THE DAILY TIMES AND TEETOTALISM.

Evening Star, Issue 3047, 23 November 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DAILY TIMES AND TEETOTALISM.

To the Editor.

g IR) _Iu rny last letter, which appeared in your issue of the 4th hist., I said : ‘ If th« writer in the Times had informed himself on the subject, he would have found that the inebriate asylum was the suggestion of teetotallers, and that it owes any success it has achieved t<> the adoption and practice of fife vt’iy principles of topi I abstinence the fiims 'treats’with such contempt.” I now proceed to malco that statement in an article on “Lunatic Asylums, published in the Scottish Review, one of the organs of the Scottish leinperance League, published in Glasgow in April, 1857, more than tifteen years ago, the condition of i he “ Oiuo-mauiae, or dipso-maniac,” is thus described A patient eidoii-iig to this i.li(.ss of thq insane is tpc \ ip }tn of au inpiso, an uncontrollable, a morbid craving for stimulants ; if they are to be bad for love or for money, hj s desire must be gratified at all hazards; he knows, and he dreads, the dire consequences, but his insatiable pr penalty propels him onwards. Reckless of fame fortune, friends careless alike of himself inid otpers ; lie givps way tq Ins desires, and (lliinks to inordinate excess ; under the influence of thp stimqlaut he becomes a furious maniac; he is for the time being a perfect brute, a wife-beater, a terror to his home, his household, his whole neighborhood; incited to greater fury by some trivial irritation, perhaps a refusal to supply him with further stimulants, he becomes a homicide of the most fearful character. The law now interferes, and he is consigned to a lunatic asylum. In consequence of the withdrawal of stimulants, through repose and appropriate treatment, he soon becomes calm, composed, well. He is now found to be an intelligent, affable, educated, and well-be-haved man-there is no delusion, no eceen* ferifc'ity of word fir deed; he is quite rqco\ eyed, apd, in a word, is safie. Moreovey, lie remains so during the whole period of his residence in the asylum j his conduct is most exemplary i he expresses his deep contiition for the past, and promises to turn over a new leaf for the future. His relatives, believing that his cmfiement has wrought an offeetual permanent cure, and that the prospect of again being placed in a common lunatic asylum will operate as a powerful preventive to any future outbreak, remove him, delighted at his improved condition of mind and body. But his morale is essentially bad ; he is cautious, cunning, scheming ; his friends cannot possibly, spite of the most careful watching, prevent his access to stimulants. He has another “spree,” and the scenes which we have just described are repeated. He is again committed to an asylum, but on this eccasiqp it ig foy * fonger trtrm qf moh'ths''qr years, perhaps for life,” The wrftey goes op to state reasons, with which I will not take up your spaoe, why the subject, so well described, should not be sent to an ordinary lunatic asylum, and then says, “There should be asylums specially for the inebriate, the habitual drunkard, the dipsomaniac, establishments having none of the characters of the lunatic asylum further than confinement, but possessing all those of a comfortable home, provided with every appliance for occupation, education, and recreation, where the patient can associate with sane companions, with his acquaintances and relatives, without the possibility of access to that demon drink.” So much for the first part of my statement, and now for the second. An article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1808, entitled “Inebriate Asylums, and a Visit to One,” being a very interesting account of the manner of life and mode of conducting the inebriate asylum at Binghampton, in America. From that article I quote the following. Referring to an occurrence which had just transpired at the institution. The writer says:-“ This was the test of Vt Pay’s (the Super-

intendent of tbe Asylum) discourse, find be emp’oyed it in enforcing anew his three cardinal points : —l. No hope for an inebriate until he thoroughly distrusts the strength of his own resolutions. 2. No hope for mi inebriate except in total abstinence, as long as he lives, both in sickness and in health” 3. Little hope for an inebriate unless he avoids, on system and on principle, the occasions of temptation, the places where liquor is sold, and the persons who will urge it upon him. Physicians, hj« said, were the inebriates worst (nemies, and he advised his hearers to avoid the tinctures prepared with alcohol, whicli had often awakened the long dormant app-tite. ... No tapering off is allowed here. Dr Day discovered lung ago that a man who has been drinking a quart of whisky a day for a long time, suffers more if his a'lowancc is reduced to a pint than if he is put at once upon the system of total abstinence. He not only sutlers less, but for a shorter time.”

If this is not total abstinence in principle and practice, what is it ? A Teetotaller who never Drank. Dunedin, loth Nov., 1872.