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 WI 
 
TEMPERANCE 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 PROHIBITION: 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE SCOTT ACT, 
 
 I 
 
 
 BY 
 
 GOLDWJN SMITH, 
 
 Prcoident of the Liberal Temperance Union. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX ON ALCOHOL, 
 
 C. GORDON RICHARDSON. 
 
 PRICE, to CENTS. 
 
 > 
 
 PRINTED BY C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, 
 
 S JORDAN STREET. 
 
m 
 
r-'aa 
 
 TEMPERANCE 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 PROHIBITION: 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE SCOTT ACT, 
 
 By GOLDWIN SMITH, 
 
 President of the Liberal Temperance Union, 
 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX ON ALCOHOL, 
 
 By C GORDON RICHARDSON. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 PRINTED BY C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, 
 
 3 JORDAN STREET. 
 
The 
 occas 
 again 
 the V 
 son, i 
 has fj 
 aspec 
 the ( 
 expre 
 brunt 
 platfc 
 is larj 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 
 The following address gives the substance of speeches delivered on several 
 occasions in support of the policy of the Liberal Temperance Union and 
 against that of Prohibitive legislation. In putting it forth I have had 
 the valuable assistance of Mr. J. Gordon Mowat and of Mr. C. G. Kichard- 
 son, the Secretaries of the Liberal Temperance Union, the latter of -whom 
 has favoured me with the paper appended to the Address on tho scientific 
 aspect of the subject, with which I am not competent to deal. I embrace 
 the opportunity, as President of the Liberal Temperance Union, of 
 expressing my gratitude to both these gentlemen, who have borne the 
 brunt of the battle, and to whose able exposition of the case on many 
 platforms the success of the appeal made by the Union to public opinion 
 is largely due. G. S. 
 
'!> fi 
 
 I 
 
TEMPERANCE versjs PROHIBITION. 
 
 ^m 
 
 It will appear, I trust, before the end of this address that its object is 
 to promote temperance, and that it is in that interest that I oppose Prohibi- 
 tion. To us, not to the Prohibitionist, the name Temperance belongs. 
 Temperance means mod(;rate use ; Prohibition means total and enforced 
 abstinence. Temperance, as I believe, is rational, practicable, and com- 
 mended by the Gospel, while enforced abstinence is not. 
 
 With the liquor trade I. have nothing to do. In England, where it is 
 political and overweeningly strong, I fought against it as a Liberal for 
 many years, though I always declined to commie myself in any way to 
 Prohibition. I would ask for it nothing but justice, respect for which is 
 the soul of the commonwealth, and which it is especially necessary to 
 uphold in the case of thise who are discredited and run down. I do not 
 fear to stand by the side of any mvn who is wronged, not even if he has 
 come out of gaol this morning ; but I fear to stand by the side of the most 
 religious and respectable wrongdoer. Nobody in his senses can believe 
 that men, by entering a trade which a few years ago was by none deemed 
 disreputable, and which is licensed by the State, can have put them- 
 selves out of the pale, not only of justice, but of mercy. If their business 
 is for public reasons to be abolished, and they are to be deprived of their 
 livelihood, they might be thought entitled to compassion or, at the very least, 
 to exemption from insult. But they have been treated as the vilest of 
 ci'iminals, and the people have been incited to deal with them as dynamiters 
 and vermin. Native abuse not being enough, recourse has been had to the 
 other side of the line for masters of vituperation, one of whom thought us 
 not unworthy of the hint that, though the American constitution fo»'bids 
 the confiscation of private property, no such bar to legislative freebooting 
 [exists here. It is ditfioult to think that churches dedicated to the religion of 
 charity can be the proper scenes of such venomous tirades. These ruthless 
 reformers themselves make no sacrifice: to them it is a stern delight to hunt 
 down the liquor dealers, while they drink in the cheers of enthusiastic 
 audiences, and swell with the consciousness of superior virtue. Nor are 
 these their only rewards. Moral reform is a marketable commodity, and 
 
6 
 
 leads not Ohiy to paid lecturoHhip and other employments in connection with 
 the orgiiiiization, but to seats in Parliament and municipal offices, which 
 the promoters of the Scott Act have resolved shall, if their votes can do it, 
 be made the exclusive property of their sect.* 
 
 J want to tix attention on the real issue, which has been buried under 
 irrelevant declamation. The question is not whether intemperance is an 
 evil, or whether alcoholic drinks are wholesome, but whether the Scott Act 
 or any form of Prohibition does good or harm. 
 
 That intemperance is r. beastly and degrading vice, bringing misery to 
 its victim, and too often to his hapless family, is a fact of which nobody 
 has a keener or more practical sense than the members of the •' Liberal 
 Temperance Union." It is matter to me of sincere regret that I should 
 be severed from good men who have the repression of intemperance at 
 heart. I comfort myself with thinking that though I differ as to the 
 means, my endeavours are directed to the same end. There has, however, 
 been a good deal of exaggeration with respect to the connection between in- 
 temperance and crime. The Maine prison report for 1884 says "Intem- 
 perance is not a cause of crime : it is a crime more against society and the 
 family than against the State." It is often connected with crime ; 
 but the two usually spring from a root deeper than either, which, as the 
 report says, is most frequently a bad home. More persons, according to 
 the same document, come to gaol with the marks of lust on them than with 
 the marks of intemperance. The germs of the criminal propensities are 
 seen in the nature of all of us before the wine-cup has touched our lips. 
 Crime varies with influences quite irrespective of drink, such as the 
 abundance of employment, the cheapness of food, and the circumstances of 
 localities, urban or rural. It is rife in Mahometan countries, where 
 wine is forbidden by the Prophet's law. At one time it was supposed, and 
 statistics seemed to prove, that illiteracy was the cause of crime, and that 
 popular education would be the certain cure. But in this there was the 
 same fallacy : the truth was that the illiteracy and crime had a common root 
 in the bad home. The chaplain of a large gaol deposed before a Royal 
 Commission, of which I was a member, that of the prisoners who entered 
 
 ♦ The Globe itself says of one who till lately, at all events, was a leading champion 
 cf the cause, that " a few years ago he was a temperance man. It soon became apparent, 
 however, that his temperance professions were so much capital to be employed to aa.^nce 
 his political ends. The more was known of him, the less was thought of him. la Ontario 
 his • ten dollar ' speeches have become a drug in the market," 
 
 these 
 tember, 
 was, at 
 at Char 
 number 
 none, 
 enhance 
 ceivable 
 call for 
 munity 
 Wh( 
 which 
 ' rience. 
 while a 
 beer ma' 
 naoderat] 
 lips of Ai 
 
aery to 
 nobody 
 Liberal 
 should 
 ance at 
 I to the 
 owever, 
 ween iii- 
 '« Intern - 
 and the 
 crime ; 
 as the 
 rding to 
 lian with 
 ties are 
 our lips, 
 as the 
 ances of 
 where 
 osed, and 
 and that 
 was the 
 imon root 
 a Royal 
 o entered 
 
 g champion 
 
 ,e apparent, 
 
 to aa . ^nce 
 
 I» Ontario 
 
 theinstilves aH illiterates, probably to extenuate their offoncoB, many were 
 found to be really able to read and write. Every offender now hopes to 
 find mercy by flattering the prevailing notion that he was betrayed into 
 crime by drink. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that if by violent 
 and arbitrary measures we could deprive the whole community of its natural 
 liberty in the choice of beverages we should thereby put an end to crime, 
 or oven to two-thirds of it, and get rid of police and gaols. 
 
 There have also been great — nay, monstrous — overstatements of the 
 ravages made by alcohol in this country. It has been proclaimed on the 
 Scott Act platform that there are seven, or even ten, thousand deaths 
 from drinking every year, and the speaker who gave the larger figure 
 averred that it was an underestimate. The vital statistics of Ontario show 
 that the death-rate in this Province is eighteen per thousand. Supposing 
 the rate to bo the .same for the Dominion, and the population of the 
 Dominion to be 4,500,000, this would give 81,000 deaths annually. But 
 the returns show that nearly fifty per cent, of the deaths occur before the 
 age of twenty, and drunkard's graves before that age are hardly probable : 
 they would be rare before twenty -five. There remain 40,500 persons 
 dying at ages exceeding twenty. Half of these being women (deaths 
 from drunkenness among whom in this country are very rare), we have 
 20,250 men over twenty dying annually. Does any one believe that of 
 these one-half or one-third till drunkard's graves'? In the month of Sep- 
 tember, 1885, the number of deaths, according to the Mortuary Statistics, 
 was, at Montreal, 1,220, at Toronto 187, at Quebec 193, at Hamilton 58. 
 at Charlottetown 15, at Guelph 15, at Belleville 21, at Chatham 10. The 
 number of deaths from Alcoholism was, at Toronto, 2 ; at the other places 
 none. Making all allowance for medical reticence, as well as for the 
 enhancement of the death-rate by small-pox at Montreal, it is scarcely con- 
 ceivable that the proportion of deaths from Alcoholism can be such as to 
 call for panic measures, or to warrant the withdrawal from the whole com- 
 inunity of its natural liberty in the choice of its own drinks. 
 
 Whether alcoholic drinks are wholesome or unwholesome is a question 
 which I leave to be decided by medical science and individual expe- 
 rience. Perhaps there may be a difference in our constitutions, and 
 while a cup of tea may be better for a preacher or a lady, a glass of 
 beer may be better for a farmer or a navvy. I have no doubt that strict 
 moderation is necessary in all cases, nor would I commend liquor to the 
 lips of any man who finds himself as well or better without it. But thai 
 
8 
 
 alcohol is poison, as Prohibitionist lecturers, male and female, vehemently 
 aver that it is, I shor^'l tind it difficult to believe. Wme, or some other 
 fermented drink, has been used by all the great nations, ancient and 
 modern : by Greeks, Romans, Jews, British, French, and Germans. The 
 habit is coeval with the dawn of recorded time, as the Vedic hymns, the 
 Hebrew records, the Greek, Roman and Scandinavian mythologies show. 
 Indeed, fermentation is so natural a process tiiat, if its results were poison, 
 it might almost seem a trap set by the Author of nature for His 
 creatures. I have myself known two cases of persona who, having used 
 wine all their lives, attained their hundredth year ; and a moderate drinker 
 is now leading a political party in England at the age of seventy-seven. 
 Sir Andrew Clarke, the rigid reformer of diet, admits that if a man 
 drinks a small quantity of wine with his meal it would do him no harm in 
 body, mind, or spirit. Sir Henry Thompson says that more physical 
 harm comes of over-eating than of drinking, and he is inclined to think 
 more moral harm also. It is sometimes forgotten by the crusaders against 
 liquor that temperance and intemperance extend to meat as well as to 
 drink. Mr. Stanley, the African explorer, recommends even for that 
 climate a moderate quantity of wine after sunset. It is asserted that 
 alcohol is not food. The assertion is denied ; but suppose it true. Tea 
 and coffee are not food : tea and coffee soothe ; wine, as the Scripture says, 
 makes glad man's heart, and the expenditure on one is no more waste than 
 the expenditure on the other, or than the expenditure on any article of 
 taste or luxury whatever. Much has been said by reformers of diet 
 against tea and coffee as well as against wine and beer, and there is reason 
 to believe that bad green tea causes fully as much bodily and mental 
 mischief in this country as do alcoholic drinks. Yet nobody has proposed 
 o deprive us of the liberty of drinking tea. A mania prevails just at 
 ;//pscnt on this subject. There are people who refuse even to celebrate 
 ■^'-^s Eucharist with wine according to Christ's ordinance, so angelically pure 
 are they. One reformer has avowed that he hopes to see the day when 
 the celebration of the Eucharist with wine shall be made a criminal offence. 
 When excitement has reached this pitch it is hardly possible that the prac- 
 tical bearings of a very difficult question should receive cool and deliberate 
 consideration. 
 
