TEETOTAL TRICKERY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 529, 7 February 1901, Page 17

TEETOTAL TRICKERY.

A CHAT BETWEEN TWO CHUMS.

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The condition was curious. But it is a fact that as Isaac Appleton’s body became enfeebled throiigh illness his mind seemed to gain an accession of force. He was told not to think. What absurd commands doctors give their patients now and then ! You might as well tell a man with a severe cold in his head not to sneeze, as order an active-minded man, in the invalided condition, not to think. So Isaac Appleton, during his bodily prostration, actually continued to think I He could not obey the physician’s injunction. And, as he had mingled among big communities and travelled a great deal near and far, his thoughts became fl-red on a variety of modtrn notions, ostensibly projected for the welfare of that very erratic creature called “ Man.” x “ Man,” in this instance, of course includes woman. That is a peculiarity of our language, arid the case is possibly a grievance of the lady Social Separatist “ oratoresses,’ who delight in advocating that utterly impossible theorv —woman’s absolute independence. They get some individuals dressed in men’s clothes to help them, too. That’s a queer side of the question. Isaac Appleton was sitting up in bed when his old f iend Billy Towers called on him. Billy was very glad to see his chum looking better than usual —“ a little of the old spry ‘ catch-’em-before-they-fall ’ look in his phiz,” was the opinion expressed on the occasion. « I say, Billy,” said Isaac, when they got on gossipy terms, “ what do you think I’ve been doing, or rather cogita'ing on, lately ?” “ Ask me another —an easier one,” was Billy’s response. “ For all I know you may be thinking of challenging the air-ship man —not spelt heir —or a deep-sea diver; or you may fancy yourself asking Roberts to take two hundred and fifty in a thousand from you, the loser to get the door-money. Or you may purpose going out to Australia, with a new suit of clothes on, to make love to a lady with a gold mine.” “ Don’t ‘ frivol,’ Billy,” replied Isaac. “ It’s a cheap habit, and I’m serious just now. Fact is, I’ve been thinking what a lot of sham there is in all social reformation societies, but more particularly in the teetotal connection We’ve really had too much of it.” Billy looked at his friend for a few moments, and then burst into a loud shout of laughter. “ Why, my boy,” he said when the fit subsided, “if you said ‘ cham ’ from the vineyards of sunny Rheims, I, for one, couldn’t say I have had too much of it. As to the sham of teetotalism, I’m not in a position to offer any opinion, seeing that I’m an ordinary moderate man, and have never had any cause to give more than a passing thought to the subject. I think, though, that it is wholly a personal question. I certainly do not believe in compulsory restrictive laws, if that is what you mean.” “ That’s it,” Isaac responded. “ While speaking of sham I alluded to the constitution of suppressive journals, for it is with them I’ve had most to do. They’re downright impossible to men who have to live by writing for the press.” “ That’s an emphatic accusation from a man of your literary experience. You must be right, I suppose, but I fail to see the working in such an active agitating organisation, the very existence of which depends upon the most effective ways of gaining and maintaining the utmost possible charitable publicity.” “ Individual selfishness, my boy ; then selfish cliquishness. In the general public the clique sees only one great ruling attachment, and that is represented by the simple word ‘ subscriptions.’ The cliques absorb the funds, and having to show some results they monopolise the pages of their special publications with self-advertising contributions of the sickly sentimental sort, thus making an exclusive confederacy for the control of all the profitable connections of tribute to the special cause, the most familiar being the temperance purpose.” “May I ask if you have had any personal experience of this assumed confederacy’s ways ?” inquired Billy, gravely. “ You know well enough, Billy Towers, that I’m not a man to make a positive assertion out of a mere supposition,” was Isaac Appleton’s response. “As a writer for the public, I have learned, long ago, to be very circumspect in my statements. I have had the experience you speak of. look here.” Isaac produced a small bundle of newspapers from a shelf, oddly placed on the wall at the back of his bed. “You must be aware,” he said, “ that I believe in a common-sense sobriety as being the only condition in which life can be properlj enjoyed. In social circles total abstinence is uncongenial in many ways. In one way it suggests to others an undeserved reproof. Excessive drinking, on the other hand, is intolerable to a moderate man in company.” “ It pays the publican,” suggested Billy. “ The right sort don’t think so,” Isaac replied. “ One boisterous boozer may scare a score of respectable regular customers. No, no ! Most innkeepers and publicans are better temperance advocates than you’ll find on the ordinary teetotal platform anywhere. But that part of the question is not the part I wish to speak about. Do you see these papers ?” “ Yes, I’m not blind ; they appear to be a lot of teetotal and popular religious papers and journals. On examination I find I know them all—by their titles, I mean. But why you have them beside you I can’t, for the life of me, say .” Billy tossed the papers about and sank back in his chair.

