TEMPERANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42743, 4 July 1905, Page 1

TEMPERANCE.

By Reformer.') THE CHIME ASPECT OF THE DRINK QUESTION The Rev. ‘W, J. Elliott, of Hokitika, writes as follows Under the above heading your readers have seen a number of ' statistics pitched together in a most peculiar fashion. ' I may be a little more dense on the subject than some of your readers, but with your permission I propose to put in the box witnesses from whose mature testimony there is no possible appeal. Let us take the evidence of the following English judges—At the Berkshire Assizes in 1891, Mr Justice Hawkins said u that 75 per cent of crimes of violence were traceable to drink, and that of every 100 persons who got , into crime, he believed 80 either directly or indirectly, assigned their fall to drink.” In 1877 V Chief Justice Coleridge said— >; “ The crimes of violence, which in a large proportion fill the calendar, without a single exception, have began in public houses, and are due to drunkenness. The same high authority said in 1901, “ drunkenness is : mainly the cause of the common sorts of crime, and if England could be made sober, three-f orths of her gaols might be closed.” Mr Justice Grove said :—Men go into public houses respectable and respected, and come out felons,” In 1883 Mr Justice Kay said.: —“ Most crimes of violence in this country result from the fatal vice of drunkenness.” In 1888 Mr Justice Grathom uttered the following—--1 cannot help seeing what every ; judge has seen before, that drink is the great cause of the crime with which the judges have to. . . . deal,” coining .down to. 1893, % the very year. “ One of the Aud-. / ience,’ quotes his .figures from, we find Mr Justice Collins saying—“ It is a painful fact, and one that can-not. be ignored, > that of the crime'which -has to be dealt with; in Liverpool pro- v bably two thirds of it is more or less connected with drink.” Sir, I could fill your .paper with similar testmony, but I have supplied ample to show any > reasonable person the close and undeniable connection between drinkand crime. Thanking you in anticipation.