DEATH STREET. (From the N.Z. Mail, June 27.)

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 57, 5 July 1884, Page 7

DEATH STREET. (From the N.Z. Mail, June 27.)

Mr Ho\lk, a Biitish statistician, gives the fearful picture, what he terms a bird's-eye-view of the results of the drink traffic. *' I have already stated tliat it the drinlx-shojjd of tue United Kingdom wl.ere placed end to end they would tonn u street stretching from Land's End in Cornwall to John o' Groats at the north of {Scotland, over 640 miles. Let us suppose the street, along with its needful appendages, fonnod. What would the picture be like? In tue fir&t place, to grow 6U,U00,0u0 bushels of grain or produce ncH'ess}irytonianfacturothe£l34,UOO,OUO worfcn of drink which lms yearly been consumed since 1870, a cornfield would be needed strelcning two and a half mi es on enoh side of the street — that is, a coriiuehi uve miles wide, and stretcumg t.ie whole lejigth from Land's End to ii ohn o' (jlroaiti. Lot the reuuor

imagine, snch a oornfie' I, so \vi |<>, and stretuhing 640 miles in length, and think of all t c grain produce i from i. '>eing destroyed in manufacturing in< xi eating liquors. Suppose we start from Land s End alon ,' fh • sfr •■(■.. On the right-hand side every quarter of a mile w.mii' won 1 1 be a malt factory, an I ovetj two miles a distillery. On the left-hand side of tue street every three-quarters of a mi!? tYre would bn a larqre union workhouse!, in w.iich to lo Igp in-.loor paupers who had been impoverished by drinking ; and, in addition, a row of ! jonses the whole length of the street for out- oov paupers. When we had proceeded two miles there would be a roformatoiy for the reclamation of young criminals. Having gone two miles further there would be a huge county gaol to lodge adult criminals ; and two miles further a monster lunatic asylum Those detached establishments would all be repeated at similar distances from i l iu\ to end of the street. Let us sup pose the whole of this population turned nto the street — i.oo>>, H) ) paupois, /O'),()UO drunkards, say tfO«»,OOO criminals, 300,000 vagiaits, and say 70,000 lunatics. If these were placed three ibreast and two yards apart th»y* would form a procession w'rieh would reach tne whole length of the street— olo miles from Land's End to John o' Groats. But there would bo another procession necessary, and, if pos^ilile, one even still more awful and heartrending. I have said that 120,000 pie.nature deaths occur yearly through drink. Let us piclure the dead being carried along the .".tieet to their last resting place*, an 1 supposing each funeral procession extending twenty yards, then the.iv would he a procession of funerals 0-JO miles long. Just pause and think of it, Christian men and women. Tuink upon such a street being possible in Gi'e.U Britian. Think upon the picture of that, weeping, howling. cur-ing, raving multitude. Think upon the ' far-off land' in our midst, where prayer is not, and the Bible and love is not, but husks and slavery chains. Pou ier it juid weep, ii by godless apathy ye have done nothing to lesson its agony of woes. This s( reel of death, skirted by tie highest form? of civilisation and Christian temples, whose bells ring death-knells to their hopes ; and stately mansions w here delicate women sip their wine and cnll it nectar, and cultured men Catch glimpses through the windows, and talk grandly of social problems and the degraded masses, and then lounge and drink ami talk again ; by schools within whose walls they learnt and studied, until drink came and blasted the promise of their youth. This picture of Doath street should be learnt, in all its hideous details, by every temperance lecturer, and repeated on every platform in the kingdom. If I were a great punter, Death street should be my subject, and I would put it upon canvas so vivid and real that the world should stare an I every finger iiave a living voice. If I were a great poet, it should be my theme, and every ; verse should teem with imagery more terrific than that of " the Inferno," and every line throb with the passion of mourning, lamentation, and woe. If 1 , were a great musician I would compose a dirge for the funeral profession. It should contain the low cry or the staiving infant, the last shriek of the murdered wife, the wild yell of the drink maniac-, the muffled sigh of the mother's breaking heart, the laughter of the bacchanal, the sob of a child's despair, an orphan's cry, a father's curse, the crack of a broken limb from a husband's hand, the whisper of forgiveness from lips closing for ever, the rattle of a convict's chain/the rasping of a felon's rope, the splash of the suicide, the whiz of: the assassin's bullet. — all these mad and merry sounds whic.i Bacchus only can inspire Should blend and swell and ] shriek and wail along the route of death. ; Were I a member of Parliament I would cease not to thunder the details of this picture in the ears of British senators until their sluggish blood wa«= warmed into speed and action ; telling them while th^y were sharpening swords; for party warfare, thousands of English { men and women were being ground to death beneath the wheels of our national Juggernaut ; and while debating estimates of this and that, and setting about the Land Bill, every fortnight £5,0v)0,0l>0 has gone to support the gna*tly processions of Death street ; and in Ireland, while in the year ltftfl seventeen persons met their death through agrarian crimes, through the liquor traffic seventeen persons came to a premature grave even two hours both day and night throughout the ) ear. If I were an archbishop [ would call upon my brethren to help me, and appoint a day for humiliation, and come before Almighty God to ask Him to turn away His wrath from us, that, we as a nation be not slain and buried as the sinning nations of the post."

When a nuin,s wife comes in and sees him nizor in hand, and with his fiiee all hither, and asks him, ' are yon shaving?' it's a provoking tiling for him to answor, ' No, I'm blacking the .stove,' but it is in human nature to so reply. There aio now 52,000 growing trees in Washington, placed at regular intervals "long 125 miles of tine streets* New Yt rk is the centre of the" cigarrmiking trade. She has nearly 4000 i>ietorioß, and turns oUt 1^000,000,000 eigtvrs a year. Never seek to be" entrusted with yo\ir friend 1 ."! secret, for no in ittor how faithfully ymrin.iy k^p it, you Will be liable in a lliou^.nd uonlin.yenuie.s to the huhpicion ot having betrayed it. A gentleiniiii was cotiiplimenting n protty young lady in the pi'es.-ince of lii^ wife. " it's lucUy 1 did not meet Mia* Hopkins before I married yon, tuv den*!'/ 1 "Well, yes, it i* QXfei'umely^— i oi - hor I" j way t!ie rejoludorr