 It has been preached, and, as I understand, with considerable effect in 
 rural diatricte. that the wine mentioned in the Gospels, and drunk by Christ 
 and His apostles, was the unfermented juice of the grape. It is singular 
 
 be give 
 commf 
 nocencj 
 It nius 
 becoiuii 
 ful on 
 innocon 
 the abu 
 their p; 
 Oioderat 
 but the^ 
 natural 
 true the 
 hut with 
 in thems 
 But, 
 what are 
 nish forti 
 J» whether 
 
leniently 
 (tie other 
 jient and 
 ins. The 
 ynins, the 
 ries show, 
 jre poison, 
 3 for His 
 iving used 
 ate drinker 
 en ty -seven. 
 , a a man 
 no harm in 
 »re physical 
 ed to think 
 .ders against 
 a well as to 
 ^en for that 
 isserted that 
 t true. Tea 
 cripture says, 
 re waste than 
 ,nv article of 
 •mers of diet 
 tere is reason 
 and mental 
 has proposed 
 ■evails just at 
 to celebrate 
 igelically pure 
 the day when 
 ,minal offence, 
 that the prac- 
 and deliberate 
 
 prable effect in 
 runk by Christ 
 It is singular | 
 
 that a truth so vital in the eyes of its discoverers as to have become a 
 cardinal doctrine of Christiauity should have been hidden from the Church 
 for eighteen centuries, and revealed onJy when it was required to stop a 
 gap in the arguinnnt for Prohil>ilion. The word oinos, used in the 
 Gospels, is the word invariably used in the Greek classics for wine or for 
 other fermented drink. Can any educated and dispassionate man believe 
 that the wine into which Christ turned water at the marriage feast, and the 
 goodness of which the master of the ft-ast remarked with surprise ; the wine 
 which Christ Himself •' came drinking" in contrast with John, *' who drank 
 no wine or strong drink "; the wine for drinking which Christ's enemies 
 called Him a winebibber ; the wine which He used at the Last Supper, and 
 with which, when used at the commemoration of that Sapper, some of the 
 Corinthian di.sciples were "drunken," — was anything but fermented wine? 
 The red colour — symbolical of Christ's blood in the Eucharist — cannot be 
 imparted without fermentation. The sacramental wine used by punctilious 
 Prohibitionists appears to be not the pure juice of the grape, but a concoc- 
 tion symbolical only of spuriousncss and imposture. If drinking wine is a 
 sin, it seems strange that the Gospel should not have condemned it 
 altogether. It .seems strange that a deacon, instead of being required not to 
 be given to much wine, should not be required to be a total abstainer. In 
 commenting on the miracle of Cana, Canon Farrar contrasts the " genial in- 
 nocence " of Christ's sy.stem with the " crushing asceticism " of rival systems. 
 It must be owned that Mahomet, who bv virtue of his Prohibitionism is 
 becoming a sacred personage to total abstainers, has not been so success- 
 ful on the whole with his crushing asceticism as Christ with His genial 
 innocence. The result of unnaturally repressing one appetite usually is 
 the abnormal development of others. That persons who take Christ as 
 their pattern, and at the same time denounce any use of wine, however 
 moderate, as a sin, should find themselves in a dilemma is not surprising ; 
 but they will not extricate themselves by attempting to wrench from its 
 natural meaning as plain and familiar a word as any in the Gospel. It is 
 true the Apostle bids us not drink wine if thereby our brother stumbleth ; 
 but with drinking wine he couples eating meat, implying clearly that both 
 in themselves are equally innocent. 
 
 But, I repeat, the question is not what are the evils of intemperance, nor 
 what are the tendencies of alcohol, though those are the themes which fur- 
 ,Iii.sh forth almost entirely the eloquence of the Scott Act platform. It is 
 hcther the Sco!;t Act or any form of Prohibition does good or harm 
 
' # 
 
 I fi 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 diminishes the amount of drunkenness or increases it. And the answer t« 
 this question is not matter of conjecture or speculation. The experiment 
 has been tried ty several communities, on an ample field, for a sufficient 
 time, under favourable conditions, and with a decisive result. 
 
 Massachusetts tried Prohibition for many years, and gave it up as worse 
 than a failure. The Joint Committee of the Legislature, in 1867, reports 
 that the law, if by its operation it diminishes the number of open places of 
 drinking, does so only to multiply the secret places. The evidence, it is 
 said, tends to show that in all those cities or towns where the prosecution 
 against open places had been most active an extraordinary number of 
 secret places were sta.ted, that more liquor, and worse liquor, was drunk, 
 and that more intoxication ensued. Statistics are given showing the 
 tendency of drunkenness to increase under the Prohibitive system. 
 The report cites the Ilev. Jan.'^s A. Healey, pastor of a very large Roman 
 Catholic Church, and visiting extensively among the poorer classes, as 
 saying that "in almost every house they had liquor, and they sell to 
 those in the house"; Mayor Norcross as saying that "drunkenness in- 
 creases" ; ex- Mayor Lincoln as saying that " the sale of ardent spirits had 
 increased faster than the population had increased." With regard to the 
 condition of things in Boston, says the report : " It can be safely asserted 
 that while the number of open places has undoubtedly somewhat dimin- 
 ished, all the principal hotels, groceries, restaurants, apothecaries, and 
 wholesale liquor dealers sell openly, and immense and continually increas- 
 ing numbers of secret places and clubs have been established, drunkenness 
 has increased almost in direct ratio with the closing of public places, and 
 there is now more of it than at any previous time in the history of the city." 
 From Cambridge, Lowell, Charlestown, New Bedford, Fall River, 
 Worcester, Lynn, Springfield, Pitsfield, comes similar evidence given by 
 mayors, ex-mayora, and other competent persons. "The mere fact," says 
 the report, " that the law seeks to pre^'ent them from drinking, rouses the 
 determination to drink in many. The fact that the place is secret takes 
 away the restraint which, in more public ami respectable places, would 
 keep them within temperate bounds. The fact that the business is con- 
 traband and liable to interruption, and its gains are hazardous, tends to 
 drive honest men from it, and to leave it under the control of dishonest 
 men who will not scruple to poison the community with vile adulteration." 
 The practical conclusion of the Committee is, " Let the law cease to attempt 
 to interfere arbitrarily with what a man biiall drink^ whilei neverthek'ss 
 
 'ShJ' 
 
11 
 
 Lswer t« 
 (eritnent 
 lufficient 
 
 as worse 
 ', reports 
 places of 
 jnce, it IS f 
 •osecution 
 lumber of 
 as drunk, 
 awing the 
 e system, 
 •ge Roman 
 classes, as 
 ley sell to 
 senness in- 
 spirits had 
 i<Tard to the 
 (ly asserted 
 hat dimin- 
 scaries, and 
 illy increas- 
 runkenness 
 places, and 
 I the city." 
 iFall River, 
 le given by 
 fact," says 
 ;, rouses the 
 jepret takes 
 llaces, would 
 liness is con- 
 lus, tends to 
 >f dishonest 
 ulteration.' 
 fe to attempt 
 neverlheli'BS 
 
 placing such regulations as experience has shown to be necessary over the 
 
 person who may make the sale, and the time an I places when and where 
 
 the sale shall be made. Let it be regarded as a fact that the demand on the 
 
 part of those who desire, wisely or unwisely, to use liquor as a beverage has 
 
 always been mot, and always will be met, by men who will sell either under 
 
 the law, or in defiance of the law, and that wise legislation should recognize 
 
 and act upon this fact." 
 
 In Vermont, again, they have had Prohibition for upwards of thirty 
 
 years. Vermont is a rural State, without any maritime city like Portland, 
 
 and with a religious and law-abiding population : as fair a field for a moral 
 
 experiment as could be desired. Its Legislature has piled enactment upon 
 
 enactment, penalty upon penalty, one engine of repression on another, 
 
 violating at last the very sanctuary of personal liberty by giving the police 
 
 power to enter the home without a warrant. But what is the practical 
 
 eflFect of all this complication of severities 1 We learn from an article in 
 
 the Popular Science Monthly of May, 1884, by Mr. Edward Johnson, whose 
 
 statements I have not seen anywhere contradicted : — 
 
 " But the practical operation of this severe ami sweeping law there is 
 the rub. It is a fact which cannot be controverted or denied that, for all 
 practical purposes, the law is an absolute dead letter. According to the 
 returns of the United States revenue officers, the Government tax on the 
 mantifacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in the State amounted last 
 yf'ar to fourteen thousand dollars in round numbers. On the same 
 authority there are in the State at the present time four hundred and 
 forty-six places where intoxicating liquors are sold ; and, though the p tpu- 
 lation is well-nigh stationary, there is a marked increase in the number 
 of these places; last year's returns Hhowing only four hundred and twenty- 
 six, and those for the preceding year four hundred and nine. In the city 
 of Burlington there are about threescore places where liquor is sold, and in 
 Rutland, St. Albans, and all the larger towns, a proportional number, and 
 in every village in the State, with the exception of a few inconsiderable 
 hamlets, there is at least one such place. A large proportion of th '. dram- 
 shops are located upon the principal streets, and there is no couoealment 
 or attempted concealment of tlie illegal traffic conducted within them. As 
 these facts and figures sufficiently indicate, the law, broadly speaking, is 
 not at all enforced. The sale of licjuor, it is hardly too much to say, is 
 almost as free and open as though there were no .such thing as a pr 
 law. The principal exception to the general rule consists of an occasional 
 spasmodic attempt to enforce the law in the larger places, and the fining 
 of liquor dealers on what are termed disclosur s. In the latter case, a person 
 arrested for intoxication is compelled to disclose the name of the person from 
 whom he procured the liquor, and that person is then tried for the offence. 
 Such cases are very common, but as only the lowest class of liquor dealers 
 ic concerned in them, generally speaking, and as the pros'ec 
 

 if 
 
 
 ^if 
 
 !■; 
 
 Hi 
 
 ' 'I 
 
 12 
 
 ably for a first offence, no effective purpose is served in repressing the 
 liquor traffic. In the larger towns an effort to enforce the law is oeoa- 
 sionally made, but such efforts have iiivariibly proved short-lived, and in 
 almost every instance the people have, at the earliest opportunity, rejected 
 at the polls the officers who have attempted to enforce the law. These are 
 the principal exceptions to the general rule of non enforc ^ment. Of 
 enforcing the law as the laws against b .rglary and larceny are enforced 
 no one dreams for a moment. Such is the unsatisfactory result of Ver- 
 mont's thirty years' experience of the prohibitory liijuor law. One might 
 go still further, and speak of the pf^rjury and subornation of perjury, for 
 which the law is in a sense responsible, of the disrngard and c )nteuipt for 
 all law which the operation of this law tends to foster and encourage, and 
 of cognate matters which will occur to the reHi^ctive reader ; but, p»M-haps, 
 enough has been said in showing the failure of the law to accomplish the 
 object for which it was enacted." 
 
 The moral, according to Mr. Johnson, is that men cannot be dragooned 
 into virtue. They cannot be dragooned into virtue, that is, by State inter- 
 ference with habits not in themselves criminal, but only by legislative 
 repression of positive crime. 
 
