The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-05-20 00:00:00

[ADVERTISEMENT.]

To the Editor of the Dorset County Express and
A gricu ltur al Gazelle.

recentlydAimnouungedthbeymxy emnbject h
ember:
Qwftiebeh
Dorchathave bee:
Farmers' Club, teetotalism seems to have come in
for Wail share. All will agree that drunkenness is •
ogfre:ptineivoinl,
&shoot there t seems to 'rhea
most effectual
means of putting down this groat and crying evil. f
myself, as a total abstainer from the use of strong
drink, am disposed to believe that if the principles
of total abstinence from the use of intoxicating
liquors were universally adopted and carried out, the
tide of drunkenness, and all the dreadful evils con-
nected with it, would be rolled back from this land
for ever. There are others who have given their
opinions, which are no doubt more palatable to the
lovers of strong drink, but which demand a serious
refutation. They have devised a remedy which
they believe will remove one of the greatest evils
that afflicts mankind—an evil which is stalking
, through the length and breadth of our land, slaying
its thousands and its tens ofthousands, cutting down
youth in its vigour, manhood in it. strength, .ad
lam in its weakness; and which often breaks the
father's heart, bereaves tbe doting mother, sad
' brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave.
The remedy they propose for these and other evils
connected with strong drink, is a repeal of the mak-
tax, which will not only relieve the farmer from the
tax of %Inch he so loudly complains, but which will
also promote temperance in our land, and enable the
poor man to get his pint of beer without bring
exposed to the temptations of the beer-house. We
would not wish to deprive a poor man of a single
comfort that he stands in need of, sad if there is any
class of men who deserve to have a plentiful supply
of the wholesome and nutritious fruits of the earth
which God hmigiven us in rich abundance, it is the
poor honest labouring man; and it the fanners are
so desirous of furnishing their labourers with
additional comforts, why not give them £2o' worth
of good beef or mutton, which would prove to them
a comfort and not a temptation, instead of paying
that sum ass tax upon an article which is not
necessary for human sustenance? It is wholesome
and nutritious food that can impart strength;
and it is through the medium of water contained in
the animal body that all vital functions are carried
on in the human system, no other liquid but water
can act as the solvent for the various articles of fund
which are taken into the stomach. It is water alone
which forms all the fluid portion of the blood, and
thus surest° convey the nutritive material through
the capillary pores into the substance of the solid
tissue.. It is well known that barley is the
only nutritious article employed in brewing, and if
it is the barley that is desired to amble the working
man to put forth so much physical power, can there
be a greater folly than that of a man giving 21. per
gallon for w hat is termed good strong beer, the con-
stituent parts of which are about nine ounces of
very coarse inferior food, which very much resembles
solder's wax when extraited from the fluid, and
about six ounces of fiery poison in seven pinta and a
half of water, flavoured with • little carbonic acid?
and which, if allowed to remain in an open vessel
for a few hours until the carbonic acid has escaped,
would then be pronounced by the lovers of malt
liquor—" mere slop, insipid stuff, not fit to drink."
New these gentlemen tell us that they do not hold
with drunkenness, but would wish men to have their
pint of beer, an article of an intoxicating nature,
and which has the peculiar property of producing a
craving for itself; and if three pints would make a
man drunk, would not one pint make him a third
part drunk? or if two pints would make a man
drunk, would not one pint maks him half drunk;
still they say they do not hold with drunkenness, and
would wish to promote temperance. Ivery ranch
fear those gentlemen have not as yet formed any
very definite idea as to what temperance really
means. It certainly...loss not consist in shaking the
tables till the glass ff break, uhich is stated to hare
occurred at the last meeting. But the word " tun-
perance" is derived from the Latin word tampon.,
which not only signifies to use in moderation, but to
abstain, and to refrain. We may, with great pro-
priety, conclude that physical temperance consists
in the moderate use of those things which are lin-
tritions and proper for human sustenance, and in
abstinence from everything which is injurious and
unnecessary; and ae alcohol is inimical to the
healthy functions of the animal economy, and pro-
ductive only of that injurious excitement which
subsides into morbid debility, true temperance will
«hoist in total abstinence from its use. How sad
then, it is to hear men contend for the use of an
article so inimical to the social well-being of society.
and which causes so large an amount of Sabbath
desecration. It was truly said by a gentleman at
the last meeting that the malt-tax was a disgrace to
England; be might have said that the malting
asnytutelteironworrohatahniadiagdspertimacerctro:edrecia Chalreeforrit:atinianten:da:":rpLaion dthoullee.
Lord's-day as well as on other days, and the great
hated to be not less than forty thousand men in Great
Britain—are prevented for a portion of the day, at
lesat, from attending their places of worship. Can
it be said to be a work of piety, necessity, or
charity, to take the benetioent and nutritious gifts of
the Creator, and employ forty thousand men on the
Lord's-day to convert them into • source of Meal-
eolith!! human misery and distress? Are not
Chnstian people imperatively called upon to do
something to arrest the progress of this formidable
evil? The total abstinence principle, under every
disadvantage and discouragement has, by God's
bleeping, been instrumental in p &aiming thousands
from the lowest depths of vies and misery, and
brought domestic comfort and peace to their homes;
and 1 would ask those who assail this good Mu"
although they may lie on the popular Ude, to mu'
eider Whether the effect can be &vourable to suffering
humanity. If they are unwilling to forego a trilling
gratification with the view to promote the cause of
God, and the welfare of their fellow-beings, why
should they attempt to make the halide of those who
are succesafully engaged in this labour of love, to
hang down? When the shipwrecked mariner has
clung to his frail plank, and throlgb a desperate
effort has got into the life-boat, why hold out false
beacon lights to lure him, and thus cause hns to
perish in the wave.? Lot them remember the prin-
ciple of moral philosophy laid down by Paley :
" That to have the opportunity of doing good, and
the power of doing it, and not to do it, 111 as though
we had done the oontzury evil ;" and • greeter than
Paley has "To bon that km:swath to do good,
and dueth it not, to him it is sin."
I beg to remain, Sir, yours obediently.
A STRENUOUS " YOUNG " ADVOCATE
FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE.
Poddletown, May 19, 1862.

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