TO MODERATE DRINKERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 82, 20 November 1911, Page 5

TO MODERATE DRINKERS.

IS IT WORTH WHILE? You say you have always used alcoholic drinks and have taken no harm. Are you quite sure? Do you know, or do you only think you know ? Is your health so perfect that there is no lapse from the highest standard to account for, or can you definitely and wholly account for failure to preserve such a standard? Remember that for many years past the medical profession has been constantly correcting its views as to what constitutes moderation in the use of alcohol, and the tendency is still in the direction of minimising the harmless dose. The commonsense of the layman is following in the same direction. The socalled moderate man of thirty years ago would be classed as a fairly heavy drinker to-day, and the moderate man of to-day would,- a generation ago, have been called abstenious. A most significant fact, perhaps the most significant to be met with by the student of the subject, is the almost entire abandonment of alcohol in our hospitals, not only in surgical cases, as Mr Myers tried to make us believe the other day, but generally. But, granted that you can detect in yourself no harmful effect from your moder-

ate potations. Have you suffered nothing from the inability of others to apply the brake at the point, ■where use merges into abuse? What about —, and —, and ? Was it of no concern to you when these good fellows went under? They did not take to heavy drinking from the start. They were moderates once, and it was the moderate habit, of which you are an upholder, that paved the way to that perilous edge over which they fell. Have you no responsibility? No one advocates the retention of the open bar in order to satisfy the diseased appetite of the immoderate drinker. It is kept open for you. In order that you shall continue to enjoy your glass, the best business sites in our towns are devoted to the sale of a commodity for which the large majority of thejjoOTulati.on has no use. The inebriates’ homes, Ibak-nps, gaols and lunatic asylums are not for you, but they are to a great extent a necessity of “the trade,” .which trade you think is a necessity fo; 1 ' your comfort and convenience. .'ire you so wedded to your glass as to .'deliberately affirm by your vote on December 7in, that a fresh crop of drurjks shall be raised every year and catjered for by the expensive institutions ’.above mentioned? Is it worth while?*