The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-05-14 00:00:00

'Till TOWN LAMPS,

A oommunication was read from the manager of the I
gas workib stating the extra gas lamps which were con-
sidered to be necessary, should be lighted daring the
summer months, at 17s. per lamp.
On the motion of Mr. Cox, seconded by Mr. GOOD,
the sum per lamp was accepted.
Some other business of no importance to the public
having been discussed, the Council broke up.
Le.cruer..— A lecture on temperance was de-
livered at the Institute Hall, on Wednesday even.
ing last,by Frederick Atkins, Esq., of Gainsborough.
The attendance was numerous. After a few
words of introduction from the chairman, the
lecturer gave at great length a retrospect of the
temperance movement from its commencement. No
great enterprise, he said, could be submitted to the
p..61i4 wr iLltusa• visas Asapuh.... Crum all
quarters, and being subject to r and apparent
vicissitudes. It meets with difficulties, and jest
last seemingly retarded and defeated, and the toil
for triumph is oftentimes mistaken for defeat.
Emphatically this was true with the temperance
movement. Some of its best men had despaired as
it passed under clouds, and how many had desponded
at each stage of its career, where it was laboriously
but surely struggling up the steps to reach those
great vantage points, which it has since successfully
held. The temperance movement had succeeded in
attracting public notice, and it had also succeeded in
diverting itself of those extravagant opinions of
which they were accused of endeavouring to dis-
seminate, and the cause was now raised out of in-
significance. A large number of principles had ,
been used to aid the cause—such as chemistry.
physiology, political economy ; in fact, every branch
of physical and social sad material science, and the
most distinguished adepta in all these have brought
rich treasures from their stores, for the benefit of
temperance. By the aid of these sciences, the beer
has been analysed, and the choice description of
wino which ladies and gentlemen sip and smack
their lips over, has been put to the teat, and it has
been found that 19•20 the of it comes out a miserable
compound of whiskey and other noxious ingredients,
without a single particle of the juice of the grape.
As a proof that the temperance moltement has made
much progress, be said there were at present 3,000,000
pledged teetotallers in the United Kingdom, which
was a one-ninth part of the whole population.
After some further information, he concluded by
impressing upon his teetotal friends the necessity of
renewed exertion. Mr. Perry moved a vote of
thanks to the lecturer, which having been seconded,
was carried unanimously, and the meeting after.
wards separated.
• GENIRAL RILZY ON TZMPERANcZ.—Tbia
dis-
tinguished temperance orator gave one of his orations
at the Towuhall on Thursday evening. The attendance
was large. The chairman after a few remarks
introduced the lecturer to the meeting. He said he
had come there that night to relate facts, to make so
far, as was in his power, every one who beard him a
Garibaldi in the cause of temperance. In America
and other places he had lectured about 2,000 times,
and he had observed that during the whole of those
lectures only 63 individuals had stood up to support
the liquor traffic,—a fact which abundantly con-
vinced him that intoxicating liquor was worthless,
and more than worthless to the working man. As
they had found that nothing else would succeed,
they were now called upon to take up the third
step in the cause of temperance, and that was the
entire destruction of the liquor shop. Within the
past few weeks the State of New York had adopted
a sow principle in their constitution—that was to
give the people the right of voting whether they
would have the liquor shops in the State. There
were two parties in America. the demagogue party
and Use republican party. The demogogue party
consisted of slave owners, apologists of slavery, and
liquor sellers, while the republican party were anti-
slavery and temperance men. The State of Maine
WM once a demagogue state, so were also New
Hampshire, New York, and lots of others. The
State of Maine had pained a law to put down the
liquor traffic, and accordingly the magistrates would
not grant any licenses, and in one town which had
adopted that principle, where no liquor had been
sold for the last seventein years, the result was that
daring that time not a single individual had applied
for assistance, and not a single person had been
brought up for misdemeanour. The consequence
was, they wanted no court house to try rogues in,
our a union house to put the poor in. (Hear, hear.)
There was not an individual, he ventured to assert,
who did not see the wickedness of allowing the liquor
traffic to continue. Now, for .C 20,000,000 sterling,
the British Government gives to the liquor sellers
the right to kill 50,000 persons every year, and
these liquor sellers get 04,000,000 sterling for it.
They paid the liquor sellers more money than was
required to keep up the army and navy, who do not
kill half so many people in one year. That was the
principle which government upholds, and it was
their determination to go against it. General Riley
then adverted to the fact that six of the principal
, men in America were temperance and Maine Law
men, amonpt whom were Lincoln, the president,
, and Wilson, the governor of one of the States.
General Wilson, he said, was a drunkard's boy, and
only about • year ago he presided at a State conven-
tion called for the express purpose of prohibiting the
liquor traffic. Governor Banks was a man of the
seine class, and when the Prince of Wales went to
Portland for the purpose of proceeding to England,
these two men were selected as his escort. He said
he believed the time would come when England
would peal a prohibitory law. The people would
see the necessity for it, as they did the necessity for
repealing the corn laws. When Messrs. Cobden
and Bright first began to lecture against the corn
I laws, they were treated with contempt, but by and
by there came a blight. " The corn is blighted—
what are we going to do," said the people. "Has
not Mr. Bright been telling withers is plenty of grain
in other countries, and if the Parliament were to
, repeal those laws, we should have bread enough to
eat." The voice) of the nation cried for the repeal
of the corn laws, and the Parliament were compelled
to repaid them, Now, toay not soothe; bliglat ouzo

upoa the corn, and you may get no bread to eat.
Then the people would say "fine is plenty of corn
in Britain : there is about eight hundred million
quarters of it used to make gin and beer." Then
the people would vote to put down the licensed
houses, and instead of haring their corn spoilt they
would be able to hare plenty of bread. (Applause.)
The lecturer cmicluded by expressing his firm comic.
tion that a prohibitory law would soon be put in force.
A commercial gentleman from Bristol eloquently ad.
vocated the temperance cause, and after a few words
from the chairman, the meeting separated.