expatiate upon the beneficial effects of the ordinary domestic beverages, and declare that his hearers might never be afraid, even if they drank up to mother so-and-so’s standard of nineteen cups, we who could never with comfort exceed at one time the limit of two small cups, yet were never inconvenienced if, occasionally, we drank a similar quantity of beer, could only, smile a silent refusal to accept the well meant, but utterly fallacious teetotal dictum. Also, when we heard Mr. Ranger, of Northiam, with great self complacency offering a prize to any gardener or agriculturist who could grow a bushel of malt - not barley merely, we were tempted to offer a greater prize to the man who
could grow a bushel of bread - not wheat or flour, merely. These and other vagaries of our teetotal advocates may, perhaps, be looked upon as harmless eccentricities, and as being of little moment compared with the totality of good resulting from the so called Temperance movement. We are ready to admit that the preponderance of benefits lies on the side of teetotalism and that every reasonable allowance ought to be made for the excess of zeal occasionally displayed in praiseworthy efforts to rescue drunkards from their evil ways: but, with all the charity which we can summon to our did, we are still averse to sailing under false colours; still disbelievers in exaggeration; and
still adherents to that precept which says - "Be ye temperate in all things". It is this condition of ours- a condition springing out of many years experience of alternate abstention and moderation, but from no single instance of experimental or accidental repletion which leads us to repudiate the doctrine of teetotallers that a moderate drinker is worse than a drunkard! There would, indeed, be just as much logical acumen displayed in advancing a similar dogma that a moderate eater is worse than a glutton.
It cannot be denied that there exists in the present day an abundant testimony in support of moderate drinking, and to the effect that to certain individuals, under certain conditions, the use of beer or wine is of greater benefit than that of the ordinary domestic beverages. Who will deny that unadulterated malt liquor possesses two properties that are of value to a patient in his convalescence from acute disease. Who does not know that really sound port wine is frequently one of the best remedial agents in the hands of the physician. Why then should we utterly exterminate the legitimate that is to say, the moderate or medicinal use of that which the bountiful hand of Nature has bestowed from all time, and that which has received the stamp of Divine Authority (deny it who may) merely because a depraved take and the want of moral fortitude have engendered associations of a baneful tendency? As well might we pray for the removal of the sea, because it proves every days destructive to life and property; or the annihilation of knives and guns because they are dangerous in the hands of madmen. No! rather let us meet the evil, gigantic as it is, with a bold front, without reserve, without exaggeration, without subterfuge, and without distortion of facts. Let us call drunkenness by its right name, and let our magistrates mete out to all its sturdy devotees a fuller measure of punishment than hitherto, and not allow the detestable -
