THE PROHIBITION QUESTION.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume VIII, Issue 653, 6 December 1899, Page 2

THE PROHIBITION QUESTION.

(/.To the Elitov.) Sir, -Allow me through yo'ucolumns to ask why any mia shall take upon himself, to dictate to aruther person what he shall eat or clrmk, or wherewithal he shall be clothed? Intoxicating liquors are not the only things that tiro iujurious if indulged in to oxi-ess. The majority of people now-a-days are either moderate drinkers or total abstainers; the drunkards are a very small per eentage of. the peopK I have known several persons who have killed themselves with excessive tea drinking. A lady of my acquaintance was in the habit of taking about 15 cups? of tea per diem. In a short time she was as nervous and shaky as a man suffering troni (1 delirium tremens." On consulting a doctor, he counselled her to driuk tea. in moderation, which she did, and recovered her former health. I can manage about half-a-pound of beef steak for dinner. Another man is a glutton and eats two pounds at, a sitting and is fast becoming unable to work, through corpulency and other ills arising from over indulgence. If intoxicating liquors are to be boycotted, why not apply the same rules to excessive tea drinking, gluttony, etc. The Creator endowed us with reasoning faculties, and if we break his laws we are threatened with future punishment, and in the same way if we infringe the laws of nature by excesses of any kind, we suffer in the body and in health in this world. If there wore no vice in the world, there would be no virtue. I take it virtue is withstanding temptation. Temptation is said to have commenced in the garden of Edon, in despite of Prohibition. Man is a free agent, and generally has a certain amount of obstinacy in his composition, and depend upon it, if you try to curtail his appetite or tastes by oppressive legislative measures, he will kick against them, and his desire for the forbidden fruit will increase more aud more, and he will in the end find the means of gratifying his desire. I admire the philantrophy of the temperance party, and doubtless commencing from the days of Father Matthew, they have done a great deal of very useful work in reclaiming drunkards; long may they continue to carry on their good work, but they ought themselves to learn moderation. Their present course of Prohibition advocacy is as intemperate in its way as the vice of the drunkard.—■ I am, etc., Modebatiot.