Temperance Items

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 92, 24 January 1893, Page 2

Temperance Items

The Union Signal, the official organ of the Woman's Temperance movement of America, is said to haVe a circulation of nearly 90,000 jper week. It is edited by five women, it is set up, printed, and despatched by 120 emploj'es, nearly all women, and is published at the Women's Union printing establishment, Chicago.; One hundred and thirty million pages of primed matter of temperance literature $erp sent out from this women's publishing house last year. "' * Dr Richardson says that it is a .well observed fact that the men and women who do most work, do soundest work, and, in the end, do greatest work, are those, who, avoiding alcoholic stidfiilants under all contingencies ?arid pressures, trust to rest and to natural food for the power that is required. The Calcutta Medical Record says,; — " Society's use of alcohol is the secret of half the jaundiced, haggard, dried up, prematurely aged Europeans we find in India." . In connection with the Dockers' Union, London, there, is a flourishing temperance society. It is said that of 170 branch secretaries more than 130 are abstainers, and in many of the branches every member ,is a . pledged teetotaller. . ' *" t<?f A moderaie drinker became very angry with a friend who argued f t|ilt safety was only to be found in total abstinence. " What, sir,'* said he, "do you thiuk I have lost control over myself ?" " I do not know," was the reply, " but let us put it to the proof. For the next six month do not touch a drop." The proposal was accepted. He kept his promise, and at the close of a month he said to his friend, with tears in his eyes, " I believe you have saved me from a drunkard's grave. I never knew before that I was in any sense a slave to drink, but during the last month I have fought the fiercest battle of my life. Had the test been tried later on, it might have been too late:" The Union Pacific railway has decided to allow no more liquor to be sold in its hotels. In view of the fact that the company, owns a larger part of the principal hotels along its route a great deal of practical prohibition is sure to result. It is thought that as the revenue of a number will be curtailed in consequence they will have to close and dining cars will take their places. The Twentieth Century request* its readers to make careful search for a single social tuat is not licensed by the Government or protected by the police. The Washington Post says of a section of land within one mife of the Soldiers' Home in that city : — •' The abolition of the liquor traffic throughout all that section of the city made real estate investors eager to get possession of prooerty there*" s Maine," says the Ontario Tribune, '• the Prohibition State, has dpubled its saving bank deposits during, the past 10 years, and its valuation has increased by £5,000,000. It) has more deposits in its saving banks than the whole Dotnimion of Canada ' has in similar institutions/ While drinking nations are wondering whether Prohibition really prohibits. Prohibition States ar growing richer over the wealth they save from the saloon. The example of drunkards has no influence, as a rule, towards encouraging drunkenness, but the example of respectable religious moderate drinkers is followed by many to their ruin. The Bible condemns not only sin itself, but the way of sin, the steps that lead to sin. The Sevenoaks Temperance Council have suggested several reasons why some of the licenses might be advantageously dispensed with,' and the most curious reason set forth is that many of the houses do not pay the publican, a fact that is evident by the houses constantly changing hands. Brighton, it is well known, posses' ses a large number of public houses in proportion to the population, and it is alleged that maoy of them are conducted in a discreditable manner. On these grounds a petition has been presented to the borough justices requesting the closing of a number of licenced houses.