LECTURE ON TEMPERANCE.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 106, 21 December 1878, Page 2

LECTURE ON TEMPERANCE.

Mr Jago, G.W.O.T. of Hie Middle Island, delivered a .most interestin,!; - lecture on Temperance in the Oddfellows' Hall, Temuka, on Thursday evening. Mr Hugh Bennett, of Christchurch, well-known on Temperance platforms, occupied the Chair. The audience was small at the commencement of the lecture, but the hall gradually filled as the speaker proceeded. The lecturer dealt first with the extent and malignity of the evil of intemperance as evidenced by the demoralization and debasement of its numerous victims ; by the production of pauperism and vice which follow in its\train, and by its universal prevalence in ali~ ranks of society. He showed that intemperance is a vice that is by no means confined to any one class—that no class is exempt from it. The testimony of the clergy and medical men and others who come in contact with the inner life of the higher orders is to the effect that drunkenness is very prevalent amongst them. It is true that the state of thing's that existed forty or fifty years ago no longer exists in the same sad degree, nevertheless drunkenness is still the sin of society and not of any particular class. Enquiry had been made into the causes which led men into habits of intemperance, and these, it had been thought, were to be found in bad lodging, mi wholesome workshops, unwholesome occupations, want of amusement and in a vari ;ty of conditions more or less inimical to health or comfort. The lecturer pointed out that no one of these things, nor any combination of them, could produce drunkenness. One thing and one thing only was the., cause of drunkenness, and that .was the use of intoxicating liquors. A professor of anatomy at Oxford University recently said that, after all the researches of science, the investigations of philosophers, and the speculations of different men as to the cause of drunkenness, it could not be discovered that it had any .other cause. but just drinking. In order to relieve society of the curse of drunkenness and its attendant evils we must get rid of our social drinking . customs. The various liquors consumed in obedience to these tyrannic customs were referred to and shown to. have essentially one character. Under the various disguises of different names, colours, and flavours, they possess this one characteristic, that they were more or less intoxicating. The gredient that was necessary to render a beverage suitable to the purposes of these Hocial drinking customs was alcohol. In

whatever form, under whatever disguise, ] alcohol wns taken, _it must produce its | characteristic effects. - The-.writings of ' several scientific -.-men '' were i_ "qud'ted in' testimony of the poisonous nature s of alcohol, and in proof of its ever\excrting its ' poisonous powers in proportion to the quantity taken, and to the organic temperament of the individual by' whom it was taken. It was forcibly urged that if the community is to. be delivered from, this great social vice, the evil must be attacked at its source. It can only be eradicated by removing its.cause, and that is the use of intoxicants. , : The reasons which are put forward to excuse the use of intoxicants were then considered, and.-.,each, showed:, to ;be without foundation. It wns shown that those urged with the greatest show of plausibility, as, for instance, exposure to cold, to severe. we*ather, and bad food, are based upon errors, popular enough, but nevertheless errors. Science shows conclusively that the. effect of alcohol is to lower' the temperature of the body instead of raising it. So much for the argument drawn from its supposed heating power. Then it forms no useful addition to bad food, for it is neither food nor physic. The argument that alcohol is valuable as a medicine was then dealt with, and the lecturer showed that if it is really, so it cannot be a suitable substance for a beverage, and, on the other hand, if it is used as a beverage its power as a medicine must certainly be destroyed. Those who advocate its use from this standpoint therefore virtually surrender the whole question. The magnitude of the traffic in alcoholic liquors was then dealt with. In this colony about L 2,000.000 are annually spent in intoxicating liquors. That amount is equal to 22s a-week for each family of five persons throughout the whole colony, and even this immense sum does not represent the total loss to the community. It is estimated that the consumption of the liquors that sum represents causes a loss of at least as much more 'through the improvidence and crime it induces. The total amount of this unnecessary expenditure may then be stated at 14,000,000 per annum, or 44s a-week for each family of five. For this expenditure there is absolutely no return. The colony is being annually impoverished to the extent the figures given indicate. Very simple reasoning will show that if this wastefulness be persisted in the colony must be as much injured, financially, as any private individual would be )>y a heavy and profitless drain upon his resources. Statesmen of eminence in England attributed the present depressed condition of that country in a great degree to the abuse of liquor, and this abuse, as had been shown, was simply due to the use of it. Pauperism and lunacy were increasing at a far more rapid rate than the population, aud the hold that drinking customs had upon society furnished a full and sufficient explanation of the mournful fact. The lecturer then appealed in stining terms to strive their utmost to overcome the evil that is sapping the domestic, social, and political well-being of the colony. Their efforts should be directed against its source. Let drinking be desisted from, and drunkenness, pregnant with a thousand other evils, must die a natural death. The lecturer was listened to throughout with the most earnest attention, and was frequently applauded during the course of his speech, and at the close, on a vote of thanks being proposed by Mr Job Brown the whole audience stood up and gave a most unequivocal expression of their satisfaction and delight in such a clapping of hands and stamping of feet as is not often heard.