LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4153, 13 July 1874, Page 3

LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

EDITED BY THE HON. WILLIAM FOX, M.H.K. [Tho Editor of this journal is not responsible for the opinions herein expressed. The column ia solely under the charge of its special Editor. 1 THE TWO BISHOPS OF WELLINGTON. Many of. our readers will be interested in learning that the late Bishop of Wellington, Dr. Abraham, has become a total abstainer and an active member of the Total Abstinence Branch of the Church of England Temperance Society, a body which we are glad to observe is making marked progress at Home among the clergy and laity of that Church. At the late meeting of the Synod in Wellington, the Primate, Bishop Harper, proposed a resolution which had for its object to induce the Church of England in New Zealand to join in the crusade against intemperance. The present Bishop of Wellington opposed the motion, saying that he saw no reason for singling out specially the sin of intemperance. Bishop Hadfield resembles King David in one respect : he is apt to " speak unadvisedly with his lips." On this occasion he certainly did so. A moment's thought might have taught him that intemperance is not only the special sin of the period and the Anglo-Saxon people, but that it is the master key of all tho other sins. There is an old story of the devil giving a good man his choice between breaking one of the Commandments, and getting drunk. He preferred to get drunk, and forthwith broke all the ten. We would suggest, also, whether the omission of the clergy of the present day to preach against the special sins which distinguish the community is not one reason for the small result by which their preaching is attended. If they would, in this particular, imitate the examples of such men as Hugh Latimer and other great pulpit reformers, instead of dealing in dogmatic theology and barren generalities which every man applies to his" neighbor and not to himself, we might see some more definite and evident fruit of their preaching. It is satisfactory, however, to know that other Bishops are not of Bishop Hadfield's mind in this matter. In no communityin these seas is the temperance movement making more satisfactory progress than in Tasmania, owing, we doubt not, in great measure to the manner in which Bishop Bromby has put himself at the head of the movement. Our own Primate, though not so prominent an actor, did not fail, as we have seen, to invite his clergy to take united action against the common foe. And now comes the pleasing news that Bishop Abraham has not only joined the total abstinence ranks in person, but has taken his place publicly as one of the organised body which seeks to bring the influence of the Church of England to bear upon tho liquor 1 question. We print below, from the London Times, a report of the meeting of the Church of England Total Abstinence Branch of the Temperance Society, lately held in Exeter Hall, at which Bishop Abraham was one of the speakers. CHURCH OF ENGLAND TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. The annual meeting of the Total Abstinence section of this Society was held last evoning in. tho largo room of Exeter Hall, under tho presidency of tho Rev. Canon Ellison, vicar of Windsor. Tho attendance was very largo. Bishop Abraham, lato Bishop of Wellington, in Now Zealand ; tho Right Hon. and Rev. Lord W. Russell, tho Rev. R, M. Greer, Vicar of Rugoley; tho Rov. Basil Wilborforce (Southampton), tho Rev. Robert Maguiro, tho Rov. S. Eardley, General Ncal Dow, Hon. Major-Genoral Eardley AVilmot, Mr. Robert Baxtor, &c, occupiod soats on tho platform. Mr. A. Sargant, tho secretary, read a Bhort abstract of tho annual report, from which it

appeared that many clergy and Bishops are heartily responding to the claims of temperance by the formation of parochial temperance societies. Branch societies are daily increasing in numbers and usefulness throughout the country. Last year the number of branch societies in the southern province was only seven, it is now forty-four. In the northern province the number of branch societies is now 120, comprising 20,329 members. The Committee looked forward to the time when in the great majority of parishes a parochial temperance society would be in full working order. The whole of the Bishops had consented to become vice-presidents of the Society. The balance sheet showed a great improvement in the financial position of the Society. The receipts during the last year amounted to £2431, and the expenditure to £2227, leaving a balance of about £2OO. The chairman in his opening address, observed that of all the meetings which had been held in that room during the last few weeks none were of greater importance to this country than the temperance meeting. Referring to the origin of the Society, he said that 12 years ago a few clergymen and laymen met together to establish Church of England total abstinence societies in their own parishes. Their experience had shown them that the fortress of intemperance must be invested on every side. It was a gratifying fact that every religious denomination in this country was now exerting itself in the cause of temperance. The Rev. R. M. Greer, Vicar of Rugeley, next addressed the meeting. He complained that the press damned the temperance movement with faint praise, and frequently suppressed reports of temperance meetings. He contended that drunkenness was not confined to the working classes. He believed they were no more drunken than other classes. They were supposed to be more drunken because they suffered more by drinking. A stop must be put by legislation to the wholesale manufacture of drunkards (cheers), which went on with the direct sanction and protection of the State. Bishop Abraham, late Bishop of Wellington, in New Zealand, was the next speaker. He felt it his duty as a Bishop to join the Total Abstinence Society. He had been a total abstainer two years. He deprecated the proposal to alter the Licensing Act of 1572 by extending the hours for drinking, and that at a time when magistrates and all persons qualified to speak on the matter had represented to the Government that the hours should not be extended. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Robert Baxter, treasurer of the society, said The Times, in a leading article that morning, had mentioned the appalling fact that in the public-houses of Great Britain alone £150,000,000 is annually spent, or more than twice the annual expenditure on the Army, Navy, and other institutions of the State. He had been a total abstainer twenty-seven years, and he was now seventy-two years of age. He felt the benefits of total abstinence in mind and body. The evidence of medical men on this subject was that stimulating drinks did not strengthen, and ought to be used only as medicines. The Rev. Basil Wilberforce, of Southampton, who was announced amid cheers, as son of the late Bishop of Winchester, said he believed that the use of stimulating drink was fatal in cases of disease. Ho had studied the matter physiologically for several months past, and he was convinced that people died because doctors gave them brandy. (Cheers.) There were now 3,000,000 teetotallers in Great Britain, and temperance was advancing wherever the English language was spoken. Mr. Mark Knowles and the Rev. Robert Maguiro subsequently addressed the meeting.