 But the special theatre of Prohibition is Maine, where a Prohibitive 
 law has been in existence for more than thirty years, and is now incor- 
 porated into the Constitution. What is the actual result of Maine legisla- 
 tion? According to "Gail Hamilton," a trustworthy local authority,, in 
 the North American Beview for July last, "The actual result is that 
 liquor is sold to all who wish to obtain it in nearly every town in the 
 State. Enforcement of the law seems to hive little effect. Fjr the past 
 Bix years the city of Bangor has practically enjoyed free rum. In more 
 than one hundred places liquor is sold, and no attempt has been made 
 to enforce the law. In Bath, Lewiston, Augusta, ami other cities, no real 
 difficulty is experienced in procuring liquor. In Portland enforcement of 
 the law has been faithfully attempted, yet the liquor traffic flourishes for 
 all classes from the highest to the lowest. . . . In a journey last 
 summer for hundreds of miles through the cities and through the scattered 
 villages and hamlets of Maine the almost universal testimony was, * You 
 can get liquor enough for bad purposes in bad places, but you cannot get it 
 for good purposes in good places.' " " What works against Prohibiti-)n," 
 adds "Gail Hamilton," "is that, in the opinion of many of the most earnest 
 total-abstinence men, the original Maine Law State, after thirty years of 
 Prohibition, is no more a temperance State than it was before Prohibition 
 was introduced." With this testimony general evidence concurs, and it is 
 supported by the Maine Prison Report for 1884, already cited, whicH 
 
13 
 
 ising the 
 V is oeca- 
 1, and in 
 , rcj'^cted 
 rhese are 
 tent. Of 
 enforced 
 It of Ver- 
 )ne migUb 
 srjury, for 
 tempt for 
 irag*^, and 
 :^ perhaps, 
 luplish the 
 
 dragooned 
 
 5tate inter- 
 
 lesisiUtive 
 
 Prohibitive 
 
 now incor- 
 
 ,ine legisla- 
 
 thority^ in 
 
 |ult is that 
 
 wn in the 
 
 jr the past 
 
 In more 
 been made 
 ies, no real 
 
 rcetuent of 
 i)uri8he8 for 
 journey last 
 
 le scattered 
 
 was, •Yov* 
 lannot get it 
 [rohibitim/* 
 
 lost earnest 
 Irty years of 
 1 Prohibition 
 |rs, and it is 
 
 cited, whic*\ 
 
 states " Intoxication is on the increase ; some new legislation must 
 be made if it is to be lessened. In many of our counties Prohibition 
 does not seem to affect or prevent it." Prisoners, the Report tells us, all 
 say that when released, if they can get money, they can get as much drink 
 as they please. In Portland, in 1874, the number of arrests for drunken- 
 ness was 2,318. But drunkenness is not confined to the cities. In 1876, 
 when a more than usually vigorous crusade was made against the saloons, 
 the number of prosecutions for infractions of the liquor law was 2,300. 
 Every one of the sixteen counties furnished its quota. In four counties the 
 number exceeded 200, in only two was it less than thirty. In 1884, the law 
 generally was not so stringently enforced, but every county again furnished 
 its quota. The number of committals to gaol for drunkenness last year was 
 1,316 for a population of 648,000, while in Canada the counties of Bruce, 
 Huron, Grey, Simcoe, Dufferin, Wellington, Waterloo, Perth, Oxford, Brant, 
 Wentworth, Lincoln, Haldiraand and Welland, none of which were at that 
 time under the Scott Act, wiih an aggregate population of 66 1,000, and a town 
 population as large as that of Maine, showed only 593 committals, less than 
 half the number of those in the model State of Prohibition. Maine is very 
 far from realizing the promises of immunity from crime and vastly enhanced 
 prosperity whioh Proliibitionism holds out. Though the population of the 
 State has been stationary, the statistics of crime have increased. In 1873 
 the number committed to gaol was 1,548 ; in 1884 it was 3,072. The 
 pauper rate in the cities is larger than in those of any other State ; and be- 
 tween 1850 and 1880 the school attendance decreased by more than 
 21,000. 
 
 It is natural that General Neal Dow, for whom I wish to express all 
 possible respect, should cling tenaciously to the work of his life. But he 
 admits with sorrow that the cities of Maine are infested with low places 
 for the sale of liquor, and he gives as his reason for breaking with the 
 Republican Party its compliuty with the liquor interest, which a political 
 party would not have cared to propitiate if the interest had not been 
 strong. 
 
 Prohibition is now being tried in Iowa. A correspondent of Harper's, 
 recommended as thoroughly trustworthy by that journal, having just 
 come from the field of experiment rep )rts that Prohibition in the cities 
 means free liquor. A correspondent of the New York Nation states the 
 same thing more at Itaigth, giving it as his opinion that Prohibition is not 
 operative as a law, but only in the places where, and the degree in which, 
 
 
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. i: 
 
 ^Hl 
 
 Ml 
 
 'ii 
 
 
 If 
 
 U 
 
 it happens to coincide with public sentiment. He adds that the local 
 organ of Prohibition, after giving reports from a large number of places, 
 virtually admits its failure. Dr. Dio Lewis, who will hardly be considered 
 licentious on a question of diet, says that he has recently been out to the 
 Rocky Mountains, and on his way east got off the train at several of the 
 lirge cities, and among other things made enquiry into the practical 
 brfnefits which the public had received from the enactment of prohibitory 
 laws. In places where he had been told that an intoxicating drink could 
 not be obtained for love or money he saw men reeling in the streets in an 
 almost helpless state of drunkenness. In Iowa City, where Prohibition is 
 supposed to be enforced, he saw from seventy-five to one hundred kegs of 
 beer delivered on trucks from a brewery. His practical conclusion was 
 that " Prohibition was a wild theory, that as a preventive it had not met 
 the claims of its supporters, and as an aid to the cause of temperance was 
 a failure. " *' In Kansas," says " Gail Hamilton " in the article before quoted, 
 ** where the most stringent Prohibition has been enacted, and has had the 
 inestimable advantage of Governor St. John's fostering care. Dr. Gardner 
 testifies that the drug-stores are little more than rum shops, and that their 
 number is astonishing. In Pittsburg, a thrifty little town of 4,000 people, 
 he counted fifteen drug stores and twenty doctor's signs on the main street." 
 Prohibition, then, is not inoperative : it produces great effects, but 
 in a direction diametrically opposite to that which its advocates desire. In 
 the first place it destroys the licensed and regulated trade, for which it 
 substitutes an illicit trade, carried on under no regulation, even in regard 
 to hours, by worse men, and iu worse places. In the second place it drives 
 the people to the use of ardent spirits instead of the lighter beverages ; 
 ardent spirits, which contain a large amount of alcohol in a small bulk, 
 being easily smuggled, whereas wine, beer, and cider, owing to their bulk, 
 are not. In the third place, while it may diminish the number of moderate 
 drinl ers, and possibly the total amount of liquor consumed, it increases 
 drunkenness, because clandestine drinkers are sure to be heavy drinkers, 
 an d they are sure to drink, not with their meals, but in the pernicious 
 form of drams. In the fourth place it renders inspection impossible and 
 stimulates adulteration, by which the illicit dealer indemnifies himself for 
 prosecutions and for the general hazards of the trade. In the fifth place, if 
 attempts are made to enforce it, neighbourhoods are filled with espionage 
 and ill-blood. In the sixth place it is the fruitful parent of perjury, of 
 which, as Baron Bramwell says, and as ex perience in this country already 
 
 m 
 
15 
 
 le local 
 places, 
 isidered 
 ; to the 
 .1 of the 
 practical 
 (hibitory 
 nk could 
 Bts in an 
 ibition is 
 I kegs of 
 sion was 
 I not met 
 •ance was 
 re quoted, 
 s had the 
 . Gardner 
 that their 
 )0 people, 
 in street." 
 ffects, but 
 esire. In 
 which it 
 in regard 
 it drives 
 everages ; 
 lall bulk, 
 leir bulk, 
 moderate 
 increases 
 drinkers, 
 lernicious 
 ssible and 
 limself for 
 [h place, if 
 espionage 
 terjury, of 
 •y already 
 
 'if:-^ 
 
 shows, the courts in liquor cases are the special scene. A set of conven- 
 tional quibbles is invented. " They called for ginger ale." •' They cannot 
 be sure that the liquor served them was whiskey and not something resem- 
 bling whiskey." Ignorance is pleaded when the witness has no real doubt 
 as to the fact. Thus conscience is enfeebled by false swearing under a thin 
 disguise, and the very source of morality is polluted in the attempt to 
 punish a factitious crime. Compared with the.se effects the loss of revenue 
 is of small moment. Yet it is hard that the community should have its 
 load of taxation increased in order that contrabandisra, with all its atten- 
 dant evils, may be substituted for a licensed trade.* 
 
 That the practical result of Prohibition, or of the Scott Act, is free trade 
 in liquors without license fees, the low liquors dealers are perfectly well 
 aware. The Temperance Union in the course of the campaign has found 
 men of this class by no means disposed to resist the adoption of the Act. 
 
 Archde*con Farrar, who was the other day our guest, and who is not 
 only a total abstainer, but a leading champion of total abstinence, in 
 his answer to Baron Bramwell in the Fortnightly Review, emphatically 
 repudiates as uncharitable and absurd the doctrine that there is anything 
 morally wrong in the use of fermented liquor. He says that he has never 
 preached abstinence as a matter of duty even to confirmation classes or to 
 national schools. He admits that moderate drinking is a perfectly lawful 
 enjoyment, and that multitudes of men indulge in it who are wiser and 
 better than he is himself. If to drink wine or beer is not morally wrong, 
 to sell them cannot be wrong either, the two being inseparable parts of 
 the same transaction. This the people at heart feel, and though they may 
 be cajoled or bullied into voting for the law, they afterwards refuse to 
 support its enforcement. In the case of any real crime, such as murder or 
 theft, men are ready to aid authority, but they are not ready to play the 
 informer against a neighbour, and heip to send him to prison for tha* 
 which they do not believe to be a crime at all. In truth they would be 
 sneaks if they were. 
 
 We are told that we must obey the law. Obey the law, of cours?, we 
 must ; but we are not bound to take an active part in enforcing it if we 
 believe it to be unjust, still less if we believe its enactment to be an abuse 
 of the franchise, which is given to men to secure their own rights and lib- 
 
 ♦ It seems that the use of opium is greatly increasing in the Eastern cities of the 
 United States. May not this be conDected with the ascetic renunciation of alcoholic 
 drinks? • " , : • 
 
 Ml 
 
1 
 
 I 
 
 16 
 
 erties against ercroachraent, not to enable them to encroach on tho rightB 
 and liberties of others. 
 
 It is plausibly contended that Prohibition, at all events, does away with 
 open temptation. The evidence appears hardly to bear out this statement ; 
 while, on the other hand, clandestine drinking certainly is more systematic, 
 is carried on, so to ppeak, more with ma/ice prepense, and the men into 
 whose hands the illicit trade falls often make it their business to go about 
 thrusting temptation on passengers, particularly on the young. 
 
 When I am solemnly warned of the terrible responsibility which I 
 incur as President of the Temperance Union by opposing the Scott Act, I 
 muht answer that if my critics are willing to iycur the responsibility of 
 increasing drunkenness, and of tilling the community with ill-blood and 
 perjury at the same time, I am willing to bear what 1 think the less ter- 
 rible responsibility of trying to diminish drunkenness by the mild but 
 practical methods of the Temperance Union. If the goodness of the end 
 were always a guarantee for the wisdom of the means and the character 
 of the result, no doubt the advocates of the Scott Act would be in the right, 
 and to challenge their foresight and sagacity would be wrong. Unhappily, 
 it is quite otherwise, as the history of many a reformatory enactment 
 framed with the most benevolent intentions shows. 
 
