Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addicbus jurare in verba magistri. MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1872.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1515, 23 December 1872, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addicbus jurare in verba magistri. MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1872.

Mails for the United .Kingdom and Australia, via Sydney, close at Auckland at 10 a.tn to-morrow (Tuesday, 24th inst.)

Four,drunkards came before the Resident Magistrate's Coin* to-day. Two were dismissed wi+Jh a caution; one was fined 5< f and another £l. Edward Parker was fined £l for furious driving.

In another column appears a com - munication from a correspondent wh< favors us with his idea on certain aspect of the temperance question. He ha great faith in the efficacy of "inti ' shouting societies," specially directed against a widely-prevalent drtukin| custom. Health-drinking and treating —relics of a barbarous heathenism—are recognized by all temperance re formers as fruitful sources of mischief every attempt to remove which will meet with tlieirsympathy and support: but such efforts, unaided by more direct and emphatic measures, would do little to abolish the great evil by which the country is oppressed. The decline in the drinking customs of the people during the last-half century is due to the influence of total abstinence societies; and it is to fliem that the world owes its knowledge not only of the adultera tion of alcoholic liquors with the deadliest poisons, but what is of still greater impoitance, of the physiological effects of alcohol on the human system, so that the drug which was once looked upon as an almost infallible panacea is now used with extreme caution, and in many cases entirely abandoned. It' the ground had not been prepared by temperance reformer- 1 , there would have been little chance for " anti-shouting societies." And if, as our correspondent thinks, the majority of teetotaler* were men deficient in self control, total abstinence would never have become a power in the world. It is the men of firm will and strong principle who are the strength of the organization, and the stay of tlieir weaker brethren This brings us to another point—our correspondent's idea of the Typical Teetotaler. The portrait i* a very familiar one —it figures largely in the popular reviews and in such papers as the "Morning Advertiser," and the "Licensed "Victuallers Guardian " —we met with it last in a coarse paragraph from the Court Journal. The T. T. has been a notorious drunkard; but has been induced to take the temperance pledge; I after which he assumes a position of | great superiority, looking with contempt upon all who decline to follow his ex ample. He is a fluent orator, but illogical, intemperate, and uncharitable wirhal : he is a notable glutton, and suffers from chronic indigestion and ill-humor. His ambition is to make men sober by Act of Parliament; it is his glory to rob a poor man of his beer. He has no religion; believing his teetotalism to be all-sufficient. When he dies, it is (most pvoWably) from overeating : or else he relapses, and falls a victim to the horrors of delirium tremens. The sketch is as familiar as the stagebrigand, and owes as much to fancy. We have never met the otiginal, nor, do we suppose, has our cmnespondent. His outline of the exceptional abstainer appears to be drawn from life ; but the T. T. is. artificial, imaginary, and is general !y introduced to conceal a poverty of argument. In St. John's Church yesterday Mr. W. Marshall was ordained to the office of Deacon by the Bishop of Waiapu. We are sorry to see, from our morning contemporary, that Mr Marshall has altered his origin d intention of taking the pastoral charge of Norse wood, but in to he settled at Havelook. It will be difficult, we imagine, to find anothei gentleman so well fitted to minister to the spiritual wants of the Scandinavians.