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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 773, 28 March 1870, Page 2

The panacea, for the evils of drunkenness recommended by a portion of the New Zealand press, is the removal of existing restrictions on the importation of Australian wines. The following, which we cut from an Auckland paper, is instructive, as showing the way in which some of these "harmless" liquors are manufactured : The South Australian Advertiser of the 21st February, has an article on the local wines. It says that a good deal of carelessness is shown in the manufacture of wines, many people entering into the work without any previous experience or qualifications, so that their wines are sometimes palatable and wholesome, and at other times both nauseous and deleterious. "The usual unwholesomeness of new wine," says the South Australian Advertiser, "is immensely increased by the use of new colonial spirits in fortifying it. Sir Alfred Stephen, Chief Justice of New South Wales, has recently referred to the great increase of in sanity in Australia through the abuse of intoxicating liquors. Manning affirms the cause to be the use of colonial spirits-, and the young wine fortified therewith. Medical men state that particular forms of organic disease have been produced by the use of bad colonial wine. The writer to whom we have j ist referred points out the particular ingredient that does the mischief, and states that it is what is known, as ' fusel oil.' We gather from his letter that new spirits and wines fortified with new spirits are something more than unwholesome ; that much of the insanity of Australia is clearly traceable to the use of such beverages; that both spirits and wines require to be kept several years ; and that the fusel oil entirely loses itsinjuiious properties by the action of lime." We should like to be informed by our Australian contemporary what length of time is required for the highly poisonous "fusel oil" to "lose its injurious properties," and how the drinker is to know that such is the case.