The Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1893. The Old " Drunks."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4738, 1 September 1893, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1893. The Old " Drunks."

Isabella Leckie waß "before the Bench" on Tuesday last, accused of drunkenness.' It was not the first time that she had been j in that position ; very much on the con- I trary, for it was the hundred and fif h. Isabella is a perplexing problem to the Magistrates. She recurs with terrible persistency and regularity. She is "put away " again and again, and after periods of seclusion, longer or shorter, she comes up— neither fresh nor smiling, but broken and pitiable, a wretched creature, who, in answer to the question, "What have you to Eay," can only reply:— "I am ashamed of it." The Magistrates who convicted Isabella for the hundred and fifth time did the best thing they could for her under present circumstances —■they sent her to gaol for three months. For that period, therefore, she will be safe from her insidious foe, the bottle; she will recover a measure of health and strength, and, for a quarter of the year she will be a Bober and secluded member of the community. Then—well, then she will come up for her hundred and Bixth conviction. Really something should be done with Isabella— something different to merely shutting her up for a few weeks or months at a time, in order to let the whiskey get out of her and keep her in condition for her bouts of debauchery. When she is at large she is a nuisance of the worst sort, a curse to herself and the community; and her plan of spending half of her time in drunkenness and the other half in gaol, is one which involvea the State in no little expense, more than if she were kept safely locked up out of the way of her aforesaid foe. Why should she not be ? It would be better for her, for it would prevent her from wallowing in the slough of degradation from which, when Bhe iB "at liberty," she cannot lift' herself ; and it would be better for the | public, who would be spared the infliction of her noisome presence and the contagion of her foul example. As matters are at present, however, it cannot be done ; and Isabella Leckie and her fellow miserables— for, alas, hers is not a solitary instance — must remain, save for brief periods, at large, living plague spots, to torment and infect the community. How long shall this be ? ____________