nothing to distress even the pure mind of the Rev. W. J. Williams. Pp r haps ouq ream of the absence of ad indecency is because prohibitionists dare not enter the house— it is a licensed hotel. To prevent any misconception, may I add that the licensee and his family are not patients of mine? They prefer "the other man."— am, etc., R. H. Bakkwell. Beach Road, Devonport, August 18, 1898.