Temperance Items

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 123, 6 April 1893, Page 4

Temperance Items

♦_ The following is a will left by a drunkard of Oswe^o, New York State: — " I leave to society a ruined character, a wretched example, and a memory that will soon rot. I leave to my parents as much sorrow as they can in their feeble state bear. I leave to my brothers and sifters as much shame and mortification as I could bring on them. I leave to my wife a broken heart — a life of shame. I leave to each of my children poverty, ignorance, a low character, and a remembrance that their father filled a drunkard's grave. Fcr drunkards do read when they have time. ; The close connection between drink ana crime has been strikingly illustrated by Lord Napier of iMagdala, who caused a return to be prepared cf the offences of about 25,000 soldiers, the result showing that thu total abstainers in the number had no crime, the partial abstainers practically none, the whole body of crime being amongst those who drnnk freely. 11 It is impossible for mo, " wrote the Bishop of London about strong drink. " to escape from the memory ot the fact that I have found mysolf very much better able to work, to write, to read, to speak, and to do whatever I may have to do, ever since I abstained entirely from all iutoxicating- liquor.*' Mr Sheriff White, of Norwich, says n the Hertford Record : — l I hold in my hand the balance sheet of a brewory company, and I find that that brewery earned in one year a gross profit of £50,086, and a net profit of £24,560. Oa the other side I find that they paid for salaries and wages £G402, that is to say, their net profits were four times as groat as the wages they paid. Now, I compare that with my own manufactering business, aud I find 'that my wages, on an average, are fivo times as great ns my profits. Ou tho one hand, therefore, you havo profits four times as great as wages, and on the other, wages from fivo to six times as gjeat as profits ; ox-, in other words, where a brewery pays in round numbers £6000 in wages, I should pay from £120,000 to £130,000. Therefore, you sco at once that every pound that is taken from the drink traffic means a certain amount of employment for one of the unemployed • and the money is sure to be spent for useful articles.