Anti -Treating

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 17, 23 April 1903, Page 18

Anti -Treating

Sancho Panza drank when he had occasion. He also drank when he had no occasion. The foolish and irrational habit of treating (in colonial, • shouting ') has turned a bulky percentage of our population into Sancho ranzas, so far as our drinking habits are concerned. We have time and again urged the formation of a league to cambat this rampant evil that constitutes one of the most objectionable of our social and domestic habits. Some time ago, in our leading columns, we detailed the conspicuous success that has attended the Anti-treating League (or League of St. PatrickV which originated some eighteen months ago in the diocese of Ferns, Ireland. More recent reports confirm and extend the story of its onwerd march. The movement has the warm and practical support of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, as expressed in their Lenten pastorals, and is daily spreading and gathering momentum and pace. Such' a movement would be a boon, especially to our young men, in New Zealand. If they were practical members of an Anti-treating League, they could meet, as now, for business or amusement and yet say, in the words of rare Ben Jonson ' :—: — ", - ' Npr shall our cups make any guilty men ; But at our parting we will be, as when we innocently met.'