ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 263, 28 March 1911, Page 3

ALCOHOLOGY.

EXAGGERATIONS 1 (Published by Arrangement). Professor Salmond, in speaking of what proportion of crime, poverty and insanity | is drink-caused, says: "The statements ] are loose and exaggerated." A little fur- ( ther on (page 37) he says that "Such ( statements as that '75 per cent, of all ( crime is due to intoxicating drink' must j be dismissed as simply prepqsterous, and . as lying beyond the range of possible ' ascertainment." Now one asks, which ] is the exaggeration —the Professor or the judges and official reports of those en- '' gaged in dealing with crime? The former gives no authority for his assertion, and , has no special knowledge in the subject | to support it. The latter are the most capable in the community to give an estimate—more than an estimate; an expression of their own experience in dealing with criminals. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge said frequently that "if England could be made sober, three-fourths of her gaols could be closed." Mr. Justice Hawkins said: "Every day I live, and the more I think of the matter, the more (irmly do I come to the conclusion that the. root of almost all crime is diiink." Sir James liannen, in the Divorce Court, said: "Seventy-five per cent, of the divorce cases that come before me in the Divorce Court originate in drinking." Other judges say much the same. Judicial Statistics (Scotland). page 5, read: "But it has been found that drink is an important factor in the causes of more serious crime. The hulk of assaults is brought about by it. . . About SO per cent, of charges for murder and culpable homicide arise from intoxication. . . . Teetotallers in this class (crimes against property) rarely exceed 6or 8 per cent, of the whole." To come nearer home: >fr. Hutchison, S.M. in New Plymouth, when dealing with a case in which a young man assaulted a woman, said that 1)1) out of KM) each cases arose through drink. These, and many others w-ho speak thus, are not arm-chair philosophers, but men in the midst of the matters they treat of. It is the same, too, in every country; drink causes crime. For Germany we have the enquiry made by the medical officer of the prison of Ploetzensee. Among 3227 prisoners there were 117+ drunkards; for some kinds of crime the proportion of alcohol-caused is much greater: Assaults 51.3 per cent, resistance against the police TOjI per 1 cent., crimes against morality 00 per cent. In Switzerland, the official penetentiary enquiry of 1802 says: •'Forty per cent, of the male criminals . detained in Swiss prisons had committed their crime under the influence of drink.'' The Chief of Military Justice for the Federal Army, Colonel Hilty, said that were drink suppressed military justice could also be suppressed. In Itaiy, the prosecuting attorney of Milan states that in the cases of crimes against persons, three-fourths of the culprits were at the time of their deed under the influence of wine. It would he better, though, if each reader would also be an investigator for himself, and not a mora repeater of the hasty statements of some coiHorvafive, do-nothing opponent of reform. If with a desire to know 'how far drink causes crime, really lets loose the lower, the animal instincts in many, anyone will merely read the newspapers and the reports there of erimiual trials in the courts he will see that there is drink in the great majority of the cases. Look, for instance, at {he Christehurch mystery, and see how the actors in it hover round the pnblic-hon.-,e. Head the Crippen ca-;e in England, and note the drinking habits of those chiefly concerned. If anyone really wants to know whether drink causes erime. and |o what extent, let him read the newspapers, with observation, anil he will .soon see enough to satisfy him that •■where there is drink there is danger," and that drink, in proportion to (he quantity consumed, excites the lower instincts of human nature.