 The Prohibition policy has been tried in the Old Country in the shape 
 of a Sunday Closing Act, imposed on some parts of Ireland and on Wales. 
 If we may trust an article by Mr. Agg. Gardner, in the Fortnightly 
 RevieWy August, 1884, the result has been disastrous. In Wales, he says, 
 the Act had been in force for six months only when the evil effects 
 became apparent. The inspector of the Cardiff police shows an increase 
 of forty per cent, in prosecutions, and of sixty per cent, in convictions, the 
 primary cause of which, he states, is that a nuinl>er of clubs have been 
 established, and the illicit drinking has been carried on to a great extent. 
 The inspector of Routh reports that previous to tho Act there was very 
 little Sunday drinking, or annoyance caused by the people leaving the 
 public houses, but that since the Act has been passed all his energies are 
 required to keep order in the streets. In Wrexham the mayor observed 
 at petty sessions that the Sunday Closing Act had trebled the charges of 
 Sunday drunkenness, and the remark was corroborated by the chief 
 inspector of police. A prominent member of a total abstinence society at 
 Cardiff confessed that he had signed a petition in favour of Sunday closing 
 in Wales, but his experience had changed his opinion, and he now felt that 
 
 matioi 
 
 tion h 
 
 and V 
 
 expecti 
 
 citizens 
 
 upon t 
 
 at St. 
 
 persons 
 
 number 
 
 that th 
 
 sometin 
 
 seemed 
 
 BVjtem ( 
 
17 
 
 a rigVitB 
 
 ray with 
 tement ; 
 stematic, 
 men into 
 i»o about 
 
 which I 
 »tt Act, I 
 j^ibility o£ 
 jlood and 
 ! less ter- 
 
 mild hut 
 if the end 
 1 character 
 1 the right, 
 Jnbappily, 
 
 enactment 
 
 the shape 
 on Wales. 
 'ortniyhtly 
 38, he says, 
 ivil effects 
 an increase 
 .ctions, the 
 have been 
 eat extent. 
 •e was very 
 eaving the 
 inergies are 
 »r observed 
 
 charges of 
 
 the chief 
 
 le society at 
 
 |day closing 
 
 )w felt that 
 
 no Act of Parliament could make people sober ; and a Roman Catholic 
 priest, who was a member of the same society, after deploring the per- 
 nicious action of the drinking clubs which the Act had called into existence, 
 pronounces " that if it were repealed, as repealed it must be, things would 
 get better": lie adds that "there was more drinking, more sin, more 
 iniquity of every kind committed in Cardiff, than ever there was before." 
 
 Nor is the policy or its failure so rjvel as may be supposed. In the 
 Statutes of the Kealm will be found a series of Acts of Purliament, passed 
 under the first two Stuarts, for the prevention of "tippling." The power 
 of the Government at that time was great, and in this matter the Puritan 
 Parliament would heartily second tlie king, ^et it plainly appears that 
 the attempt was abortive, or effective only in lowering the character of 
 the tavern-keepers. The last act of the series ordains flogging as a 
 penalty on the ground that the tavern-keepers were unable to pay fines. 
 
 It is needless to refer to the sumptuary laws passed by the Romans 
 for the restraint of expenditure and for the discouragement of luxury, 
 which evidently were total failures. No better success attended the 
 sumptuary laws of the middle ages, enacted partly to keep up distinctions- 
 of classes, but partly, as Mr. Hallam says, in deference to " the severe 
 and injudicious theory of religion disseminated by the clergy." That 
 clergy M'as Roman Catholic, but severe and injudicious theories of religion 
 are not confined to a single denomination. 
 
 The experiment of the Scott Act in this country is comparatively 
 ijecent, and it is at first, while the zeal of supporters is still glowing, that 
 the greatest efforts to enforce the Act are likely to be made. Yet such infor- 
 mation as comes to me seems to show that the success of prohibitive legisla- 
 tion here is likely to be no better than it has been in Massachusetts, Maine, 
 and Vermont. At St. Catharines the friends of the Scott Act confidently" 
 expected a substantial majority. But before the polling day three leading 
 citizens visited Woodstock and Milton, where the Act was in force, and 
 upon their report of what they had seen and heard, the Act was rejected 
 at St. Catharines by an overwhelming majority, a smaller number of 
 persons votiug for it than had signed the petition. It appeared that the 
 number of the places in which liquor was sold in Woodstock had increased, 
 that they were largely frequented, especially by young men, and werfr 
 sometimes crowded till two or three o'clock in the morning. Whiskey 
 seemed also to be supplanting lager. All this was in spite of a vexatious 
 [Syutem of espionage and prosecutions fruitful in perjury. 
 
 The following 
 
 '• ^, 
 
18 
 
 II 
 
 M 
 
 letters received by Mr. J. Gordon Mowat, Secretary of the Liberal Tem- 
 perance Union, in reply to inquiries respecting the working of the Scott 
 Act in the town of Woodstock and county of Oxford will speak for them- 
 selves. The inquiries, it should be said, were made in consequence of the 
 circulation by tho Rev. W, A. McKay, of Woodstock, of an assertion 
 that the Scott Act was successful : — 
 
 ^rom Mr. John Head, Dry Goods Merchant, and a leading adherent of 
 Rev. W. A. McKay^a church : ^ 
 
 Dear Sir, — It is almost useless t^o try to refute the statements of 
 some reverend gentlemen abroad, because their cloth and standing gives their 
 statements a colour that the truth coming from an unbiassed mind is taken 
 with a grain of salt by a certain portion of the general public. However, 
 to be brief, I have no hesitancy in saying that there has been more whiskey 
 drunk in this county since the 1st of May last than in any other six 
 months of the time I have resided here. It was a very uncommon thing 
 to see a drunken man on our streets till the Act came into force, but now 
 it is very uncommon if we do not see from six to sixteen in a day. This is 
 not all the work of the hotel-keepers. It is an easy matter to get liquor in 
 twenty places outside of hotels in our town, and should you, in your travels, 
 find any one who is not willing to accept this as truth, send him to me, and 
 if I can't convince him of the correctness of the statement, I will pay his 
 expenses and give him one hundred dollars, of course on the understanding 
 that no prosecutions shall be made under these observations. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Woodstock, Nov. 10, 1885. 
 
 JOHN HEAD. 
 
 Ml! 
 
 From Mr. John White^ one of the foremost merchants in the County of 
 Oxford : 
 
 Dear Sir, — In answer to your inquiry, I would beg to say that I have 
 not examined the working of the Act personally, but from the general 
 expressions of the community, and any evidence I have gathered, I believe 
 the Act so far has not worked satisfactorily, and I question whether it can 
 «ver be enforced so as to suppress the selling of whiskey without a large 
 force of special detectives, as there appears to be a great hesitancy on the 
 part of citizens and others to give any information which would convict 
 those selling the liquor, and no doubt every case tried under the Act has 
 given rise to a great deal of false swearing, which is very demoralizing. 
 
 I am, yours truly, 
 Woodstock, 13th Nov., 1885. 
 
 JOHN WHITR 
 
 i%f , 
 
 Sam 
 
 1,40 
 
 liqu( 
 
 prosi 
 
 wore 
 
 now 
 
 duct 
 
 of cl 
 
 these 
 
 rinesj 
 
 the p 
 
19 
 
 ral Tem- 
 he Scott 
 or them- 
 ce of the 
 assertion 
 
 Iherent of 
 
 ements of 
 gives their 
 td is taken 
 However, 
 re whiskey 
 r other six 
 mon thing 
 9, but now 
 y. This is 
 et liquor in 
 our travels, 
 to me, and 
 ^ill pay his 
 lerstanding 
 
 HEAD. 
 
 > County of 
 
 that I have 
 the general 
 3d, I believe 
 liether it can 
 lOut a large 
 jtney on the 
 iuld convict 
 [the Act has 
 pralizing. 
 
 rHITE. 
 
 From Wm. Orey, Preaident of the Oxford Permanent Loan and Savings 
 Society : 
 
 WooDSTocrf, Nov. 13, 1886. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — I am sorry I cannot be with you at your meeting, as I 
 am thoroughly in accord with the acts and views of the Union, as I believe 
 their action will have the desirable effect of promoting temperance, which 
 the Scott Act in our town has not done. I have every reason to believe 
 that a larger quantity of intoxicating and adulterated liquor is drunk now 
 than before the Scott Act was passed ; but this is not the most objection- 
 able feature in the matter, but the false swearing at our courts when the 
 question of a violation of this Act is tried, and the arbitrary action of the 
 supporters of the Act. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 , ' WM. GREY. 
 
 From Dr. Thrall^ a leading Physician of Woodstock : 
 
 Woodstock, Nov. 10th, 1885. 
 
 Dear Sir, — With reference to your inquiries of me in regard to the 
 working of the Scott Act in the County of Oxford, I would say that its 
 want of observance must be apparent to every one, and I think that no 
 candid person can know or feel otherwise. From my own observation, 
 and the moat trustworthy information privately and publicly received, I 
 am satisfied that the most extensive illicit traffic prevails in Woodstock, 
 and that the abuse of intoxicating liquors is greatly on the increase here, 
 and that there, is a lamentable increase of drinking among the younger 
 men of the community. 
 
 Yonrs truly, 
 
 J. H. THRALL. 
 
 The County of Halton is famous in the annals of the contest about 
 the Scott Act. In Milton, its county town, the visitors from St. Catharines 
 found the effects of the Act, after a trial of three years and a half, much the 
 same as its effects in Woodstock. The population of the town is only 
 1,400. Before the adoption of the Act there were but five places in which 
 liquor was sold : there are now no fewer than sixteen, and owing to the 
 prosecutions of the hotels the traffic is being thrown into the lowest and 
 worst hands. Before the passing of the Act lager was displacing whiskey, 
 now whiskey is supplanting lager ; and the whiskey is sometimes the pro- 
 duct of illicit stills and of the vilest kind. There, too, the sneaking habits 
 of clandestine drinkers have been introduced, and perjury is rife. To 
 these facts there is the testimony, not only of the visitors from St. Catha- 
 rines, bat of other visitors, of the Rev. W. J. Mackenzie, a clergyman of 
 the place, and of forty-eight business men and iiown officials, including the 
 
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li 
 
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 n 
 
 if 
 
 m 
 
 It; 
 
 ■'(' 
 
 20 
 
 Mayor and Chief ConBtabl«, who have signed a declaration on the subject. 
 The declaration states that in the opinion of those by whom it is signed 
 " the Act has signally failed to reduce intemperance ; that the trade, instead 
 of being in respectable hands as formerly, is now in those of bottle 
 hawkers and keepers of low dens ; that the effect of the A ot h-AS been 
 the substitution, to a great extent, of spirituous liquors for malt, wine, 
 or cider as beverages ; that drunkenness, lawlessness and perjury are 
 much more prevalent than they were under license ; that the Scott Act 
 instead of removing temptation from the young, has had the contrary 
 effect, and that in consequence cases of juvenile drunkenness have become 
 shockingly frequent." 
 
 From other towns and districts which have ad-p-ed the Scott Act 
 similar testimony comes. At Fredericton, according to the Maritime 
 Farmer, a journal neutral on these questions, the sale of liquor is perfectly 
 open. The Britce Herald reports the Act in that county " dead as Julius 
 C»sar"; adding that the idea that the law would be sustained by 
 reverence for authority soon vanished, and that prosecutions have failed 
 from the unwillingness of witnesses to give evidence against the hotel- 
 keepers, who have public sympathy on their side, the people feeling that 
 the Act sought to destroy a business and conGs'- te property, erected under 
 the sanction of previous laws. 
 
 Much stress has been laid on the failure of the attempt to repeal the 
 Act in Halton. But it must be remembered that at that time no Temper- 
 ance platform other than the Scott Act had been offered to the people, nor 
 was there any opposition independent of the Trade ; the battle was fought 
 entirely between the Prohibitionists, with an organization unimpaired in 
 force, and the Liquor Interest, the local representatives of which had been 
 degraded, as we have seen, by the operation of the Act. 
 
 Hri'con, like other rural counties, has always enjoyed a comparative 
 freedom from serious crimes. In Prince Edward County, which rejected 
 the Act, the Inspector in 1884 found no prisoners in gaol. InHaldimand, 
 which also rejected the Act, the white gloves have been presented to the 
 judge three times in succession, while the Inspector found only one prisoner 
 in gaol on the occasion of his first visit in 1884, and only four on the 
 occasion of his second visit ; a total of five for the two visits, against six in 
 Halton. Even the manufacturing county of Waterloo, which is not under 
 the Scott Act, with more than twice the population of Halton, sums up 
 but seven prisoners in gaol on the occasion of the Inspector's visits, while 
 
 M 
 
SI 
 
 its record of convictionn is smaller in proportion than that of Halton. 
 The real inft'renoe to be drawn from thene facts is that the country in 
 general is moral, and is in no need of any violent and arbitrary legislation. 
 In the County of Bruce, which is under the Scott Act, the last doolcut was 
 particularly largo. 
 
