TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 871, 16 September 1881, Page 2

TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

Mr John Harding of Waipukurau lectured in the Town Hall Masterton last evening, but owing to counter attractions at St. Matthew's School the attendance of adults was rather limited. The children who had received a free invitation however, mustered in considerable numbers. Mr D'Arcy who occupied the chair apologized for the absence of music, their arrangements in that direction being nnsuccesful. The Temperance cause was advancing all over the colony, and even in Masterton its friends wero satisfied with the progress they were making. He quoted statistics to show that teetotallars lived on an average one third longer than drunkards, and said that even in .Masterton octogenarian abstainers were to be found with their faculties unimpaired, doing good work, He introduced Mr Harding as the oldest total abstainer in New Zealand and as the promoter of the first Temperance Society established in Wellington. The lecturer then addressed the audience as a total abstainer of forty seven years standing . By means of some very admirable diagrams, he traced the various processes of brewing, showing at each stage the waste of food involved in changing grain into alcohol. He claimed that in England the amount of grain destroyed in the breweries would have fed the whole population of the country for four months. The leotare was listened to with great attention throughomVand a cordial vote of thanks was passed to Mr Harding,