ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 285, 25 April 1911, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY.

TEMPERANCE WALL SHEET NO. 3. ——' Ilia (Published by Arrangement). [ "Drink—the only terrible enemy England has to fear."—The Duke of Albany. "Drink is the Mother of Want and ] the Nurse of Crime."—Lord Brougham. "Drink kills more than all our newest weapons of war."—Lord Wolseley. 1 "Beer is a far more dangerous enemy to Germany than all the armies of France."—Von Moltke. Wasteful Expenditure and consequent Poverty.—At a. very moderate estimate the average annual expenditure on alcoholic drinks in New Zealand during the five years ending December, 1909, was £3,137,958, For any one year this ; would pay for all the boots, shoes, clothing and other textiles imported from the United Kingdom, or would more than pay our interest on the public debt, or is' more than the value of all the frozen meat exported from New Zealand. Taking the same estimate, tire expenditure per head is £3 5s 7d; that is, on the averagv. every man, woman and child spends per annum £3 5s 7d on drink. Taking the male population of over | twenty-one years of age as 271,000, the average annual amount spent on drink by each is £ll lis 7d. This would enable a man to insure his life in such a way that, if he insured at twenty-one, he would at the age of forty-live receive i about £4OO. It cannot be questioned ; that wasteful expenditure on alcoholic ■ drinks is the cause of much poverty and . much distress in homes. One drunkard . in a family renders the whole home , unhappy. i INSANITY. l ''For twelve years I'have watched and chronicled the development of the great- ' est curse which afflicts the country. i} From 35 to 40 per cent, is a fairly ap--1 proximate estimate of the ratio of in-' 1 sanity directly or indirectly due to al--1 coholic drinks."—Dr. Sheppard, Superintendent of the Colney Hatch Asylum, 1 London, Professor Psychological Medi--5 cine, King's College. "It is certain that for every man in whom excessive drinking causes abso- - lute insanity, there are twenty in whom, t it injures the brain, blunts the moral 1 sense, and lessens the capacity for work tin lesser degrees."—Dr. Clouston, in ret port on the Morningside Asylum, Edin- - burgh. ACCIDENTS AND CRIME. (. It is well-known that drunkenness. 1 leads up to a large number of accidents. It is a significant fact that in manufacj luring towns in Great Britain, machinery I mishaps in factories, falls, and so on, occur with greater friqtiency after excessive indulge.ice on Saturday and Suni day. 5 "All authorities agree that from 75 to 90 per cent, of all criminuiky is caused by the abuse of alcohol."—Dr. CrothI; ers, Superintendent Walnut Lodge Hospital, Connecticut. ) ' THE STATE. The habit of intemperance affects not only the individual and his family, but also the State, i.e., the whole of the pi-ople. The working powers of the people as a whole are impaired, and so the prosperity of the nation itself is undermined. Furthermore, the maintenF mice of paupers, lunatics and criminals ! is a heavy burden on the public. i "If England could be made sober, three- - fourths of the gaols might be closed." — : Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. ; (A set of wall sheets, of which this > is No. 3, has been published under the > authority of the Government, to be hung - on the walls of every public school in the . Dominion).