ALCOHOLIC POISONING. At last and perhaps for the fh-st time since the institution has existed; a coroner's jury has been found bold enough to tell the truth on an inquest upon the death of a drunkard. How often on previous occasions have not such juries blasphemously attributed such events to the " visitation of God," or perverted the truth by assigning them to accident or the decay of nature. It is a wholesome sign of the progress of opinion, when we find a Christchureh jury returning a verdict of "Died by Alcoholic Poisoning, administered by himself." The suicide was a man of known intemperate habits. He purchased and drank during the night a bottle of brandy, and next morning he died with the empty instrument of destruction in his hands. All honor to the jury who dared to record the fact, and who made no silly suggestion that the work was not that of King Alcohol but of some adulterating ally, as the advocates of drinking customs are so fond of intimating in similar cases. "Alcoholic poison" —simply brandy. The jury recognised the potency of the intoxicating drug and its ability to do the deed, and didn't think it necessary to lie about it, to shift the blame on to the Almighty, or to pretend that something else than the brandy did it. For once the spade that dug the man's grave is called a spade. William Davidson, we are told, was the name of the deceased ; and further, that he was " addicted to intemperance." But what was the name of the man who sold the brandy to " William Davidson addicted to intemperance," we are not told. Would it not have been well if the jury had put that fact into their verdict too ? " Died of alcoholic poison, purchased of one Thomas Bung, of the Queen's Head Hotel (or whoever it might be), and administered by the deceased himself," —that would have been the proper verdict to. give. The poison was administered not by the deceased alone, but by him and the seller of the brandy jointly, and the fact ought not to be concealed. The felo de se, and the manslaughterer or murderer, whichever you like to call the other, should both have been indicated in the verdict. ' Why brand the dead and allow the living to go free to repeat on other victims the like practice of alcoholic poisoning ? Perhaps we shall be reproved for applying the epithets manslaughterer or murderer to the " respectable publican," or bottle licensee, or two-gallon dealer, who furnishes the weapon whieh kills the victim. Such expressions, we shall be told, are the fruit of the intemperance of teetotallers. We are glad, therefore, to be able to fortify ourselves by the authority of journalists not in the least addicted to the temperance ca\\se, or the advocacy of Permissive Bills. We find in the Nelson Colonist of June 27th an article headed, "The Licensed Murderer." The heading appears to be that of the editor of that journal, but the article over which it is inscribed is an extract from a Melbourne journal. For the benefit of our readers we transfer it to our columns. Here it is : THE LICENSED MURDERER.

In a leading article upon the spreading evil of drunkenness, a Melbourne contemporary remarks pertinently as follows:—If the Chief Secretary and his colleagues would stand aloof from the matter, and insist upon the Chief Commissioner of Police and his subordinates doing their duty, the evils which are so rampant in the Colony through drunkenness would be grappled with in a more successful manner than they will ever be by making new laws while the old one is allowed to remain a dead letter. During the past few weeks the Press has teemed -with accounts of deaths through drink, and it seems nothing short of a farce to agitate about Sunday trading, and the late hours some publicans keep their houses open to, while there are so many instances of landlords supplying their victims with drink up till within an hour or two of the time that a coroner has to be called upon to hold an inquest and a jury returns a verdict of " died through alcoholic poisoning. Every few weeks or months the police make a raid upon hotelkocpers, and when the fit is on them it is customary to notice that certain publicans have been fined from 20s. to £5 for selling a nobbier on Sunday to somo sober and respectable customer, but the records of justice would be searched in vain for one instance of a publican having been prosecuted for supplying drunken men with drink and keeping the tap turned until there was either no more money to be obtained, or death ended the spree. Your money and your life is the compact which is made by publicans with their victims, but that is a harmless bargain in the estimation of the authorities, and one which does not call for the interference of the law which is made and provided to provent it. As an example of how considerately publicans are treated who do men to death in this way, wo might cite the case which occurred last week of a man having been supplied with an average of thirty drinks a day for nearly three months in the same hotel, and who eventually died in the house at the conclusion of his drunken debauch. The publican swore at tho inquest that he had refused him drink "scores of times," and this was no doubt regarded as a great virtue by the man who had plied his customer with so many hundreds of nobblers. This was not the only death chronicled during the week, however, for two other men camo to untimely ends through drunken rows, and there were several sudden deaths of persons who had been accustomed to "drink heavily.' Tho fact is that one generation of drunkards goeth and another cometh, and there is apparently no end of these licensed manslaughterers. It is no fault of tho law, for its provisions are stringent enough to stop them in all parts of the Colony, if only tho authorities did their duty, and however desirable it may be to make amendments in the direction of regulating tho sale of drink by respectable hotelkeepers, it is a hundredfold more imperative that those who sell it to inveterate drunkards, and thereby cause their deaths, should be punished for their unprincipled greed.