ALCOHOL IN TEMPERANCE DRINKS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 947, 30 April 1908, Page 23

ALCOHOL IN TEMPERANCE DRINKS.

It would be interesting to learn how far so-called temperance drinks are responsible for the drunkenness that prevai's in the Mother Country, for according to Government analysis many of them contain enough alcohol to “go to the heads” of their unsuspecting consumers. The following list is, to say the least, startling:

Total 4,147 i,549 1,085 288 30 The highest percentages of spirit in the sample in the various years were :— 1904 — Gingerbeer, 8.3 per cent. 1905 — Gingerbeer, 9.5 per cent. 1906 — Herb beer, 10.5 per cent. Dandelion stout, 12.3 per cent. 1907 — Herb beer, 8.5 per cent. “It is a grave danger to the public hea!th, £ ” writes a medical correspondent in the London “Daily Mail,” “that socalled temperance drinks should in any circumstances contain such a high percentage of alcohol. Herb beer containing eight per cent, of proof spirit is as intoxicating as ordinary claret or hock. More than one-third of the samples tested in the last four years have been as highly alcoholic as ordinary beer or porter, which contains from two to five per cent, of alcohol. These ‘temperance’ drinks are largely consumed by chi’dren, and the thought that the bo” who- drinks a pint-bottle of one of these over-proof temperance beverages is taking more than the alcoholic equivalent of half a pint of champagne, is startling. These high percentages are. of course, accidental, and are due presumably to natural fermentation taking place after the bottling.” Alcohol, said Dr T. D. Lister to the Stepney Council of Public We-fare, is still considered by the masses as a necessity instead of a luxury, and tea is regarded as a life-giving food instead of a drug of the same-contemptible value as alcohol. He found as much illness among female workers from tea drinking as from taking alcohol in excess.

Samples. Samp’s over 2 p.c. 2-3 taken spirit, pc. 3-4 p.c. Over 6 p.c. 1904 . .. 1,on 361 2 33 78 8 1905 • •• 9 2 4 349 248 58 8 1906 . •• i,i33 4 22 306 7i 8 1907 • • • 1,079 417 298 81 6