THE PROHIBITIONIST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4110, 11 May 1892, Page 3

THE PROHIBITIONIST.

Pull Wiri hj tht courtesy oftk Editor of Wairarapa Daily Timu, wider the auspices of the New Zealaid Alliance for iki' prohibition of Me lijiior traffic, Maskrton Avxithry, TpClFAen r«(ej)ai/«rs damnd tht tntirc ex- •' ■ (motion of al( pldccj for tht salt of , liqwriMrpmytrshmddkg'antd. —Charfa Bmton, Brtmr, , [Oouimunicationn tor tnts column must be addressed to "Tho Prohibitionist," cure of Editor of Wairarapa Daih Times Office.]A newspaper, whose sympathies in the past havo tan very strongly Publican, remarked (he oilier day that the .-,*''' pcopln in-Wellington were becoming •V so sober that the Temperance Reformers would be speedily out of a billet. A painfully' interesting commentary on tho falseness of this judgment is found in the newspaper records during the past week. On the uiorniug of Monday week a man is found in a » dying condition in a paddook in Syd-ney-street, Wellington, He is removed to the Hospital and shortly after dies. At the Inquest, the usual evidence is given. Thq man hwlbeen drinking and was, in consetjuonce, re- , duced to poverty, A witness, whom the detectives slated was in a tipsy herself, swears that she had seen the deceased going to ut hotel all day on Saturday and Sunday, and about one o'clock on Monday morning beard him cry outside her door, as he was being assaulted: " Good God I You havo broken my head with a black bottle I" The police are trying, to find out whether it is a case of accident or murder I The , newspapers of tbo following day re- "■ port, what they call, " Another Sen* Bation," This time it is a case ol attempted suicide. Here again we have another victim of the alcohol scourge. The poor wretch bad drank himself out of his situation, drank more heavily to drown his misery, and .then mad with misery besought to drown himself. In view of those awful facts there is as much need for the Temperance Reformer in Wellington as there is in the Wairarapa. We have had our own cup of horrors in Masterton and its surroundings, The EkeUhuna murder case is a distinct fruit of the drink traffic and tho mini ber of lesser atrocities produced by , the same cause is legion, for they are kpiany. Wo have been erecting a -'veritable "CeaEer's Column," and we do not live in the year 2000, Euch of these cases of suicide and murder through drink leave behind them long and sickening stories of homes made dark with tho horror of a great shame and sorrow. No, while we gaze into the ghastly faces of the murdered and the self slain, the fruit of tbe drink iniquity, wo know that tho\iork of Temperance Reform is not done. ■ The labourers in the cause of Prohibition Reform now and again receive help from the Publicans in Bbowi.ng the traffic to bo socially de- . grading in its influence, The Publicans have again and again morshalted a ragged rout of drunken ruib'ans at Temperance meetings to yell down tho speakers and as a consequence many citizens who were baiting between two opinions have beon driven straight into the Prohibit tion ranks when they saw the. element in the community that tbe publicans : were completely in touch with. In an article on the" Drink j£ Difficulty," which appeared some Century "it is stated that" one Tom- " pennies speaker had to creep through "a window, and fly for his life from a -'.'meeting in the Dudley Town Hall; "Theßishop of Exeter was pelted •i with flour bags for the space of half "sin hour in his own city, drunken "ruffiansscaling tho platforin and " breaking up the meeting and tbe " ribs of one of the Alliance zealots "at the same time." Tho statements in this article were recalled toour memory by reading in the Alliam Hews of Febi 26th a report of a Publican's meeting in Shoreditcb, London, The Vicar of Shoreditch, the Rev S. Buss, lias in a very pronounced way shown that he has no sympathy with tbe unholy Bung and Bible Alliance. In fact Mr Buss is a Prohibitionist and a thorn in the aide of the publicana of the district. He was the head of a Vigi- . lance Committee which made tbe L publicans walk straight. At a public 'Sheeting presided over by a Wine Merchant, Mr Buss got rather a rough reception from a noisy minority consisting of roughs, prise-fighters and bullies, and this same worthy chairman declared that the meeting had passed a vote of cenauro on the parsonl The same evening'a meeting of two thousand people—the moral back bone of the community—passed a unanimous vote of tbauks to Mr Buss, and resolved to co-operate with him, It is not often a Social Reformer is so highly honoured on one evening. We have no doubt that the vote of censure passed upon Mr Buss by the yellinr, of the prize-fighters will be reckoned v by Mm to be the highest compliment paid dim in his life. The curses of prize-fighters like chickens come home to roost I In tho early days of the Temperance Reform the slander and libel triok used to be played vigorously by the Publican Party. In nearly every town of any size in England and in Wthe United States there used to be found a degraded member of tbe legnl profession who had won for himself the reputation of being tho" Thieves' Lawyer." This person had the con» fideuce of the unclean publicans of the place and on condition that he was liberally paid for it would use the most disgraceful means to servo them, When the Temperance crusade began this legal functionary suggested to the publicans a plan of campaign against the Mormers, He proposed to iii«< stitute a reign of terror over orators and newspaper proprietors with 4f Temperance sympathies by threatening them with actions for slander and libel. This method of warfare was not new. The slave-owners had ueed such weapons against the Abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison; for instance, was the object of endless libel actions, varied by threats of assassination I But Garrison quailed not, and at lost (he caußehe toiled for triumphed. -But in the Temperance Eeform every man is not a Garrison, and in tbe early days of the struggle i the legal Dick Turpin of the PublN *"•* cans was successful in levying blackmail on some timid workers iu the pis'of frpbibi'tiop, In a short tirop, howeyer ( the' tables; were furncd, The Reformers refused to be blackmailed; They welcomed the libel and slander aotions, and the result was an exposure of disgraceful tactics of the publicans, and'a triumphant Yindhijv tinn of tbe Prohibitionists, The publicans soon found that they were fighting with a rusty blunderbus that hit nobody, but it kicked themselves into the ditch; and for the use of this wretched weapon their lawyer! . : ■ -i

made them pay through the nose, Tht consequence is that in England tin " Thieves' Lawyer" is an ally the Pub licans keep at a rospectable dislance; He has put his hands deep into tbeit poekets and brought untold disastei and disgrace upon them. And thus it ii that we find the publicans oi Shoreditch supported not by legal functionaries of the character we have mentioned but by men of a slightly higher moral type-to wit "Prizefighters and bullies "-in their efforts to crush the Rev S, Buss, vioar of the Church of England. Tbe "Thieves' Lawyer" now not being recognised by the Publicans, has almost censed to exist in England, and as a consequence the reproach on a high and honourable profession is being wiped awny,