THE EVIL EFFECTS OF DRINK.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 413, 7 January 1875, Page 2

THE EVIL EFFECTS OF DRINK.

The Social Science Congress during their sitting at Glasgow had under consideration the best method of curing intemperance. In the course of their in- | quiries they proceeded to a neighbouring prison, and here is an acconnt of what they saw. The turnkey opens cell No 1, throwing the light into it. The floor is littered with five recumbent motionless forms, which might be those of swine or of men, for aught the spectator can distinguish, but that the material lying about is that of humanity, and be- ! come dimly apparent because of a groan or two and a muttered "curse which vary the monotony of the gruntinga and stupour. The next cell presents an aspect like that of the miscellaneous grave of a battlefield. The heaps that cumbers its floor is a chaos which vaguely resolves itself into the form of some hali-dozen men, but from the confusion of odd limbs it would be rash to affirm that there were not a few more than this number. In the next three cells the scene was mainly a repetition of what has been described ; but some of the inmates were too full of oaths and coarse langaage to sink into the drunken slumber which had overwhelmed their fellows. Then we came to the cells containing the drunken women, who were nearly as numerous as the drunken men. Some lay like dead logs ; others had laid aside the larger portion of their clouts and " rampaged " about their cells hideous travesties of womanhood. Wretches of all ages were there ; the shrivelled, grey-haired crone, drunken and most foul mouthed of all", as she lay so near her grave, that one shuddered lest she might die of old age before she could be released ; young women no\, uncomely spite of their whisky-bleared eyes, bloated faces, and careless rags ; babies slumbering the sweet sleep of childhood on the bosom of mothers whose motherhood and whose decency had been alike drowned in drink, One cell was pandemonium itself, a pit of raging bedlamites. A woman yelled blasphemy and obscenity as she swung a babe carelessly in her arms ; a girl stripped to the waist shrieked back at her, and an old woman sat crooning a maudlin pong on the floor. Another cell resembled the description of the well of Cawnpore— a heap of the not-to-be analysed disjecta membra of womanhood miserable, whose Nana Saib was whisky. A few_ steps beyond these " drunken cells," and we were in the " dead cell," itself, a veritable deadhouse, tenanted by three martyrs who had died in the service of their master— the drink. There lay the corpses, stiff, pale, and cold, while the odour of the destroyer still faintly hung about the sanctuary. One man had been run over when drunk ! a second had been found dead in a court after a debauch • and a third had died in the act of taking more of that of which he had already taken too much. Beyond the dead cell lay the mad-drunk cells, each tenanted by a single lunatic, whoso condition of drunkenness had been frantic and dangerous on admission, and to whom had therefore been assigned quarters in the Bedlam ward of this huge hospital for the votaries of whisky.

An observing young man has discovered a simihrity between n young ladies' seminary aud a augur-house, as both 'refine what ia already sYkect.

nt.mrai clement, in u\e ivaw .testament, he concwiHS t>ie mjirvel of thd lift of, Our Lord, and its ondlois blenaiup to humanity. Ho even condescends to allow that <l the rational scfep^io" cannot osoape tlie ennobling iufluenoeof C!in«tiaiu(jy, although he stands of hi.i own free choice outside its palo. Christ he says, had " the qualities of probably the greatest v.oral reform«rand martyr " to his mission " whoever gristed upon earth." Atid yet this is the Prophet and Teacher whose religion he dismissed with a few sentences and a few curt epigrams in essay, though we now learn from his Hob that the beauty and majestyof Ohriit's life touched evon his strange and perverted nature. He ha» recourse to the old device of the sceptic. It would bo unscientific to admit auch words a 9 Incarnation and Inspira' tion, but he deigns to acknowledge the Saviour's " eublimo genius." Mr J S. Mill ia convicted out of bis own inoulh. If Christ b« what he allows him to be, then the Ohrißtiau Church and its Blessed Founder are facts of the first magnitude to the philosopher Mr Mill spent his life in sappin? the foundations of society ; ho used his high intellectual powers and elaborate training to inflame the political passions of the less fortunate classes/ He was the more dangerous because of his smooth, and bland moral aphorisms. Irritable, excitable", and tho roughly out of harmony with aotual life, he was extolled by thft senseless flattery of his followers as a true leader of men, as a regenerator of * corrupt and ignorant society. Ho loved to make covert attacks upon every form ot faith, and yet he did not dare to throw off the raahk in his lifetime. M. Renan and the late De Strauss, whatever may bo thought of their opinions, can never be assailed as hypocrites. Dc Strauss thought the Gospel a fable, and aaid so boldly and publicly. Mr Mill nourished his moedy scepticism in his own breast.!/??* revaenche he has bequeathed to v* the confession that the Christianity he scorned is one of tho most admirable moral forces discoverable in the course of human history. Yet etill the pride of tho intellectual bigot and recluse is suoh that he will not listen to the voics of religion Mr Mill's creed, if we can call it such, is almost worse than Atheism, for it is a speculation thtt a God m*y exist who is not a being of infinite power, intelligence, and benevolence, like the Gad whom Christ revealed to men.