TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4303, 24 December 1892, Page 3

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

CHAMPION BEER-DRINKERS. Philadelphia evidently has some champion beer-drinkers. The Record of that city,tells of one brewery where the one hundred men who are employed consume twelve half-barrels of beer a day. It states that a compartment has been set apart foi' a miniature bar, and one bartender does no* thing all day but lioep tho faucet open. Sotro of the men, according ' o the bartender, drink from eighty to Nine hundred glasses a day; others drink aboutfifty, while some can only stand twenty-five or thirty glasses b day. Great, indeed, must be the capacity of these Philadelphia beordrinking champions I BEER AND TOE 0110LERA AT HAMBURG, The New York Homing Advertiser quotes a Hamburg dispatch, saying that "the cholera there has been especially severe on beer-drinkers and ihtemporate people generally." The idwrferadds: " A drunkard is always at a disadvantage in an epidemic. His stomach is in bad condition and his organs are disturbed in their functions. He falls an early victim. Should cholera reach this oity the habitual drunkards will fare badly. It is also reported from Hamburg, where the mortality from cholera has been so great, that there were noi Bufficiant hearses to carry off the dead, and that the beer waggons have beon hired for that purposo. That is in(dced a remarkable spectacle which Germany thus presents, waggons sent out by the brewers filled with beer to return laden with the dead bodies of its cholera victim's! moyoiisis and beeb. ■ All Amorican correspondent of The Wheel, of this city, one of a party of cyclists making an extended tour through France on their wheels, is delighted With the good roads in that country, but comments upon the difficulty they have in procuring refreshing drinks, the water being warm and insipid, with a strong impregnation from limestono; and no ioe, no soda-water, asinthis country; lemonade, poor and costly; and milk difficult to obtain aftor early morning. And he adds: "Of course there are and wine, and stronger liquors in vast quantities everywhere; but wheelmen find that tbey are not very refreshing to drink while riding, and, in fact, are positively weakeping," This is significant and valuable testimony against alcoholic beverages from k new quarter, May all oyclists, of "horn there aro now so many, with their numbers constantly increasing, and others, make a note of it, . A DRUNKEN JURY. The newspapers have lately given accounts of a free fight in a jury-room at Burlington, N.J., on the part of the jurors/who wore unable to agreo in a oaso of alleged assault,' It appears that theconstable having charge of the jurors furnished them with all the liquor r they desired, Naturally enoagfa, they became boisterous, and were having a lively tiiiio. generally, when one of their number arose to Wki # V# tie TOW Of COM'

promising on a verdict. He was interrupted by a fellow-juror, who charged linn with having beon bought belore be camo in. This was resented angrily, accompanied by a slap id the fiico of iho offender, and, Buys the journal which chronicles the event, 1 the wildest confusion followed, the drunken jurors indulging in a iree fight. 1 Then the proprietor of the hotel went in and tried to quell the disturbance, when some »f the jurors turned on liirn, and bo was severely bundled. The outcome was tbut the presiding justice censured the jurors and dismissed them in disgrace. It would appear, however, that something raoro than this should have been done for the punishment of men who had thus committed so great an offenco against decency and good order. Popular respect for the jury trial diminishes, and will continuo to diminish rapidly, if there shall be many such as disgraceful oxhibitions as this in a New Jersey Court. Mrs Partington used to talk to her son Isaac of courts as places where justice was 'dispensed with," This New Jersey court would seem literally to hare been one of Mrs Partington's kind. " MURDER OF IHE INNOCENTS." One of the horrors of the drink evil in Great Britain is the smotlioring of very young children in sleep by their drunken parents, This " murder of the innocents," it appears, is by no means diminishing. The number of deaths of" over-lain" children, says tho Registrar-General, has been " steadily increasing in recent years." It is also stated that the proportion of such cases is moro than twice as high on Saturday night, as on any other night of the week. The explanation given is that the amount of intoxication is greater on Saturday than ou any other day. There are many reasons why it would seem desirable to'change pay-day from Saturday, the usual time for the payment of wages, to some other day earlier in the week, but one of the strongest reusons which could be urged would be to lessen this tendency to child-murder on the part of stupidly drunken parents. Better still would it be to havo bo vigorous a total ab»tinenco propagandism, as to win over such drunkards to the side of total abstinence and sobriety, and also ultimately to close up the drink shops as well. OEORGE W, CMLDB ON TEMPERANCE, Georgo W, Childs, of Philadelphia, contributes a very helpful, suggestive article to the Public Ledger Almnw, for tho current year, upon " Success in Life," in which, reterring to the subject of Temperance, he says: I cannot lay to great a stress on the matter of stricttemperanco. Drinking beer, wine, or spirits is a useless and dangerous habit, It does uo good, and if the habit is continued it is almost sure to lead to destruction and death. Taste not, to»ch not, handle not. You should have courage enough to Bay "No" if. you are asked to drink. In looking back over my life I can recall many of the best and roost promising of uy companions who were ruined by the habit of drinking, not one of whom ever imagined that he would be wrecked id mind and body, aud eventually fill a drunkard's grave. There is no safety in moderate drinking ; every one who touches it at all is in danger.