THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 19 August 1911, Page 2

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

A WOMEN'S CRUSADE. There was a very fair attendance last; night at the Good Templar Hall, when a woman's crusade was initiated. Mrs. R. L. Liddcll presided, in the absence of Mrs. Douglas through illness, and there were also on the platform Miss Anibury, secretary of the New Plymouth branch of the W.C.T.U., Miss Grimley, and Adjutant Pearn, of the Salvation Army, The meeting opened with the singing of "Rescue the Perishing," followed by a prayer offered by Miss Grimley and'the reading of a psalm. The members of the Salvation Army Bible Class contri-, buted an item, "Guide of the Wanderer." Adjutant Peani, of the Salvation Army, spoke eloquently of the change effected in men and women by the use of drink—a degrading change, robbing them of all that was best and noblest, in manhood and womanhood, and penalising and pauperising and starving the children in so many homes. Drink was depicted as a liome-wrceker. But the j change was magical when father or mother turned to temperance and escaped from the drink curse. Then their health and surroundings improved, children hailed gladly the father whose i coming previously had caused them to hide, and mothers gave them the care that the little ones were entitled to. She appealed strongly for young and old to join in the crusade against strong drink, punctuating her remarks with many an incident drawn from personal experience, and word pictures which enabled her to make her points successful.' Song, "Some Day," Miss Gnodacre. Miss Grimley gloried in the work that women were doing for the upraising of fallen womankind and fa-llen mankind. She laid stress on the fact that the great women's anti-liquor organisation was named the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and that it was the Christianity that was doing so much for them. Touching on rescue work amongst women, she said there was less of this to do here than in older lands, but still she had come across some very painful cases of women drinkers in New Zealand. This woman's crusade was going to do much good in awakening many women to the necessity for going to the poll and voting in trie cause of temperance. She was a great believer in visiting the people in the home, for that was the place where much good work could be done. This was work in which women could excel. , She referred to ,the "Catch-my-Pal" temperance movement amongst men at home, and said the women had started a "Bring-in-my-Neighbor" movement, by which, women were daily adding to the ranks of the women who believed in closing the open bar and ousting the liquor trade. She told a story of a great i painter who some years ago created a sensation by exhibiting at the Academy a picture of the most beautiful and innocent little boy that he could find. Years afterwards it struck him that he would go into the slums and find the most wicked-looking and depraved- : looking man, and put his features upon , the canvas. He did so, and, of course, he selected a man who drank. ' He found out afterwards that the boy and the I man were, one and the Bame person. \ What a lesson in that! Passing on, she said that the women could very soon settle the drink question if thoy pledged [ themselves not to marry a man who | drank. (Applause.) Concluding. Miss Grimley said she hoped to be able to | return to England and report that New Zealand had declared against the drink I traffic, and that the women of New Zealand had assisted towards that end. Trio, "Sweet Distant Chimes," Mrs Golding and the Misses Guilford. At a later stage Miss Grimley explained the working of the "Women's Crusade," which was for women to endeavor to get people to vote for No- ! license and National Prohibition, or if (they will not vote for this side they would at least abstain from votin* against it.

Votes of thanks to the speakers and performers were carried on the motion of Mrs. Brasch and Mrs. Cathro, after which the singing of the Doxolosy and the pronouncing of the Benediction concluded tlii* stage of the "crusade "