TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 16

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

REV. DR CHAPMAN ON PROHIBITION. “1 conic.. jEro.ru a country where 1 have travelledJlj every State, and almost in every city 6i any size, preaching in most of them ; where I know the great leaders in the-.;i ch^U'dr; and where the great leaders'|Mjtli'e temperance cause, are my personal I think Mr Alexander ■would .layl to-day, that possibly no man in America could speak with more authority than I concerning the moral condition -of America. Now, 1 want to say this. Whenever a man dares to come to Australia and tell you that the temperance cause is not winning out; whenever he dares to tell you that prohibition does not prohibit; whenever he dares to say that the cities that have tried prohibition have grown sick of it; whenever he dares to say that the States that have tested it have proved it inoperative ; whenever he dares to tell you that prohibition is a failure, here stands a man to say that that is an absolute falsehood. I could stand here to-day and tell you of cities of 10,000, 20,000, 60,000, 100,000, and 200,000 people without a single saloon, and one of them, the largest city in America to-day, without a saloon, is entering upon its third year of testing the plan. And that wave of prohibition came to Worcester, Massachusetts, as a result of a revival like this.”—The Patriot (Adelaide.) “IT IS ONLY FAIR TO THE WIFE.” Bv E. E. Hatchell. “ It is only fair to the wife,” said a man to me one day, " that I should sign the pledge and be a teetotaller!” He once owned three cabs, and was a prosperous man when she married him. But he gave way to drink, and, one by one, the cabs disappeared., until at last, he found himself not only penniless, but so deeply in debt to hie landlord as regards the rent that the latter had given him notice to quit. To, make a long story short he signed the pledge, and when I visited him three months later matters were looking very much brighter. •.•■A “ I know it makes things much better for me and the home,” said the wife, “ si nee my husband gave up tire drink. I’m so glad he has !” Of course it does! In fact, I am, of the opinion that no married man has any right to indulge in strong drink at all! It is mt a necessity of life. It is not a food. Sir Frederick Treves, the eminent surgeon, has said: “ Tee point with regard to alcohol is simple enough. It is a poison, and it is a poison which, like other poisons, has certain uses ; but the limitations in the use of alcohol should be as strict as tire limitations in the use of any other kind of poison. Moreover, it is an insidious poison, in that it produces effects which seem to have only one antidote—alcoholic again. . .. , . A young man cannot be fit if betakes alcohol. lly no possibility can he want it. No one who is young and healthy can want alcohol any more than he can want strychnine.” Are you, my reader, a married man? If so,, then (1) It is only fair to the wife that you should take care of your health. If you lose your health you will become a burden and an anxiety to her. Tire Lancet, the. leading medical journal, says, “ As an agent for producing degeneration alcohol is unrivalled.” Someone has well said “Beer is never so flat as the man who drinks it!” It is absolutely absurd to say that a liquor composed of chemicals —as everyone knows beer and stout are—and containing alcohol could do the human "body any good. It is noison to the blood, it injures the muscles, and affects every organ of the body. i,2). It is only lair to the wife to take care of your money. ' It is the duty of the husbana to support, his wife as welt as ever he can. Did ire not say on his wedding day ; " With all my worldly goods 1 thee endow?” Is he true to his promise if he endows the publican with a targe share of his wages week by week, and iris wife goes “short.” How can she do her duty to the home if she has to go out to work because you don’t bring her home enough, to make two ends meet ? _ Is it unlikely that her love for you will wax cold, if she sees,the publican’s wife dressed up in silks and satins which your money helped to buy ?; And should' you not be putting a little money away in the banks towards a rainy day? Lord Lytton said; “Never treat money matters with levity. Money is character.” It is true. We can judge of the character of a man by the way he spends his money. It does not say much tor a l hr an if he cannot walk straight home, past all the publiohouses, on a Saturday afternoon with his wages in his pocket. ; And, if the man is married, it says still, less for his character. I venture to say no married working man can afford to drink in those days of bad trade. He cannot afford to keep two_ houses going at the same time —the public house and ’his own home. If he is sensible cincl true man he will prefer to look after his own house. —Onward (Manchester, England.) MRS PHILIP SNOWDEN ON THE DRINK EVIL. In the course of a rousing address delivered: to a crowded meeting, held in Blackburn on Sunday night, Mrs Philip Snowden said she could not forget the horror of women who were brutalised and dehumanised through drink. They were the mothers of the nation, and unless the people stopped the temptations to drink on the part of the mothers of the nation, they would continue to decline ,as a nation .until, like, other nations equally cursed with the strong drink traffic, they would perish from off The face of the earth. Hw a dvice to those who were voters was to do what they could through legislation to lessen the temptations offered to their women. To her mind il was perfectly intolerable that a woman like Mrs Lewis (who has done such wonderful work for temperance by her mission at Lees Hall) should have a political status tkt.

I lower than that of the most abandoned criminal out ot gaol at the time of a general election, ft was intolerable to think that the great mass of intelligent women' in. the British rWomen s Temperance Association had not got the political power to help their fallen and degraded sisters. It was, to her-- mind, unthinkable that if women had the vote they’would not insist upon a large measure of licensing reform, and banish .altogether the hideous grocers’ licenses. Bhe wanted ■ those present to understand that she was with them in the fight against the liquor traffic. She came before them, she said, not as an advocate of temperance only, but as an advocate of total prohibition—or total abstinence for every individual. That was her ideal. This matter of the liquor traffic could not be argued about with the arguments that could be used 1 for any other cause on the face of the earth. The strong drink traffic had no right to an existence amongst -them, and it should be their solemn duty, by personal effort, by example, through legislation, through every power they possessed, to so create an atmospnere in their midst, to so train the minds of men and women to have a horror of this thing that the community would realise its vileness and voluntarily banish it from their midst.— Alliance News, October 14.