Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors.

Date:
[1874?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and wise men who did raise that question, and I can certainly say that in my recollection the attitude towards such has been very greatly changed. (Hear, hear.) The views of the public now are very different from what they were in a period within my memory. I perfectly well i emember as a boy in the country the time when every good host placed always sufficient liquor, and more than sufficient, before his guests at every dinner to carry them, as it was then said, under the table, and very often a good and agreeable guest did show his strong appreciation of the quality of his host’s liquor by afterwards going there. (Laughter.) Now all this is changed. We find that this part of the drinking usages at least has disappeared, and I find from my own experience—and I come in contact with a great number of people—that if in conversation as to the necessity of drinking I make the slightest remark, that some quantity which is sometimes called “ moderate,” a word which it is impossible to define—I say, if I make a remark that that quantity is too much, the individual to whom I am speaking instantly replies to me by such a phrase as this : “ I assure you, sir, I never was the worse for liquor in my life. I take my moderate amount of wine, or beer, or what not; but I assure you I was never the worse for liquor in my life.” Now it seems to me that this current statement brings us precisely to the question of the evening. (Hear, hear.) We ask—Is that so ? Our friend says he takes his moderate amount of wine or beer, but he never was the worse for it in his life. Is that so ? That is the point which we hope to determine—the question which we want to raise. It is that which we wish the public before all things to consider. We say we doubt whether in many cases—perhaps in any—it is really valuable in the dietary of healthy people, and we are not quite sure that for a great many it is not injurious. But I wish to narrow the question a little further. We have no ques- tion to-night at all with drunken people. Their case requires no consideration of the kind we are giving to the other question to-night. The time has entirely passed when we need discuss the matter of drunkenness. When I say that we have no question with the drunkard, I designate by that term the man who occasionally allows his senses u> be lost entirely, and whose reason has gone because he has been taking alcoholic liquor ; I will take that to be the sign of drunkenness. Nor, again, have we any question with another class—the class of people who are never seen drunk, but who take, morning, noon, and night, little sips of liquor, which perhaps do more damage to them than is done by the occasional outbreak of the other class. (Cheers.) In any assembly I could go into now I could rarely find an advocate for either one practice or the other. But I shall venture to narrow our issue a little further. I speak of another class of persons with whom also we have no controversy what- ever—another class for whom I have infinitely more respect than for either of the two preceding—the class of well-to-do good people, who like life and enjoy it (as why should they not ?) and who include within their enjoyments the consumption of a considerable quantity of good wine daily. You know we must remember, especially in dealing with