WOMEN AND HOTELS

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1922, Page 6

WOMEN AND HOTELS

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Tuesday’s Taranaki Daily News contains a paragraph of particular interest to women. It deals with steps taken to prevent women from entering premises where drink can be obtained. Those concerned are commendably proud of their somewhat crude endeavors. They are probably confining women’s drinking to the lower standard hotels. Where drink is bred in the being, be they female or male, the desire surmounts all obstacles, ending in a more complete crash in surroundings which ensure no return to normal life. Such efforts (this is not the first) should show women their duty to mankind, who have suffered so long in the indignities of drink. For repulsive as is a drunken woman to men, to a woman’s repulsion jof a drunkard horror is added, for ■strength which should be used in protecting is diverted to vile debaucher--1 ies. Do mothers map out such a career for their infant sons as they fold them ! in their protecting care? Do they rear 1 their baby girls to expect the vile homelife of a drunkard? Consider how j crime mounts year by year which is caused by drink. Other crimes are being suppressed or eradicated 'by education, j How is an individual of either sex to eradicate from the system unaided the desire for the drink stimulant which has gripped them from birth? I do not nman conceived in drunkenness; I have not ever seen a treatise on the subject, but as far as my knowledge goes, a man is impotent while drunk, and when in the act of committing a crime upon children is wilfully emboldened with drink to dull his susceptibilities as regards probable punishment. Indeed, sufficient only might be taken as a precaution to secure a lenient or soft sentence. Men’s work should be taken by women only when necessity drives; rather by example or law show him his [ duty of providing (being also Nature's law). Vice is the direct outcome of a i clogged system, caused by idleness, or ' inherited intoxication, or otherwise. 1 Women have been advanced by men on the right track nobly. They have a vote which dumbly beseeches them to do their duty as the’ mother and caretaker of mankind. Restrictions, as previously stated, are crude; decide wisely so as to secure some result worthy of endeavor. Liquor in its purity is delightful, as are all things pure, and all may take it if not used in a sensual manner. But how rare it is to meet a man w’ho refuses impure drink or who knows or can refuse what is unfit for his particular use. I In the matter of a motor car a man reI quires a license to drive, yet is enabled I (as our laws now stand) to have the | sole care of mother and children, yet has uncontrolled access to spirituous liquors of the most dangerous kind.—l am. etc., VOTE.