FUNNY LIQUOR LAW.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 690, 28 May 1903, Page 23

FUNNY LIQUOR LAW.

We have been reading lately of the new Act of Parliament that ia going to make England sober, and under which a man does not necessarily require to be drunk and disorderly to be liable to imprisonment. The mere fact of him appearing ** under the influence/’ or having a wild rolling eye, or a dishevelled look, is in future to be considered sufficient reason for the amiable limb of the law to grasp the unfortunate citizen by the coat collar and throw him violently into a stone cell, and leave him for a time to chew the cud of bitter reflection.

In future, apparently the British resident will have to leave his thirst unslaked. Not only is a person in the slightest degree Under the influence,” and the next clause says he is not to allow “ any such drunken person to remain on the phemises.” Drunken person, indeed ! According to the new Act, a man may. abstain from intoxicants for a month, and then take a single glass' of wine, which very naturally goes to his head, and make& his conversation a little more animated than usual. This man is obviously “in the slightest degree ” under the influence, and it therefore follows that he is & “ drunken person.” And the hardened toper who can take nine “ goes ” of spirits without showing the effects is doubtless, by the same token, a good and sober citizen.

Quite a novel turn for an Act of Parliament to take isi to “ rope ” the person who lends the inebriate money on which he afterwards makes his glorious and diverting splash. For lending money to a friend who gets drunk on it you run the risk of about a month’s hard labour. Your friend Jones comes to you, and says he is hard up. You lend him 2s 6d, and he goes and gets drunk on ‘t, and the next morning tile police-vanf will stop at your door, and you will be requested to step inside en route for a month’s “ chokey.” We have always understood that England was a free country, and we can now quite believe it.- As a place ; where a man can make free with another person’s liberty it ie the freest country we know of. A man might lend »a person 9d, on Saturday

night, and on Monday morning And himself dressed in khaki, with hair cut short, climbing up the golden stairs in Bentonville. The mere contemplation of the prospect is enough to drive a man to drink. But the question that, naturally arises ie—“ When is a man drunk. ?” The old dec fimtion used to say that a man wasn’t drunk as long as he could lie on the ground without holding on. A new definition will now, however, be required. The Act of Parliament doesn’t help us very much. For if a person “in the slightest degree under the influence ” is a “ drunken person,” a fellow who is merely “ drunk ” as an exceptional experiehce must be presumably even less than the slightest degree under the influence. In fact, it looks as if, when times are slack with the police, they are to be allowed to have a go at you whether you’re drunk or sober. A man may be a model of temperance, but if it is suddenly suggested to him by an officious policeman that he is drunk, he will, no doubt, prove that he has been drinking ; under an Act of Parliament like this it seems easy enough to prove anything. And as, the more the temperance man is shoved’ about, the more excited will he get, his prospect of a month’s hard is positively lively. We see how it is. The Act has been drawn up by the water-drinkers. It has the dim, misty look about it that is an infallible indication of water on the brain. Somebody has taken the British Empire for a children’s nursery, and his friends have let him have all the rope he wants. It never seemed to occur to the moral reformers that if drunkenness exists, as it must, it is better to* have it out in the open,, where it can be steen and measured up. By the great and good theory that is the basis of all morals in any decent country, if an evil canuot be seen that is positive proof that it doesn’t exist. Drunkards are, therefore, sent home to do their drinking there, and as there is less restraint and less fear of the chucker-out, no doubt they will do it thoroughly. Meanwhile, we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that there is now no drunkenness in England—because it 'can’t be seen. —(A. W. and S. Journal.)