 What then is to be donel I must answer that my faith is fixed tirst 
 of all on the natural and unforced influences, of which the church, the 
 school, the Chriutian home, the enlightened community, and last, not 
 least, the oracles of medical science, are the organs. The effects wrought 
 by these influences, unlike those wrought by legislative coercion, are purely 
 good, free from all drawbacks, connected with the general strengthening 
 of the character and sure to be lasting. In the habits of the wealthy 
 class in England during the last half century a marvellous improvement 
 has taken place, not only without coercive legislation, but in spite of the 
 temptation presented by unlimited command of the richest liquors. Danon 
 Farrar is able exultingly to count his total abstainers in England by the 
 myriad, and all this is the fruit of freedom. Every old inhabitant of this 
 country testifies to a spontaneous reform of the same kind, and says that the 
 time was when excess was deemed a point of hospitality, and the Canadian 
 farmer often went home drunk from market, whereas now our farmers 
 are almost universally temperate, and excess even in the great cities is 
 comparatively rare. If a distinction could be made between the native 
 Canadian and the emigrant, Canada's bill of moral health, it is believed, 
 would be cleaner still. 
 
 Still we need not renounce the aid of rational legislation. Suddenly to 
 eradicate or revolutionize the tastes and habits of mankind by legislative 
 fiat, experience has shown to be hopeless ; but that which cannot be eradi- 
 cated or revolutionized may yet be modified and directed. The chief evil 
 is the use of ardent spirits, especially in the form of drams, against the habit 
 of drinking which — leading, as it does, morally and physically, to the charnel- 
 house — all members of the Liberal Temperance Union are bound earnestly 
 to set their faces, as they are also to use their influence against the low 
 and pernicious habit of cheating, which seems now to be dying out. It is 
 possible, by a differential system of licenses, and by direct legislation, to dis- 
 criminate against ardent spirits, and in favour of the lighter and more whole- 
 some beverages, such as native wine, beer, and cider j thus reversing the evil 
 action of Prohibition, which, as we have seen, practically enforces the use 
 of ardent spirits to the exclusion of the lighter drinks. It is found that 
 in the wine-growing districts of Europe, where the native wine is regularly 
 
lii 
 
 'ill 
 
 22 
 
 taken by the people with their mealg, drunkenness is rare. The Spaniards 
 are noted for their temperance. Croker says in his " Travels in Spain " : 
 •'The habitual temperance of these people ia really astonishing. I never 
 saw a Spaniard drink a second glass of wine." Another English tourist 
 in Spain says : " In all our wanderings through town and country, along 
 the highways and byways of the land, from Bayonne to Gibraltar, we 
 never saw more than four men who were the least intoxicated." Mr. 
 Oullen Bryant also says : " With regard to the use of wine, I can confirm> 
 all that has been said of Spanish sobriety and moderation."* A friend 
 tells me that he has seen a crowd leave a Spanish race-course to gaze at a 
 sight 30 novel as a drunken man. In the parts of Germany also where 
 light beer is the common drink intoxication is very rare. The case is 
 different, of course, in the great cities of France and Germany, where the 
 use of spirits prevails. In the United States of late years the production 
 of native wine has greatly increased, and it appears that the consumption 
 of whiskey has at the same time declined. That the moderate use of wine 
 must necessarily lead to excess and ultimately to the use of stronger drinka 
 is vehemently asserted by Prohibitionists in face of the facts just mentioned, 
 as well as of the fact that British gentlemen take a glass or two of wine 
 every day with their dinner, yet never know what intoxication is. But 
 the only fatal necessity in the case appears to be that of providing reasons, 
 plausible if not true, for coercive Irginlation. If the ignorant Spanish 
 peft::i!mt can use his liberty without abusing it, an educated Canadian may 
 surely be trusted to do the same. But there are some excellent people who 
 seem unable to recognize the existence of self-control in any breast but 
 their own. In the course of this discussion, I heard a clerical advocate of 
 the Scott Act say that he would no more think of putting liquor within 
 reach of the people than of puttin;; a knife into the hands of a baby. The 
 weak point of his analogy was that, supposing a glass of wine or beer to 
 be a knife, his fellow-citizens were not babies. That the use of beer is 
 not moral and physical ruin, the worth and prosperity of our own German 
 population in Waterloo County are sufficient proof, and if the German 
 beverage is to be banished, we are likely to turn away from Canada a 
 most desirable immigration. 
 
 We are assured on good authority that in certain districts of this 
 country the vine may be cultivated, and wine may be made with profit. 
 
 * I am indebted for these quotations to Governor Andrew, who gives them in his 
 Argument on the Errors of Prohibition. 
 
 1*" 
 
 :li 
 
A wholesome beverage would thus be introduced, and we should be 
 enriched at the same time by a new agricultural industry, of which, 
 exposed as our wheat-growers will henceforth be to the competition of the 
 North -West, we are likely to stand muuh in need. Prohibition not only 
 prevents the production of win«, but injures the trade in barley. 
 
 Another legislative measure of a reasonable kind too would be one 
 providing for strict inspection of liquors. It is believed that the corrosion 
 of the stomach, which engenders the fatal craving, is largely due to the 
 Adulterations of liquors with pernicious ingredients. 
 
 Whatever may seem expedient in the regulation of places of entertain- 
 ment and of license fees falls likewise within the scope of the Temperance 
 Union. In the United States the system of high licenses seems to be 
 more and more superseding Prohibition in the public mind as a practical 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 Nor does the Liberal Temperance Union renounce the hope of receiving 
 valuable assistance in the repression of abuses from the heads of the trade 
 itself. If all liquor-dealers and hotel-keepers were fiends in human shape, 
 and steeped, as the Prohibitionist orator from Nebraska says, up to their 
 elbows in the life-blood of civilization, it would, of course, be useless to 
 look to them for support. But the fact is that the respectable liquor- 
 dealers anl hotel-keepers are as little desirous of encouraging drunkenness, 
 which to the hotel-keeper is the greatest of all nuisances, as is the honour- 
 able gentleman from Nebraska himself. 
 
 There is just now, in certain qu alters, a disposition to renounce liberty 
 as selfish isolation, and to invoke the paternal despotism of the state. 
 What is called state socialism, in other words, is the fancy of the hour, and 
 its principles have been largely in)ported into this discussion by the advo- 
 cates of coercive legibJation. Milton, the grand apostle of liberty, did not 
 conceive of it as a seltish isolation. He dedicated himself through his 
 whole life with the moht ardent devotion to a public cause, and deliberately 
 I sacrificed his eyesight to the service of the state. What he desired was 
 freedom of self development. In freedom of self-development is neces- 
 sarily involved the possibility of going astray. But under what other 
 conditions has any real and lasting improvement in human life and 
 character ever been made 1 
 
 The Jesuits built up in Paraguay a model government of the paternal 
 kind, under which the people were guided in every action of their lives 
 like a flock of sheep. But what became of the paternal government of 
 
 \ 
 
mm 
 
 I ' "H 
 
 
 :';■' 
 
 24 
 
 Paraguay? What becomes of model villages, and all the beneficent' 
 attempts which are made to establish adult baby houses and exclude 
 temptation from their happy precincts? No man can really be isolated. 
 Every man is a part of the social organism, and subject to all its moral 
 influences. It has been already mentioned that in the matter of drink 
 those influences have, without abridgmunt of liberty, wrought an immense 
 change. 
 
 We might be ready to resign our freedom of choice in regard to meat, 
 drink, clothes, with other matters of individual concern, and put our- 
 selves into the leading-strings of the state, if we could believe that the state 
 was a perfect and good being enthroned above the heads of us all. But 
 what is the state under the elective system of government? It is nothing 
 but the majority for the time being. Perhaps it is a majority of one. In 
 Fredericton it is a majority of thirteen by which, the other day, the yoke of 
 the Scott Act was again riveted on the neck of a divided community. Nay, 
 that which practically exercises the power of the state is often not a majority 
 at all, but a compact and pushing minority. It is one of the great dangers 
 of our elective system that such a minority may, by disregarding all other 
 public interests, and devoting its forces exclusively to the promotion of its 
 own sectarian object, override the convictions of the majority, and usurp the 
 control of legislation. The promoters of the Soott Act are a minority, and 
 they know it. They have vehemently refused the requirement of an abso- 
 lute majority of a whole constituency, though it is manifest both that 
 nothing less than an absolute majority ought to have the power of impos- 
 ing a restriction on private habits, and that, unless there is the preponder- 
 ance of sentiment in favour of the restriction which such a majority 
 denotes, there can be no little hope of the enforcement of the law. Members 
 of Parliament have evidently been intimidated by the Scott Act vote, and 
 forced to support the measure, which, had the legislature been allowed to 
 decide with freedom, would almost certainly have been rejected, or divested 
 of its rigour by amendments. It is a crime to drink or sell a glass of wine 
 or beer : it is no crime to force a public man by threats to vote against his 
 conscience. In the constituencies the elections have been carried by the 
 pressure of an organization well supplied with funds and campaign apparatus 
 of every kind, as well as backed by the influence of certain churches, while 
 on the other side were total lack of organization, apathy ongendered partly 
 by the belief that the Act when adopted would be inoperative, and a fear of 
 ecclesiastical anathema, to say nothing of the fear of boycotting, to which ia 
 
 -1 
 
25 
 
 I to meat, 
 put our- 
 t the state 
 all. Bat 
 i3 nothing 
 ,f one. In 
 ;he yoke of 
 ity. Nay, 
 , a majority 
 •eat dangers 
 ig all other 
 lotion of its 
 id usurp the 
 inority, and 
 of an abso- 
 t both that 
 ir of irapos- 
 preponder- 
 a majority 
 7, Members 
 ct vote, and 
 allowed to 
 or divested 
 [lass of wine 
 against his 
 rried by the 
 itn apparatus 
 rches, while 
 dered partly 
 ,nd a fear of 
 ;, to which in 
 
 :SM''fa 
 
 so sacred a cause it was thought not unlawful to threaten. But the vote 
 was almost everywhere light, and it was by a minority, usually a small 
 minority, of the constituency that the adoption of the Act was carried. 
 In an aggregate of counties, of which the total electorate is 398,764, the 
 total number of votes cast for the Scott Act was only 123,580, more 
 than two-fifths of the electors having stayed at home. Those who thus 
 abstained from voting cannot have been in favour of the law: at all events 
 they cannot have reached that degree of conviction which alone will justify 
 a man in imposing a restriction upcn the tastes and habits of his neighbours. 
 
 A wave of apparent prohibition thus swept over the country. It rolled 
 on victoriously, so long as the only opposition made to it was that of the 
 liquor intt^rest. But as soon as an independent opposition made its appear- 
 ance, the tide began to turn, men ventured to follow their real convictions, 
 and of late the Scott Act has suffered crushing defeats. 
 
 My experience of the campaign has impressed mo with the belief that 
 this is at bottom largely a struggle for social freedoru against the preachers 
 and ecclesiavStical organization of a powerful church. No one has a more 
 profound respect than I liave for the ministers of religion within their proper 
 sphere. But my forefathers burst the bonds of clerical domination. In the 
 interest of religion itself, which can only suffer by being connected with usur- 
 pation, I deprecate the reimposition of the chain. I cannot help thinking 
 that even in the eyes of people who care little about fermented drinks there 
 would be a prejudice against Canada as a domicile if, instead of being a free 
 country, she were to become the domain of clerical despotism and blue laws. 
 
