THE DRINK QUESTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2698, 18 September 1885, Page 2

THE DRINK QUESTION.

An exchange writes as followsln the July numberof the "Nineteenth Century" Archdeacon Farrar has a "last word" withLordßramwell on the drink question, and a vigorous word it is. Half the things urged in praise of drink, writes Dr Farrar, have now been proved to be entirely erroneous. It. used to be said that drink was a food; it is now admitted that itj nutriti v eelementsareinfinitesim ally Btr\aP. Drink used to be regarded as a aaufrie of health; it is notY proved tlyit eyen taken it is the frequent causa of a host of cjrael diseases; that in, 5 the case of most persons perfect healtji is attainable without it; and that abstinence from it is in normal instances dimply ' conducive to longevity. Drink \sSi Vq be regarded as a panacea for ex'tfeftiK ojf climate; it is now acknowledged that alike in the Arctic cirole and under the sun of the tropics those men have ; most exempt from climatic idfluenro' who have entirely abstained from it, Jfe is still asserted by many that drink- ft at any rate necessary for the onre of disease; but in the London Temperance during the course of twelve yeara and a half, alcohol has only been' administered three times in treatment of nearly 3000 • in-patients and of nearly 20,000 outpatients, afflicted with every malady to which flesh is heir—and yet the mortality in tho London Temperance Hospital will compare favorably with that of any other in tho Kingdom,' Drink has been stripped one by one of its borrowed plumes of utility, and is left miserably bare to flupfc tho one superfluous peacock's featlier of its being "nice," ' ''' VA