Tuapeka Times AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER & ADVERTISER WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10,1873.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 311, 10 December 1873, Page 2

Tuapeka Times AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER & ADVERTISER WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1873.

"MEASURES, MOT MEM/; Strong drink is a subject which, like other subjects, has more than one side, and it is just io examine all sides before expressing a judgment. The evidence is conflicting. The of the moderate drinking of intoxicants adopt the following arguments : No man has a right to limit the liberty of the subject when that liberty does not'interfere with life or property. The abuse of intoxicants is tobe punished wlren and where that abuse abridges the liberty of the subject. In law, as well as in morals, no person can ha punished lor intoxication ; consequently, the police unvariably couple the accusation " disorderly " with the accusation "drunkenness." Sickness may be mistaken for drunkenness. No lawyer, no divine, no physician has yet properly defined what constitutes drunkenness. What is one man's meat is another man's poison } and what makes one man drunk acta merely aa an opiate on another* We

will assume that drunkeness can be recognised even apart from diaorderliness. The advocates of free drink for free men say that the excess of a few should not lead to the prohibition of strong liquors amongst the majority. They say that drink brings in a great revenue, and that revenue supports numerous institutions, which even the bitterest total abstainers acknowledge to be excellent. They argue that moderate drink produces a degree and kind of friendship which water, in any form, never produces. Because Jack makes a beast of himself, they argue that it is wrong to condemn Harry solely to cold water. They further argue that some of the greatest of ancients — Demothenes, Julius Csesar, and others — were moderate drinkers/ and that Caryle, Chalmers, Bußkin, Spurgeon, (Humming, Guthrie, and others of the time present, were not totalabstainers. The moderator also argues that if strong drink is prohibited, we must, with like reason, forbid the use of thousands of other things, because intemperance is not confined to liquors. The glutton, the libertine, the gambler must each and all be included in the index e xpiirgatorio%is, if the arm of the law dashes down the glass from the lips of moderators. The moderatotffurtlier denias the assumption that the bootmaker, draper, butcher, farmer, sailor, soldier, or merchant is, on the average, in any degree more respectable than the publican. The former live by their trade simply in anqwer to a public demand, and : in answer to a similar demand the licensed publican lives by his trade. To this line of argument, the abstainer vouchsafes the following dogmatic response : We have a perfect right to deprive any man or woman of a liberty which deprives him or her of reason. Reason is the foundation of hnman society. The drunkard drags up the roots of the foundation of that society. As slavery may be made even pleasant, so can liberty be made intolerable. The abuse of liberty is only another name for slavery. Drunkenness is an abuse of liberty — ergo, drunkenness is only another name for slavery. The alleged difficulty of defining the condition called drunkenness is a mere legal quibble suggested by a depraved ingenuity. All sane men know, who is sober and who is drunk. This question is not a question of argument. What is called self-evidence is here accepted for either positive or circumstantial testimony. It is a question of ocular demonstration, depending on the evidence of the senses, not on the quibbles of a court of law. The revenue question would apply to the greatest vices that have ever ruiued mankind. Hundreds of vices bring in a great revenue. If we take the money view, we will encourage millions of breaohes of divine and human law. The friendship produced by intoxication is a false, temporary, frothy friendship, which ends when the dawn of sobriety breaks through the sottish intellect. That great men are moderate drinkers is not a forcible argument. It is known that many great men have many great mental and moral infirmities. For example, Dr. Johnson "was very superstitious. If the true greatness of these "arfe,n is advanced, we listen with exemplary attention. But we are not bound to shut our eyes to a great man's faults. Vice is viee — whether it be in a great man or in a little man. We do not punish the glutton, because gluttony does not drown or smother the reasoning faculty. The gambler must have a large share of the reasoning faculty. The libertine does not absolutely abandon his reason. It is well known, however, that most libertines are sots. We have now given the two sides of this subject, and it is probable that, for the majority, truth lies between the two extremes. For the dipsomaniac, abstinence is the only cure. Whether or not the Templars are justified in interfering in politics is another branch of the subject, which we will take up in a future issue.