The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-08 00:00:00

Sanatoria for Drunkards.

A recent publication re-excites attention to the
sad effects of the vice of confirmed intemperance,
which is so common at the present day, and to the
question of the establishment of asylums for drunk-
ards. In other countries partial success only has
attended the efforts to overcome the many difficul-
ties that surround the matter of the suppression of
drunkenness, or the management of those over
whom it has asserted a permanent mastery ; for so
many unpleSsaut considerations in which family re-
lationships or friendly intercourse are concerned
tend to engender silence, and bar the discussion of
what is classed conveniently in the category of "un-
pleasant subjects." The majority of men, however,
are unable to resist the conviction that the evil is
in great degree a self-produced one; and as the
truth is distasteful, it is natural that we seek for an
explanation which plays the role of an excuse, and is
calculated to secure a lenient sentence for those
whose individual responsibility is blamed. Clearly
the mode of cure of drunkenness, at once, in itself,
both efficient and easy of application, is to cut off
the supplies of the drinker ; but this involves dis-
tinct interference with the " liberty of the subject,"
which the physician shrinks from recommending,
and the public are not disposed to justify without
very cogent reason. The necessity, however, for spe-
cial legislation in the matter is urgent, freely acknow-
ledged on all hands, and will no doubt by-and-by
break through the thick crust of our many pre-
judices, and allow common sense and consider-
ations of policy to exert their due influence. Mean-
while it is the duty of medical practitioners to faci-
litate legislation by determining accurately the na-
ture of that habit to which psychologists give the
terms " oinomania," " dipsomania, " polydipsia,"
and which include cases of so-called uncontrollable
drunkenness. Is it a crime, or the result of a dis-
eased state of brain, of a passion for intoxicants,
which is the chief symptom of a brain alteration, and
which no will can therefore resist, but which con-
quers sense and intellect ? Charity may be allowed
to assert the existence of the latter condition, but
practical experience teaches us that uncontrolled is
a more just expression than that of uncontrollable
drunkenness—that this is not caused by disease, but
is the effect of a habit which had its little begin-
nings that were left unchecked, and that cannot be
held to have diminished the responsibility of the in-
dividual in whom it is exhibited. The existence in
the drunkard of a powerless desire to break away
from the thraldom of a confirmed habit is no rea-
son why we should make an excuse for him—it is
his own election. Violation of moral obligations to
one's self and society involves its penalty in the case
in point, R 9 in other cognate instances—a penalty
which finds one of its worst punishments in a haunt-
ing crave for the liquor which becomes the habitual
drunkard's curse, and is the only remedy he finds
against the " blue devils" of his own producing. It
is an unhealthy sense that classes, with no little
tinge of poetry, the sufferings of the drunkard with
thote of the self-denying martyr. Public sanatoria
or asylums for the confirmed inebriate are by no
means desirable, but they should be under the
strictest surveillance ; private establishments would
be open to great obuse, in which the element of
commercial speculation might play a very promi-
nent part. The drunkard is a criminal, and he
should be deprived of that the possession of which
renders him a positive source of evil to himself and
society—his liberty. In the regime under which
he would be placed there need be nothing harsh,
but it would be most pernicious in practice and
wrong in philosophy, if the drunkard could make
for himself a voluntary arrangement to enter when
he liked and to quit when he pleased, as has been
suggested.-7he Lancet.

Foreign Mail Packet List.

MAILS DUE.

Australia and New Zealand, via Southampton Jan. 19.
Ditto, via •Marseilles Jan. 13.
Brazil and Cape Verde. by British packet 4.
Ditto, by French packet
Cape of Good Elope, Ascension, and St. Helena... Dec. 28.
China, Penang, and Singipore, via Southampton. Jan ;19.
Ditto, via Marseilles Jan. 11

Falkland Islands
Gibraltar, via Southampton Jan. 13.
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton— Jan 13.
Ditto, via Marseilles
India (Bombay), via Southampton. Jan. 19
Ditto, via Marseilles .. Jan. 7
Malta, Egypt, and Aden, via Southampton Jan. 13.
Ditto, via Marseilles Jan. 7.
Mauritius, via Southampton

