RUDYARD KIPLING, PROHIBITIONIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17338, 9 December 1919, Page 7

RUDYARD KIPLING, PROHIBITIONIST.

The following incident (writes a correspondent) is related by Rudyard Kipling to explain why he became a prohibition' ist :— ■ "The other sight of the evening was a horror. The little tragedy played itself out at a neighbouring table where two ' very young women were sitting. It did not strike me till very late in the evening ' that the pimply young reprobates werd making the girls drunk. They gave them red wine, and then white, and the voice* 1 rose slightly with the maidens' cheek flushes. I watched, wishing to stay, and the youths drank til] their speech thick, •ened and their eye-bulls grew watery. It was sickening to see, because I knew what' ; <nas going to happen. My friend eyed tin ' group and said : 'Maybe they are the chi.- ' dren* of respectable parents? I hardly think, though, they'd be allowed out with- ■ out any better escort than these boys, and i yet the place is a place where everybody I comes. They may be.' And they were, all four, children of sixteen and seventeen. Then, recanting previous opinions, I be- — came a prohibitionist. Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority ; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back doors, than to bring temptations to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against the drink. I have said, 'There is no harm in it if taken moderately.' and ret my own demand for beer helped directly to send those two girls reeling down the dark streets to —God alone knows what —(Ad\t.)