The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3653, 30 March 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1883.

Eon a long time past AVanganui has been famous for the production of lunatics. AVanganui gets the credit of this industry because it is the shipping port" for a large district. AYe believe there is no actual manufactory of insanity in AVanganui itself, but it is notorious that more lunatics are exported from there than from any other place in the colony. It has always been a mystery why this should be so. Some people thought it was due to the climate, or to the soil, or to surrounding scenery, or to the water. Nobody put tho cause down to <Tog. AA 7 hy should they ? AVorking men, ?rom whose ranks most lunatics spring, drink no more ardent spirits and no less on the West Coast than they do on the cast side of the Island. In following out the dictates of their tastes human beings are uucoinmoidy alike. After a long spell of hard work in the bush a man feels in need of recreation. Unlike Air Gladstone, or other overtasked statesmen of the old country, he cannot go to Cannes or other health resorts on the shores of the Mediterranean. He must seek his holiday in the vicinity of where he earned his money. Neither a splitter nor a sawyer necessarily possesses a horse ; it is the exception rather than the rule to find either the one or the other owning- any other .ruadrirped than a dog. These men, therefore, do not often stray more than a few days' march for their holiday. The shepherd or stockman go further afield for their amusements. It often happens that a tmshman, on receipt of his cheque, frequently for a considerable amount, determines to go to the principal town of his district, there to enjoy what he calls a "spree." After walking some miles he. reaches a public-house and dines. Unaccustomed to daily libations of alcoholic liquor, the "drain " before dinner with the landlord and whoever else may bo hanging about the bar, whets his appetite for more, and instead of proceeding on his journey in the afternoon he will, probably, be found coiled up somewhere sleeping off an incipient drunk. He does not go further that day, nor the next. Everything is made very pleasant for him : the company suits him, and so does the liquor. If he is not kept in a constant state of intoxication he will roll up his swag and go on his journey. The chances are, however, that he does not succeed in getting quite master of himself. He may not have been robbed; he may only have paid for what he has consumed ; but he is a profitable customer, and it is the business of the publican to transfer his money into the till. It does not always happen, but it does sometimes, that the man drinks himself into delirium, has to be strapped down, convoyed to town, charged with lunacy, and committed to the asylum at AVellington. And now wo should like to know what all this has to do with the illicit still recently discovered at Palmerston North r Our telegrams informed us that in an out-of-the-way place, eight miles from that township, a still was discovered and seized. It is described as one of the most extensive affairs of its kind known in tiie colony, and capable of tiuning out one hundred gallons of spirits daily. It contained a 100-gallon vat and a still cased with brickwork, and, close by, another still with two boilers also encased iv brickwork. There were, of course, all other necessary appliances, such as barrels, ko. A large concern of this kind implies the employment of a considerable amount of labor, aud also of traffic to and from the still. How longit was in active operation our telegrams did not say ; but there must have been a market for'the produce, and, we should say, ■i o-ood many persons must have been in the secret. It was stated that two constables had long suspected that there was a still in the neighborhood, but, apparently, it was long before they discovered it. If such an extensive distillery concern can be established with so much absence of risk of discovery within eight miles of a thriving borough may there not be many more of the kind in" less accessible places on tho AVest Coast ? And may not the spirit produced by them bo tho fruitful source of the many cases of lunacy reported from A\ anffi""" ? ______________