DRUNKENNESS, ABSTINENCE, AND RESTRAINT.

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 185, 17 July 1873, Page 2

DRUNKENNESS, ABSTINENCE, AND RESTRAINT.

Tlic Home News, in noticing an arti cle on the above subject that appeared in the Edinburgh Review, comments and extracts as follows : - "The people of this country nre spending in drink a bnndred millions sterling a ye.ir. A trade has grown up in this kingdom, with a capital of a hundred and seventeen millions sterling, and a constituency of a million and a half engaged m the management ot its 150,000 establishments — atr.ule more powerful far than the cotton industry with its capital of eighty-live millions, or the woollen trade with its twenty-two milllions, or the iron trade with its twenty-five millions— a trade which consumes in the manufacture of diink an amount of gram equal to the whole produce of Scotland — which returns to the levenue £29,1'2ti,000, or nearly half the actual taxation of the United Kingdom— and which, after all, for its legitimate exercise, provides but a luxuiy, and in its illegitimate, the most insidious of all social temptations." Of course, following the example of Punch and other supeitine writers, the working classes are credited with the bulk of the evil thus indicated. The wiiter, however, ventures further, and just touches on a phase of the subject that is a tenor and a cuise, although like a good many other evil things, it is kept caiefully concealed by the cloak of gentility. "It," says the wiiter, "we aie to believe the testimony of eminent professional witnesses examined befoie Mr Dairy mple's committee, the evil has also extended to the higher classes. We have heard of ' diawing-room alcoholism ;' of the habit of young women of the upper classes drinking a small quantity of scent before going into society, because it gives an agreeable stimulus to the animal spirits, but really proves the rirst step to utter debasement and loathsome drunkenness. It is impossible to deny that the expenence of the medical ptofession, and even of private life, records numerous cases of this kind, which but a few yeira ago would have been deemed incredible." This is the "kid glo\e" fashion ot treating a social niter that is causing just as much misery as the indiscrunin^. drinking of the " buser tort," yet it is a step in the ngliUdirection nevertheless, but the path must be pursued boldly and fearlessly, for the sin, wickedness, and misery arising from the habit so delicately indicated is being added to day by day, and the end must needs be terrible. Until the law steps m and restrains the drunkard, whether man or woman, the sufferers must just sutler in silence, but the suffering is not lessened thereby. Upon the subject of restraint the writer and the doctor referred to in the article appear to be at one. In a note to a page referring chiefly to the physical effects of drinking, we are told :—": — " All the doctors who gave evidence before Mr Ddlrj mple's committee are agreed that habitual drunkenness is a form of insanity. Dr Peddie, of Edinburgh, speaks of the quality of the crimes committed by persons under the mllueuce ol drink as affording a sort of crucial test upon this point. For example, criminals, who are lnbitual drunkards, adhere with great uniformity to one class of crime. One man, when drunk, alwajs stole Uibles ; another, spades ;, another shoes ; another shawls ; another, tubs. Dr Skae, of Edinburgh, says there ure other sjmptoms of insanity hesides drinking: — 'The habitual drunkards are entirely giving to lying j jou cannot believe a word they say when- under the influence of drink, .and they will very often entertain a dislike to their friends, which makes them dangerous. I have a gentleman under my care now, who has been well for three years, but when ho is ill he hates his wife, and he hates his own life, and when he is well, he is very gentle and modest and retiring in his habits." Another doctor stivs : — ' Dipsomaniacs are indifferent to their relatnesand friends; and their moral nature is degraded.' Every medical witness represents dipsomania as involving thelo^s of truth, honour, and affection, as well as intellectual enieebloincnt. These are all symptoms of mental deiaiigement." The utter helplessness of those who have to endure the effects of the habits when indulged in is due to the state of the law thnt declines taking notice of this phase of insanity. Speaking of this part of the subject, the writer refers somewhat fully to the report laid before the committee, of which, v he says :—": — " It veiy properly points out ' a very fovg'^amount of drunkenness among all classes and both se^es, which never becomes public or is dealt with by the authorities, but which is piobably even a more fertile source of misery, poverty, and degradution than that which comes before the polico courts j.' and reports that ' legislation in such cases was strongly advocated by all the witnesses before the committee." Some of the witnesses thought it remarkable that institutions for the treatment of inveterate drunkards are so rare, and that we are without legal sanction for treating chronic or inveterate drunkenness as a cause of insanity or irresponsibility. Dr Forbes Winslow says : — ' Such institutions are, to my mind, one of the great and crying wants of the age. I know numbers of ladies moving m very good society who -tre never sober, and often brought home by the police drunk. They are wnes of men in a very high social position, I have been often consulted about these cases ; my hands are tied ; I have no doubt there is the insanity of drunkenness in them, but it is not the insanity which comes within the strict letter of the law,' Dr Druitt appealed to the committee strongly m behalf of a class consisting chiefly of women of the upper classes, or men who were led to secret dunking for the relief of misery, and that the habit dened all moral or lehgious restraints. ' I have known many instanoes, of women, nmiable, respectable, and pre-eminontly religious, who, nevertheless, were the victims of this habit from physical or moral causes.' The witnesses believe that many a good life would be saved if the law gave power to friends, subject to medical certification, to confine drunkards in such institutions, and that the very fear of being sent to them would operate powerfully, in some cases. But we aie \ bound to consider the interests of society, and especialty ot families, as well as those of individual drunkards. It is a rery serious fact that drunkenness represents a more constant deduction from our capacity for physical and moral nction than fever or insanity in its ordinary forms ; but its disastrous effects, especially upon the social and moral welfare of families, are even wider tban those of so-called diseases. For, not to speak of the evil inflicted by hereditary disorders transmitted by dviißkon parents to their offspring, we must reflect upon the widespread suffering and distress of relatives who are quite powerless against outrages which the existing state of the law may punish but cannot prevent " Jl is to be hoped that early legislation will define rules for the mode of treatment to be taken with reference to this phase of insanity : — " Dr. J. C. Browne, of Wakefield, says that refuges for inebriates would be a great relief to relatives and friends. 'Frequent applications are now made from the relatives and friends of habitual drunkards, asking what is to be done with them, and stating that thair patience is exhausted ;' and he mentions the circumstances of a case in which the relatives aetuallv sent a drunkard to an hotel that he niijjht drink himself to death. Thus they finally got rid of him." And this is, in thousands of cases, the only resource left to the unhappy relations, who, however, shrink from availing themselves of it. It is to be hoped a bill for legalising the establishment of asylums for inebriates msy\ quickly become law, for every day adds to the terrible necessity for them. f