TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4244, 15 October 1892, Page 2

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

A brand of whisky is advertised, called " Horn of Plenty." On this a temperance writer remarks, they liaye ohosen the name wisely, for out of the thing designated shall come— Pleuty of poverty, plenty of pain, Plenty of sorrow and plenty of shume, Plouty of broken hearts, hopea doomed ± and sealed, M Plenty of graves in tho potter's Held.

The Daily Chronicle commenting on a Bad c»se of attempted suicide by ' a woman driven to desperation by her husband's drunkenness, remarks on the boast of the liquor traffic, at its conference at Portsmouth last week, that it has an invested capital of £120,000,000. The Chronicle says: "Its swollen revenues are constantly added to at the expense of such homes as that of this unfortunate victim." In Austria a remarkable appeal has been made to the " Upper House," in, which the evil effeots of immoderate*drinking, both morally and physioally, on the individual, his family, and the community, are enlarged upon, and the Government petitioned to.enaot a law, whereby anyone, who, through the excessive use of intoxioating liquors, has weakened the will* power, and is [thus incapable of selfcontrol, can be placed under oontrol in an Inebriate Asylum, The Manchester chief-constable, bus issued a speoial report, with thSt avowed aim of vindicating his policy us regard tho vendors of intoxicating drinks, and of showing that the oity police force is doing its duty. There are 583 licensed houses, being an increaseof forty-five; also 2548 beer and wine hoases, an increase of 454, No fewer than forty-one fully licensed houses wero proceeded against during the year, with tho result that twentythree were connoted and eighteen acquitted.

In a recently-published volume, "The Pinch of Poverty,'.' the writer remarks: "It w a. terrible thing to say, but as true as terrible, that a liuge proportion of the English poor aro born to drink, just, ai the Esquimaux are bom with a taste for food specially suited for an Arctic climate, or the Fijian to oonsider the shedding of blood not a crime, but « glory. They are born in a vitiated atmosphere, one of the especial effeots of whioh is in practice found to create a taste for stimulants." The cashier of a large ironworks in k( Yorkshire states that on pay-day" £40,000 is paid to the workmen in wages, and within an hour one half of the money is in the publicans' hands. It is stated that Dr Allen, the medical officer of the Leeds Board of GunrJianß, has exercised a wise discretion in the limited use he haß niado of alcoholic liquors as a medicine. For many years the ratepayers of Leeds have no cause of complaint aa to the consumption of alcohol at the workhouse. Nothing ot the kind is given to the officials, and only to the inmates when prescribed by the medical superintendent, An abstinence sooiety exists in St. Petersburg with six hundred membora whose activity has shown itself in tho establishment of no less than eight tea-houses in that part of the city whero drinking places most abound, and the foundation of an Inebriates' Asylum is also contemplated. _ The British Consul at Wenchoff gives iu liia report, a allocking insight into the extent of tho opium trade in China, he says that of late years proclamations have been issued, as was formerly the case, restricting the growth of the poppy, or the oponing of opium dens. Thero are over six hundred opium divans in the city and suburbs, of various sizes, some possessing three to four lamps, others ten to twelve j also that about 10 per cent of the adult male population have opium oraving.

An important meeting has been held in Newcastle for the purpose of forming a "League for the Prohibi- • tion of the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors to Children." It was stated in the meeting that some of the Liverpool publicans provide sweets to induce the children to go into their houses. Instantaneous photographs have be9n taken throughout the city of children going to and from the public houses, Public meetings ara to bo held, at which lantern exhibitions of the slides will be given, and every possible moans adopted for arousing public opinion on this crying evil. The League makes a good start * and with Mr E. B. Bussoll for press dent, seoms assured of a useful future, Professor Bchmoller, of Berlin, one of the ablest leaders among German ' political economists, Bays: "Among our working peoplo the conditions of domestio life, of education, of prosperity, of progress or degradation, are all dependent on the proportion of income which flows down the father's throat, The whole condition of our lower and middle classes—ono may even say, without exaggeration, the future of our nation-depends on this question,"

The Evening News, in a recent article on " Westminister Lodginghouses," says:-" Our representative found, as the result of his investigations, that many of these outonsta from society are men and women who at an early period of their life had every advantage that good birth, eduoation, culture, and means could confor upon them, Broken down merchants, lawyers, clergymen, oicors, tj' and the representatives of almost every profession and trade, mingled with pickpockets-, burglars, gamblers, bullies, hawkers, beggars, tramps, and fallen women of every age and description, It is estimated that 95 per cent of the inmates of these houses have been reduced to their present condi-t tion through drink,"

Avery successful Juvenile Temple, consisting of eighty members, called the " Gordon Crusaders," is working and meeting in too flame room at Greenwich in which Genoral Gordon used to teach his boys. Prohibition (says the New fork Independent) and nothing else, is law in lowa for two years more at least. If it is well enforced the majority against license two years hence will be greater than it. now is, and it is now greater than ever before,