TEMPERANCE BUDGET.

Otago Witness, Issue 1901, 10 July 1890, Page 31

TEMPERANCE BUDGET.

[Published under Arrangement with the New Zealand Temperance Alliance.] President Lincoln when sea sick, was once recommended spirits. "No," be said; "I have seen too many on land siok through drinking the same thing." In 164 British hospitals tbe milk bill has increased over 300 per cent, during the past 25 years, while there haß been a deorease of 47 per cent, in the consumption of alcohol. Illinois has a law which provides that all men who have been under the influence of liquor twice in one year are drunkards, and saloon keepers selling to them are liable to lOOdol fine. The Catholic Total Abstinence Sooiety is raising money to establish a Father Matthew Professorship of Temperance at the Great Cathedral University at Washington. " Say, Jim, it seemß ter me that those Chinese are alwayß at work ! "—"Ah, they re barbarians an' don't know no better. Let Bgo to the pub an' see if we can't Btrike someun fer a drink I" , , „. Canon Wilberforce laid the whole of the unfermented wine question before Archbishop Tait not long before the death of that prelate. His reply was : " There can be no decision of legality or illegality in this matter, It must be decided by the underlying conscience of each individual man." He was proposing jto a pretty girl, and, as she hesitated, he urged his Buit thus, Dear Julia, I await your answer with bated breath ! Julia replied firmly, " Young man, you will have to bait your breath with something different from brandy and soda before you catch me." Dr Monokton, of Maidstone, in a reoent temperance lecture, asked the pertinent ques- j tion: "Why was it that by so many persons an Englishman should always be deemed thirsty, but never hungry ?" He might have named the kin absurdity of professing to allay thirst by that which it is stimulated and intensified. The toper is a chronic Oliver Twißt, always " asking for more." " Cognac brandy is, after all, the best cure for pain in the oheßt, don't you think, Frau Hirschmaier?"--"lamnot bo sure of that. Formerly my hußband uaad to be troubled that way only two or three times a year, but since I have begun to keep brandy in the house he bus been ailing nearly every day." Canon Hannan, of Edinburgh, remembers the time, not a great many yearß ago, when Irish people in celebrating St. Patrick's Day never thought for one moment they could enjoy thomaelvea if they were not at least threequarters drunk. Theße times, he rejoiced to think, had passed away never to return. In B. 0. Farjeon's new work, "Toilers in Babylon," the following suggestive passage occurs : " Brewers and distillers grow fat upon vice, and go smiling through the world, con- ' veniently blind to the fact that the rioher they grow the more crowded hecome the ranks of those wretched ones from whose midst our prisons are filled, and whose lives are a standing reproach to humanity and civilisation." ?l The real truth is," Bays tbe London Star, 11 that men who have much brain work to do should not drink stimulants at all. It is pretty sure to leave them less fit for work in the morning. Among politicans, the man who drinks wine freely is now almost unknown ; and there are a great number who do not touoh stimulants at all."

One hundred and eighteen newspapers are published in Nebraska for Prohibition. This means that their editors prefer universal prosperity to general pauperty. That they prefer to see a man spend his wealth, time, and strength in some higher business than making paupers and ignoramuses of hiß wife, parents, and children. In a leoture by Dr Daniel, Olark, superintendent of Toronto Asylum for the Insane, delivered laßt month in Toronto, on "The Brain and its Enemies," he said:— "Another enemy of the brain was alcohol. And by its use people were not only punishing themselves, but they were punishing those who would come after them, for their iniquities were visited upon ' tbe third and fourth generations.' " Mary Davies, the singer, says that for quite 10 years she bas been a total abstainer. At one time she thought it necessary to occasionally take a glass of wine before proceeding to a concert, but she finds she is now quite as well without any alcoholio stimulant, and a cup of cocoa or beef- tea now and then suffices. The Woman's World for April contains her portrait and a view of her music room,

Dbink and Padpebism.— An extraordinary state of things seemß to exist in connection with some of the London workhoußes. An application was recently made by a gentleman to one of the largest of them for a sober woman as a domestic servant. The answer of the matron was to the effect that amongat the 400 female inmates there was not a aober woman to be found. And it appears that the governor of tbe same institution affirmed that there was not a sober man among the 500 male inmateß. Surely beer, if not something stronerer, must find ita way into this particular workhouse. leish Wit and Savee.— At a temperance meeting where several related their experiences, a humorous Irishman who spoke was acknowledged to be the ohief speaker. He had on a pair of fine new boots. Said he: " A week after I signed tbe pledge I met an old friend, and he says, 'Them's a fine pair of boots you have on ' ' They are,' Bays I, ' and 'twas the saloon keeper who gave them to me.' 'That was generous of him,' says he. 'It wap,' saya I, 'but I made a bargain with him. He was to keep hiß drink, and I was to keep my money. My money bought me these fine boots. I got the best of the bargain, and I'm going to stick to it.' " Stbong Dbink in Afbioa.— Some of the moßt remarkable utterances against tbe crime of sending strong drink to Africa comes from the Africans themselves. The woe caused by the drink demon is graphically depicted by the chief of Bechuanaland, Khame, who lately wrote to an English official in South Africa : " I fear Lo Bengula less than I fear brandy. I fougbtl with Lo Bengula when he had hia father's great warriors from Natal, and drove him back and he never came again, and God, who helped me then, would help me again. Lo Bengula never gives me a sleepless night. But to fight against drink is to' fight against demonß, and not against men. I dread the white man's diink more than all the assegais of tbe Matabele, which kill men's bodies, and it is quickly over ; but drink putß dovils into men, and destroys both their souls and their bodies for ever. Ita wounds nsver heal." _ _

Kansas : Fabmers How ihey'Paid Theib Mortgages.— A writer in the Chicago Tribune (23rd January) says :— " There _is evidence everywhere of moat unusual prosperity with the farmer. Two weeks ago to-day I happened to be in the town of Salina. On that single day there was recorded there the discharge of chattel mortgages to the amount of 45,000d01. Thia could not be without good crops : but the people of Kansas are beginning to see that there ia something besides good crops to account for it. Now, I was against tbe Prohibition movement, but I have been ioroedto believe the evidence I nee before my

eyes. The 30,000,000dp1. which it formerly took to pay for Kansas liquor haß gone a great way towards buying better clothes, better homes, and paying debts. Prohibition in Kansas is a success. Tbe men who were its enemies are now among its strongest friends. It iB no longer a matter of theories but of results, and there is no one who can look equarely at these results, and compare them with conditions before tbe law was passed, without deolaring the law a success."