TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4313, 7 January 1893, Page 2

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

WOOLDN'T LEAD DRUNKEN SOLDIEHS. Colonel Manuel Garcia, of tbe Brazilian regulars, declined to lead an expedition against the revolted province ol MattoGrosso unless the commissary department agreed to leave the supply of intoxicating liquors behind. "The Government," he says, " lias been careful to suppress the distribution of insurgent pamphlets, but I would sooner undertake to maintain discipline among a brigade carrying a hundred wagon loads of rebol literature than fitiiong a regiment carrying a carload of alcoholic liquors," More than ono campaign has indeed miscarried in consequence of such commissary supplies. The battle of Zorndorf, fought in the crisis of the Seven Years' War, was lost to tho Russians chiefly because their soldiers hud got access to the braudy barrels in the camp and befuddled themselves on the eve of the decisive engagement, London hotea,

While newspaper disoussion rages round various aspects of the drink question, the drink traflio daily claims its victims, and the world wags on for the most part as though these things were not so, A pcore of women on drunken charges at one place, a dozen at another, and individual women "up"(or the 150 th or 200 th time, mark tbe passing annals of the metropolitan police courts; and all that magisterial intelligence or authority has to ofier is, to one batch a sharp word of dismissal, and in another tho order to " find a surety,"

Wlmt n pity it is that it is not possible to send such poor creatures, not to prison, to contractor deepen the criminal taint, but to an inebriates' home for treatment, raedioal and otherwise, at the hands of kindly people, I onco saw and conversed with Home women in an American inebriate home, Bent there by the local court, and reaping all the benefits of quiet, refined surroundings, careful watching, and appropriate treatment; wlmt a vast contrast to the prison cell and plank bed of our English harsh" seven days" I

Many and striking were the arguments, and the incidents on which they were based, in favour of "The Urgent Need of Amended legislation lor Inebriates," presented by Dr fl. W. Williams in bis paper read to-dny before the Society for the Study of Inebriety j and no less Taluablo wero the contributions of the discussion by Dr Norman Kerr, the president, and other medical speakers, The question is one of morals, physics, and laws ; and it cries aloud for intelligent settlement. so stimulant FOR HIM, The rumours about .the death of Emin Pasha have been refuted by a despatoh from Zanzibar, where a companion of the indefatigable ex-j plorer reports his safe arrival at Wadelai, after a desperate march through a district afflicted with famine and smallpox. Fortuno favours the brave, but the almost miraculous escapes of the white pasha have a good deal to do with the fact that he 'makes it a rule to subsist on a mini* mum of non-stimulating food and drink during the warm season, as well as during every expedition involving unusual perils and fatigues,—World's White Eibbjn.

At a great special meeting of the Good Templars Grand Lodge of England in London on Saturday week resolutions were unanimously passed, on the motion of Mr John Kempster, and seconded by Mr Sutherland, calling for Direct Veto legislation, but denouncing proposals to transfer! licensing power to County Councils. The Grand Lodge of Wales has similarly resolved at its recent annual session,

In the Metropolitan workhouse' I alone, with a daily average number of 56,171 inmates, 38,294 pints of spirits, 24,786 pints of wine, and 206,830 gallons of malt liquor were consumed last year at a cost of £12,410.

One day recently, from half past seven o'clock in the morning until closing time at midnight, 4250 men, 2442 women, 1129 children, 369 babies, or a total of 8190 persons passed. through the doors of a large in the vicinity of the Old Kent road, PBEFERRED TO LOSE HIS EARS. . A. tribe of Araucanos, or roving In-: dians, on the southern borders^ Chili, recently out off thji y earsof a peddler yiiom they caught selling | irandy to their squaws, They had left him Ifyfl option of swallowing a gallon of his own liquor, but he appears to have preferred the less deadly alternative, t