South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3041, 27 December 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1882.

The many cases of madness from drink that occar in this colony form a very painful, serious, and suggestive feature of our social system. We had begun to believe that with the settlement of the population, preventive legislation, and the growth of temperance principles, this horrible thing had disappeared among other traditions of the early days. On the diggings, when law and order were virtually unknown, when money was plentiful, and there was no check upon the liquor traffic, a large business used jto bedone in the sale'of . spirits of varinus degrees of vileness and adulteration. The shanty-keeper, not standing in awe of any exciseman nor having the fear of the magistrate before bis eyes, dispensed unlimited quantities of grog among roving, uproarious, Bohemian, happy-go-lucky members of the gold-seeking community, and a very large number of these, having no home ties, no other means of diversion, often having their packets lull for the first time after a life of poverty and privation, fell an easy prey to tt.e demon of drink, and in a short time wasted all their substance, broke their health, and fell into misery and destitution, dying miserably at last. The “ horrors ” were common enough among these, and madness was the prelude to, many a suicide, murder, and other terrible crime. And in np-country districts there have always been a number of shanties possessing a fatal attraction for the station hand, the shepherd or laborer, with a cheque in his packet for his hard-earned wages. Thither, when paid off, too many of these unhappy fellows wouH, and do still, wend their way for the purpose of “ knocking down their cheques ” arid having a “spree.” Once they are inside the house it is the host’s business to detain them there as long as their money lasts. There might be some shadow of justification for. the publican,. if he merely supplied good liquor. But, in too many instances, there is good reason, to believe that snclt is not the case ; at any rate some explanation is wanted of the ugly fact that after the first two or three glasses the unhappy victim is not . drunk but stupified. While in this state he is plied with enough of the vile stuff to keep him in a state of stupefaction ; and at the end of a longer or shorter term he is coolly informed that bis cheque is ‘‘melted” and there is no mote money to his name; He is then tamed out, and trembling, burning in 'delirium, the poor wretch crawls back to work as poor as he was at first; or, if ,of a weaker constitution, be wanders about thoroughly insane till accident or suicide terminates his career. Our records are full of crimes of violence committed by men after a debauch, which are explicable only on the supposition that the liquor they consume has bod its stimulating effects heightened by the admixture of horrible compounds. No man who has seen any varieties of colonial life has failed to note these sad scenes. But, as we :hflve .said, it was hoped things had changed; and one hopeful feature of the matter was the vast improvement that bad taken place of late years in the personnel of the publicans themselves. There are, in our towns, no more law-abiding and estimable citizens than many of these, and a corresponding change for the betterj is obsetvable in the conduct of the licensed houses. But this is due as much to th.e force of public opinion as to legislation; It is the outcome of an improved tone of popular feeling, and though this has effected much it has only accomplished a tithe of what it aims at. There remain numbers of persons engaged openly in the sale of liquor, who have no business to be entrusted with so grave a responsibility. And there are others who, without legal sanction, dispense liquor. With all our legislation and our vigilance, these remain. It is high time the matter was thoroughly looked into, more complete provision made for the detection and more stringent rules for the punishment of the horrible, murderous crime of liquor adulteration. We are not advocates of a busy-body policy on the part of the state through its officers. Most laws need hardly ever to bo set in motion, but in the regulation of the liquor traffic it is absolutely necessary that the law should not be placed on the heap of the statutes that form the “ bulwark of our liberties,” and forgotten ; it should bo kept ready to be set in motion in any direction, as a fire engine is kept prepared for immediate action in the extinction of fire. And the public cannot divest themselves of grave responsibility. A man Who either poisons bis liquor or serves visibly drunken men with liquor, or serves persons who are notorious victims to intemperance, soon becomes known, and everybody iraware of his' horrible depravity, yet he continues to

gratify his avarice at the expense of human happiness and human life, and no one interferes until he is reached by tardy legal process. It is only necessary to reflect upon this matter for a moment to perceive its vast importance, and to make it evident that public attention needs further arousing to deal with it.