EXTREMES AND REACTION.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1065, 4 August 1910, Page 22

EXTREMES AND REACTION.

Even the most rabid preachers of Prohibition are beginning to see that applying panaceas now which are suited perhaps for, (says Sydney ‘Tair Play”) a century later on must inevitably lead to re-action-If the people are not ready for Prohibition, then, to fasten the system upon them means illicit drinking and law-made crimes. Here is the Rev. Aquilla Webb, a leading Presbyterian minister of Louisville, U.S.A., (where they know something about Prohibition) declaring that “under present economic conditions, it is impossible to get rid of the saloon, and it is useless to inveigh against it without providing a suitable substitute.” He showed how the so-called reformers are wasting their time and energy in the present antisaloon campaign and “are doing nothing to change the environments

which make the saloon a necessity.” Not only does he condemn the campaign itself, but he condemns that particular phase of it which lives on abuse of the saloonkeeper. He says:—•

“The average utterance against the saloon is violent and extreme. While we admit the evil of the saloon, we must remember that the saloonkeeper is himself a product of conditions that make the tariff inevitable. Until something better takes its place, it will remain. Instead of wasting our breath berating the business, we will gain the victory only by changing the environment which makes the business a paying one. Stamp the saloon out to-day, offer no changed environment, and it will be back stronger than ever to-morrow.”

The recent victories for the “wets,” in many parts of the U.S.A., which have restored the saloon to places which fanaticism had made “dry” districts prove that the Rev. MrWebb’s dicta are true.

We are tired of hearing the eulogiums of New Zealand from the “temperance” party of N.S.W. If we were to believe them, we should have to believe also that No-License was the Philosopher’s Stone that human nature would, through its influence, undergo some strange and magical change.—Sydney “Fair Play.”

!£ 9 • • At Chesterfield recently some interesting evidence was given regarding tests of sobriety which were tried by a doctor on a man who had been arrested. The defendant was Benjamin Smart, who, it was alleged, was drunk in charge of a horse and trap in High

Street, Chesterfield, last January, - when a man named Churchyard was run down. The case was heard before two magistrates on February 10, but a new trial was ordered.—Dr. F. - N. Jaboor, who was called in by Smart after that he had been taken to the police-station, said he tried several

tests, and now stated positively that the man was not drunk. These tests included the telling of the time by bis (the doctor’s) hunter watch, walking a straight line, standing with his feet close together, hands down by his thighs and his eyes closed, without swaying. He also got him to swing his arms quickly round and bring his index finger smartly to the tip of his nose. All these he did satisfactorily. —The police, however, held that Smart was drunk, and said he staggered to a chair, tried to sing, but made a poor attempt, and remarked, “A still tongue makes a wise head, and a wise head makes a still tongue.” —The Bench convicted the defendant and fined him 10s and costs.—Mr. A. Neal (Sheffield), who defended, said

he had definite instructions to appeal, and sureties were found—one of £2 and two of £lO each.