TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4894, 25 September 1901, Page 3

TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

There was only a moderate attendance at the Presbyterian schoolroom on Monday evening to hear Mr N. Turner's temperance lecture entitled " From tbe cradle to the gallows." The Bey. J. G, W. EUib presided, and in his opening remarks animadverted somewhat strongly on the smalL amount of temperance sentiment displayed by the people of Lawrence. Mr Turner, he said, camo with the besb recommendation, and in introducing him to the audience he had every confidence that those who were present (though they were not very numerous) wonld in no way suffer because of those who stayed away. Mr Turner, who, in his recent capacity as an officer connected with the Salvation Rescne work in Australia, bad been a regular visitor to all the prisons in Australia, proceeded at once to show from bis own knowledge bow intimately associated was the drinking habit and criminalty and gave an instance where in a charge street 91 persons were charged with different offences all but one were attributable to drink. He dwelt at great length on the necessity of parents keeping a proper control of their children and not allowing them to wander about the atreets of towns at night. This was a specially prominent evil in Australia Abd lie bad do hesitation in affirming that if a firmer control were exercised over children the ranks of the juvenile criminals would be greatly reduced. In speaking of the training ship in Sydney harbor as a reformatory, he characterised it only as the beginning of a career of crime and his experience was that the ranks of the criminal class was largely recruited from it. He had been a frequent visitor to this training ship and pathetically described several incidents that had come under his own observation. Coming to the subject of the lecture, he briefly and graphically pourtrayed the life-history of a man who till the age of 21 years had never known the taste of alcohol but who, at tbe request of his affianced bride, at a feast in honor of his majority,partook of wine, and who from that day became a confirmed drinker and at last a murderer while nnder the influence of the drink. Mr Turner, who is a forceful speaker, has a splendid repertoire of anecdotes with wbich he interspersed his remarks thus making his subject extremely interesting. Before conclude ing, Mr Turner also touched on the opium habit and the gambling vices which were becoming such prominent evils in these colonies, and spoke very strongly on the totalisator as a legalised form of gambling.

A vote of thanks to the lecturer w&b carried by acclamation. The meeting then closed by tbe pronouncing of tbe benediction.