"CANNOT TAKE IT AND DO MY WORK."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1826, 27 April 1888, Page 3

"CANNOT TAKE IT AND DO MY WORK."

In speaking of the quantity of alcohol wbfch comes within the limit of medera-

tion, the *' physiological quantity," as the doctor calls if, which may be safely " indulged " ip, Sir Andrew Olark ssys : — 11 1 cay to men and women — allowing • little more for men than women — that if they go beyond what woald be represented by half a pint of bitter beer at dinner or supper, or one glass of ordinary wine, or one table spoon f ul of spirit well diluted with water, they are doing them

selves harm. They are passing the physiological point of ve'y innocent gratification to wicked indulgence. On another occasion Sir Andrew Olark used the following language :— "If there is any honest man who really wants to get at the truth, and will not be set from bis pu-pose by people condoling with him about his appearance and thi resalt of his experiment, and will try the effect of alcohol upon work, I wou 7 d tell him fearlessly — and I would risk all that I possess upon the back of the statement — that as certainly as he does try the experiment for a month or six weeks, so certainly will be come to the conclusion that, ho trever pleasant alcohol is for the moment, it is cot a helper of work. It is not only not a helper cf work, but is a certain hinderer of work ; and every man who comes to the front of a profession m London is m&rked by this one characteristic, that the more busy he gets, the less m the shape of alcohol he takes, and his excuse Is — " lam very sorry, but I cannot take it and do my work."

If. after reading these statements by Dr Sir Andrew Clark, anyone is disposed to dispute oar right to take it as proved tbftt alcohol Is at best but a useless luxury, then his controversy must be with tire knighted M.D., and Dot with pa. Bat if we may hold it proved that this is the character of alcoholic beverages »t their beet, we may maoh more readily take it for granted that they are, at their worst, what we stated we would ttke them to be — " dangerous and deitruc'ive poisons " ; and It is on iiquora of this character the people of New Zealand hayo expended fifty million sterling daring the past twenty years, Acd what have been the results of this expenditure 1 Poverty, hunger, dirt, impurity, disease, crime, lunacy, larger •nd ever larger gaols, big and yet bigger lunatic asyloniß, reformatories, refuge?, benevolent institutions, and homes. Such institutions are sometimes pointed to with pride and exaltation aaevidencesof advancing civilisation. May they not rather be regarded as the evidence and measure of a nations vices ? la it not our shame and disgrace tbat m th'm highly-favored land, with its broad aores of virgin toil, its anfelled forests, Its undug minerals, ita genial climate, and manifold resources all but untouched, — that here m this Now Zealand we should have to set up all the costly institutions which hava been deemed necessary to' punish, cure, or tend the victims of the vice and crime of the older, and we sometimes say, exhauEtod and declining civilisations of Europe 1 And why is it? The only answer to be given to this question xmy be summed up m one word— drink. It is this that las drained our resources, debauched our nanhord, deflowered our womanhood, tenanted ocr gaols, our asylum?, and other dadred institutions, and laid upon our shoulders a burden too heavy to be borne. 11 Where there's drink thote'B danger ;" and whe-e there is danger, there la expense. Drink induces pauperism, which has to be housed, and fed, and clothed. \t breeds crime, which has to be watched and paotßheJ. It caoses disease and lunacy, vrhtch mu3t be tended and cured. The burden of all this fallß upon the shoulders of the people, and again drains their resources 'm ' an unremnberative expenditure.— •* Economics of Drink."