TEETOTALLERS O THE SPREE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 692, 11 June 1903, Page 20

TEETOTALLERS O THE SPREE.

The Prohibition votaries are just now engaging in what, in their exhaberance, they call “rallies” The term. may be taken to mean a sort of hysterical conferences, though in some countries a “rally” signifies a “spree.” The difference is trifling, and it is quite certain that intoxication may be induced without recourse to alcohol. Teetotal drunkenness is, moreover, a much worse, a much more degradi g type of inebriety than that brought on by beer Both kinds are to be deprecated, but at the worst it may be said of the last-mentioned that it is not incompatible with generous sentiments, while the heart of the pro fessional prohibitionist is cold as ice. Even the jokes of the prohibitionist are chilly. He has a little rhyme which states that whereas the teetotaller wants

to destroy spiders’ Webs, the Trade is desirous of educating flies This must be a capital pleasantry for those who take alcoholic refreshment in moderation, and who have heretofore believed tha‘ they had a perfect right to drink wha' they pleased. It is not a new joke either, for the spiders and flies of the no-license humorist are just the rogues and fools of older philosophers. But teetotallers go a little fur the i. and infer the existence of a third division, which not having the attributes of th' others must of necessity be angelic, and in this they modestly class themselves Yet they are not exclusive or bigoted, for they hold that spiders and flies can be converted into angels by Acts of Parliament, and that there is plenty < f room in the heaven where they dw< 11 May the gods protect us from such a “ heaven,” filled with slanderers and backbiters, and that worst of all possible things, the “ self-righteous !”

There is a mournful evidence of the degeneracy that follows from total abstinence in the statement made by the Chairman of the No-License Conference at Newton, Mr Wesley Spragg, that Mr William Richardson is deserving of honour. Mr Spragg has made himself conspicuous on several occasions by his intemperate denunciation of the Trade, but we had up to last week credited him with ideals Alas, there is nothing ideal about Richardson, and as for Mr Spragg now — veil, a man is known by the company he keeps.