 In the Scott Act itself there are things which tyrannical zeal has penned, 
 which the traditions of British justice repudiate, and against which free- 
 dom and right protest. There is a clause (121) providing that it shall not 
 be n<>cessary that the informer shall depose to the offence having been 
 committed in his presence or to his certain knowledge, but that the magis- 
 trate, so soon as it appears to him that the circumstances in evidence 
 sufficiently establish the infraction of the law, shall put the defendant on 
 his defence, and in default of his rebuttal of such evidence shall convict 
 him accordingly — convict him, in short, and send him to prison on mere 
 hearsay if, in the opinion of the magistrate, who may be a vehement par- 
 tisan of the Scott Act, he fails to prove his innocence. There is a clause 
 (122) requiring a man when interrogated respecting previous conviction to 
 criminate himself. Worst of all, there is a clause (1 23) compelling husband 
 and wife to give evidence against each other. When the wife has sent the 
 
IW 
 
 um 
 
 26 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 hnsband, or the husband the wife, to prison, what is it supposed that 
 thenceforward the wedlock of that pair will be 1 I would fain ask any 
 Methodist divine which of the two would be the greater ain : to break the 
 marriage vow, by which a man binds himself to cherish and protect his 
 wife, or to refuse to give evidence under this unnatural law ] In all 
 countries and ages fanaticism has been the same. In pursuit of the 
 engrossing object it has always ruthlessly trampled down not only all com- 
 peting interests, but the laws of morality and affection. 
 
 As public sentiment fails to sustain the Act, special magistrates of 
 approved zeal are to be sent into every county to enforce it. It signifies 
 nothing by what name tyranny is called, or in what garb it is arrayed. 
 For my part I would as soon be paying ship-money to the Stuarts as allow 
 my private life and my home to be invaded b^ the familiars of a coercive 
 inquisition. 
 
 We are told that Prohibition is the cause of God, and, therefore, we 
 must support it. But how often in the course of history have men, and 
 ■even good men, mistaken their self-will and their own tyrannical fancy 
 for the cause of God 1 We submit that the policy of the Liberal Temper- 
 ance Union is practically the best ; and what is practically the best for 
 man is the ordinance and the cause of God. 
 
)aed that 
 ask any 
 break the 
 rotect his 
 r] In all 
 lit o! the 
 ly all com- 
 
 iatrates of 
 It signifies 
 is arrayed. 
 •ta as allow 
 I a coercive 
 
 lerefore, we 
 re men, and 
 inical fancy 
 ral Temper- 
 the best for 
 
 APPENDIX TO ADDRESS 
 
 -^XiO O H O X.. 
 
 BT MB. O. GORDON BIOHABDSON. 
 
 Organizatioxs having their origin in benevolence, wisdom, and philan- 
 thropy are often led into positions both absurd and dangerous. In no case 
 has this tendency b«^en more marked than in the so-called temperance 
 movement. Commencing with the commendable desire of reclaiming 
 drunkards, it has culminated in attacking the moderate drinker. Starting 
 with a disapproval of excess it has reached a condemnation of use in any 
 form or quantity. To bolster up this extreme position, assertions as to the 
 nature and effects of alcohol have been made by teetotal lecturers, and 
 circulated in their publications, until a large class of persons have come to 
 tirmly believe them. Nor need surprise be felt at the somewhat divergent 
 opinions held upon the question by the members of a profession which of 
 all others should be most competent to decide upon its merits. Dr. Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes once said "that medicine, professedly founded upon 
 o\)8ervation, is as sensitive to outside influences, political, religious, philo- 
 sophical, imaginative, as is the barometer to changes in atmospheric 
 deusitv." 
 
 But the fact is that there are very few, at the present day, of the medi- 
 cal prof, ssion who favour the extreme position of the Prohibitionists, and 
 the few who do are mostly unknown to fame, or apparently ignore the 
 many experiments conducted some years ago with the view of settling the 
 question. Although the conclusions arrived at by these experiments have 
 been formally accepted by science, Prohibitionists still reiterate the exploded 
 thf jries of forty years since. In regard to the statement that alcohol is 
 not a food, they base their assertion upon an old hypothesis of Baron 
 Liebig's, and the long r» jected experiments and conclusions of three French 
 chemists, MM. Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy. Liebig's hypothesis was 
 this : that only those principles which contained the element nitrogen could 
 be considered true foods. The doctrine further presumed that all muscular 
 action involved the destruction of muscular tissue: for instance, when a cer- 
 tain weight is lifted by the hand a certain amount of tissue is disintegrated 
 or destroyed. Now, since the greater part of the body is built up of nitro- 
 genous matter, any loss or disintegration must of necessity be replaced by 
 principles containing this essential element, and as alcohol does not contain 
 nitrogen, Liebig could not regard it as possessing any alimentary value. For 
 identically the same reason he rejected all the starches, fats, and other kindred 
 
mm^^ 
 
 iii^ 
 
 28 
 
 bodies. We may point out hf^re that Liebig divided the ingesta into two 
 great clas8«8— nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous. The former he coiiHiderod 
 the true foods, since they were, according to his theory, the only class 
 capable of building up the system, and supplying the material for energy 
 or force. The latter he considered as simply heat-producers, or, as they are 
 now termed, calorifacients. This classification is still adhered to, though 
 the 8)tme importance is no longer attached to it. The reasons in brief for 
 the rejection of Liebig's theory are subjoined. . 
 
 If muscular action involves the destruction of muscular tissue, then the 
 amount of such destruction must bear a proportion to the amount of work 
 expended. The principal channel by which disorganized nitrogenous 
 material escapes from the system is the kidneys, through which it passes 
 in the form of urea. 
 
 J?Jow, chemists in Liebig's time were wont to assert that the amount of 
 urea eliminated bore a direct relation to the amount of work expended. 
 For this assertion there was no experimental data, since the methods 
 for estimating nitrogen in combination were crude. Liebig, in fact, based 
 it upon simple chemical generalization. Later on, when the methods of 
 analysis were perfected, chemists found that so far from the amount of 
 nitrogenous matter disorganized and eliminated from the system bearing any 
 ratio to the amount of work expended, the very reverse was the case. 
 Hence, then, nitrogenous matter could not be the source of muscular force. 
 
 At this juncture Grove enunciated the doctrine of the " Correlation of 
 the Physical Forces," The position sought to be maintained, and now 
 thoroughly accepted, was that he;it, light, .sound, magnetism, and electricity 
 are mutually interchangeable: that one may produce either or all of the 
 others. This is now plain to any one's comprehension. In these days we 
 see the coal shovelled into the engine yielding by oxidation heat. This 
 heat is converted into rotary motion — this again is, by means of shaft- 
 ing, etc., conveyed to the dynamo-electric machine, where it is converted 
 into magnetism and electricity. This latter is then conveyed to the lamps 
 which to-day illuminate many of our public streets, and is there manifested 
 as light invariably accompanied by heat, and in some cases sound. We 
 can, therefore, understand why the chemists of the present day, when it 
 was decisively proved that the nitrogenous principles were not the source 
 of muscular energy, were led to regard the fats, starches and other 
 oxidizable bodies as being the true source. But how? Simply by becom- 
 ing oxidized in the system, thereby yielding heat, which is converted by 
 means of the animal engine, the muscles, etc., into 1' sice and energy. 
 
 That alcohol was thus oxidized aud destroyed in the system was 
 thoroughly accepted in Liebig's time. Liebig indeed ranked it second only 
 to the fats as a heat-producer. A reaction was started by the announcement 
 by MM. Lallemand, Perrin, and Duroy that th(?y had discovered alcohol 
 unchanged in the secretions of the»body : were this the case then, according 
 to modern theories, alcohol could no longer be considered as possessing any 
 elementary value. 
 
 Many eminent chemists, including Drs. Parkea, Wollowicz, Anstie, 
 Dupre, and Thudichum, set themselves the task of deciding by direct 
 experiment this most important question. After a series of experiments, 
 numbering several hundred, aud extending over some years, they decided 
 
nto two 
 
 ily class 
 r energy 
 they are 
 , though 
 brief for 
 
 then the 
 
 , of work 
 
 ro2«nous 
 
 it passes 
 
 mount of 
 expended, 
 methods 
 act, Vjased 
 ethoda of 
 iinount of 
 taring any 
 I the case, 
 ular force, 
 relation of 
 and now 
 electricity 
 all of the 
 le days we 
 leat. This 
 of shaft- 
 converted 
 the lamps 
 manifested 
 lund. We 
 y, when it 
 the source 
 and other 
 V»y beco na- 
 ve ited by 
 
 ktem was 
 Licond only 
 junceinent 
 ted alcohol 
 according 
 Jesbiug any 
 
 fz, Anstie, 
 
 \)y direct 
 
 Iperiments, 
 
 ley decided 
 
 against the earlier observers, for the following reasons : — First, the unre- 
 liability of the teat used, owing in the main to its extreme delicacy. It is 
 only when an excessive quantit;y las been taken that the escape of alcohol 
 from the body can be detected by anj of the ordinary methods, and, as they 
 pointed out. the quantity escaping might easily be overestimated by reason 
 of the delicacy of the chromic acid reaction — the test enjployed by the 
 French observers. Again, the alcoholic reaction had been yiehh^d by it in 
 the case of a man who had not taken alcohol for twenty-six days previously, 
 and also in the perspiration taken from the arra of a contirmed tet total er. 
 They also show that it is only a minute fraction of the quantity taken which 
 escapes unchanged. "Considering the diffwsable nature of alcohol," says 
 Dr. Pavy,"*^ "it is not inconsistent that a small portion should escape, and that 
 the article should form a utilizable agent in the body." Communications 
 have since been published in the " Proceedings of the Royal Society "+ 
 giving the results of Dr. Dupr^'s experiments. 
 
 The doctor starts with the proposition that " obviously three results 
 may follow the ingestion of alcohol. All the alcohol may be oxidized and 
 none be eliminated ; a portion only be oxidized and the rest eliminated 
 unaltered ; or lastly, all may be eliminated again unaltered. Assuming 
 the last to be the case, it would follow that if a certain quantity of alcohol 
 ^ere taken daily the amount eliminated would increase from day to day 
 until at last the amount eliminated would equal the daily consump- 
 tion. It follows," aptly remarks the doctor, " that if this theory ^ere 
 correct the quantity eliminated daily should be measured by ounces itistead 
 of grains." " If, on the other hand, all the alcohol is consumed daily, no 
 increase in the elimination will result from a continuation of the alcohol 
 diet." 
 
 Now, from the results obtained from a series of masterly experiments, 
 Dr. Dupre sums up as follows: — ''The amount of alcohol eliminated per 
 day does not increase with the continuation of the alcohol diet ; there- 
 fore all the alcohol consumed daily must of necessity be disposed of daily, 
 and as it is certainly not eliminated within that time, it must be destroyed 
 in the system." "The elimination of alcohol following the ingestion of a 
 dose, or doses of alcohol, ceases in from nine to twenty-four hours after the 
 last dose has been taken." "The amount of alcohol eliminated, in both 
 breath and urine, is a minute fraction only of the amount of alcohol taken." 
 Some twelve years ago an article appeared in the Practitionerl from the 
 pen of the late Dr. Anstie. In accordance with the preceding quotations, 
 evidence is adduced which proves that only a fractional portion of the 
 alcohol taken is eliminated through the many channels of the body. 
 "These experiments," says Dr. Anstie, " certainly furnish ns with a tinal 
 and conclusive demonstration of the correctness of Dr. Dupr^'s arguments 
 against the possibility of material accumulation of alcohol in the body." 
 
