WHEN IS A MAN DRUNK?

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5224, 9 January 1928, Page 4

WHEN IS A MAN DRUNK?

THE POLICEMAN’S VIEW.

CARMAIDS SIMPLE TEST.

Is a man drunk when he cannot stand on one leg ? asks a Sydney paper., , Recently a man at Cessnopk sa a that a policeman tried this test on him, but, in spite of his having passed it with full honours— according to his own statement—an unsympathetic bench promptly fined him £5. Mr Mitchell, N.S.W. Commissioner of Police, thinks it is quite conceivable that a man might be drunk and yet stand on one legblit he says that it is beside the issue.

“The essential flact from our point of view,” he stated, “is whether a man is likely by his condition either to risk damage. -.T himself or to <IQ damage to others, or become a nuisance. It does npt necessarily mean that we arrest a man because we find him dflunk.

■ “In fact," the instructions to constables are. that they shall net arrest an inebriate in the Charge qf competent friends, or ope who is neither behaving in a manner not obscene nor is likely to become a nuisance, or a danger.

“If he is arrested it is on the evidence of the constable’s own eyes, and the prisoner is then detained at the station after a second inspection by a senior officer. AU our officers are both thoroughly experienced and well instructed.

“Medical examination, for our purposes, is often of little use, because the doctor does not see the man’s circumstances and condition at the- moment of his detention. It often happeps that the very shock of arrest either sobers .a man considerably or induces him to pull himself together, which many drunken men :are well able; to do- when they need tp.” A MEDICAL. OPINION. MedicaJ opinion op the question seems divided. Dr. Suckling, assist-ant-director of the- Department of Public Health, said that there wa& probably no definite agreement in Australia on the point—or for that matter anywhere else.

He, however, produced numerous reports of British discussions, which showed hew confused is the whole question.

Quite recently in London a police surgeon examined a prisoner for 27 minutes. He asked him :—

(1) To describe a journey, which he had made that evening (the prisoner “did fairly well with the narrative, but showed a certain lack of physical co-ordinationi”). (2) To walk along: a plank (result eminently satisfactory). 1 (3) To walk the crack between two planks (disaster). (4) To say British’Constitution (the request was not well carried out). Then he felt his. pulse, and found it full but fast; saw that his eyes we,re bloodshot and Iris, pupils dilated, gave him a thorofugh clinical examination, and said to him: “You are drunk.’’ When a British, jury had heard several witnesses say that the victim had had scarcely any drink that day (and incidentally, also heard the deposition clerk bungle “British Constitution”) they returned a verdict in favour of the doctor’s, victim. There are many tests for drunkenness in many lands.. Merry gentlemen looking for an excuse will be; glad to have the opinion expressed by one authprity at the last Britihs Medical Association's annual meeting : “There is no single symptonti of intoxication which may not be induced by disease or trauma.” A BARMAID’S TEST. Thq only person .in Sydney who seemed to be, certain, indeed, is a barmaid at a well-known and well-pat-ronised hotel. “Do you,” she was asked, “agree with the great British authority— Professor Morrison, of Birmingham—that a man is drunk when he shows impaired self-control loquacity, a tendency to am emotional, display of flippancy, an ger, or maudlin sentiment, disregard of social oonventions-, slurring of s peech, clumsiness in sitting down or rising, loss of balance in picking up a coin from the floor, and a disposition, to be several hours out in his, reckoning of time between events of tine same evening ?” “Well,” replied the lady with feminine directmeste, “I should say he. was getting th.at way. But, as a matter of. fact, no rnan is regally drunk until he can’t ho 7 id up liis glass to drink any more, and does not want to anyhow.”" Wlilc),! seems' conclusive.