INTEMPERATE TEETOTALLERS,

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1319, 6 November 1885, Page 3

INTEMPERATE TEETOTALLERS,

To the Editor. Sib, —The wrath which year very mode fate criticifma upon Mr Burnett’s deliverances baa awakened in the breasts of the teetotallers (who insist upon miscall- ; log themselves “ temperance ” advocates 7 —as though temperance and total abstinence were not fundamentally different things) is extremely amusing. These gentlemen ought really not to be so thin, skinned. They smite their adversaries, or those whom they deem their adversaries, and spare not; and as to the unfortunate publican, why, I have listened to harangues from teetotal platforms—and by reverend gentlemen, too —in which hotelkeepers were denounced in such nnobristianlike and unjust terms that 1 have „ blushed for very shame that men could be found to utter such indecent tirades, and audiences to applaud them. And j these anathemas not unfrequently 4ff*sroceed from the lips of j. arsons who make It their boast that they are ignorant of the interior of public houses. It is not very long since a teetotaller in the House of Representatives was declaiming upon the iniquity of employing barmaids In hotels, bat, when pressed on the point, was compelled to admit thfct he had never .been in an hotel in hia life. What right, then, had he to express an opinion on the subject at all 1. Yet these very gentlemen, who are accustomed to express their views in so remarkably vigorous a manner, refuse to submit to the smallest criticism of their oratorical performances, and demand that everybody should concede, as a matter of course, that all teetotallers—and particularly teetotal lecturers—are animated by the purest pMlsnthrophy and imbued with zeal for the advancement of a noble cause. 1 deny this in ioto Teetotal lecturing is, to all intents and purposes, just as much a trade as selling intoxicating liquors, and an eloquent teetotal lecturer can make a very g»od thing of it in thickly-populated countries like England and America. Why, even Mr Gongb, to whom Mr Blake and yourself refer in such commendatory terms, accumulated a not inconsiderable fortune by his teetotal addresses. Then, too, look at the number of teetotal publications that now exist: the Good Templar Hall Companies ; the insignia that require to be manufactured and sold, and so forth ; all of which give employment to and put money into the pockets of members of the teetotal guild. , As to Mr Burnett, I know nothing Pgbout him except what I have read in the newspapers; bat I would ask. this qnestioa—ls .Mr Burnett a man of private . ■ means,travellingjabout giving teetotal lectures at his own expense; or are his ext peases defrayed, either directly or in- | directly, by other persons! If the former,, we may neely admit that, whether we agree or whether we disagree with his views, he is a man worthy of our particular esteem; bat, if the latter, he has no greater claim to be regarded as a philanthropist than a paid lecturer on any other subject. j_ ■ I think it is high time there was a little plain speaking on this topic. —I am, etc., Modebahon.