A NEW VIEW OF SOBRIETY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1398, 7 June 1883, Page 3

A NEW VIEW OF SOBRIETY.

gome time age there Appeared in one of the English periodicals an article on the disastrous results of sobriety/ -The disaster to which the writer pointed was, however, merely a financial one. He showed that if tho English people abandoned their disgusting and destructive drinking habits, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be at his wits' end for revenue. But that was a small matter compared with other consequences that have been shown to follow in the wake of teetotalism when carried out to the bitter end. Last year there was published in London an interesting book' by Mr Henry See-, bohm, its title • being " Sibem' in Am" In this work Mr Seebohm doscribw a village inhabited by a sect

• of religious enthusiasts called the Scopsee, According to our author the system of these people is " teetotalism ■ carried out to its bitter end, an attempt i to annihilate all human passions, not only their abuse, but their use, as.well." "And," observes a reviewer in the Australasian," at first sight the experiment looks to the visitor an eminently successful one. Tlie village is a pattern of order, and neatness, and industry, quite un-Kussian, The orderly arrangements of the place betoken civilisation, diligence, and a standard of comfort much higher than in any of the noighboring villages, inhabited by native Siberians, The houses are well built, and contain appliances and comforta which our traveller was very much surprised to see, There was a clock on the wall, and positively books on a shelf. The.fields around told Iho same story of honest labor and comparative wealth. It was indeed a model village, without vice or crime, one in which idleness and drunkenness and apparently poverty are unknown. The people do not uso animal food except fish, they do not allow themselves butter or milk, and all jntoxica] ting and exciting drinks are forbidden. Surely the very realised idea of a teetotaller's Paradise, the crowning result of the policy of surrender and prohibition. And yet, says Mr Seebohm, 'The people did not look happy. There was no fire in their glance, no elasticity in their step, thero seemed to be no blood in their veins.' There aro no children in the village, there never will be any, and the youngest living in not under 10 years of age. These thorough-goingsectarians were bnnished to these parts by the Russian Government. and unless they are recruited by very resolute converts they will harm- ■ lessly die out. The account of this grimmest of all Utopias, as Mr Seebohm gives it, chills the blood to read."

So much for Mr Seebohm and his reviewer. The experiences of the Scopsee show to what disastrous results an irrational enthusiasm may lead, And the story contains a valuable lesson for the indiscrimating denouncers of alcohol in ill its forms, If peoplo generally were to persist in using food into the composition of which alcohol did not enter they would probably fall into the state of the Scopsee, and the human race would soon cease to be, But upon this fact or assumption let no one venture to build an argument in favor of the drink trade or the use of strong drink. Alcohol in its natural form as an inherent property in food essential to the progress of mankind, is palpably indispensable, and none but madmen would inveigh against it in that form. At the same time the fact is no argument in favor of its being used in a distilled and liquified state. The arguments against its use in that state are in nowise weakened by the history of the Scopsee, though the history of that interesting sect shows apparently with great clearness t]iat alcohol qs a constituent of foot) is essential to the perpetuation of the human race.