The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-01 00:00:00

TEETOTALISM.

The Parliamentary vacation is the era of harmless
enthusiasm—the season of balls, dinners, and demon-
strations. The Poles and the franchise, and the coming
Exhibition, church securities from within and religi-
ous aggressions from without, supply the plea for an
entertainment or the topic of a discussion ; the tide of
talk and the tumult of conviviality visit impartially
every corner of the kingdom, and the scenes are as
various as the objects of the fuss. At Bury the
political, at Bristol the theological, difficulties of
the day are dealt with. At York municipal splen-
dours add lustre to the efforts of commercial and mecha-
nical ambition ; while here at head-quarters we are
invited by Lord Dudley Stuart to dance in the name
of benevolence, or may go, with the more sober phi-
lanthropy that befits the occasion, to learn at Drury-
lane the mischiefs that arise from fermentation. On
Monday there gathered in that shrine of unreality the
friends and advocates of teetotalism, those advocates
not a less medley set than usually occupy the ample
stage. Ode lingering representative of the scat-
tered House of Commons appeared to testify the
interest of the Legislature ; two ministers of
religion raised their voices against alcohol ; the
Comic Annual and the Charter had each a son and
supporter there; the backwoods of America and the
labour market of England each contributed a quota.
In deference to the genius of the place a semi-dramatic
air was thrown over the proceedings, and the exul-
tations of a pure morality were tempered by the softer
influences of mirth. In place of the usual orchestra,
Mr. Shapcott and family preluded and interluded
upon the saxhorn, and the traditions of the green-
room were consulted by the introduction, in Ojibbe-
way attire, of the Rev. George Copway, alias
Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh. Whether the ordinary attrac-
tions which Drury-lane offers are directly con-
ducive to the elevation of the species may be matter
of controversy, but on the occasion we commemo-
rate there was no room for dispute. The purpose
of the assembly was strictly and solely a moral one,
for the teetotal society is, to borrow the words of one
of the speakers, " a man uplifting society." The
theatrical accompaniments of melody and strange
raiment ; of the " Drum Polka" and Indian finery;
the presence of an accomplished comedian in the per-
son of Mr. George Cruikshank, were a wise, and
perhaps a necessary, addition to the sublimer por-
tion of the entertainment. Mere moral excitements
are apt to weary without some occasional intervals
of recreation and repose, and, besides, the committee
had not been so successful as they could have
wished in the oratorical department. Lords
Ashley, Harrowby, and Kinnaird, with Mr. Silk
Buckingham and other untitled philanthropists, had
been compelled to decline attending from the pres-
sure of other engagements. The cause of total ab-
stinence had even to mourn a more important refusal,
Field Marshal his Grace the Duke of Wellington
having some public duties to perform which prevented
his coming to town. In the absence of these dis-
tinguished persons the desired variety of thought and
elocution was hardly to be procured, but the speakers
made up in earnestness what they wanted in force of
argument or grace of style. They said a good
many hard things of those who still acknowledge the
utility of fermented liquors. They threw out warnings
to the clergy and religious classes, to the aristocracy
and educated section of society, as to the danger of
falling in the rear, and announced that "the people
were going before the priests, who could not be in-
duced to forego their one glass of wine after dinner,
though admitting that the working classes were
driven by alcohol to pauperism, sickness,• and death."
The three chief speakers of the evening were
Mr. Lawrence Heywood, Member for Derby, Mr.
George Cruikshank, and Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh.
The first of these, who occupied the chair, con-
sidered himself qualified by an experience of fifteen
years to speak in favour of teetotalism ; but inde-
pendently of his own experiences he had a powerful
support in the admonition of the wisest of Kings,
" Look not upon the wine when it stirs itself in the
glass, because it bites like a serpent and stings like an
adder; —the argumentunt ad verecundiani which,Mr.
Heywood proceeded to base on this text being that
Solomon was himself a teetotaller. The state of the
