TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 13

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

PEARY ON ALCOHOL

"No man can drink alcoholic liquor who goes to the North. It would mean death to the man, and menace to the expedition."—Peary, the Arctic explorer.

MANCHESTER'S INCREASED SOBRIETY.

The Manchester Guardian of March 7 says:—"At two of the. largest clubs in Manchester the members have been warned recently that either they must drink PJ*/e or pay an increased subscription. reason for this is that there has been a steady decline in the bar receipts at both clubs, and the loss of profits is a serious matter in the annual balance sheets. Other clubs in Manchester are said to; be suffering from a similar wave of sobriety. Are times hard, or customs improving?"

ALCOHOL AND CHARACTER FORMING.

Dr Robert Jones, superintendent of the London County Asylum at Claybury, lectured before the Eugenic Society in London last month on "Mental Integrity." He emphasised the importance of the development of character in children, saying that was not much chance of reformation after, the age of 21. Alcohol was the most potent factor in inefficiency. Too little attention had been paid in the past to the formation _pf character. A large number of persons now in the asylums were there because of deficient education—because they had never been taught eelf-control. He welcomed the medical supervision of children as tending towards bodily health, and enlarged upon the importance to children of outdoor games, which awakened the social instinct and taught order and loyalty through the demands of rules and fair play. He also welcomed Nature study. The science of education, he thought, was to arouse interest through natural curiosity. A child could not have too much pleasure, whether in home life or outside it. He thought with pity of the thousands of poor-law children without a glimpse of home life, often being contaminated by their associations and surroundings, and looked forward to the results of the Royal Commission now. considering their welfare. Other factors in the education of a child ware religion, which had its influence on the roughest characters arid which could not _be separated from " morality and patriotism, which engendered respect for law and order and the dignity of labour. Purity of mind and body were essential, and in this respect he would say that there was no more subtle poison than alcohol, the most potent factor in inefficiency.

MR JUSTICE COHEN ON DRINK. Mr Justice Cohen, in 'discharging the man Toner., whom a jury at the Central Criminal Court this morning found not guilty of the manslaughter of John N«Json, delivered a short homily against drink! He said : " This is the fourth case I have tried this session, and in the last three I regret to say that drink has played an important—a disastrously important— part. This is the second case'in which the. life of a fellow-citizen was forfeited as the outcome of a drunken quarrel. In the third case a man was charged;with setting fire, or attempting to set fire, to premises in which his wife was living. In looking through the evidence it is "reasonable to suppose that the two lives would not have been forfeited and that there would have been no supposed attempt on the part of the man charged with attempting to set fire to his place had it not been that they were under the influence of drink. This is an early lesson this session of the influence of thie terrible evil. On the third day of this sitting it was shown that drink had cost two lives, and yet I suppose men will still continue to cling to drink as' if it were their very best friend. Nothing I have said reflects in an way upon the verdicts of the juries. I have no reason whatever to dissent from the verdicts. All I want to point out is that, out of four cases, in three drink has played a verv important part, perhaps the main part, in having men brought into the dock to stand for trial. There is room for very serious reflection."—'Australian Star, Wednesday, March 18, 1908. BAD EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON THE BRAIN. Writing in Science Progress, Dr Cushny maintains that " some of the highest functions of the brain are thrown out of action by alcohol administered in quantities which induce the nhase of exhilaration. Thus it is found that typesetters do a smaller amount of work and make a much larger number of misprints when even a couple of glasses of beer are allowed than when they perform their work without this dm2". Only in one respect was any increased aptitude shown —namely, in the transformation of an idea into movement. And many ergographic experiments appear to show that small quantities of alcohol have the effect of temporarily increasinp- the capacity of doing muscular work, especially when the subject is fatigued. This augmentation is only transient, and the total work done in the course of the day is considerably reduced bv alcohol, as hfis long been demonstrated in the case of forced march - insr." _ As to the use of alcohol as a medicine, Dr Cushnv says:—"Alcohol is a druf which may be useful in therapeutics, although I think it can- hardlv be considered indispensable, but which has so often given rise to habit that its use must be curtailed to the utmost limit."