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Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume II, Issue 2, 29 February 1856, Page 16

There is a vice, of European importation, which we grieve to learn, is making fearful and rapid inroads upon our Native brethern,—the vice,—ay, and the sin—of Although it may not be our province to lecture our Native readers on this subject, it is, nevertheless, our duty, as their friend and instructor for the last

seven years, to point their attention to the ruinous consequences of indulging in a vice alike destructive of body and soul. f Under the influence of intoxication, the greatest of crimes have constantly been perpetrated:—Robbery, Rape, Murder, and Suicide again and again have sought to find excuse from the maddening effects of drunkenness. It first robs the intellectual man of his reason; and then degrades him to a condition such as the very lowest of the brute creation instinctively shrink from. Under the influence of intoxicating drinks, man becomes worse than a savage. He is unconscious of his actions, and commits crimes from which, in his sober senses, he would shrink aghast in horror. Even if he escape the commission of any deadly sin, a continuation in drunkenness, renders him an uufit and unworthy citizen . Liquour preys upon his vitals. It saps the very foundations of health and strength. It impairs and prostrates every faculty of the mind; and renders the drunkard an object of detestation to his well ordered fellow men—of misery and terror to himself. It breeds a disease which has been called Delirious Tremblings, or more characteristically, by others, the Horrors. A person labouring under this self-inflicted malady is the victim of imaginary terrors. HU thoughts are mostly distressful and anxious. He fancies that people are persecuting him, that reptiles are running after him; and that birds and beasts are talking to and mocking him; He looks suspiciously behind the curtains or door, or under the pillow, and wants to wander about. And in the extremity of agony, it is of common occurrence for the miserable being to terminate his sufferings by his own death, or to heap sorrow upon the head of others by the murder of those against whom he has neither animosity or cause of provocation. Such are the frequent consequences of habitual intoxication. Drunkenness is a vice

which grows upon ihose who indulge it. It is a vice punishable by fine and imprisonment, and, in law, is no excuse for any crime committed during its existence. In the great cities of Europe, the Clergy, the Judges, and the Philanthropists are unwearied in their efforts to arouse mankind to the fatal consequences of this vice, and to the great importance of eradicating it from the social system. They point, and truly, to the numbers it has brought to the gallows—a fact unhappily at this moment exemplified in Auckland in the person of that unfortunate man who has just suffered the last dread sentence of the law, for having murdered a poor Native woman who never offended him, and against whom he harboured no previous injurions thought. Yet this mortal crime, accordingto conclusive medical testimony, must be entirely attributed to the after effects of habitual intoxication! g TheNativesof New Zealand have exhibited a wise intelligence in profiting by the skill, the energy, the industry, and in practice of Christian virtues of the Europeans. These are qualities worthy of imitation, inasmuch as they are calculated to improve their temporal enjoyments and to insure their eternal hap. piness. But in adopting the excellencies, let the New Zealanders show themselves equally sagacious in i ejecting the vices of the Euro, pean character, Let it be impressed upon their own hearts and those of their children's children that the u drunkard shall not enter into the Kingdom of God" It has been said that wherever the European race has commingled with an Aboriginal and coloured race, the latter have disap. peared before the former. But, as the good Bishop of New Zealand very properly observes, it is not before the whites, but before the vices of the whiles that a natural and uncivilized people disappear. And before no vice of the whiles do thsy fall so rapidly as

before that beastly and unprofitable vice of drunkenness. OWben America became planted with Europeans, it was inhabited by one of the finest of Aboriginal races; and although war and strife prevailed, it was not by the bullet or the bayonet so much as by the firewater of the whites that ihe Natiyes became fewer and feebler in their Camps and Councils. Drink destroyed both soul and sense. It made imbeciles of their warriors ; degrading those who feared no opponent in the field, and quailed under no arguments in Council, reducing them to objects of equal scorn and contempt. ■ » i'ii » i insidious effects of drunkenness that a law was enacted, and is still in force, for prohibiting the sale of spirits and intoxicating drinks by the Europeans to the Natives. It would be impossible for any Government to exhibit a stronger or more humane regard for its Native subjects than that which this very law is designed to command. Will our Native brethren be less careful of their own happiness and welfare than the Government to which they have confided their dearest interests? VVe hope not. We hope they will not evade this law against drunkenness, but that they will respect it themselves, and use their individual and collective efforts to render it respected by others.# become drunkards is as ruinous as it is easy; To re-* turn to temperate habits is as difficult as it is desirable. The French say that it is but the first step towards vice that is startling. Let the New Zealander carefully beware of the first step. Drunkenness is the fruitful parent of many crimes. When reason becomes besotted, —acts are done that the sober man would shrink from in horror and dismay. Listen to the apologue of an Eastern sage. r i A priocf of noted piety and religion was constrained by the Tempter to the performance of one of three crimes—to commit murder, rape, or to become intoxicated. As the lesser sin, he chose the last. But, mark the result —when drunk he committed both the other sins! Such is drunkenness. And to the numberless and deadly sins of which it has been the source, the criminal records of every country bear fearful testiuiouy. Let the New Zoalandor be wise. Leihim beware of this sin, and save his soul alive, i