A MISERABLE PRACTICE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 90, 6 October 1911, Page 4

A MISERABLE PRACTICE.

\\ lien a prohibited person is found ilnuik, liis drunkenness is proof positive oj (lie crime of two persons, lie himself is beyond control—incurably ill,, and is not responsible. Ilis indulgence is a. less sin (because lie cannot help it) than tint sin of Hie fool who obtains drink for liiin. 'I be fool, in liis culpable folly, because he is usually grossly ignorant and without conscience, lias .some kind of sneaking idea that lie is being kind. That is to say, he believes that by making a useless, harmless hulk of a hiunan he is doing him a favor. Tn such cases as the-e the man who supplies a prohibited person with intoxicants is fighting women and children with both hands. If he hasn't brains enough t® understand that he is knocking nails into tile prohibited person's coffin, he must surely have sonic glimmerings of an idea that he is snatching food "from women and helping to damn the children. Tn a case before the local Magistrate the man who supplied a prohibited person with liquor was lined ,C 7. He would possibly regard this as a heavy punishment. It is all too light for this most detestable crime. The most abandoned supporter of illimitable liquoii, if his moral nature were not entirely controlled by his physical appetite, would agree that to wilfully make a

prohibited person drunk is hideously cruel. Such a man aims a deadly blow | at the family. He is the sort of wretch j who makes inebriate homes necessary, I aids and abets crime, destroys bodies j and minds. Without him the prohibited | [>orson would perforce remain sober. With his sinister help there is no cure for the drink disease. He is therefore a public danger, a distinct menace, a man with a nefarious hobby. A fine of £7 is not heavy enough for him. The maximum of £lO is too small. He may send an inebriate to gaol. ,He may send him to an inebriate asylum. Seeing he is the greater sinner, why should he not go to gaol? Being the kind of sneak he is-, it is difficult to catch him. When he is caught he should be adequately dealt ! with. Pining him,is simply fooling with I the question,