“ I keep them as remembrancers and as warnings. These papers contain a number of articles from my pen.” “ Impossible 1” exclaimed Billy. “ Why, Appleton, you’re not a convert, and I could never fancy you being an impostor.”

“ Thanks, old chap! No, I don’t think I’m an adept either at professional conversion or amateur imposture. But I happen to have studied the teetotal side of the drink question quite as closely as the taverner’s side. It is a subject concerning which prejudice, either on one side or another, is almost unavoidable.” “As liquor will always reach its level, even by underground channels, the subject should be left to adjust itself; that’s my way of thinking.” Billy uttered this opinion with marked emphasis. “My argument has always been that the habit is an individual responsibility, not a community’s charge,” said Isaac. “In those papers you may read quite a lot of my writing on the subject. Why should tavern-keepers be held responsible for the craving of dipsomanias, any more than tea-men for the nervous ailments common among millions of tea drinker P

“ I give it up!” “So do I, although I asked the question myself,” Isaac remarked. “ But it may surprise you to learn that I think there is more commercial meanness in the management of a teetotal periodical than there is in any sort of wrong doing in the management of an ordinary public-house ” “ Well, I can’t say I’m surprised at what you say,” responded Billy, thoughtfully, “ but what personal experience induces you to be so severe on ‘ T.T.’ organs ?” . “ The sharpest experience. Hear this. Bor all my writings in temperance periodicals I ve never yet received a single penny from editors or proprietors. It has gone on for some years. And all whom I’ve corresponded with knew I depended on my writing for a living." “ Whew. That’s nasty. But did you ever write and ask for payment ?” billy asked this question, knowing that his friend when in health was not very particular about money matters. “ Yes; and I recently told them of my illness and consequent inability to earn a fraction of my customary income. I told them I needed ‘medical comforts,’ as the soldiers say, and thought a request for some small payment for my contributions only reasonable.”

