A WORD OF CAUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 215, 4 September 1908, Page 3

A WORD OF CAUTION.

To the Editor. Sir,—.Mr. Enroth gives a word of caution, ami 1 tru.st jour readers will take it and lie cautious how they follow or accept such inferences as he wishes us to draw from his little anecdote culled horn an old book he has been studying. Tile inference intended is quite plain, and Hint is, that the burning of the' Southern Cross Hotel, Reefton, w-is caused, ami Die damage to the While Hart Hotel, Xew Plymouth, • was attempted, .by "a zealot of total abstinence." It that is not what the writer wishes your readers to suspect, then the letter has no point. Sometimes we teetotallers are accused of saying very bad things, even when we relate facts'now, on the.slenderest of stories from

an old book, Mr. Enroth suggests that the damage and attempted damage to tlie hotels mentioned was the work of an incendiary society harbored within a Good Templar Lodge. Of course, no one believes him, nor does he expect any one to. If a moral comparison must be made between the teetotallers and those who frequent the liquor bars, one might be inclined to ask how tlie alcoholic liquor drinkers and the defenders of that habit would appear in the light of recent events in the Magistrate's Court and elsewhere in New Plymouth. I certainly feel inclined tu p'itv lhe actors in these scenes, for had tlicy not taken "the" enemy into their mouths' which stole away their brains they would still retain the- esteem of their fellow-citizens, which they have now lost. But why does Mr.' Knrolh pore over that old book when there are so many modern works on the alcohol question? Here are two or three: ••.Alcoh-jl and the Human Body," bv Sir Victor Horslcy (1007); ''The'Relation of Alcohol to Physical Deterioration," by AV. McA. Eccles, M.S., F.Ii.C.S. (1008)! and many others. This is not a cheap advertisement, sir, as I have none for sale, though I am willing to lend my copies to careful readers. But, after all, one does not really need books to prove that teetotalism does NOT lead a man to be an incendiary, and (hat strong

drink does very often lead men into disgrace; one has only to look around at what is going on in our own town and Dominion to be convinced (invincible bias excepted) that much harm and very, very little good, if any, comes from the use of alcoholics.—l am, etc., G.H.M.