TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4879, 17 November 1894, Page 3

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

The Duko of Argyll, who owns the island of lona,will not allow anv ono thero to keep a public-house. The residents are in a very happy state, for no policemen is needed, although several hundred people live on the 'JjfanuV

"Hero (says the Westminster Gaxttc) is a brief schedule of things found in a post-mortem examination ofafamo«B Australian swallowing man:—l piece of leather 9iu. long, with a hook at each end; 20 pioces of tinfoil; 30 pieces of cork; 1 piece of string 18in. long, with corks attached. Ono witness had seen him cat bottles; another had known him ' eat eat' bread, cheese, and pickles, and after that the saucer.' Acnrious fact about him was, that' he never came homo sober.—whether intoxicated by tinfoil, leather straps, or pieces of cork is, unhappily, not Btatod."

Tho Mid-OumkrhnA HcraU quotes from" Dio Lewis"—" Wo put a drop of alcohol into a man's eye, It poisons it. 'Wo try it on tho lining of a living stornacb. Again it poisons it, We study tho stomachs of drinking men, and find that alcohol produces, in regular stages, redness, intense congestion,morbid secretions, utter rnin. Wo study its influenco npon tho health and strength of Bailors and soldiers' and find it helps to freeze them in tho Arctic regions and exhaust them in the tropics. Wo watch two regiments on a long march in India, one with and the other without (jrog, and are driven to the conclusion that even moderate quantities of alcohol weaken the muscles and break 1 tho endurance. We visit the training ground of oarsmen, pedestrians, and prizefighters and learn everywhere tho samo lesson—alcohol is a poison to muscle nnd brain,

In a letter to tho Times, Mr J, Graver, of Highgale, suggests, instead of reducing,. the number of drinkshops," another' course, much less heroic, but which would oporato immediately on tho publican who allowed drunkenness or his licensed premises and on the drunkards in the locality—viz., give the magistotfwin petty sessions, before whom such a case is proved powef to sontenco the public-house to bo closed for any period not exceeding Bovon days, without appeal, The publicans who conducted their houses improperly would understand this. So would tho drunkards. It would'bo an object lesson of great importance where it occurred, and wouiddono serious injury to tho innocent persons concerned in liconHedproperty.wbo demand compon'eation for total closing." ;