Another Victim.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 120, 25 April 1885, Page 4

Another Victim.

[Wanganui llend<l.~\ The sad fate of Dr George Wilkin, who died m the Wanganui Hospital yesterday from the effects of habitual indulgence m alcohol, ought to point a moral, and lead some of those who are fast following m his footsteps to pause m their | downward career ere it is too late. Here we had a man possessed of j the highest professional credentials of undoubted skill, and with many true friends to have helped him m any real attempt at reformation ; but the accused craving for strong drink swallowed him up m vortex, into which so many brilliant professional men and women have been drawn and never emerged from. Of what real use is the prohibitory clause of the Licensing Acts ? George Wilkin M.D.,M.R.C.S.E.,was a prohibited person, but he got drink m many licensed houses as freely as though no such order had been made against supplying him with the soul and body destroying liquors he so constantly craved for. When, as sometimes happened, he was refused drink by a hotelkeeper who recognisedother responsibilities than those of making money, the drink palsied old man would simply, after vainly entreating with tears m his eyes for just one glass of brandy, go further afield and get what he wanted. Farilis decensHs Avernus might be approriately written over his grave. Fallen from a high place m his profession m England, an outcast from home, family, and friends, he forged link on link of that awful " devil's chain " until he dragged it for the last time into a public hospital, and died under its accumulated weight ; died a pauper and a prisoner, for he was under remand from ] gaol at the time of his death ; died m all the agonies and terrors of brain torture compared with which all other tortures fall short,and passed away to a grave where Ms poor shattered body will find that rest his weak indulgent nature could never procure for it m life The death of this drink-destroyed man lies heavy at our door, andi is a leproach to any community of civilized people who allow such terrible selfmurder ; to be so often carried out before | their eyes m broad daylight. There are laws by which such things can be put a stop to, but we have arrived at such a state of mistaken tenderness for other people,s feelings that these very salutory laws are practically dead letters m the Statute | Book, and George Wilkin, M.D-, j M.R.C.S.E., and hundreds of others others of the same unfortunate class, | are allowed to go on for years i destroying themselves m public and m private, instead of being rescued I from the fate that sooner or later they must all experience. Is it any wonder, with such deaths as that of Dr Wilkin fresh m the public mind, that the advocates of total abstenance denounce the traffic m alcohol, and exhort all who will listen to them, to fly from the accursed thing and save themselves from a drunkard's death, which latter is the only relief the slave to drinking habits can expect. In life his shaking and nerve tortured body can know no rest ; there is nothing for such a one, when m the vortex, but to cry m the words of Shakespeare, " Come to me misery's love, 1 ' and the peace of the silent churchyard, where the spectral creations of a brain disease with strong drink will cease to freeze or to scorch with horror the unhappy one who has "put an enemy m his mouth to steal his brains." It is a terrible thing when men bring themselves so low by their craving for strong drink, ! that their best friends can only feel a sense of relief, when death steps m at last and ends their sad eventful history, and their poor burnt up bodies aie hidden away out of sight m a pauper's grave, as a warning to those who may yet, by a little firmness and encouragement, break away from the thraldom of alcohol and live a new life honored and happy, instead of the wretched existence meted out to the habitual drunkard.