logical faculty revealed by such an inference is not
encouraging to those who easy have thought of
resigning their after-dinner glass, nor is the one
other proposition enunciated in the same speech
much more encouraging ;—" If a man never takes
a first glass he can never be intoxicated." Un-
doubtedly ; but it is equally true that if a man
never ate turtle soup or venison be would be in less
danger of becoming a gourmand, and that if he re-
stricted himself to dry bread he would be tolerably
secure. As for the individual experience, that is in-
variably met by some opposing experience ; and while
we congratulate the Member for Derby on his undi-
minished vigour, we must beg to decide for ourselves
whether the addition or subtraction of alcohol from
i
our drinks s most conducive to our own. We will
pass to the caricaturist. Mr. Cruikshank, after bearing
witness to the sufferings he had endured because his i
mother had n his early days
,held the poisoned
chalicelips, said that he had pictured the
po
the clergy to temperance in a very
striking manner. " I recently," he says, " made
a sketch, but thought it too strong to publish, of a
clergymen with a Bible in one hand and a bottle of
rum in the other. For that idea I was indebted to
opposition ton of
my friend the Indian Chief, who threw it out at a late
meeting at the London Tavern." It would have
been as well, perhaps, to have removed instead of
adopting the misconception of the Ojibbeway. The
fact that rum has done more to degrade and eater.
minate the Red Indian than religion has done to
rescue him could not be truly represented by such
a figure, nor could the idea communicated by Mr.
Cruikshank to his audience be limited in their minds
by such an interpretation. The reserve which
deemed the picture too strong for publication was
very effectually discarded in the speech, and we
can only excuse Mr. Cruikshank on the ground
that a perpetual search of the ridiculous has an in-
toxicating effect no less than draughts from the
black bottle. Morally speaking, therefore, the cari-
caturist makes a bad advocate, and, like the Member
of Parliament, may be dismissed. The third remark-
able orator, Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, added his Indian
reminiscences to the total of civilised experience.
The most forcible part of his harangue was a
bit of personal relation. A cousin and associate of
his own had been in boyhood the wonder and
delight of his companions. When the chief
returned to his tribe after long absence, he
found his early friend dead, drowned in a fit of intox-
ication, the work of the white man's rum ; he there-
fore was for total abstinence, of which he should
endeavour to erect in his own land a monument.
The Indian argued well from his premises, for he
knew that "firewater" had been the destruction of
his kind, and that the appetite of the red man could
admit no partial indulgence ; he drew no overstrained
picture of the facts, and, perhaps, his recital was the
most natural episode in the history of the meeting.
Whatever of absurdity lay in his rambling language
and grotesque attire was due, not to him, but to those
who played off his incoherent and irrelevant appeal as
a part of the evening's amusement; and certainly
Kah-ge-ga-gah-howh was not more ridiculous than
the caricaturist, or a worse logician than the represen-
tative. To drive drunkenness entirely out of the world
would indeed be a glorious achievement; but the
gentleman who hoped he might live to see that
more than golden age must be prepared for an
antediluvian if not a Rosicrucian term of existence.
We also acknowledge a hope that religion and
morality may avail by their progress to moderate
all sensual indulgence ; but we doubt how far an
external covenant will suffice to remedy man's
frailties or accelerate his perfection. At all events
the late Drury-lane meeting has not done much
either to convince the doubtful or conciliate the
reluctant. Questionable caricature and untenable
arguments from Scripture are not of much avail
except with an audience partly ignorant and
partly coarse. The assumption that total abstinence

and temperance are one and the same thing, that
he is by impli:ation a drunkard who does not con-
fine himself to the cistern or the spring, is a piece of
illiberality not over consistent with the political tone
prevalent at teetotal assemblies. Let those who re-
quire artificial restrictions use the ia and profit by
them ; those who do without are not chargeable
with setting a bad example because their morality is
a principle instead of a force.—Times.