Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1881-09-10
v-.-.s e ga she : md merry one" for
RIVAL uld be. .1Ey by it is invariably

klvALuld De~ ~~Ey ny u 10 ihN"''"p'S
rable. - RI its only gifts are
roverty, degradation, and death. And yet
the custom Of social drinking is continued, and
the law upholds the vending of spirits. We
have no desire however to cast any special
odum upon the legal dealer in spirits, for nc
is by every principle Of law and comfy, on
footing with the best, and it would be equally
unjust to condemn the grocer or the clothier
as lie, for the requirements of society are
alone responsible for the existence Of either.
Now we do not expect to see inveterate
customs and usages reformed in an hour. But
as we remarked before, although practice
may last for time after the belief which
inspired it has lost its hold on our minds that
sooner or later the practice itself will also
fall. Such has been the case in regard to the
treatment Of the insane they were cruelty
treated under the theory of their possession
by evil spirits, the individual being held to be
morally responsible being, but the practice
of treating the maniac as they would have
| liked to treat devil had they got hold Of
him." although finally becoming obso &c,
still survived for a considerable period sitter
the belief in the spiritual nature of insanity
! had been exploded. A like doom awsits the
idea of mental responsibility in the individuai
| in tho matter of drinking, and after it, Will
| fall also the practice of social drinking, which
depends upon it.. 1t may not be in our day
but perhaps in our generationthat drinking as
a custom will be abolished, and the rising
generation will be taught to regard the use OF
alcoholic stimulants much in the same light as
we now regard the use of opium-never neces-
sary except as medicine, and its employment
upon any other occasion, as criminally
foolish.
Abstinence principles are spreading every
where wider and wider, but not SO much the
result of the declamations of enthusiastic re-
formers, as that of cool conviction among
statesmen and philosophers in many different
portions of the Globe, and none i'll their senses
will attempt to laugh such fact to scorn
Some years since, especially in England, ii
would have been thought a breach of etiquette
to refuse proiiered glass of wine but to-day
we find that many of the most respectable o
the Members of the British Parliament are
total abstuincrs by choice. They recognize
"intemperance az their great national sin y
and regarding it as the legitimate offspring o
the custom Of social drinking, have withdrawn
their example in its favor.
few years since Mr.. Mundella NJ P. il
addressing the Getty of London Total Alb
stainers Union said that from fl4O ,OOO,O
to Ell so ZOO, 900, were annually spent for drink
that that one item, represented two-thirds o
the total production of the Nation. He pro
ceeded to say that although there was grea
depression in trade, and that this depressio
was represented as owing to over production
III reality it was owing more to the fearful ex
pendi,ure incurred by drink than to any othe
cause that over-production would scarce
I be represented by a great amount of ragged
ness, squalor, poverty, degradation, an
, misery which he found to be the case in til
City of London.