TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 45

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

[The matter for this column is supplied ty a representative of the local temperance bodies, who alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in it.] We'll never yield the cause as lost — It's God*—n o matter what tho cost 1 From drinking and swearing and every sin, You are safe and secure if you never begin. Then, never begin, never begin! UNCIVILISED WARFARE. (The American Friend.) It is called " uncivilised warfare" to poison the- water which an enemy drinks. Why is it not branded as "uncivilised" to furnish our own soldiers — our own citizens — with a drink which destroys their usefulness, not only as soldiers, but as men? VHJi]N ROGUES FALL OUT. The druggists of Frankfort, Ky., were recently indicted at the instance of the saloon men for selling liquor without a prescription and fined heavily in the city court. In retaliation the druggists are keeping an eagle eye on the saloonmen, with the result that neither a. drug store nor a saloon is open on Sunday. DIAMOND RINGS FOR BARMAIDS. At the annual meeting of the shareholders of the Craigellachie-Glenlivet Distillery Company, Limited, held in Glasgow, Mr P. J. Mackie, in moving the adoption of the report, asserted that in the export trade, in which the company was largely interested, very reprehensible tactics were employed by certain firms in trying to gain a footing — such as bribing the barmaids with silk dresses and diamond rings. '"" AN IMPORTANT OPINION. The Assistant Attorney-general of the United States has rendered an opinion in which he holds that it is the duty of the various boards of education to enforce the law passed by Congress MUy 20, 1896, that makes the study of alcoholism with reference to its effects upon the humaTi ' system a compulsory branch of study not only in the public schools of the territories, but la the various Indian schools wherever located, and in. the naval and military schools of the United States. Teachers also must pass a satisfactory examination on this special subject if they have not already done so. HOW TO SUCCEED. % Mr E. J. Nankivell. is writing a series of articles in the " Reporters' Magazine " (of which he is the editor) on " How to Succeed on tho Press," and in the September number says in reference to the formation of a library: — "The rising journalist or student who .loes not waste his shillings on drink or vile tobacco can often afford such luxuries as the swiller and the smoker have to deny themselves of." WHEN AND HOW THE MAINE LAW WAS ENACTED. "The first law to suppress the saloons — passed in 1849 — was vetoed by the Governor. The next year the bill was passed through one House of tho Legiflnture, but failed in the Senate. In 1851 the irresistible Dow— then Mayor of Portland — went up to Augusta with his bill in hip pocket, and although the Legislature had a Democratic majority, the bill went through the lower house by a vote of 81 to 40. and in the Senate by 18 to 10. Governor Hubbard signed it promptly, and Mayor Dow at once gave notice to the liquor sellers of Portland to hurry their " pizen " out of town, or it would be seized and confiscated forthwith. The wholesale trade ceased instantly ; the retail shops soon closed. DOCTORS,— ATTENTION ! The use of liquor as a medicine is discountenanced, more and more by reputable physicians. One of tho leading physicians of New York, Dr. A. Monae Lesser, head surgeon of the Red Cross Hospital of New York, was in Cuba in the hospitals at and near Santiago. He says: — "The results of non-alcoholic treatment were very markedly favourable. As an experiment, and a concession to the general medical opinion that prescribes alcohol, on our first arrival I allowed alcohol to be given °to six ->.itientß, whose condition was such aa, in the judgment of most medical men, to make the administration of alcohol desirable. To my great sorrow, four out of those six died. Afterward in treating, absolutely without alcohol, 63 cases of thope same diseases of which so many thousands have died, we lost but one patient, who died on the day of entrance." FRENCH VIEWS OF TEMPERANCE. The French Minister for Public Instruction issued last year a decree imposing on all schoolß,whether for boyß or girls, the necessity of giving lessons on the evil» of intemperance. Le Signal says that the policy of this decree lias been actively forwarded by the University of Toulouse, which is at the head of education throughout a district which contains over 10,000 teachers. It has divided this district into 40 sections, and summoned all tho teachers in each to hear an address on temperance teaching. A. university prize will be annually awarded to the schoolmaster most successful in his temperance lessons. Last year one schoolmaster at Toulouse, Mr Jilbaut, enrolled as pledged abstainers 1008 young folks between the ages of 12 and 16. LEMONADE OR WINE. A young man, in company with several other gentlemen, called upon a young lady. Her father was present to assist in entertaining tho guests, and offered wine, but the young lady asked : " Did you call upon me or upon papa?" Gallantry, if nothing else, compelled thorn to answer: " We called upon you." " Then you will please not drink wine. I have lemonade for my visitors."' The father urged his guests to drink, and they were undecided. Tho young lady added s