“ What resulted ?” inquired Billy. “ Well, one of them took no notice of my letters beyond stopping sending me the gratis copy of his paper he had been in the habit of sending. Another wrote that the. proprietors trusted to the generosity of contributors supporting the ‘ Great Cause ’ gratuitously. Still another had the audacity to reply that any request for payment was ‘ righteously unusual.’ That chap seemed to think the compliment of seeing my work in print should be quite as satisfying as a week’s provisions They all stopped the ‘ complimentary copies ’ of the papers, too. Perhaps they thought the attention was too encouraging. Luckily, the loss was not much felt. I’ve no interest whatever in what Brown, Smith, Jones, and Robinson may have to say about facts that were fully recognised and commented upon when men first discovered the way to get drunk, and that’s not yesterday.” “ But didn’t you— yourself —make new moral string out of old preachers’ rope ?” was Billy’s shrewd question. “The old subject’s exhausted. Nowadays we can’t find out much that s new about Noah’s Ark, nor about the doings of Moses, nor even about the first ancient Britons who surprised themselves by finding out the effects of fruit juice in its fermented state.” “ No, Billy. Nor was I a discoverer of the sea being salt, either; nor of the fact that the pyramids of Egypt were built some little time before Arabi Pasha’s insurrection in that much misruled country. ‘ But I was consistent in not condemning what is, perhaps, the very oldest industry and trade in the country —older even than tailoring, for men used stimulants when a chap with nothing on but a sheepskin round his shoulders was a regular dandy. With regard to excessive drinking, I simply put the cap of responsibility on the right heads; namely, those of the men and women who become big consumers, buying too much, and consequently coming to an end too soon. The hotel or tavern proprietor is merely a trade functionary who meets a public demand. But that’s not the present question. I want to know why the teetotal people did not pay me for my work?" “ Aye, that’s the tickler!” . responded Billy. “Still, aren’t all these people —mind you, I don’t know—editors, orators, and so forth, in the habit of doing their work on the voluntary principle themselves ? I always thought there was something philanthropic, solely, in all the endeavours of the teetotal fraternity.” “ Hear him!” exclaimed Isaac. “ Ye speak of ‘ voluntary ’ and ‘ philanthropic,’ indeed ! On the contrary, the leaders are well paid —better paid than many a hard-working merchant —out of charitable donations and the profits of publishing ventures. Oh, yes; the publications are in reality profitable. All the members of the various bodies consider it their duty to buy the books and journals for themselves ; and sometimes to distribute them among others—also at their own expense.” “ They’re cheap enough; the sum total of profit would not mean much,” said Billy. “ You’re wrong there,” replied Isaac. “ Although some are not extensively circulated, others are. Many of the writers get little or nothing for their work. ‘ Helping the cause ’ is said to be the incentive to writing. The majority are satisfied with the gratifying vanity of seeing their names in print.” “Aren’t you—excuse me—cutting yourself with your critical severity towards papers to which you’re a contributor ?” was Billy’s question, as he looked rather quizzically at his friend. In conversation Billy was awkwardly fond of putting the critic in the place of the criticised. In this case Isaac Appleton laughed lightly as he replied: “ True, thou guardian of fair play! But my work was somewhat different from the work of others. I was introduced as a professional writer. My stuff was original in so far as any work can be original nowadays. I don’t publish my name for the vanity of social consideration.

I publish it as a sign of my taking personally any responsibility that may be connected with the writing to which it is attached. Much of my work, however, has been anonymous. In that case the editors of the T.T. publications have not only withheld the money; they have taken to themselves any commendation the articles may have deserved and received. And some were very favourably noticed. Fancy yourself sitting placidly in company, calmly taking the most generous praise for something you never did “ Couldn’t manage it, Appleton, my boy, said Billy. “ Well, what I describe has been done to me over and over again by these editors. My opinion is that they never pay for anything, if they can avoid doing so; and that they take a mean advantage of simple and sympathetic helpers—some of them women, too.” “ They take the emotional view,” said Appleton, smiling. “ Men take the constitutional view. A woman writing on such a subject as drinking does not hesitate to sensationalise truth, until she makes a mild case of inebration. a loathsome horror, or an inoffensive convivial meeting a carousal of indescribable monsters. Some good writing ladies depend entirely upon their rather strong imaginative powers for their delineations of the unconventional modes of frail humanity.” “I wonder,” said Billy, “to return from women writers to non-paying editors, that a man of your experience and educated observation should continue to be little else than a selfsacrificing accomplice in such a contemptible combination of mutual self-glorifiers.” ‘ Billy, I’ve now stopped my connection with the fellows,” was Appleton’s reply. “ I don’t mind telling folk to keep sober —to take their refreshments reasonably—but I do object to let shams take the money that has been worked for by capable men. I’m not boasting - —editors will tell you that Ido my work well. And I also object to make traders responsible for the excesses of folk who may have got the ‘ excess in private houses previously. Between ‘excess’ and ‘ excise,’ the publican has a rough time of it. That’s my opinion. Teetotalers speak of abolishing public-houses. They might, with equal indifference to other folk’s prudent investments, suggest the Government suddenly shutting up the National Debt office, putting a ‘ gone-awav ’ notice on the door, and starting a new business of the same kind-—denying the old connection—— under a different name in the next street.” “ That would be a sensational ‘ bolt ’ and no mistake,” said Billy. “ And now let s talk of something more sensible and stimulating.” “ Yes, let’s change E’s,” replied Appleton. “ Abandoning the bores, let’s talk of the Boers instead.”

And so the conversation took a cheap excursion to the battlefields of the Transvaal. Reporting is unnecessary. The whole nation knows as much about the subject as either Billy Towers or Isaac Appleton. But their views on teetotal trickery are suggestive. — London “ L.V. Gazette.”