 " From a review of the evidence as it at present stands," says Dr. Pavy, 
 "it may reasonably be inferred that there is sufficient before us to justify 
 
 * "Food and Dietetics," p. 84, London, 1874. 
 
 t On the Elimination of Alcohol, Proc. Royal Society, No. 131, p. 107, 1872, and No. 
 133, p. 268, 1872. 
 
 t Practitioner, p. 16, July, 1874. 
 
 

 \ i 
 
 the conclusion that the main portion of alcohol ingested becomes destroyed 
 within the system, and, if this be the case, it may be fairly assurand that 
 the destruction is attended with oxidation and a corresponding liberation 
 
 of force."* 111. 
 
 Another favourite assertion of the teetotallers is that "because alcohol is 
 poisonous in excessive quancii-iea it must of necessity be injurious in small 
 doses." It would Tare ill with humanity if this logic were sound, for it 
 can readily be shown that there is nothing in the nature of an alimentary 
 principle which is not injurious in excessive quantities. Salt, an article 
 indispensable to the sustenance of life, is, when taken in excess, a virulent 
 poison. Ortila mentions several cases of death by its agency. Vinegar, 
 mustard, pepper, tea, coflfee, all contain principles which, taken in excess, 
 are poisonous, and if the above logic were sound their use would be 
 highly reprehensible. To show the lengths to which some even clever medical 
 men will go in support of a whimsical theory, the writer might state that he 
 had in his possession a pamphlet by a physician entitled " Salt, the Forbidden 
 Fruit," in which it was endeavoured to be shown that all the ills to which 
 flesh is heir to were to be attributed to the use of this *' most pRrnicious 
 drug." Basing any reasons for abstinence upon the fact of its being 
 termed a "stimulant-narcotic" is equally absurd. Everyone has noticed 
 the stimulating effects of a moderate meal taken when hungry, and the 
 general feeling of inability for exertion, and disposition to sletip experienced 
 upon taking an inordinately heavy one, and if the tendency to sleep be 
 indulged in the probability of awaking with a bilious heailache. These 
 latter are the narcotic efFectiof an excessive quantity of ordinary food, so 
 that the ditference between iitimulation and narcotism is one of quantity 
 only. "All foods," says Dr. Anstie, "are •stimulant-narcotics.'" 
 
 Quite recently a sensation was sought to be created by the introduction 
 into a Presbyterian pulpit one Sabbath of a Scott Act lecturer (not a 
 clergyman) for the purpose of conducting some interesting experiments 
 upon the "effects" of alcohol. One of these experiments was the precipi- 
 tation of albumen (white of egs;) by means of alcohol, " thereby cooking it," 
 according to the lecturer. But the gentleman failed to inform the good 
 ladies and elders of this highly edified congregation that the innocent tea 
 upon which they had no doubt regaled themselves just previously would 
 have had precisely the same effect. 
 
 Then as to the assertion of a "reaction " following the taking of a dose 
 of alcohol, and that a renewal and increase in the quantity becomes a 
 necessity. There is no more "reaction" following the ingestion of a 
 proper quantity than the analogous feeling of hunger which follows 
 the full and complete digestion of an ordinary meal. What has been 
 termed the "reaction" has been proved by Dr. Anstie to be the direct 
 «ffecte of a " narcotic " quantity. As to the necessity of increasing the 
 dose, this would be serious were there any foundation for the assertion, 
 but Dr. Anstie ha^ also shown that it is only those who have habituated 
 themselves to the " narcotic " effects of excessive quantities who are obliged 
 to increase the quantity. 
 
 • « 
 
 Food and Dietetics," p. 86. 
 
 as( 
 
 pri 
 
 ill 
 
 acH 
 
 nic< 
 
 pla( 
 
 if e 
 
 "sti 
 a eai 
 with 
 praci 
 with 
 absol 
 
 Use n 
 
 «( 
 
 the w 
 <( 
 
 (< 
 "( 
 
 "( 
 « 
 
 l|ia tht 
 i<immuJ 
 We 
 bat noti 
 
 
 1 jj 
 
31 
 
 cohol is 
 n small 
 , for it 
 neutary 
 L article 
 virulent 
 Vinegar, 
 a excess, 
 /ould be 
 p muclical 
 ie that he 
 rorbiililen 
 to which 
 )Rrniciou9 
 its being 
 ts noticed 
 , an<l the 
 icperienced 
 a sleep be 
 le. These 
 ry food, 80 
 f quantity 
 
 itroduction 
 
 irer (not a 
 ixperimenta 
 
 Aie precipi-^ 
 cooking iti 
 n the good 
 inooent tea 
 jusly would 
 
 tig of a dose 
 ' becomes a 
 restion of a 
 lich follows 
 at has been 
 )e the direct 
 Lcreasing the 
 he assertion, 
 e habit vbated 
 o are obliged 
 
 Mucli of the harm which results from excessive drinking arises from the 
 usfl of distillKl spiritH. These drinks approximate too nearly to the active 
 principle, alcohol, to betaken as ordinary beverages. There is as little sense 
 ill iheir u«e for this purpose as there would be in a person habitually using 
 acetic acid in the place of vinegar ; oil of mustard for the ordinary condiment; 
 nicotine for tobacco ; or thoine and cafftdne for tea or coffie. Nature has 
 placed a limit upon the alcoholic 8treny(th of fermented liquors, and were 
 men content to follow her guidance, and avoid excesses, harm would rarely, 
 if ever, ensue. 
 
 As to the ability of the individual to exist without the use of 
 " stimulants," " It is idle to urge," says Dr. Anstie, '• that the subject of 
 a carefully prepared experiment can be made to live in apparent health 
 without the use of those substances vulgarly called 'narcotics,' if the 
 practical fact be that nations cannot, and never have bi^en, able to do 
 without them." There is absolutely no period of history — there is 
 absolutely no nation upon earth — in which indisputable evidence of their 
 use may not be found. Von Bibra puts the matter roughly but plainly : 
 
 "(Jotfee leaves are taken, in the form of infusion, by two millions of 
 the world's inhabitants. 
 
 " Paraguay tea is taken by ten millions. 
 
 " Coca by as many. 
 
 "Chicory, either pure or mixed with coffee, by forty. 
 
 "Cacao by Hfty. 
 
 " Haschish is eaten and smoked by three hundred millions. 
 
 "Opium by four hundred millions. 
 
 "Chinese tea is drunk by five hundred millions. 
 
 "Finally, all known nations of the world are addicted to the use of 
 tobacco, either by smoking, chewing, or snuffing."* 
 
 Professor Johnson f also shows that there is no considerable tract of the 
 terth's surface without some special indigenous plant of which the natives 
 readily avail themselves, not merely for medicinal purposes but for every- 
 day life. If, then, the use, in some form, of "stimulant-narcotics" is in- 
 dispensable to everyday life — and this important fact cannot too often be 
 pointed out and emphasized — to what should we turn were alcohol and 
 tobacco — articles becoming more coupled every day for opprobrium — to be 
 entirely prohibited, and that prohibition, as many of its advocates fondly hope 
 and expect, successfully carried out and enforced ? To what many perhaps 
 may consider less injurious ones, tea and coffee 1 It is, to say the least, doubt- 
 ful. Much more likely to opium, as was the case during a successful (V) 
 iaraperance agitation in Manchester and the Midland Counties : or to ether, 
 AS occurred in Ireland shortly after the celebrated Father Mathew cam- 
 paign. Even were it so, and tea and coffee to take the place of the 
 •feronger beverages, such as light native wines and beer, we are not so cer- 
 tftin that the change would be really beneficial to the general health of the 
 06romunity. 
 
 We hear much of the " cup which," in language of poetical fancy, " cheers 
 but not inebriates." Both tea and coffea are intoxicants when taken in 
 
 * " Narcotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch " — Preface, 
 t ' ' Chemistry of Common Life." 
 

 w 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 n 
 
 X i 
 
 I ' 
 
 32 
 
 exceRS, and the evil effects of their indiscriminate use and abuse on the 
 health* are scarcely less than those following the abuse of wine and 
 beer. "Tea taken too often, or in excess," says Professor Moleschott, 
 "produces an irritability of the nerves characterized by sleepiness, general 
 feeling of restlessness, with twitching and trembling of the limbs. 
 Spasmodic attacks may even arise in the cardiac region. The volatile oil 
 of tea produces a heaviness in the head, in fact a real intoxication, first 
 manifesting itself as dizziness, and finally stupefaction. Green tea produces 
 these effects in a higher degree. Cotiee taken in excess also produces 
 intoxication, in which images, thoughts and wishes rapidly succeed each 
 other. Dizziness follows, with sensation of anxiety and trenjbling, and 
 giving way of the limbs. Finally insensibility occurs." These effects, so 
 graphically described by Moleschott, and well known to the chemist, 
 clearly show that serious nervous disorders would inevitably result from 
 the excessive use of tea and coffee. Indeed, there are few physicians 
 who have not had to prescribe total abstinence from both tea and 
 coffee. Their evil effects upon the digestive powers are also well 
 marked. "Tea and coffee," says the eminent authority previously quoted, 
 "though not of themselves difficult of digestion, tend to disturb the 
 digestion of all albuminous substances, hence promoting indigestion." Nor 
 do their evil effects cease here. It is well known that that wliiuh affects 
 the physical health aff« cts likewise the mental and moral faculties. Indeed 
 it would not be surprising to find that a connection exists between the 
 low morality of the Chinese and the excessive use of their national 
 beverage, leaving aside the effects of the opium habit as being of com- 
 paratively recent introduction. 
 
 The stimulus of tea, especially green tea, upon the passions of young 
 children has been noticed by many, and few parents should permit its 
 indiscriminate use. In conH'-mation of these facts we may notice the 
 wretched health of the women of this continent — a class of inordinate 
 tea-drinkers — decimated by nervous affections, racked by innumerable 
 pains, afflicted with the most complicated of diseases : victims to strong 
 green tea in the morning, strong green tea at noon, strong green tea in the 
 evening, with numberless sips and cups between whiles from the everlasting 
 pot on the stove. 
 
 That the above evils result from an excessive use of even genuine tea 
 no one who has paid any attention to the subject would deny. But what 
 of the effects of three-fourths of the tea, so-called, sold and consumed? 
 One might as well indulge in an infusion of oak-galls, for tannic acid is 
 the only active principle in either. 
 
 Tabes mesenterica and its allied disorders, which annually carry off 
 thousands of our children, are rare in the wine distiicts of Europe, where 
 the light clarets diluted with water take the place of tea and coffee as 
 beverages. Dyspepsia, a common complaint upon this continent, is also 
 comparatively rare where the light wines of the country form part of 
 the usual diet of the people. 
 
 To the great value of light wines for dietetic purposes numberless 
 chemists, doctors and physiologists have testified. Speaking of clarets, 
 Dr. Pavy says, " They form an exceedingly valuable kind of stimulant, 
 both for the healthy and the sick. There is scarcely any condition in which 
 
> on the 
 ine and 
 >leHchott, 
 I, general 
 e limbs, 
 (latilo oil 
 tion, first 
 , proiluces 
 
 produces 
 ccod each 
 )ling, and 
 etfecta, 80 
 5 cht^inist, 
 !sult from 
 pliysicians 
 I tea and 
 
 also well 
 sly quoted, 
 iiHturb the 
 iion." Nor 
 iiich aflft'cts 
 es. Indeed 
 etween the 
 ir national 
 
 ng of coin- 
 
 is of young 
 permit its 
 notice the 
 If inordinate 
 nnumerable 
 |is to strong 
 sn tea in the 
 everlasting 
 
 genuine tea 
 But what 
 consumed? 
 mnic acid is 
 
 Lily carry off 
 (urope, where 
 md coffee as 
 [inent, is also 
 I form part of 
 
 is numberless 
 Iff of clarets, 
 [of stimulant, 
 lition in which 
 
 33 
 
 thoy are likely to disagree. They form a most suitable beverage for persons 
 of a Routy or rheumatic disposition, and also for the dyspeptic."* 
 
 The latest edition of '* Chambers's Encyclopasdia," a work of unquestion- 
 able authority, has the following: "As life advances, and the circulation 
 " becomes languid, wine in moderation becomes an esHential, or, at all events, 
 " a valuable article of food, and even in early life the physician meets 
 *' large numbers of townspeople^ especially women, engaged in sedentary 
 ■*■ occupations who cannot digewt the national drink, beer, which is admi- 
 '• rably suited to our out-door labouring population, and to persons of higher 
 *• life who indulge freely in open-air exercise. In such cases the beer is 
 "replaced by the more grateful beverage, tea, which, however, when taken 
 "too freely, and without sufficient food, often givex rise to a form of dis- 
 " tressing dyspepsia, which too often impels the aufftirer to seek refuge in 
 ^^ spirits. In many such cases cheap wine, which may be purchased under 
 *Mhe new tariff at from Is. Qd. to 28. a bottle, mixed with an equal 
 " quantity of water, will be found an excellent substitute for the beer or 
 "tea." 
 
