TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4286, 3 December 1892, Page 2

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Archbishop Vaughan, who prawned a;.. 'sermon, said that England was how face to fac3 with a great national plague moie terrible in its consequences than the cholera. Tho f«s» cinating plague, of drunkenness was ravaging and desolating the cutire population, It had token possession of the very vitals of the nation. It jrespeoted neither olass nor sent, neither a»e nar youth. The prison authorities at the present time could say that 75 per cent of tho oriminals being punished in the gaols were the product of diink. The medical authorities could tell them that 70 per cent of tho people who were in the hospitals which covered the country were brought there, either directly or indirectly through drink. The naval and military authorities could tell thenr that two-thirds of the crime committed in the Royal service were brought about by drink. The report of the Royal Commission for the Housing of-tho Poor recorded that one in every five deaths that occurred in the hospitals or the workhouses in London was due to drink, and of the lower class of society in London one in every three deaths was owing to the same cause, Ho had every faith in the good work being done by the League of the Cross, To combat this gigantic evil religion must bo brought to use its fnllett influence. Only tho power of God could stem the tide of, misery resulting from drink, and as Catholics tbey should work hard and pray that the blessing of the Almighty might rest upon their labours,

The Independent Order of Rechabites, the largest and oldest Teraperanco siok benefit society in existence, boasting of a membership of over 120,000, has received a large accession to its numbers by the affiliation of the American Rechabite Order, which has given adherance to the parent society. The amalgamation is based on a scheme prepared by Mr George Marshall, the district secretary for London, who has for somo years past held a commission as High Deputy for England of the Aaierioan Recliabites.

The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety says:-" Of the prisoners in German ponitentiaries convicted of murder, 46 per cent used liquor, and of these again 41 per cent were habitual drunkards,"

The City Council of Bayonne, New Jersey, have authorized the transfer of a saloon to a store in the immediate vioinity of a Methodist Church, in spite of the vigorous protest of all tho Church of that city.

It is said that amougst tlio ranks of the Sydney unemployed was discovered the other day an ex-Cabinet Minister, who had taken a prominent part, some 20 years ago, in welcoming the Queen's second son to Australia, Drink was the cause of his downfall, For a long time' past he has been a regular frequenter of the Sydney "doss-houses." In Melbourne, not long ago, an ex Attorney-General of the Colony and a member of ono of the London Inns, was actually an unsuccessful applicant for the position of oarctaker of a police court.

An interview with Mr Josoph Cook, concerning total abstinence is published by an American paper. The answer to one of the questions is suggestive: " Can literary men, as a rule, do better work whilti practising total abstinence ?'' " Assuredly, it they take proper cave to sleep enough and maintain vigor by sufficient physical exercise, Every brain habitually stimulated hy alcohol is more or less disintoned. Such a bruin injures the quality of its literary productions, No intoxicated brain is a sound brain and every brain more or loss unsound has more or less unsound ideas and sentiments. Moderate drinking destroys the nice balance of the faculties," Mr Cook adds: I have made the tour of tbe world as a lecturer with my wife, who was frail in health at the time, and wo found no necessity in any climate for the übb of wine or beer, and were total abstainers everysvheiewithoutapology,"

The Kev. Sam Chadwiok, of the Leeds Central Mission, tells the follo\viii« sad utory of a family that twenty-five years ago used to drive to chapel in a carriage and pair, The woman, on the morning of her marriage, received, as a wedding present from her father, £50,000. Mr Ghadwick found, some timo ago, that her husband had just died in a common lodging houso without a shirt on bis back, and there was the widow in that liti le hovel without furniture, the only remnant of the old days being a carriage lamp that had once lit the way for their carriage. In ono coroor of the place lay a daughter dying of! consumption; in the other corner was a daughter ill with typhoid fever. They had not a bite of bread or a copper at their command; and the third daughter had gone out into the strceta to provide for the starving ones at home. The home hud been wrecked through drink,

The Executive Committee oE tbo United States Brewers' Aseooiation has entered upon the work of arranging for an International Congress of Brewmasters, to be held in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition in 1893.

'• I know a man," said Eli Forking, " who was moaner than a dog, This man and' dog went into a saloon together, but the man got beastly drunk while the dog kept sober and went Lome like a gentleman,"

The gross revenue from tobacco in Great Britain in 1891-92 amounted to £10,186,666, being the highest yield on record, In two years the revenue from "the wood" has increased by nearly a million sterling,

Richard Kingswell, a heavily built man, got four months' hard labour at Worship street, for violently assaulting Sarah Ward, his Bister, and Emily Ward, his nieca. Prisonor, who with his wife and children lodged in his sister's house, began a disturbance, and proceeded to ausault tho women, They got him down on tho ground, and whilst holding him in that position he got their hands in his mouth and in turn "gnawed" their fingers. The young woman Ward said she was bitton in two places, and had been to a doctor to have the wounds cauterised, Mr Biishby expressed his astonishment at the nature of the assault, and ordered Mrs Ward to be recalled. Hhe said that the injury to her hand, was the result of bites, she having no less than eitjbt _ wounds, A brother, who also lived in the houße, said that the prisoner was constantly drunk, and then "fairly mad." Mr Busliby said a man playing the cannibal in suoh a way was unparalleled in his experience,

In America some cases have occurred of violenoß, leading to fatal re-. offered to active Temperance reformers. On.) of these martyrs was the Rev. G. Haddock, and a reforenco to him contained in the Chicago Interior is worthy of citation*"""*/ When the assassinatiou of Rev, George Hatlilock drove all the saloons out of Sioux City, Iriwft, the liquor-i traffic organised in a town just aoroSfy-A*' the river in Nebraska, which wiiscalled Covington. This.wasconfi'ssedlv given up to all forms of vioo. In it Sodom and Onuiorrjli were repeated, Its oxeoutive am) legislhtiva offictra were all saloon keepers and its chief of police or. sheriff, we forget which, was arrested for highway robbery, But tlia foroea which dropped fire out of heaven upon the cities of the plain are not inoperative to day. Twioe the community T has been swept out by fire; and this year, in the midst of the busiest to- - building of the town, the irresistible Missouri has made a sudden reach for it, and day by day its town lots are crumbling into the boiling flood. There would seem to be a visvindicatnx iib well as a vis medicatrix in, nature, ' v