HABITUAL DRUNKARDS.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3019, 18 October 1878, Page 1

HABITUAL DRUNKARDS.

(feoh the tikis.)

The advocates of compulsory temperance may be congratulated on .the good sense they showed on Wednesday in their management of the Habitual Drunkards Bill. They were content to ' take what the Government and the House >of Commons were willing to give them. ,They hare not pressed for the Bill, but 'ihave agreed to leave out in committee those parts which were moßt open to objection. The result is that.the Bill has {been read a second time without one dissentient voice. The compulsory clauses are to disappear. The cost of, the retreats or houses of refuge for habitual drunkards is to be found without help from, the Treasury or the local rates. The most important part that will remain after I these changes hare been made is the provision to be suffered to sign away their own liberty, for ar jperiod of twelve months, and are to be iheld to the engagement when they have once entered upon it in due form, and with a thorough understanding of what it is they are committing themselves to. Whether they will go into a retreat or ' not is thus left to their own choice. There ; will be restraints afterwards, but only as they have themselves consented to be ; subject to it. The advocates of compulsory reform have good cause to be latisfied with what they have thus gained, while the advocates of individual freedom have surrendered nothing inconsistent with their own principles. The. Bill in its amended form will, we hope, become law during the present Session, and the experiment of compulsory legislation in favour of sobriety will be fairly tried in its simplest and most reasonable form. The.opposition to all such measures as that which-came before the Hoase of Commons on Wednesday is made up of reason and of sentiment. In addition to the strong dislike which most Englishmen feel to the cnrtailment of liberty, even where liberty has been most abused, there is the doubt whether the habitual drunkards are worth the trouble they are likely. to cause. It is even questioned whether: they can be reformed."at* all. That they should be left to themselves is the easy solution of which the case more obviously admits.,. They are their own worst enemies. The penalty of their excesses is their own affair. They can incur it or avoid it as they please, and all that society has to do is to wash its hands of them and to leave thent to their own courses. But there is another current of feeling too strong to be Resisted. .^Aml my brother's keeper P " is a question<which a large and increasing party are not cpptent to answer with an acquiescent, negative. The belief that drunkenness can be controlled by law, and ought, therefore^.to be so controlled, exists too widely to be neglected by practical s'atesmen/i -Some timely concession must be made ■to it, or it will force itself into the statutd-lKfok in an extreme and mischievdus'form: 1 °If We admit the danger of this, we must'admit, too, the wis'ddm of the concession which ' was agreed to on Wednesday. When the Habitual Drunkards, Bill becomes jaw it will give employment to the benevolent efforts of the anti-alcoholic crusaders. To establish the retreats the Bill sanctions, and to find inmates for them, will be the difficulties which will still remain to be overcome. The earnestaess of the attempt to grapple with them will be some measure of .'the. reality of the feeling which has found expression in the £Eill. We have little.doubt that the necessary; funds will be forthcoming, from private sources. Nor will the next ; step in advance be hard. The habitual drunkard is not always the willing slave of the habit by whicp he finds himself enthralled. There are times when he feels that he would give anything to recover his lost freedom. He tries his best, but he is wanting in persistence. The thirst for liquor returns,upon him with' imperative force, and he is simply without the power of steadily refusing to satisfy it. It is for such a case as this that the Habitual Drunkards Bill .sup■plies the best, and, indeed, the only remedy. It takes advantage, as it were, of the man's lucid intervals, and, gives him the means, while they last, of guaranteeing to himself that they shall be permanent. The submission to restraint for a period is no great price to pay for a lifelong freedom. If the habit of drunkenness can be once fairly broken through, there is no reason to despair of ,vi effectual and final cure. Each day th.tt passes without the indulgence makes abs^nence less painful for the next. A year, or even less than a year, of sobriety is a soi't of treasure which the drunkard, when he regains his' liberty, will ;not be, willing to fling away. Rather he will keep it carefully, and add to it,as each day passes, and as its value becomes more . dear to him. The physical craving will have disappeared or become lest vjolent. The shattered will and the ruined'constitution will have regained something of their normal state. The.man who went^ into the retreat a helpless drunkard' will come out again, after a Bhort time, ready to renew the struggle; with advantages he could not have gained for himself. That the reformation will always be permanent is more than the most sanguine can hope for. It is something if a good percentage is gained over. The advocates and supporters of the Habitual, Drunkards Bill must expect to be judged by results.' It will rest with them to give the measure a fair chance. It is not enough that it should pass the Legislature and be left to, do its own work afterwards. The test of zeal will be, not in the pressure put upon Parliament, but in the use made of the opportunities which Parliament seems inclined to allow. But what, it may be asked, will these reformed drunkards be worth? Will they not at best be rather inferior to the average run.of mankind ? Why not leave them to their fate, and allow, the places they will leave vacant to be filled a

higher, type of character, more able to look after itself and less in need of fostering care to keep it within decent bounds ? It is not often that cynicism of this extreme kind ventures to be thus frank. We can hardly doubt, however, that it is, at the bottom of a great deal of the opposition with which the anti-alcoholic crusade is met. The argument, if we may so term it, is, however, questionable for many reasons. It applies just as truly to the sick "and infirm as to the drunkard. The unaided straggle for existence would be about equally fatal to all of them. > So far, therefore, all are equally proper subjects for help. Society in either case gains more by the, effort to* render help than by tKe unrestricted play of the harsh laws which demand the survival/of the fittest. Drunkenness, too, degrading vice as it is, is by no means incompatible with many of the highest virtues. It is often the one blot, which mars and deforms a ; fine charac.terv It is the drunkard of fiction wlib! is necessarily dead to the life of the. affections and a brute all round. The drunkard of real life is not uhfrequently as tender-hearted and as good , a man in most respects as any of his neighbors. Once freed fr.pm,the chain which he has fastened! about his own neck; he will give good return for the care and the kindness that have delivered him. ' The Habitual Drunkards Bill will give scope in the best possible way to philanthropic! impulses not always wise in their choice of means, but too strong and too valuable to be fit subjects for mere repression.;. , ;:, .