LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4125, 10 June 1874, Page 3

LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

EDITED BY THE HON. WILHAM FOX, Jt.II.K. [The Editor of this journal is not responsible for the opinions herein expressed, Tho column is solely under the charge of its special Editor.] “ Shall I not take mine case in mine inn ?” That is one of the favorite arguments, if argument it can he called, of tho maintainor of tho public-house and tho drinking habits of the day. From tho triumphant manner in which ho quotes it, one would think it was an extract from Magna Charta, and that the liberty of Englishmen depended upon it. Tho abstainer may sum up all the evils which flow from tho liquor traffic ; the full gaols, crowded lunatic asylums, destitute widows, and untaught city Arabs —the crime, misery, poverty, and destruction ; what does it all matter ? " Shall I not take mine case in mine inn ?” replies the believer in strong drink, while ho thinks he gives a logical and argumeutatativo answer to all that has been said to prove the expediency of putting down the public-house ! Do those wla, so complacently quote this saying- remember who said it, and when ? It was tho remonstrance of old Falstaff, when his landlady asked him to pay his bill. The disreputable old rogue tried to escape her impor-

tunity and drag 1 a red herring across the scent, by declaring' that ids pocket had been picked in hex' house of a lai'go sum of money and a valuable gold ring’. As to the money, it turned out he never had it ; and the ring was declared by Prince Hal to be only copper. It was on this occasion that the wicked old man gave utterance to the sentiment which finds such favor in the eyes of the supporter of the the public-house. Just let us enquire who and what was this patron saint of the moderate drinker, and lover of customs which are as old as day anil night.” Shakspere himself summed him up in a few words. Omitting a long string of epithets which he bestows upon him, too coax-se for modern oars, he calls him “ a villainous abominable mislee-dcr of youth, an old white-boarded Satan, who lived on a halfpenny worth of bread and an intolerable deal of sack,” He spent his days in taverns and his nights in the worst of company, till according to his own admission lie grew to be three yards round the waist, meriting the appellatioxx of “anoily rascal,” which the poet gives him. Such in life was the party whose wise saying the publican’s advocate relies on as the palladium of Ids' liberty, and his light to inflict drink shops on a community whether that community wishes it or not. But Shakspcre was not content with picturing the old man’s life. In a manner which would have done credit to a teetotal lecturer, he “points his moral and adorns his tale,” by giving an account of the death of the vile old sinner. He took his departure for the eternal world from the low public house which had so often witnessed his debaucheries. Wifeless, childless, homeless, Godless, friendless but for the venal old landlady, the barman and the tapster's boy, there lay the miserable old fellow “ fumbling with the sheets axxd smiling on his finger-ends.” The landlady, it is true, declares that “lie went ’to Arthur’s bosom, and made a finer end and went away as it had been any Christom Child;” but this old woman evidently lied, or did not know what she was talking about. The barman lets the cat out of the bag ; he declares that his last words were “to cxy out of sack” more of the poison which brought him to such an end ; or perhaps the expression moans that the poor conscience stricken sot denounced the liquor ; for the tapstei‘’s boy adds that he also cried ou t about his vile companions, whom he called “ devils incarnate,” and declared that “ the Devil would have him on their account.” And to this miserable end, or rather beginning of the end, our “ patron saint,” whose saying we quote with so much unction, came by “takinglas ease in his inn !” On last Christmas Day, December 25, XS73, in the county gaol of Durham, there were lying no fewer than eleven men waiting to be tried for eleven separate murders, all of which originated iu drink. Durham is a small county and its laboring classes, engaged chiefly in coalmining and manufactures, earn from £3 to £0 a week per man. So they take “their ease in their inns,” drink champagne by the dozen, and amuse themselves with murder. One of the eleveix murdered his mother; he was two hours engaged in the cheerful filial employment, and gouged out her eyes. He had been “ taking his ease at his inn,” Another boat out his wife’s brains on the floor of his own home with a full champagne bottle, while he held a cocked revolver pointed at the bystanders, who looked on but feared to intex-fere. He had “ been talcing his ease at his inn.” These are samples, and this was how these wretched men spent their Christmas-clay, awaiting the trials -which shortly followed. Three of the eleven were hanged. They have gone to a place where of one thing we may be sure ; there will be no inn for them to take their ease in. In the English paper from which we quote the above cases, there are four columns recording in detail a few of the events by which the festival of the birth of Christ had, as the editor remarks, “been celebrated with its usual ferocity.” A few of the headings of these paragraphs will indicate the character of these festivities. “ Dastardly assaxxlt by drunken soldiers.” “Drink, delirium, and death.” “ Fatal accident, run over on a railroad while drunk,” “A woman burned to death.” “Drink ; a family quarrel, and death.” “A man decapitated, drunk on a railway.” “ A drunken woman’s frightful end,” “ Suicide by an artillery man through drink.” “Wife murder.” “Alleged murder of a woman, and horrible treatment by a number of drunken men.” “ Death of a drunken brewer in a police cell.” “ A drunken ship captain stabs two of his men.” “Murderous assault.” “Sudden death of a drunken woman.” And so they celebrated Christmas “ with their usual ferocity," the church bells all the while singing of peace on earth and good will towards men ! Ah, but they had been “taking their case in their inn,” and blessing the memory of good Sir John Fa]stali’, who taught them that saying, and showed them how to do it. And with such miserable fallacies as this saying of the old debauchee do the leaders of public intelligence seek to throw dust into the eyes of their readers ! And they tell us that the worst that comes of it all is that “ now and then two or three young fellows who have taken too mxxcli, have to submit to a brief interview with the Resident Magistrate.”