THE AMENITIES OF PROHIBITION.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 670, 8 January 1903, Page 20

THE AMENITIES OF PROHIBITION.

The puerility of some prohibition methods is extremely, amusing. Lady Henry Somerset, the failure of whose hope of seeing her son a duke has driven her into feverish activity, is now in America, engaged in besmirching the character of her own countrymen and countrywomen. She was taken the other day to visit the depot for contraband liquor in Portland, Maine, and the newspapers say she was “ much interested ” in the number of bottles of stout there. Why stout should interest the dear lady any more than whisky we are not told, but her interest

led her to ask for and obtain a curious favour of the sheriff in charge of the commandeered liquor. She took a bottle of stout, and, smashing it with a hammer, allowed the contents to flow into the sewer : A glorified version of the Carrie Nation act. Now, if Lady Henry had gone into some of the sly-grog dens in Portland and smashed up the chain-light-ning receptacles there she would in all probability: have done some good, but like all of her class, to whom prohibition is a. powerful hobby rather than a means of grace, she sees fit to ignore the existence of the illicit traffic, which is doing so much to sap the virtue and undermine the strengtli of the people of the Northern State. One of Lady Henry’s motives in going to America is apparently to impress upon our kin in the Republic the alleged fact that Great Britain is the most drunken country on the face of the earth, and that excessive drinking is not confined to men, but is indulged in by the women. She has, made out so plausible a case that the Yankee newspapers are led to wonder why she should waste her time abroad when there is so much work to do in her native fand. Unfortunately for Lady Henry, statistics do not bear out her allegations.