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Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2343, 16 July 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Tin; late Prof. CVunington could recite the works of Virgil and Homer from Iteginning to end. Lilt his friends always went away and left him with chinning unanimity whenever he started out to do it. Summerville Journal. The Diminishing Use ok Alcohol.— We share the satisfaction of ail our contemporaries in reflecting on the significance of a less expenditure on alcohol. The expenditure on drink in ISMJ was ill 22,ad0.77.3, as compared with iT2fi,2'id. iiilo in ISB-5. nr £301,121 less. Ten year-1 efure, in 1876, the highest expenditure was rt ached, viz., ill l-VJdS.jSJ, or £5 Iri por head, as against i'-> 7s SI in ISSO. It. is deeply to be regretted, however, that the diminution in one year is not more than £363,121, in spi'c of all the teaching of m. die if science and p-T -final experitnee. Not only is the dimini-lied amount drank slid enormous, but it is drunk by an civr-dimiuishing number of persons. For there is an everincreasing number of persons who either totally abstain or drink exceedingly lit*! -. It is drunk, too, in (t wrong way. All casual 'drinking, drinking on an emptv .stimuli, is bid, and makes diree 1,for disease. We must nma bo thankful for any improveimnt, however slight. Hut the disease implied in the coiisump tion of nearly 123 millions of money's worth of alcohol is enormous. A recent return to Parliament shows a st-ady and large dec ease of alcohol consumption in workhouses. In the year catling Micha-.’-m is, 1572, the total cost of intoxicants used in workhouses in Knglami ami Wales was £'S2.oof. The cost for ISSa was £-U,S2O. In some workhouses with a large number of inmates as Wandsworth, Lambeth, and Bethnal Green, no intoxiemts at all were us-d. Similarly with several provincial workhouses. It o.inuet 1-e too much impressed on guardians that there should be no inte: ference with tlie medic d olliems in regard to the prescription of alcohol for the sick, nor upon the medical oflicicrs that theirs is the responsibility of prescribing it with care. The Parliamentary returns show that in workhouse practice. is in private, the p -ifes-con is r.! : v- m respon-i bilitir . —Lancet.