CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 69, 21 March 1878, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor op the 'Evening Mail.' Sir— A poor degraded son of Adam, whose foul deeds have horrified our quiet town, and thrilled it as it has not been moved since the Sullivan tragedies, sought to mitigate his offence by the plea that he was intoxicated at the time. The national vice, for the cherishing of which such jealous care is taken, is very far reaching, but it matters not — The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot. The ten thousand casks Por ever dribbling out their base contents, Touched by the Midas finger of the State Bleed gold for Parliament to vote away. Drink and be mad, then; 'tis your country bids; Gloriously drunk— obey the important call; Her cause demands the assistance of your throats; Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. "Forages the English have been famous drinkers," says the Melbourne Temperance Report, " aud wherever they have settled, whether in America, India, or Australia (and we may add New Zealand) they have carried the habit with them, and similar resulis follow, viz., the subduing of the reasoning powers, and letting loose the vilest passions of man's nature. During the past three or four hundred years the British Parliament have passed some 500 Acts to restrain and limit the vice. All in vain; to-day the people swallow more drink than at any previous period. It is calculated that in 1876 they consumed 81,000,000 gallons of pure alcoholenough to poison every living being on this earth of ours if taken at once, and costino* with adulteratious upwards of £147,000,000° It is calculated that there are in England 1,000,000 paupers, 2,000,000 vagrants and idlers, 200,000 criminals, and 65,000 lunatics, two-thirds of whom are the direct result of intemperance. England ofliers yearly 80,000 human souls to the god of alcohol. It is no wonder that drink is now looked upon by many as " a national curse," — " the devil iv solution " — as it has been aptly called. It is no wonder that men such as Archdeacon Wilberforce, . Cardinal Manning, Professor Newman, Canon Farrar, Sir Henry Thompson, Dr B. Richardson, Sir Wilfred Lawson, and a host of others — statesmen, clergymen, doctors, &c— have taken alarm at the dire effects of this body and soul destroying habit, and in a truly Christian and patriotic spirit are making immense exertions Jto stem the evil. The newspapers and magaziues fairly discuss the subject. The Medical Association, at their last annual meeting, gave unmistakable signs that they were fully alive

to the national danger, and at one of the meetings connected therewith the following was passed :— " That this meeting is of opiniou that the common nse of alcohol is injurious to health, and should be prescribed with as much care as any other drug." Dr. Norman Kerr (London) in proposing the resolution, said that " moderate drinking shortened life, increased disease, rendered men weaker and more halting Christians. It makes them less useful to their country, loss happy iv themselves, and of less value and honor to their families. Total abstinence on the other haud lessened disease, improved health, and lengthened life." Dr. Carson considered " alcohol not only unnecessary in disease, but positively injurious." The Editor of tho Lancet has given it as his opinion that drunkenness " sho l'd be treated as a crime, aud visited with penal consequences, as a nuisance to society, and an injury inflicted on the race, ***** j t unmans man, and should be dealt with as lunacy or misdemeanour." Yours, &c., Aqua Pura.