A PROTEST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3034, 3 November 1908, Page 5

A PROTEST.

(To the Editor.) j Sir, When I was a boy we were ] taught that "money is the root of all i evil," but, now-a-days, according to our Prohibitionist friends, Drink is the father of all crime, and it is of no consequence how the liquor trade may be conducted in different countries —it is equally bad in each. How aweetly logical! How convincing such an argument must be to the man who has already made up his mind on the point! The enormous amount of abuse hurled at the head of anyone connected with the liquor trade, the vile insinuations made against him, the many innuendoes of which he is the subject, are, of course, evidence to the mind of the thinking man that the Prohibitionists' case suffers from inherent weakness, but, sir, the Prohibitionist thoroughly believes in the theory that "if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick." However, sir, the line should be drawn somewhere, and though I can understand that feeling is "running high," I must say that an advertisement I read the other day disgusted me considerably. It had reference to the intoxication of two girls by two young men —some incident which Rudyard Kipling, who, at times, gets excited and exaggerates fearfully, had witnessed in a Concert Hall at Buffalo. Of course, they were "girls," if Rudyard Kipling and the Prohibitionist Party say so, otherwise one might have thought they were "girls" of about thirty! Anyhow, I do not want to discuss the incident beyond remarking that surely it is absurd to ask people to believe that the lives of these "girls" were ruined in a few minutes! What blemishes were there in their characters, and how had they been brought about before they allowed themselves to be made drunk publicly and then led down a dark street! Publication of the affair was totally unnecessary, and the only point it emphasises is the wild state of excitement and imagination into which the Prohibition Party are working themselves. Such an advertisement should not be published. The papers are read in the home, and objectionable advertising matter should be excluded from them. Let the Prohibitionists maul the memory of the faad it' he wishes. It may be horrible

to our feelings that he should do so, but such conduct is not at all indecent whereas the advertisement I refer to had much better not be read by innocent young people. On what possible ground can the publication of such an advertisement be justified in a town like Masterton? The Prohibitionist, in tearing his frantic way along the ruad of abuse, wishes the public to understand that drink was the cause of the subsequent sin that was, no doubt, committed. | (I allude to the incident mentioned in the advertisement), and upon this any man who has any knowledge of the world would comment "what nonsense." There are other vices in the world besides that of drinking. Immorality of a certain kind has been a blemish in the character of many men who have had most singular and remarkable careers, and who have not been drinkers, but teetotallers, or, at any rate, most abstemous in the matter of drink. However, sir, this is not a matter that I want to discuss. Trusting that this protest will not be without avail.—l am, etc., FATHER OF A FAMILY.