TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1993, 14 July 1880, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[Edited by 0. M. Q. 3 A GIGANTIC WASTE. The direct and indirect cost of tho drink traffic in tho United Kingdom for the year 1879 was, in round numbers, as follows : I, Direct Expenditure ... £128,000,000 11. Indirect Cost 1. Loss through waste of grain, non-produc-tiveness of capital... 14,000,000 2. Labour lost through intemperance ... 55,000,000 3. Labor of paupers, vagrants, criminals, and lunatics 23,000,000 4. Unproductive labor, entailed by pauperism, &o. ... ... 9,000,000 5. Public and private charges entailed ... 28,000,000 6. Loss of property by accidents, thefts, &0.... 9,000,000 7. Labor and expenditure incurred in counteracting the evils arising 9,000,000 Total £275,000,000 The Liquor Traffic—A Deadly Business.—The connection between tho liquor traffic and the death rate is shown in the case of those engaged in the traffic, Mr Nelson, the eminent actuary, has shown that the average death rale of persons between 25 and 65 years of age is 15 per 1000 ; but that in the various branches of the liquor trade it is very much more, among wine and spirit merchants 23 per 1000, publicans 24, hotel keepers 26 8, and among those employed in breweries it is still higher. Prodigious!—The drink expenditure of the United Kingdom is sufficient to built every year 15,000 places of worship, at an average cost of £SOOO, and furnish each of them with an endowment of £2OO per annum. A Working man’s Paradise.—Mr W. Hepworth Dixon, writing from Bt. Johnsbnry, Vermont, in November, 1874, after speaking of the town as a workman’s paradise, says : “ What are the secrets of this artisan’s paradise ? Why is the place so clean, the people so well housed and fed ? Why are the little folks so hale in face, so smart in person, and so neat in dress ? All voices, I am bound to say, reply to me that these unusual but desirable conditions in a workman’s village, spring from a strict enforcement of the law prohibiting the sale of any species of intoxicating drink. ... A village which has all the aspect of a garden ; a village in which many of the workmen are owner’s of real estate ; a village of nearly 5000 inhabitants, in which the moral order is even more conspicuous than the mate rial prosperity ; a village in which every man accounts it his highest duty and his personal interest to observe the law. No authority is visible in St. Johnsbury. No policeman walks the streets ; on ordinary days there is nothing for a policeman to do. Six constables are enrolled for duty, but the men are all at work in the scale manufactories, and only don their uniforms on special days, to make a little show, . . . On looking up and down the streets, so lovely in the moonlight, and on weighing all the visible results, I (go to bed with a more kindly feeling towards the principle of the Vermont Liquor Law.” Advice to the Young—Juveniles are recommended to drink alcoholic liquors only in the months that have a "k ” in their names. Police bob thb Hhathooth Valley.— The residents at the tunnel mouth having demonstrated their ability to keep a liquor shop going, are now, as a natural sequence, applying for a policeman to look after the results of the liquor traffic in that locality. A Lodge of Good Templars at the Heathoote would obviate the necessity for a policeman, and would be far more creditable to the inhabitants.

Is it bight to force a public-house or beershop upon a neighborhood when the people who live there are opposed to its being opened ? And, is it BIGHT to license men to make paupers and criminals, and then tax sober and virtuous people to pay rates to keep them in our gaols and asylums ? On Dit.—That the grog sold near the Heathcote Railway Station is so demoralising in its effects as to lead to increased pugilism in that neighborhood. Peohibition in Scotland —A writer in the “ Edinburgh .Review” for January, 1873, aays :—“ We have seen a list of eighty-nine estates in England and Scotland, where the drink traffic has been altogether suppressed with the very happiest social results. The late Lord Palmerston suppressed the beershops at Hornsey as fast as the leases fell in. Wo know an estate which stretches for miles along the romantic shore of Loch Pyne where no whiskey is allowed to be sold. The peasants and fishermen are flourishing, they all have money in the bank, and they obtain higher wages than their neighbors when they go to sea.” The Fallacy of Fbbb Tbadb in Bbeb.— The Beerhouse Act of 1830 was passed under the impression that by making beer more easily accessible, there would bo less demand for the stronger spirituous liquors, and that intemperance would consequently be diminished ; but a very brief experience proved the fallacious character of this view. During the ten years preceding the passing of the Beerhouse Act, the quantity of malt used for brewing was 268,139,389 bushels ; during the ten years immediately succeeding the quantity was 344,143,550 bushels, showing an increase of 28 per cent. During the ten years 1821-1830, the quantity of British spirits consumed was 57,970,963 gallons, and during the next ten years it rose to 76,797,365 gallons—an increase of 32 per cent. There could be no clearer proof, therefore, that the increased facilities for obtaining malt liquors created a larger demand for spirituous liquors instead of diminishing it. Want Closing Up. There are over 185,000 houses licensed in Great Britain for the Bale of alcoholic liquors. Confession Good fob the Soul. Twenty years ago; the Licensed Victuallers’ Protection Society declared that “to throw open the trade would be to throw open the floodgates of vice and drunkenness, which would have the effect of counteracting the efforts made to instruct and elevate the people of the land.” Verily the truth is mighty and will prevail! “A Good Obeatube of God.” —In the last session of Parliament it was stated that beer was the national beverage of the country, sent by a wise and beneficent Creator for general use. Now, I have never hoard before of intoxicating liquors being supplied by the Creator, but then it was a member of Parliament who made this extraordinary statement. Everybody, except members of Parliament, believed that beer was made by the big brewers.

Prohibition Victories in the United States. —Batavia, Illinois, has just voted no licence for the sixth time in as many successive annual elections. , The Elgin City Council have placed the price of a licence to make paupers and criminals at 500 dollars a year, which the saloon keepers say will ruin the business, and it will not pay them to keep the gaol running at that rate. Bockford gives 552 majority for prohibition ; they have concluded to save their boys from destruction and let the gin mills go. At the recent election at Waxahaohie, Texas, only three persons voted against prohibition. In Wharton county, out of a vote of 1050, only five votes were against prohibition. McPherson county, in the temperance State of Kansas, has a population of about 14,000, and has but three paupers, not a single prisoner in gaol, and but one under bond! Good Advice. —The Police Magistrate at Hobart Town, in ordering the fines to be paid by some defaulting publicans, mada some remarks which may bo taken to heart with advantage by the trade here as well as in Tasmania. He pointed out that they were as publicans perfectly aware of the state of the law, and were bound to obey it. They had entered into the business with their eyta open, knowing the restrictions in respect ot the hours of sale. Those restrictions, therefore, they wore bound to keep to comply with, and if they had failed to do so, they could not cotnpliin that the law was put into operation agtint them. As it was, there could bo no doubt that Sunday trading was carried on throughout the length and breadth of the town, and publicans instead of gladly accepting the rest of Sunday, wore unable to resist the taking of a shilling or two, whether in doing so they were within or without the boundaries of the law. This was no doubt the consequence of the undue competition in the trade, but must understand clearly that unless they complied with the law they would be liable to the suspension of their licenses, with a very strong probability of being deprived of them altogether.