TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2011, 4 August 1880, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

["Edited by O. M. G.]

TEMPERANCE AND GENERAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION.

The thirty ninth annual report of tho above company, presented to a meeting of members on the 25th May, is a document of striking interest. Started at first for the benefit of total abstainers in December, 1840, this institution made slow progress for several years, yet was even then cited as an argument in favor of the greater health and longevity of teetotallers. After ten years the non-abstain-ing public were admitted into a general section, and the growth of the institution has been so great that in their last report the directors say ; The total funds of the institution, and which are exclusively the property of the members, amounted on December 31st, 1879, to £2.630,078 6s 7d, thus showing an increase of £154.289 18j 7d by the operations of tho year. The annual income was £355,761 4s 43.

The comparative mortality of the abstinent and non-abstinont members is next alluded to :

Tho actuary, Mr R. P. Hardy, reports the mortality on whole life policies to have been as follows, viz. :—Expected claims in the temperance section, 196 for £40,844 ; tho actual claims were 164 for £28,690. In the general section, 305 were expected for £64,342 ; the actual have been 326 for £74,950. The following has been the mortality experience for tho four years that have elapsed since the last division of profits, viz. :—730 claims for £l4O 930 expected in the temperance section ; actual claims, 515 for £102,767. 1174 claims expected in the general section, for £245,131 ; tho actual have been 1176, for £253,399.

To see the full force of this comparison, it may bo put in another form. Taking the mortality in tho last four years, it will appear that the total deaths expected were 1904—in tho temperance section 730, in the general section 1174. The actual number of deaths was 1691 ; in the temperance section 515, in the general section 1176. Tho deaths, therefore, were 213 fewer than were expected, but tho whole of this favorable difference, and more, arose from the fewer deaths in the temperance section, which were 215 fewer than expected, while those in the general section were two more than were expected. If the temperance rate had prevailed in the general section, tho deaths in the latter, instead of being 1176, would have been only 822—a saving of 354 lives ; since the total deaths for the four years, instead of being 515 and 1176=1691, would have been 515 and 822= 1337. Had, however, the death rate of the temperance section been at the rate of the general section, the toial deaths would have been 731 and 1176=1907 ; so that the real difference between the rates is equal to the difference between the lowest, 1337, and the highest, 1907. In other words, had the temperance rate prevailed,s72 lives would havebeen saved. The non-abstainer may try to ascribe this astounding difference —one which has prevailed for thirty years—to other causes than the distinction between abstinence and moderate drinking ; but nothing can get rid of the facts—first, that the temperance section does exhibit the superiority described ; and, secondly, that the membe-s of that section will derive from the superiority an advantage as to bonus which will not bo shared by the members of the general section. May all readers lay these facts to heart. The conclusion of the whole matter, as regards the relative merits of total abstinence and moderation, is—that, whether guided by life assurance reports, by the reports of physiological research, by the results arising from a fair trial of prohibition as applied to any State, the impartial seeker after truth finds himself certifying that total abstinence from intoxicating liquors is, in all cases, both safe and wise.

Modes ation t Total Abstinence. —It seems that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define “ moderate” drinking, either as regards the quantity, the quality, or the frequency of use. One wiseacre asserted the other day that the only thing certain is that the weaker liquors are less injurious than the stronger. That a “ small quantity” won’t hurt people so much as a larger quantity, and that if taken but once a day people will not sustain so much injury as they would by repeating the dose more frequently! One thing is plain. Tho defenders of moderate drinking never attempt to show how much liquor a healthy man may take with benefit. They merely attempt to show how much a man may take without danger, or serious inconvenience, and in this they miserably fail. Their whole position is based upon ifs and huts. Moderate drinking is dangerous. Moderate drinkers form tho reserve force, from which the army of drunkards is recruited annually to the extent of 80,000 souls. Disband the reserve force, and the army of unhealthy drunkards will become extinct in the course of a few years. Dbink osTsimw Fbveb.— Drink blights, and smites, and poisons, and kills, and ruins, more than yellow fever. The mortality from yellow fever has not reached 5000 per month, but drink not only kills more than 5000 per month, but it blasts and blights a wider circle—it leaves more helpless—more starving—more demented—more crazed—than yellow fever.— “ The National Prohibitionist.”

Yinbland in New Jersey has now a population of 12,000. No intoxicating liquors are sold there, and during the centennial year its police rates were less than £ls sterling. Seeking in the Place.—A man was earnestly looking in the bunghole of a whiskey barrel, as if in search of something he could not find. “What are you doing p” asked a bystander. “ Why, I’m seeking for my reputation in the place I lost it,” was the mournful reply. Sunday Closing in Amebica.—The “ Sunday Closing Reporter” sajs:—“Sir George Campbell, M.P., writes from Atalanta, Georgia, that ‘ Sunday closing is universal in America, and no party raises any cry against it. It is carried out for all classes equally ; there is no traveller, bona fide or other, allowed exemption. I used to like a little whiskey and water at night to settle everything down and make me sleep, but in America I found that on Sunday I simply could not get it. I slept, however, quite as well without it, so much so that this experience made me give it up from choice on other nights, so for the present at least I am reformed.’ ” The Tbade and Oeime. —Statistics often afford us food for profitable reflection. We give below a comparison between two States in point of population and number of prison convicts, which can be thought of profitably : State. Population Convicts. California ... 560,240 1,462 Maine 626,915 300

Maine has a prohibitory liquor law well enforced; California has a licensed liquor trade.

The Temperance Vote in New Yobk. The “Franklin Gem” says:—“The Good Templars of New York number 24,000; the Sons of Temperance, 20,000; the Good Samaritans, 10,000; the Reohabites, 2500 ; the Temple of Honor, 800 ; the B. L. Snow, Social Unions, 10,000; Father Matthew Men, and various other organisations, 50,000, giving us a grand total of 137,300 votes that should be cast for the Prohibition ticket next November.

A Teebible Penalty.—An able English paper says : —“ One half of the idiots of England are the offspring of drunken parents Alcohol is a brain poison, and affects tho children of tho imbiber. Watbb Dbinkinq Exteaoedinaey.—A man named Thomas, who was cn Tuesday charged at tho Mansion House with being drunk and acting as as an unlicensed driver of a hackney carriage, consumed no less than six gallons of water during the twenty-four hours he was in custody. Of this quantity he drank three and a half gallons—two bucketfuls—at tho Seething Lane Police Station, and during the four hours he was waiting at the Mansion House ten quart cans of water wore supplied for his consumption. —“ Alliance News.”

“As tub Oxj> Cock Ceows, tub Young One Lbabnb.” —At the Kangiora Police Court, on July 27th, Henry Smith, aged 13, was charged with being an incorrigible boy. Prom the evidence taken during the hearing o£ the charge it appeared that young Smith was in the habit of getting drunk, and that on one occasion, whilst in that condition, he wont home and attempted to cut his mother down with an axe. On the same day, and at the same place, George Macdonald, aged 10, was charged with being a neglected child. The evidence in this case showed that the boy’s father was in the habit of leaving him for two and three days at a time, and that during his father's absence the boy had fallen into evil company, and was fast becoming a nuisance to the place.