Prohibition.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 7, 13 February 1902, Page 19

Prohibition.

There is a gread deal of excitement at present In White Idland over Prohibition. Sundry long-haired, spectaoled strangers are advising everyone to cross out the top line at the next Local Option poll, and fill our little island with plum-wine and pe-jury. I myBelf used to be a member of the Soft-Tack Brigade, but was converted by the unguarded action of a chairman atone of our meetings In the words of one of the local poets, Our Temp'rance meetin' didn't prove The big success it cughter ; The chairman tried to blow the froth From off a glass of water. Now I am like Bob Potter, immortalised by my friend Bab : ' I takes my pipe —I takes my pot And drunk I'm never seen to be : I'm no teetotaller or sot, And as I am I mean to be !' I find that Old Father Chaucer is in perfect agreement with Bob Potter —a fact whioh. Chaucer does not seem to appreciate sufficiently. He says : 1 In every thyng, I wot, there lifch mtsure : For though a man foibede dronkennfsse, He nou«ht for-het that evtry creature Be drynklefcs for alwey, as I gesse.' The sentiment of that is all right, though 1 confess I am rather shocked at the spelling. It would seem to indicate that the old poet must have met a friend he had not seen for years. But even paid Prohibition lectureis in those days ustd to indulge in more irregular and original spelling thaj a youngster in the second standard.