Good Words from a Gin Wrapper.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 18, 8 July 1899, Page 2

Good Words from a Gin Wrapper.

As we wended our way along a road one day our attention was attracted by an empty bottle lying in the gutter. It was not the mere fact of an empty bottle lying' by the wayside which diew our attention, but that this particular bottle was wrapped in a printed circular issued by the gin maker. Being ever anxious to read the literakue of both sides of the liquor question, we tooE this circular from the square bottle and studied it. For the benefit of the "Fallacy" editor, and of certain newspaper correspondents, we give some extracts from this liquor leaflet ; believing fa?om lecent writings of antiprohibitionists that their attention has not been diawn to the facts theiein set forth.

Take first the paragraph from the report of the analyst, an m.d. andp.c. : — " As to the Fusel oil, with which all inferior spirituous liquors are more or lest impregnated, and which lenders them poisonous in the- exact ratio in which they are imbibed— which causes such liquors to intoxicate when others do not, and create that morbid, insatiable appetite for undue indulgence, with all its deploiable consequences, of jsvhieh the friends of temperance and philanthrophy so justly complain, instead of that satiety and fastidiousness of taste for which the drinkers of pure' liquors are distinguished. Of this fttid, acrid, asthmatical Fusel oil, I found no trace in Mr 's medical gin, although I repeatedly tested vaiious quantities of it with the chloride of calcium, by the usual process which so readily detects and obtains in the ordinary spirituous liquors."

The italics* are mine and are intended to arresi the attention of the gentleman who so recently quoted a Dr Bowditch as controTerting Mr T. Brown, of whose statement we here have corroboration from a source which cannot by any stretch of the" imagination be deemed biassed toward prohibition. " Liquor creates appetite !" is a truism subsciibed to even by gin makers. In another portion of this trade circular the manufacturer sets foith the following (which, is by the way a- crushing paragraph for moderate drinkers). "To such persons, the pioprietor would present the deliberate and experienced opinion oil the eminent Ds Carpenter, uuiversally admitted to be the highest physiological authority of the present age, whose works are classics in all medical schools, and who is equally well known as a determined opponent of the habitual use of stimulative liquors, as ordinary beverages, by persons in. health. In his celebrated treatise " On the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors in health Tad disease," he thus expresses his eighth and last conclusion upon the subject : — " That ichil&t the- habitual use of alcoholic liquors, even in the most moderate amount, is likely, except in a few rare instancees, to be rather injurious tlian beneficial, great benefit may be derived in the treatment of disease from the medical useof alcohol in appropriate cases." We are glad* of this liquor-maker's eulogium of Dr Carpenter, as we have some of his more recent utterances by us, which thus buttressed by out oppononts will 1 come with incieased force. We have had, the statement as to the danger ot alcoholic; liquors as a beverage even* when t^ken moderately, before us many times, and have tried to impress its truth on those who came '■within the scope of our influence. We now again draw the attention of " Moderates " and " Occasional " to it with i<6 liquor-makers' credentials. With one more quotation, we dismiss the pamphlet, Liquor supporters are fond of hurling the charge of abusive language against tSe tempeiance party ; we respectfully submit that the following reference to those who object to liher 1 xise of alcohol' as a medicine is as strong as anything thai we could say. The gin-maker r,efars to those people as " professional parasites of an ignorant and arrogant fanaticism."

On Tuesday the 18th inst. Miss Maunder," , the organiser fbr the W.C.T.U., will address a public meeting in Waimate, under the auspices of the T.E.U. Miss Maunder has -just returned from a trip .through 'Ajoieiica.

to England, in which she was accompanied by her brother who paid special attention to the working of Prohibition' in the NVrLicense states of the Union. An interesting address maybe expected^ from Miss Maunder.