ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 37, 24 May 1910, Page 7

ALCOHOLOGY.

THE MORAL SIDE. (Published by Arrangement). The subject of crime unl criminals is now occupying the mi l : Is of reformers ami lovers of humanil ■ in all civilised lands; ii:r,v : > eliminate the one and to restore :';e 1 .her is the great question. What part alcohol plays in all crime is sometimes overlooked, though there have always been those who coukl sec through the prevailing drinking customs that much crime came from drinking—how much they often failed, and some still fail, to realise. iJrink and crime are very closely related; when drinking increases crime also increases, and when drinking is curtailed—no matter howthen crime decreases. A few facts bearing out this statement are worth noting:

In Ireland, before Father Mathew began his great crusade against drink the year's consumption of spirits was 11.50.5,530 gallons, four years of his good work induced five million people in that country to take the pledge and reduced the quantity of spirits manufactured to (i,455,443 gallons, and at the same time brought down the record of grosser crime from 12,097 in the year 1837 to only 173 in 1840. Ireland has been subject to main- fluctuations, but every time the consumption of drink declined then crime followed on the down grade. The judges there have been very emphatic in their utterances on this point. Baron Dowse said: '"The measure of alcohol consumed in a district is the measure of the degradation of the people." Again at Wicklow he said: "If our people were more sober, I think crime would entirely disappear from amongst 11s." Justice Deasy in Armagh saiu; "Drunkenness is the parent of all the crimes committed in Ireland." No one has even said in any country that drink promoted morality.

In England it is the same. At Cardiff in March last, Lord Coleridge s3id: "I cannot help observing, that a proproportion of the cases (in his court) arise from drink. 1 have kept during the twelve months preceding January Ist of this year a careful record of ai: the criminal cases brought before me, and I can tell you as a matter of fact that 44 out of every 100 of these cases would never have 'been committed except for drink." .

In Scotland the judicial statistics for 1908 bear out the same contentioncrime follows drink. The report says that "it has 'been found that drink is an important factor in the causes of more serious crimes. About 80 per cent, of the charges for murder anil culpable homicide arise from intoxication. From live different careful investigations maae among persons guilty of crimes against property it h.is been lOivud that'in tiO per cent of them the criminal was not soiicr at the time of committing tne offence. Teetotallers in this class rarely exceed (i or 8 per cent, of the whole.'' The evidence against liquor, and connecting it with crime, comes from all parts; at home, from our own no-license areas, where the drink consumption is reduced, though not totally abolished, the criminal calendar is proportionately reduced. Take onlv one instance, Mastenon: During the first half of 1009. while .the usual free consumption of liquor was going on the eases before the •S.M. Court were 219, while during the second half of the year, when the consumption was greatiy reduced, owing to the closing of the .bars, the Court cases were only 3D; in both periods civil cases are omitted. But there is no need to enlarge on this point. Anyone, by just notiein" as he reads the newspapers, can soon see that the great bulk of crime is associated with drinking, It would, indeed, he a very convincing exercise tor anyone who has doubts about this to just mark his daily .paper for six months so as to see where drink had a share in the crime or otience committed, remembering at the same time that the evidence does not always reveal the drinking that leads to the offence, and then make a summary 'at the end of the period. Mr. Hutchison, formerly S.M. at New Plymouth, said at the trial of a young man for an offence against a woman that 00 per cent, of such cases were caused by drink. It all goes to prove the truth' of Bracken's line: "Where there's drink there's danger."