Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1893.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4432, 31 May 1893, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1893.

Ouß-friend, Mr Isitt, seems to have trodden on a pet corn of the Editor of the Napier Telegraph, for our ■contemporary sends an old slipper after the distinguished lecturer in the shape of a strong anti-prohibition nrtiole. The editor speaks with no uncertain sound indeed he boldly affirms that tho English race would deteriorate if its liquor supply fuiled. We learn from him that the pluck aoJ endurance of a mighty race comes from .spirituous iiquors and wo begin to wonder why those exceedingly clever men who bin horses don't see this point and win an unlimited number of cups by making their thoroughbreds drain them. The Napier horse of the future will bo groggy I We hud been accustomed to believe that our forefathers were strong enough and brave enough to carry the good liquor that many of them undoubtedly consumed, but we never dreamt that it was the liquor that held them up, till the Napier pundit told us so. What mistakes men make 1 Wo see ignorant prizefighters and -unscientificathletes carefully training themselves on a temperance regimi, when, according to our Napier friend, thoy ought to be saturating themselves with wines and spirits. It is with pleasure that we'gather words of wisdom from our contemporary's article, and with delight that we read bow " a thousand years of tho pcrsistont use of alcohol have made Englishmen what they are," We had always thought that a hundred years of alcoholism had sufficed to extinguish a family in whioh the drink craving passed from father to son, or left;at least a shattered remnant in a lunatic asylum or a workhouse; bat it now appears that the tendency is all the other way. I Indeed, our Napier friend illustrates this aspect of the question by a pointed reference to Mr Isitt himself. .How is such s fine physical specimen of humanity produced? And the answer is that though Mr Isitt

be degenerate, his ancestors took their: "barley . bree"•' regularly, ' and so the Prohibitionists were able ; to get such a champion. There our ! Napier friend gets his blood up, pens a patriotic burst about the race uud " the tight little island" from whioh it sprang. His epithet of ilw tight little island is not so very inappropriate for the picture be draws of ut race made mighty by a thousand years of alcohol. Were it not for the potations of his ancestors he would probably be a humorist, as it ie, he is only a patriot. Next lollows in his nrttclo a monologue in a minor key, " Man is only an animal," being the text, He writes modestly, speaking, no doubt, for himself and his ancestors and proceeds to argue that tbeEnglish harenot been long enough in the ocoupation of New Zoalnnd to fairly ascertain whether alcohol is necessary to maintain the vigor of tbe raco. We don't think ho has muoh doubt in his own mind, because he plainly says that Mr Isitt, on account of his abstinence principles is little better than an idiot, but he winds up by settling tbe Prohibition question right off the reel, and this is just the point we want to get at, It is known that our opinions are not quite the same as Mr Isitt's on Prohibition and it. is only right that wo should say | anything we have, to say while he is still amongst us, but our jNapier friend puts tbe sum and substation of the matter so much more plainly und ably than we can possibly do, that we oannot do better than accept his conclusions and bow to his fuperioi wiedom. Prohibition, he explains wants a fair trial, let the experiment be made in Mr Isitt's own family and ' ' watoh how his great-great-grand* ' children turn out. This is a fail' challenge and no doubt Mr Isitt will accept it. By the year 1983 it will be possible for us all to tell whether the , physique of a family under total , abstiaence conditions improves or det teriorales. Hit is attended with good results we gather that our friend, the ! Editor of the Nnpier Telegraph, will f be prepared to join the ranks of the ' prohibitionists, In the interim, of course, judgment must be suspended, Even Mr Pownall, the new prohibitionist professor, will, wo think, be willing to settle the question on these lines,