ALCOHOLICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 110, 17 August 1910, Page 7

ALCOHOLICS.

To the Editor. Sir, —Will you allow me to express my admiration of the delightful way in which "C.W.W." confuses the issue and garbles my reply to his* last letter? But it is not argument. 'May I also state that I did not invent the expression "virulent poison." I merely borrowed it from "C.W.W." 'Neither did I assert that " chemical action" is the cause of the conversion of the juice of the grape by distillation into a "virulent poison," etc. I am not such an ass as that. Everybody knows that the "conversion of the juice" is in fermentation. Distillation does not convert anything; it merely concentrates. But "C.W.W," knows that, of course, despite his disclaimer, and I shal,l only tax your patience and invoke your scissors if I attempt to straighten out all the confusion he has imported. That any,man should to-day venture the opinion, that "probably .... spirit is all nourishment," and again, "A table spoonful or so of rum might be equivalent to half a pint of milk," is altogether too absurd and laughable, and is an insult to.the intelligence. I suppose the opinion and practice of the greatest chemists of the day as well as the statistics of the great London hospitals count for nothing as against the opinion of "C.W.W." But let me state that whereas in' 1852 seven great London hospitals expended nearly £BOOO on alcoholic liquids, and only £3OOO on milk, in HM)2 the same institutions spent scarcely £3OOO on alcoholic liquids and over £9OOO on milk, and today, though I have not the exact figures before me, the disparity is even more, remarkable. Take the Wandsworth Infirmary, , for example. In 1875 they treated 1405 patients, spent £371 in wine and spirits, £407 on milk; but in 1905 they treated 5451 patients, spendin" £1226 on milk and only—£2 7s 5d on wines and spirits! Please put the last figures in large print, Mr. Editor, will you? Are the managers of these institutions all teetotal fanatics or faddists? I think not. They are level-head-ed, celar-thinking, scientific men, convinced by the inexorable logic of facts that alcohol is not what it has long been thought to be, "a good creation of God, but an insidious drug that requires very cautious handling, and of very doubtful benefit. Nlo, Mr. 'C.W.W." I have not been so unfortunate as to be shipwrecked, or marooned on a desolate island. I have simply spent forty odd years as a 'New Ze'alaiid; back-blocks man, with all its rough ,and tumble, carried my rifle in the 4tli Waikato regiment, just took up another hole in my belt when tucker was scarce, and rolled under a flax bush when nothing better was at hand. I have ridden a bare-back-ed horse 100 miles between dawn and dark, as well as tramped a matter of 65 miles in the same length of time, but Tour tablespoonful of rum never had a look-in during the whole jab lot, save once, and then it .utterly failed me, though it was recommended: by the goldfields warden when I was "in extremis. "CW.W." seems to fall into the common erroT of regarding those who have, renounced this thing as being a bit feebleminded and inexperienced. Allow me to say that is not so. We have tried and proved and consulted authorities. Many have used ik-some freely. I have made I it and swallowed it galore, in the dear Old Land, but, seeing the evil it caused, I „ ave it up, at first from mere personal i motives, but of late years because we are convinced it is evil and only evil and 'always evil.—l am. etc., NTM