MISS CAMPBELL’S LECTURE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 7743, 29 March 1886, Page 2

MISS CAMPBELL’S LECTURE.

Miss Ada Campbell lectured at the Theatre Royal last evening on “ Evil in the light of Science ; its cause and Cure.” There war a .very large audience, all parts of the theatre being well filled. .Before commencing her lecture Miss Campbell apologised for the nonattendance of the Hon Mr Stout, who, she said, had been detained by a lawsuit in which he was engaged. Entering on her subject, Miss' Campbell, at the outset, argued at some length upon evil and good from a scientific point of view. She contended that everything in natnre was good ; the evil was in the effects produced } and then, what was good for one constitution or man was evil for another. Evil might be defined as a departure from the coaditions necessary to the harmony of existence. She argued that all the vices of mankind came to them from the animal world ; for, in that world which was called so innocent,an4 pgre, were to be found all the vices that blot the..name of humanity. There cannibalism pilgtpd Jt> its post atrocious form ; purder the past cruel and relentless ; thieving, tyranny and slavery ; deception and lying. There, too, were fonnd all the minor vices—jealousy, - vanity, eto. The faculties which ied to the exercise of these sots in men were In themselves right; it was their abuse that was wrong. People, for instance, said what an evil alcohol was. Nothing of the It was a good turned into an evil; a blessing turned t**™- Lef tin a bottle or in a cask, alcohol would work any evtl; but transfer it to the interior of a natnaQ being, and then yon would get the evil. The ef ect of it, p]}« argued, Was that it brought out air the Inherent evil fn adman’s nature, tearing away thh certain ‘which, civilisation had made over the lower-' instincts of men. Drunkenness, too, came from the animal world. She denied that the savages “ knew nothing about • drink until they learned to love the fire-water of the pale faces." There never had been a race that had not possessed a narcotic or stimulant in some form or other ; and it was a strange fact that < in all esses the effects ascribed to such beverages, • of warming, enervating, and so on, were almost- the same- in ail countries. - The real effect of alcohol, however, was that it diminished nervous ■ sensitiveness, so that sickness or weariness, &o. t were not

felt. Another great mistake was the supposition that alcohol gave strength. In order to ;;ive strength it would have to pass into material which the system would consume ; -•aid that ic did not do so was proved by tbe fact that if you gave a man a certain amount of alcohol and shut him up in a glass case you would iu a short time recover from tbe glass nearly all tbe alcohol he had taken in. A man, Miss Campbell said, wjio was addicted to drunkenness was drawing on the stores of nature—on his own capital—and sooner or later he would be bankrupt in mind and body. She believed a small amount of drink was necessary for some people; but she maintained that a great many people would be far better without it. Shutting up pnblto-houses on Sundays might lessen drunkenness a little; bat look at the evils it brought ia the shape of perjury, and tbe employment even of little children as spies, lying, hypocrisy, and fraud. A great mistake waa made in treating drunkenness as a moral perversion, instead of as a positive physical device ; and moral suasion waa useless if it was not accompanied by proper treatment. She expressed an opinion that as tbe Government reaped such enormous profit from tbe sale of drink It should provide proper treatment for persons suffering by the consumption of drink. Let a drunkard be put into a drink hospital until be became sane and able to fight the weakness. Snob institutions, she believed, existed in Germany. Prevention was better than cure, and the real core lay In parental reform, for if parents drank, though they might not be drunkards, they might be sure their children would smell of the bottle. Dealing with the social evil, Miss Campbell prefaced her remarks by saying that to all who might think this waa not a fit subject for a woman to handle, she would say "Honi aoit qul mal y pense,*’ If there was good to be done, a woman should do it if she could. Her arguments upon this question were that the evil was not one that could be put down by Act of Parliament. It was caused by Q&tare’a law o! demand and supply. Men ruled Church and State, and made tbe laws, and they would not see that this evil they attempted to put down waa caused by their own tyranny. Men went free, but the unfortunate women were hunted about from place to place. While she agreed with tbe efforts to reclaim unfortunate women, she argued that the reclamation of a few did not at all assist in destroying the evil. Miss Campbell expressed her admiration of the efforts made by Boman Catholic ladies in this direction, and said that in that way the Bomlah Church set an example toothers. Bat this evil must be “rooted ’* out. Reformation lay, not with • women, but with men. As to how the evil was to be put down, the first thing was to equalise the rights of women with those o! men as regarded property, labor, and remuneration. Hitherto tbe lords of creation bad all the best situations, and had forced the women to the wall; but now it was going to be different. Women had got on to the platform, and into the legal profession ; and was it not strange that women had not been utilised before where there was bo much talking to be done ? In conclusion, Mias Campbell said woman was “the ladder by which men climbed to heaven or descended to hell.” The lecture waa a lengthy and able one, and was apparently very highly appre* dated by the audience.