TEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 914, 6 September 1889, Page 7

TEMPERANCE.

ENGLAND’S DEGRADATIO ST. A duke’s daughter describes the horrors OE A WALK IN’ WHITECHAPEL. One day last week Lady Henry Somerset, a very earnest and eloquent champion of total abstinence, was initiated at Hereford into the Order of Rechabites, and in a long speech spoke out frankly about drinking at Whitechapel. ‘A week or two ago, on a Saturday night,’ she said, ‘ I was walking down Whitechapel road, and as I weat a great loDging came into my heart that I coaid take some of the leading men of our land down into the midst of that scene. Not contented with the ordinary public house, they have now I nvented a new method —that of having an archway in the open

street, with only a counter over which drink is served to the passer-by, so that the public need open no door as they.pass. All these places are served by young girls. Your hearts would have sickened if you could have looked on those fair young faces. I say shame on us as a nation. In America the amount of drink is enormous. But there is all honour to the nation in one respect ; their feeling about children and young girls does not exist in England. You never find a native born American girl serving as a barmaid in the States. On all the land over which wave the Stars and Stripes you will not find young girls placed in positions of such temptation and danger. ‘I cannot describe the horrors of that scene in Whitechapel, the streets illuminated by the lights of gin palaces. There is the low theatre, which is doing the devil's work six days out of seven. These theatres are now being'licensed to sell drink on Sunday, as if six days were not enough. How can I put before you the sin and misery of that scene ? To see the children flocking out of these dens of sin ! I state no exaggeration, no overdrawn picture. You have only to read the police reports. Last year you will find in London alone 500 children under 10 years old were taken up dead drunk, and there were 1500 under 14, and 2000 under 21.’ —Pall Mall Gazette. The Maharajah of Baroda and his entire Court are total abstainers, and do all in their power to discourage the drinking habits of the people. A native paper gives the information.