DRUNKENNESS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3166, 5 April 1871, Page 3

DRUNKENNESS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

[From the Islington Gazette.] The subject of drunkenness, and its consequences among the people of this country, is at last attracting the attention of statesmen and philanthropists of the most influential rank, and certainly not too soon for the welfare of the nation. Wherever we look we see the traces of this monstrous plague. It peoples our workhouses, it fills our prisons, it necessitates an outlay of many millions a year to repress and to punish the crimes that spring from it, and many millions more to relieve the misery it causes. It is this view of the subject that excites the movement of • - ie United Kingdom Alliance. They it as a frightful national evil, s&ich it is in the power of the nation itself to remove, and they desire that the question of permitting or suppressing the traffic of intoxicating liquors to the judgment of the people themselves. From a careful perusol of the documents of the. Alliance, we do not perceive anything of that tyrannical interference with individual liberty which is charged against it, The Alliance desires to have the power of licensing the liquor traffic talu j n from a few magistrates, who certainly know little of the matter, and given to the people themselves, who knowall about, it. Their ultimate object is, no doubt, by the force of publi'opinion to suppress the liquor traffic altogether, and who can say they arc wrong' 1 Would not England, Ireland, and Scotland be infinitely the better if there were not one drop of maddening liquid to be found within their borders. Balance the losses and the gains of such a change. The losses — the mean? of pretcrmaurally exciting the nervous system, from that pleasant, cheerful glow,' at which some stop short and call it good-fellowship, up to the raging madness which displays the savage ferocity of the wild beast, and engenders all other vices, crimes, and evil habits. The gains— a population orderly, sober, industrious, a diminution of pauperism to the lowest minimum, if not its complete extinction, an entire cecession of nine-tenths of the crime of the United Kingdom, with all the expense, the sorrow, and the shame which that crime brings with it ; a people at all times and in all places reasonable, and ready to listen to the lessons of truth and reason from their teachers ; in a word, a nation in which every citizen might be proud, instead of having to blush before an Asiatic like Baboo Sen when he reproached us most truthfully and manfully with the hideous sin. But we are told we have no right to interfere with a man's liberty if he chooses to make a beast of himself. We do not assent to the statement. Who dares say, like Cain, " I am not my brother's keeper '? " and allow ' lii's brother to loose his humanity and become a brute ? Even on the narrow ground of individual right, I am entitled to do all I can to prevent a man from such a course as will inevitably injure myself. No man is at liberty to indulge himself in a practice or habit which is sure to make himself a curse, and his wretched children a j burden upon others. These views are spreading far and wide. That they are founded on reason is self evident ; and that they ma? lead to some salutary remedy for this master evil of our times is to be devoutly wished. There is another, a higher ond a broader light in which the dreadful vice of drunkenness ought to be exhibited. It is de teriorating the whole English race, and if it goes on unchecked for a few generations more will convert the mass of the people into hereditary cretins, without moral sense, and reduce their reason to a mischeivous instinct. The effect of habitual drunkenness upon the individual, is, according to medical authority, to impair the nervous tissues and render them unsuitable as media, or instruments of the mind. This is remarkably obvious in the progress of a young man from moderate drinking to confirmed drunkenness— and which of us has not watched or witnessed so painful a career. There is a gradual deterioration of the moral sense, duty becomes more and more frequently post poned to the accustomed gratification ; firmness declines with the moral sense, until at last the victim becomes incapable of carrying out a resolution, and his manhood withers away amid vain regrets and childish lamentations, all sense of dignity vanishes, and the miserable slave of a habit acknowledges his slavery by applying to himself odious epithets, and drivellingly confesses that he is lost. We do not say that, even in this state, o man is irrecoverable, but his redemption requires a superhuman effort of the will. This regards the individual himself; but the evil does not rest here. There is no truth of physiology more firmly established than that the habits of a drunkard are transmitted from parent to child, and, if not eradicated in the second generation, will re-appear in the third and fourth with increased force Drunkenness must, therefore, not be looked upon as the hideous tyrannical vice of the present only. It must be regarded as the hereditary foe of all that is manly and admirable in the English race of men. How can we blame persons who thus study the subject if they propose to cut up by the roots the Upas, the effective cause of this virulent and wide-spreading pestilence. Preachers complain that their evening congregatione are small. Why do they not join in effort the men who would shut up the publichouses and gin-palaces, the successful Vivcils of the churches? They preach what, would, if attended to, make men cr > more virtuous, better prepared** ? live, or to die; but for the one convert they make, the gin palace sends ten to perdition. If this plague is to be stayed, society must make up its mind to take up the matter earnestly. The total abstainers are the only body of our countrymen who have

as yet done anything to limit its ravages. They arc a noble body, unselfish, ardent, and in the highest degree philanthropic ; the monuments of their heroic fight against this devouring enemy are many and brilliant, and they unquestionably possess the sole secret by which a habitual drunkard can be cured, and the only sure guarantee that the habit of drunkenness shall never take root. Our readers will understand that these remarks form a distinct and independent standpoint ; that we are not connected with any temperance or teetotal association. We have looked abroad for ourselves, and have been convinced that the flood of misery, vice, and crime that inundates our streets has its sources in the public-houses, which meet the view on every hand, and that thither, also, may be traced the ruin and profligacy which makes night hideous in the metropolis.. We have seen all this, and we have not hesitated to speak with honor of the bravo men who have not hesitated to attempt to stem the torrent, in a heroic and self-sacrificing spirit.