TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5040, 1 June 1895, Page 3

TEMPERANCE ITEMS.

"Temperance folk will be interested to hear this tit-bit fj'om the Paris police-courts. A tramp was prosecuted on the usual ' no visible means of subsistence' charge. His defence was that he was working at his trade. Asked what his trade jras, he replied that lie picked up ■prange-peel in the streets and sold • it to a manufacturer of curaijoa and bitters. After that disclosure, water for me, please."— Weekly Despatch. " Statistics are wonderful things." Mr John Burns, M.P., speaking at a cab-strike demonstration in Hyde Park, on Saturday, May 20th, observed that it was a strange coincidence that there were in London fifteen thousand cabmen, fifteen thousand policemen and fifteen thousand public-houses. He did not know what connection there wero between them, but it was a singular coincidence that spoke for itself. The Pacific Medical Journal say.'i that the hereditary evils of beerdrinking exceed those which result from spirit-drinking. "First, because the habit is constant and without parozysmal interruptions which admit of some recuperation; second, because beer-drinking is practised hy both sexes more generally than Bpirit-drinkiiig; and, third, because tne animalizing tendency of the habit is more uniformly developed, thus authorising the presumption that the vicious results are more generally transmitted," i A grocer in Greenheys, Manchester, issues gratis tickets entitling the bearer to a free quart of beer early on the next Sunday afternoon. A neighbour who sent for a single penny worth of chips received with it one of these tickets inviting him to obtain a free quart. In this way the taste and habit of calling for the intoxicant are sedulously cultivated. We are informed that this evil custom of drink-sellers is widespread. Count Tolstoi, the famous Russian novelist, has just written the libretto of an opera in which he , gives expression to his well-known viows respecting the evils resulting . from the abuse of stimulants. The Abook," which bears the title of IfThe Brandy Burner," has been set to music by a lady; and the complete work has already been performed moro that once in Russia. . Upon the minds of the muzhiks, for whose edification the opera is chiefly intended, the opera is said to have created a profound impression. A lady correspondent writes: "It seems to me it is the doctors who to a largo extent block the cause of total abstinence, by ordering alcohol j to their patients, who have such faith in the doctor (even total abstainers) that they take it. It is of no use temperance lecturers and scientists teaching that alcohol is a dangerous drug, hurtful alike to body and mind, while the doctors aro ordering it. ' A member of thoB.W.T.A, told me last week that the doctor (who professes to be a total abstainer) had ordered her porter; and I saw a baby • six months old, for whom the doctor • had prescribed ten drops of brandy three times a day! I told the mother JS would not give a dear baby brandy Wor any doctor, but she gave ii, and yet she is a total abstainer, Many more cases I could quote. While people believe alcohol is such a powerful remedy for all ailments, the temperance cause will always go halt and lame.—Alliance News. A curious question has been raised by the students and junior barristers > of Gray's Inn whoaretotal abstainers, says a London coirespondent It arises in connection with the old and long-standing custom of students having to eat so many dinners before being called to the Bar; and,therefore, in the case of those who are obliged to attend the Inn mess, tho ') plea has more force than it has in the mouths of the barristers who dine at the Inn table as a mere matter of convenience to themselves. The abstainers are petitioning the "Masters of tho Bench," who are in . this case tho controlling authorities, either to supply them with unfermentcd wine at dinner, or to deduct &e charge for wine which is made in the Inn tariff. So long as the prevails of compelling candiTslates for the Bar to eat so many ' dinners in the hall before being called, the masters should at least '• see that their regulations are in other respects kept abreaßt ■of modorn opinion, So Baya the Westpiinster Gazette.