PROHIBITION “JIM JAMS.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 678, 5 March 1903, Page 20

PROHIBITION “JIM JAMS.”

Notwithstanding the crushing facts that have been produced from time to time to show that prohibition does not “prohibit” in those countries where it has had a trial, the teetotal fanatic still comes up smirking with his example from Maine and Kansas, places where the standard of humanity, not to sav morality, has sunk to an abnormal depth, the whole being intended to deceive the non-reading, unthinking people of this •country and to induce them to vote nolicense at the polls, and generally to assist in harassing the people engaged in the lawful calling of licensed victuallers Some additional facts, from a source so respectable as that of the leading Epis copal bishop in the United States, are to hand which should be placed within rea*ch of the fanatics’ dupe-, as being calculate d to show them what dire results follow interference with the natural customs and habits of mankind. Speaking at a recent American diocesan conference, Bishop Potter presented the following tacts : —“ln one of the farming districts of the Middle West, where local sentiment has pronounced strongly against any traffic in fermented liquors, it was noticed that drunkenness of a peculiarly violent and insanity-producing kind was largely on the increase among the farm labourers. Ultimately the explanation was found in the fact that the craving for stimulents had led to the tapping from the silos of the vegetable juices of ensilage, which was in a condi tion of alcoholic ferment, and gave a drink not much less efficacious than fusel oil in maddening stimulation. “ Tn Vermont, a Prohibition State, Dr. A. P. Grihnel,- of Burlington, made a critical investigation of the con sumption

of stimulents in that State, chiefly narcotic arugs, and of so-called medicines into wnich such drugs enter as components of chi* f efficacy, which is extremely instructive Only p.-irt of the dealers responded to the inquiry; from those that did it was learned that they dispense every month, of morphine, paregoric, or laudanum, what is equivalentto 3,000,000 doses of opium—the standard for a dose being one-eighth grain of morphine, onehalf ounce of paregoric, ana twenty drops of laudanum. The amount thus reported which by no means covers the total sales, would give a full dose of opium daily for half the population of the State.” These are truths that people of moderate views and balanced intellects should ponder over. They see and deplore the evils that result from over indulgence m liquor, as we all see and deplore them, but they must also see that safety lies in protecting and regulating a legitimate trade, and not in hastening the advent of one that will lower the health moral and physical, of the whole community.