''Remember, if you called on me, then you drink lemonade ; but if upon papa, why, in that case, I have nothing to say." The wine glasses were set down with their contents untasted. After leaving the house, one of the party exclaimed : " That was the most effectual temperance lecture I e% - er heard." The young man from whom these- facts were obtained broke off at once from the use of strong drink, and holds a grateful remembrance of the lady who gracefully and resolutely gave him to understand that her guests should not drink wine. — Ex. THE WASPS'- NEST— A STORY FOR THE HOME. Bx Uncle James. A family dwelt in a low-roofed thatched cottage. The children were small, and the room in which they slept was directly beneath the thatch. As the mother rose early in the summer morning she found the children's room infested with wasps, buzzing about the bed, clustering in the window, or crawling upon the floor. She killed numbers of them, but day by day they seemed to increase. At length she discovered, to her horror, that there was a nest of wasps in the thatch near tlie children's bed, and apparently in such a position as to defy all efforts to dislodge them; A mother's fear for her children, howover, wrought upon her feelings to such a degree that, waiting until her husband had gone to hb work and the children were safely out of reach, she placed an earthen pan filled With water in the room in question, then baring her arm to the shoulder, she thrust it down between* the rafters and the plaster, grasped the wasps' nest and, dragging it forth, dashed it at once into the water. " And did you get stung?" we inquired"A little," said the mother, "but, I did nob mind that," and the eyes beamed with unwonted fire as she gazed on her stalwart sons, who then, as in infancy, were her prido and her solace. Such was the heroism of a mother's love. Beneath many a rooftree lurks a worse enemy of families, a worse enemy to the children than stinging insect or venomous reptile. The drinking system is a far greater source o£ danger, and yet the pest is nursed aa a household pet, its garnish neßts infest every part of the social system, and the victims of its sting crowd every circle of society. PROHIBITION IN VERMONT. Ar, apropos to the misrepresentation that is abroad, with regard to the \iews of tho peoplo of Vermont in the matter of their prohibitory law, we quote the following from the Free Press of Burlington in that State : — " Everywhere the traffic has been driven behind closed doors. No signs of liquors for sale, or' arrays- of whisky bottles in the windows, have tempted the man who was endeavouring to control his appetite. The person who wanted liquor has had to go in. search of it. It has not been offered to him unsought. Moreover, whon told that it was a foolish law, ihe Vermonters have looked outside their State to see how license laws were working elsewhere. They have noted more evidences of prevailing intemperance in States and citie3 having license laws than in Vermont. They have seen that high-license laws are elsewhere as- oxtensively violated as.the prohibitory law is here. They have, in cities where the granting of licenses depended on the board of aldermen, seen s»uch boards constituted, as in Chicago, almost wholly of liquor-dealers. Where, as in Massachusetts, licenses have been alloted by boards of special license commissioners, they have Been local politics run up the rum issue, and boards composed of men who sought the office of commissioner for the money there was in it, who gave- out licenses to the giealcst number, and to the dealers who would put up the most money to go into the pockets of the commissioners — the dealers recouping themselves by indiscriminate sales to minors and drunkards, on Sundays and week days, and of the cheapest, poorest., and most maddening liquor.". "Shey have seen places, such as some of the Canadian cities, whore the license system has been under as fair control as was deemed possible, so suffering from pauperism and crime fostered by the saloons that strong movements in favour of prohibition have h risen in them. Influenced by such pi^actical considerations, as well as to a large extent by principle, the people of Vermont have sustained the law ; no attempt to repeal or weaken it having come within Mauser-rifle shot of succeeding." A LETTER WORTH ATTENTION. £500 FiIOJI LADY C.-UILISLE* 10 SAVE TIIK BOYS. Naworth Castle, Carlisle, September 21, 1898. Dear Mr Hayler, — I send to the league, with this letter, a cheque of £500 (fivo kuijdred pounds), to be spent during the nexr few yenrs on special Band of Hope work, according to the scheme lately under the consideration of the committee. I give this money- as a thank offering, because I have the blessing of knowing that my son Hubert, whom I have just lost in the Soudnn, at the early age of 27, was, during his short but eventful span of life, faithful to the total abstinence pledge, ■which lie took when he was 10 years old. It was in the Lancrcost School at a C.E.T.S. meeting, in the latter end of 1881, thar; my boy joined the temperance ranks. I enrolled my&elf after the meeting was over (for though a life abstainer I was not pledged before), and I then turned to my children who were beside me, and asked them if they would like to join. Hubert answered, " Let me first think a little while." I did not press him; I let him go out into the still night by hhn&clf, and I waited, and after a while he came back and said, " I wish to sign." He loved the Band of Hope and temperance meetings, and in thase boyish days he was a great recruiter for the Band of Hope force. Steadfast he remained as he grew older, and steadfast he died. With such steadfastness and staying power in the young men of this generation, we should soon win our temperance battle. I know that all the boys in our north of England (where li-^s the work of our league) dearly love generous daring, and splendid courage on fields of battle, or in the world of adventure, and would that they might learn to honour and to follow, even as much, that greater courage which belongs to those who have striven in everything to be true to righteous manliness, an.d who, fighting their good fight and winning their victory, show us how glad and glorious a thing is young manhood when blended with innocence.

There is something better than mere grief in a iiarent's heart* if the soul that haß

flitted from our earth has kept unspotted tho white robes of infancy even to the last. — Yours sincerely, Rosalind Cajilislb.