Ditto, via Marseille 3 Jan. 10.
Newfoundland
•1* Jan. 16.
Portugal
Ditto, by private ship to Lisbon
United States and British North America, by Bri-
tish packet
...Tan. 16.
Ditto, by United States packet, via Southamp-
ton •
Ditto, via Cork 1•1•11
•• • . .
Ditto, by Canadian packet, via Londonderry ..Jan. :11.
West Coast of Africa, Madeira, and Teneriffe ....Feb. 3.
West Indies and Pacific (except Bahamas and
Honduras) Jan 14
Bahama. via New York. Jan. ln.
Cuba ald Mexico
Bermuda, via Halifax

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.—At a meeting
of the Nottingham Town Council on Mon day (yesterday),
a resolution was passed appointing a committee to wait
upon the council of the British Agricultural Society in
London to ask that body to select Nottingham for the
society's meeting in 1868.
FROM BOMBAY TO CALCUTTA.—There is reason
to believe that the entire journey from Bombay to Cal-
cutta will be made in four days by the end of the year.—
Bombay Gazette, Dec. 13,1566.
THE FINSBURY AND CITY OF LONDON SAVINGS-
BANK.—The accounts of this institution having
now been balanced for the past year, the managers have
published their usual statement of results, which
is most satisfactory. Tho transactions of the past
year have again been more numerous than ever.
During the first nine months of the year, which
included the whole course of the memorable "panic,'
the payments only exceeded the receipts by a little
over £20,000, while during the last three months of
the year the excess of receipts and interest caused a re-

covery and increase of more than £lO,OOO of that amount,
and thus raised the capital at the close of the year to the
sum of £425,287. The accounts open in the course of the
year exceeded 20,000, and the operations upon them were
such as proved the extremely valuable nature of the facili-
ties which are given by this and other Government savings-
banks for the encouragement of thrift and care. The office
is open, as usual, seven times in each week, and the inte-
rest given is £3 per cent.

NUMEROUS DEATHS FROM THE INCLEMENCY OF
THE WEATHER.—Yesterday a coroner's inquest was held
at the Southampton Coffee-house, Southampton-buildings,
Chancery-lane, on the body of Charles Greene. The de-
ceased came from Birmingham on Thursday to give evidence
in a patent case, and on the next day died suddenly. Mr.
Augustus Greatrex, surgeon, who made a post-mortem ex-
amination of the body, describes it as very emaciated.
The heart was the smallest he had ever seen. The death
he attributed to disease of the heart and lungs, which would
be accelerated by cold on the railway journey from Bir-
mingham. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with
tho medical evidence. Dr. Lankester, the coroner, said he
had that morning been informed of 20 deaths which were
to bo attributed to the late inclement weather—old people
who were weak, on being attacked, sunk under the cold.
THE SEVERE WEATHER.—A man named Warner,
employed as night switchman on the Groat Western Rail-
way at Reading, was frozen in such a manner that his death
followed on Sunday. It appears that Warner had been a
porter at the company's station at Oxford, and but very
recently removed to Reading. He performed his duties as
narrow-gauge switchman during the night of Thursday,
and went home, °but only slept two or three hours, as ho
had arranged to fetch his wife and family from Oxford that
day. He did this, and went on duty at night. Ou Satur-
day morning ho was found in a dreadfully cold condition,
and removed to ono of the rooms of the station, where
everything possible was done to relieve his sufferings.
Subsequently ho was conveyed home and attended by Mr,
Bulky, surgeon to the Great Western Railway Provident'
Society for the Reading district. All that medical skill
could suggest was done for the poor fellow, but he expired
on Sunday morning from the effects of exposure to the
bitter frost on Friday night.
SIAM AND THE PARIS EXHIBITION. —A commu-
nication from Bangkok of the Bth November contains the
subjoined :—" The King of Siam being desirous of partici-
pating in the great solemnity of 18G7, has given orders to
send immediately on to Singapore a number of products of
his kingdom, selected by himself, to figure in the Universal
Exhibition. Those articles comprise about 35 tons of goods,
and the cases in which they are contained will be shipped
on board the French transport Orne, which Admiral de la
Grandiere has placed at the disposal of the Siamese Govern-
ment, according to instructions from the French Minister
of Marine and the Colonies. The Orne will, besides, re-
ceive on board M. Daniel Windsor, interpreter to the Mi-
nistry of Foreign Affairs in Siam, and three officials from
the King's palace, who are ordered to acoompany the pro-
dog= out by their giovereign."