South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2799, 14 March 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1882.

We rejoice to observe that in every part of the colony the ’ Bench are strictly enforcing the 167th clause of the Licensing Act. The clause reads as follows : ; “ When it shall ■be made to appear in open court that any person by excessive drinking of liquor misspends,' wastes, or : lessens his or her estatej or greatly injures bis or her health, or endangers or interrupts the peace and happiness . of his dr her family, the Justices presiding in such court shall by writing under the hands, of any [two such Justices, forbid any licensed person to qell to, him or her any liquors for the space of one year, and such Justices or, any other two Justices may at the same or any other time in like manner forbid the selling of any such liquor to the said drunkard by any such licensed persons of any other city, town, or district to.'which the drunkard shall or may be likely to. resort for the same.”

Now this appears to us to be the enactment which crowns the work. For it is aimed at the greatest of social evils arising froth drink. ; Unfortunately the liquor traffic has been a dreadful bone ot contention for years past. On the one side are those who, knowing its dire effects, have desired to stop it altogether ; on the other those who advocate its being left to everyone’s discretion to use or abuse. In the columns of our newspapers, in the pulpit, on the platform, : the battle has been fought over and over again. We do not intend’entering upon a fruitless discussion .or adding our. voice to swell the confusion of tongues. We say no more on this head than we consider the legislature have acted wisely in not going to the extreme to which the teetotallers would urge them, viz,' entire suppression of the liquor traffic. They have preferred to permit the: Continuance of the trade but to hedge it in with the most stringent condition, to ensure preservation of social peace and order. In this every one will readily support them, for everyone now[ recognises the necessity for keeping! this traffic within bounds. We are' only too well acquainted ‘ with the misery on all"'bands that excessive drinking has wrought. We know how abject is the slavery in which it holds, its vic.tims, and how wholly innocents persons suffer untold sorrow and privation from the drihldng' habits; of one individual. , K,upjving all this we are agreed (even publicans themselves are of the same mind) that! too i much care cannot be exercised in', allowing, the trade to be carried on.’ Apart from the isolated crimes that daily shock us, and that in nine cases out of ten originate in drink, there is ; the ceaseless wail of misery that goes ; up from desolate hearths, and there is the same excessive number of homes • in which semi-starvation, squalor, and moral and physical disease are ‘ the masters, the Same number of wretched women who wearily fight on against hope—if they are spirited and of constant mind, they keep,their children from the gutter, if they are of weaker material they sink in turn into drunkenness, and their offspring are left to the public charity. Our, industrial schools and reformatories are still crowded with neglected children, whose condition is due to the intemperate habits of their patents. And, in every town there, are certain wellknow fi'individuals who work as seldom as possible,' and who, when they do occasionally earn a little money, retfirn straight to the bar of their favorite house, and soak themselves as long as the money lasts. At home the wife, quite used to this, probably occupies herself every day with such labor, as she is competent to perform, and keeps the house going' with her earnings. Her husband is to the household a scourge, a bane.. His means hre wasted ? his health, of mind and body, undermined; the happiness and peace of ’ himself and his family are destroyed, and the future prospects of the children are gloomier than a cursory glance would lead us to believe.- For it is not merely that the poor little ones even suffer poverty and privation, but there is the terrible danger of the perpetuation in them of the predilections of their parents, with other mental and physical defects resulting therefrom. For we know very terrible consequences follow a drunkard’s career, long after he himself has sunk into his miserable grave. It is then that innocent persons suffer untold woe, and are probably urged to a crimin.al career through instincts which have been awakened in them by the cerebral disorganisation which is the most dire effect of intemperance. This is. the state of things which the Act, by its 167th clause, seeks to mitigate, leaving it to other agencies to, in time, disperse it altogether. We know there arc among holders of licenses, men who would scorn to, and who actually do never, encourage in their houses those deluded wretches who-, come within the range of this section. But all are not equally conscientious, and a man may soak and drink as long

as he has sixpence in his pocket. This must be put a stop to, and we cannot too highly cbinmend the firmness and decision of the Bench in employing this provision of the statute. Some fault-finders objected that it would be difficult to identify a prohibited person, and that' an unsuspicious publican might get into trouble unwittingly. But the framers of the~Act knew what they were about. ■ It is a safe assumption that any person given to habitual intemperance will be quite well known to the licensed victuallers of the district ; and there is in reality no difficulty of the kind to be apprehended.