CRIME AND DRINK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 313, 11 January 1908, Page 6

CRIME AND DRINK.

To the Editor.

Sir, —In your of this morning apjxMrs an article on the above topic, on wweh 1 ask to be allowed to make a lew remarks, 'that article, or something to that elleet—tliat the mos[ accomplisned and successful criminals ale not drinkern liut sober men has been going the rounds of [lie newspapers lately. It has perhaps been starred and kept going wiih [he object of, il possible, refuting, 01 at least weakening, the force of the teetotaller's argument that drink leads to crime. The detective s opinion is m iiietimes <|iioteil alongside of judicial opinions, the former arguing that the criminal, to be successful, must be sober, and the latter giving his experience that crime is very largely the product of drink. Now, Bir, both these positions are correct. Everyone knows—he need not be a teetotaller to find it out —that any man to be at his best, mentally or physically, must be sober; and this whether his best is to be used as a detective or a criminal or a lawyer or in any career in life. Temperance people have been, for the last century nearly, trying to impress this very fact on the minds of the people, eo that they shall not take this enemy (strong drink) into their mouths, because it steals away I their brains and their strength, and this even without going to the extent of drunkenness. Here I may say that we shall ere long get some more information on the effects of alcohol. Medical journals of October last tell us that, under the direction of a committee of scientific men, a -special and thorough research is being made into the effects on the human system of various alcoholic drinks when taken in small quantities. But, while the detective's opinion is quite correct, so also is the teetotaller's argument that drink produces crime. We have heard it from the bench all over the world, and from the New Plymouth bench, too; and even today your issue, in another column, informs us that during the eighteen months of no-license in Southland there has been a remarkable diminution of crime; and a few days since you gave us a similar report from Oamaru. where crime under no-license was 140. against 441) in a similar period under license. The apparent contradiction is easily explained. The number of determined, clever criminals i- only small when compared with the mass of crime dealt with at our courts. Comparatively few men enter intentionally on a course of crime; the bulk of those who fall into crime are those who are assailed by strong temptation, and generally when more or less under "the dw'l in solution." However, we have opi«ions on one hand and hard facts and f!"iir"s on the other, and there need be no difficulty in comini to the conclusion that, even allowing for the occasional sober criminal, drink is the most fruitful source of crime.—T am, etc., CKO. H. MAI'NDEK. 9th January, IAOB.