HOME BREW.

White Ribbon, Volume 38, Issue 451, 18 March 1933, Page 7

HOME BREW.

The Temperance Army, of which we have the honour to I** units, is not fighting hotelket i**rs and brewers, who are an human, ami often as humane, as the reat of us all. I..it the Drink Traffic, ami not merely the Trade, hut Alcohol Drinking In all it* branch®*. Ilefore ever our mothers voted against it. they, and their mothers, and fathers too. fought against it by bringing up their children to Ik* teetotallers, and even when the No-License sign-post is passed, if we are not firmly entrenched on that Iwisis, we shall have lost the tight. Just now we are being assured by j»eople who at least have Interest enough to :.|>end plenty of money in cabling, what they have promised us ever since a certain amendment to the 1T.8.A. laws was panned, that if that sign-post is hauled down. e\en temporarily. it means complete failure of our cause. I k> we indieve that? ID they* Not a tut of it. We know very well, and so do they, that the Drink Trade is going to spend the next few years busily increasing its resect for cur able, and in learning to give way just as steadily a? we keep on going forward hv brt 'ging up our children to In* teetotallers. Hut the l\S A is a long way overseas. even now. and we see It largely through cuble lenses. At-* we keeping our eyes open to tile tight dose around us? According to a large proportion of our l*apers, we are not taking much m tire iif u very active arm that bus been Increasing widely here, close beside you, during the last few years, and Just now is making a vigorous effort. Who says so? Prohably your local paper <Vrtainly ull that I see, that hove womens pages, corresiiondents' columns, or similar departments I was surprised first

by seeing mention In an Impartial farming paper. "My husband having the prevailing Home Hrew craze. . . ." \' as the craze so prevalent that a paper of such good standing accepted it for granted? I looked through it, and in that issue were two requests for recipes for home brews, l*»er and wine; several answers to other similar requests, and set»arate thanks for another. Hurel> it must Is* coincidence, especial l> m a paper above any suspicion of sympathy with the Trade, as this one Vet look at the Home Hints column of your own local paper, ami set* if there an as many requests for any one other branch of recipe. I counted six different enquiries In one copy of a wellknown daily, aim the answers to two previous ones, and a separate reference to another, and it was not a special Home Hrew nurntier, quite an ordinary issue, or so I was told. (Vrtr.lnly, Ido not often see that particular pajier, but as certainly every number 1 have seen since then has several paragraphs on Home 1 trews. Now no one thinks all these recipes u. tried by every reader. All readers are not housekeepers, for one reason, nor are ail housekeepers cooks eager for new recipes, any more tliun all are gardeners or knitters. Hut we may In* suie each is sent by someone familiar with it, and also that no one Imthers to write to a paper to ask for a thing she does not want. So the chances are that tin* children in every home whence come those letters are lieing brought up accustomed to the us** and taste of alcohol, in an insidious familiarity. Think how strongly tht enemv is entrenched Inhind those paragraphs! Hospitality, custom, housewifely pride, thrift, will ull stand strongly for Home Hiew, and la* ver> difficult to condmt. An old friend, or i**rhups a new one you are eager to know better, presses, "Just u glass of this; it can’t possibly hurt the < hild; I made it myself. He's sure to like it." oil a child pro) ably without thinking of your attitude (certainly without knowing it if she ha ; not In . n told, as wearing your tiadge would tell her!). Are you sure lie knows * nough to Is* able to refuse it without fear of hurting her feelings? Or will he take It for granted that what a friend offers him is beyond question? If you have never told him al>out it, |H»s.mhly never realised yourself what this n«w recipe meant, will the child know what to do? I'ray he, or she, may reject the temptation they do not r.cognise. And make sure, by explaining to flight, that alcohol is poison in ar»\ dose, in any form, and as certainly present in ever taste of home-brewed as in trade-brewed. It is not the trade lal»el that makes the poison. Home-brewed, offered by your friends, is often more dangerous, beiause more insidious. He sure your cbi! I ami his friends understand there is onlv one safe rub*: Taste not. touch not. handle not, for any alcoholic drink. Tench him yourself, now. KATHRKINK MKKCKK.