 Did space permit, many others of equally high authority might be 
 referred to, but the above will amply suffice to show the value of alcohol, 
 not merely as a medicine, but as an article of everyday use. It may be 
 objected that the wines referred to in the above are not procurable in 
 Canada. This may once have been the case, but it is not so now. The 
 writer has had no difficulty in procuring very good native wine of excep- 
 tional purity and fair flavour. One wine in particular, a light claret, grown 
 the vicinity of Sandwich and costing but $1.00 per gallon, compared 
 favourably with the better class Bordeaux wines — and was, indeed, prefer- 
 able, for, while possessing an agreeable tartness, it was without the disagree- 
 '^able acidity which accompanies so many of the French clarets. These wines, 
 diluted with an equal quantity of water, form a most grateful and whole- 
 some beverage either for summer or winter use. 
 
 Now as to the medicinal testimony. Forty years ago the teetotallers 
 
 fot up a manifesto signed by two thousand of the medical men in Great 
 Britain, recommending total abstinence from all alcoholic liquors, as tending 
 to greatly benefit the general health. Great amusement was created by 
 the discovery, shortly after its issue, that the majority of its signatories 
 bad signed, at or about the same time, a document setting forth the 
 
 !^ peculiar merits of one of the Burton ales, and strongly recommending its 
 |;eneral adoption by the public as a good and highly beneficial beverage. 
 
 !■ A few years ago they got up another document: remembering the history 
 of the earlier one they were more cautious in wording it. There was 
 nothing in it of total abstinence. It merely stated that many persons held 
 |[reatly exaggerated notions as to the value of alcohol as an article of ditjt. 
 
 ijj It also inculcated great moderation in prescribing it for medicinal purposes. 
 
 I Sir G. Burrows, then President of the Royal College of Physicians, was the 
 ^rst to whom it was submitted for signature. He not only aigned it, but 
 was led into permitting his name to be used in obtaining other signatories. 
 Armed with the card of Sir George Burrows, they succeeded in obtaining 
 
 "Food and Dietetics," p. 259. 
 
 \i 
 
 r^ r 
 
HUH 
 
 34 
 
 a nu 
 
 mber of gi^natoriPH, many of whom, howovrr, afterwaHn stated that 
 
 tion, truhting that what cain« from the 
 It fell into the handH of a 
 
 ho al 
 
 right. 
 
 they had Higned without insf 
 
 pn'Hident of the college would „ , , • i 
 
 well-known Alctropolitan surgeon, who not only refuM'd to wgn, but sent a 
 letter of remonstrance to Sir G.'orge BurrowH, to thecff.'ct that he " did 
 not see how it is poMsible ' inimenH.'ly ' to exaggt^ate the value of alcohol 
 as an article of diet. I U-Vu-vt^ it to ho one which in simply indispensable 
 for the whole of that large <;laH8 of pj-rsons who, whil« th.-y are subject to 
 large expenditure of nervous f(.rte, are unable to digest more than a very 
 moderate quantity of the dietetic equivalents of alcohol, iu the various 
 forms of fat and sugar. I ani, myself, among the most moderate of 
 drinkers, and on three separate occasions have endc^avoured to become a 
 total abstainer. Each time my health gave way in the attempt, which 
 now for some years past I have not ventured to repeat; and my expe- 
 rience as a practitioner has taught me that many others are in a similar 
 
 case." 
 
 After ^ lapse of ten days the President replied that the suggestions for 
 alteration came too late for acceptance, as the document had passed into 
 the hands of one hundred and fifty persons. He concluded with the 
 following paragritph, which certainly concedes everything contended: "/ 
 entirely agree with yon in the opinion you express about alcohol as an 
 article of diet. I think to a large class of persons it is indispensable, an 
 know many remarkable cases in conjirmation of your own experience of the 
 attempt to abstain wholly from alcohol.'* 
 
 One of the most amusing and ingenious shuffles by which Prohibitionists 
 seek to evade the natural consequences of their false position is the asser- 
 tion that Scripture wines were unfermented and unintoxicating. "As well 
 might we expect to find a sul>stitute for tea or coff.e without theine or 
 some analogous principle," says Professor Lankester, " as to find a substitute 
 for wine without alcohol." It would be a bad thing for the doctrines of 
 the Bible if the reasoning whiLh is taken to warrant this assertion were 
 sound and applied to them. The wine used in the Eucharist, being typical, 
 needs to be red. Now chemists tell us that it is impoBHil)le <-o obtain a 
 red unfermented wine without the aid of foreign ingredients fir by boiling. 
 Except in a very rare variety, the flesh of the grape is colourless. The 
 colouring matter resides in the hkin, and is in a fixed or insoluble condition, 
 in which state the natural acids and juice of the fruit fail to extract it, and 
 the moment alcohol produced by fermentation, which breaks up the cellular 
 matter enclosing it, is present, it becomes solulde and yields its colour to 
 the wine. It is possible, however, to obtain this colour by boiling. But 
 those who assert that this was the old Jewish method are more ignorant 
 than the merest child upon historical facts and practical wine manufacture. 
 It may be here objected that there is a passage in Scripture condemnin 
 red wine. This is a fair sample of the mischievous perversions of texts 
 indulged in by Prohibitionists. If red wines were condemned becau 
 were necessarily intoxicating, why were not white wines condemned als 
 
 * The writer is indebted for much of the information in regard to this document to 
 Mr. Sutton Sharp's article, "Moderation, or Total Abstinence," in the Contemporary Review 
 for November, 1884. • • ,„ 
 
 gant 
 use 
 that 
 imf osi 
 iper se. 
 Ah 
 ■extrei 
 don L 
 of th( 
 denui 
 •clas8(!; 
 Their 
 the it 
 I laugh 
 ^: profet 
 <lrun 
 any c 
 S( 
 quotii 
 'Grac( 
 Hani 
 l«te 
 great 
 ago. 
 wine 
 
stated that 
 e from the 
 
 haiuU of a 
 , l)Ut sent a 
 lat he •• did 
 
 of alcohol 
 dinpenHahle 
 
 Buiiject to 
 than a very 
 the various 
 noderate of 
 to become a 
 Miipt, which 
 
 d my expe- 
 in a »imiiar 
 
 ggestions for 
 passed into 
 d with the 
 itended : "/ 
 Icohol as an 
 isable, an 
 'rience of the 
 
 rohibitionists 
 
 1 is the asser- 
 ig. "As well 
 lut theine or 
 d a Hubstitute 
 e doctrines of 
 .ssertion were 
 being typical, 
 e <"o obtain a 
 or by boiling, 
 ourless. The 
 ble condition, 
 ixtract it, and 
 ip the cellular 
 s itf colour to 
 boiling. But 
 more ignorant 
 
 manufacture, 
 e condemnin 
 sions of texts 
 I becau 
 idemned als 
 
 36 
 
 hito wines are principally made from the black grapes, and the juice drawn 
 
 tl earlv from the skins is permitted to ferment in a separate vessel, and 
 
 hese wiii(!sare invarialtly the sweetest, and strongest in alcoholic htrength. 
 
 But the fact is that there was a custom amongst ancient nations — as there 
 
 at the present time in Eastern countriffs — of mixing Indian hemp and 
 thiT noxious drugs witii the wine just previous to use, and which lent it 
 
 h«'ry reii colour, a moving, Hpiirklmg motion like champagne, and 
 
 a 
 
 .stupefying or maddening etl'tct upon the system. The text is a warning 
 Against the "seeking out of mixed wine." 
 
 Some of the nu'thods of preparing the so called " unfermented wines" 
 might here be noted. In the majority of instances poor, thin clarets are 
 «ul'jeeted to distillation to get rid of the alcohol, sugar is added to sweeten 
 and thicl«in, and elderberry to restore the colour partially destroyed by 
 boiling. In others, the juice is boiled with sugar to a syrup, and salicyHc 
 -acid added to prevent fermentation. In not a few instances which fell 
 under the writer's own observation, cider, sweetened and coloured, has been 
 «old under the name of unfermented wine, and these samples contained a 
 notable quantity of alcohol. These instances will give a fair idea of the 
 80phinticated almmiiiations that are sought to be forced upon the public 
 under the cloak of religion and philanthropy. Quite recently a feminine 
 lectunr declared that the time would come when " fermented " wine, " that 
 last relic of harbarisin and immoral lit/, would be swept out of the churches." 
 And the writer is credibly informed that a reverend gentleman also hoped 
 that the time would come when it would be a '• criminal offence " to use fer- 
 mented wines in the Sacrament, Nor is this language any more extrava- 
 gant than consistency requires. Just so long as it is deemed neces-sary to 
 u&e wine for the proper commemoration of the Saviour's death, — and 
 that will be while reason and Bible language lasts, — so long will it be 
 im| ossible to get public opinion to regard moderate drinking as a sin 
 jper se. 
 
 As to the assertion that the majority of medical men favour the 
 extreme position of the teetotallers the fact is the very reverse. The Lon- 
 don Lancet, in a recent editorial upon the subject, says : " The intemperance 
 of the teetotallers has greatly hindered the cause of temperance. Their 
 denunciations of moderation and juoderate drinking have estranged whole 
 classes of men who would have brought strength and help to their cause. 
 Their dogmatism about what constitutes food and what poison, and about 
 the injurious effects of every drop of alcohol, has excited ridicule and 
 laughter rather than intelligent interest. By such an attitude the medical 
 I profession has been prevented from co-operation with those who see in the 
 drunkenness of the country a gigantic evil and disgrace to be remedied at 
 any cost short of that of talking nonsense." 
 
 Some of the absurdities which are equally untrue is the persistent 
 ml quoting of Generals VVolseley and Gordon, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, the 
 -I: "Graces, and others as total abstainers. In England, an Archdeacon quotes 
 Hanlan as a bright and shining example of teetotalism ! As for the 
 late Ur, Carpenter, it is well known that he moditied his views very 
 greatly in regard to alcohol since he wrote his treatise of twenty years 
 ago. In fact he found it impossible to do without a moderate amount of 
 wine during the later years of his life. The whole mass of teetotal evi- 
 
 ?M 
 
 I 
 
ssffssmi^ 
 
 36 
 
 dpnce is on a par with the above, and is worthy only of a system which 
 abolislies the word "temperance " from the Scriptures and substitutes the 
 word "teetotalism." 
 
 I am not unmindful of the grievous effects of intemporence upon the 
 individual and upon society ; but that permanent or any good will result 
 from talking nonsense and advocating communistic doctrines I cannot bring 
 myself to believe. And I hope to see the time when true friends of tem- 
 perance will turn their backs upon the common constable and join hands 
 and hearts in a reformatory movement having for its mainspring Charity. 
 
lystem which 
 ibstitutes the 
 
 nee upon the 
 )d will result 
 cannot bring 
 iends of tem- 
 i join hands 
 rin^ Charity. 
 
 
 !, 
 
 !