Morning journal and courier., 1883-06-28
PUNISHMENT FOR DRUNKENNESS.

PUNISHMENT FOR DRUNKENNESS.
 Probably no one has ever attended Police court without observing that the greater part of it's work consists in punishing people for getting drunk. In this city, out of 5,642 arrests made between December 1, 1881, and December 1, 1882, 3,o58 were for drunken ness. No sadder commentary could be made upon the temperance laws of the State when we add to the above that the arrests for sell ing liquor to drunkards amounted to just one during the same period. The law, or at least the method of its execution, casts the pun ishment not upon those who furnish the temptation to drunkenness, but upon those who yield to the temptation. New Haven can without doubt be taken 8 fair illustra- tion of the ratio which arrests for drunken ness bear to arrests for 0eher causes in all cities where intoxication is a punishable of fence.
 Does this vast multitude of commitments for drunkenness that are daily taking place in this country on the whole do any good Is the present wholesale way of punishing 'sdrunks'' the best course to take to prevent drunkenness As drunkenness is the parent of almost all other crimes, no question could be more important than what is the best method to prevent it, to reduce its occurrence to the lowest possible mini mum. Does imprisonment serve this pur- pose? Most certainly not, if we are to judge by results. Notwithstanding the fact that thousands of convictions for drunkenness take place every day, that in short it is pun ished more frequently than any offence known to the law, there is no dimiRution in the evil itself and no decrease in the number of punishments.
 The fact is, scarcely worse means of re- forming drunkard could be devised than imprisonment. There is no greater prevent i've of drunkenness than the possession of . good name, and it is just this strongest of all restraints which commitment takes away by destroying whatever reputation the &C., cused has left. So far from preventing drunkenness conviction has in thousands of instances completed the ruin of men who might have been saved by other means. As a general rule commitment te jail serves no other purpose than to disgrace the man, throw him out of work and make paupers of his family for the time being. This is cer- tainly giving to ''drunk'' power to de- grade which it would never have of itself. A single instance, or indeed few instances of intoxication are not necessarily very serious n themselves. They are what has happened to thousands of men whose lives have been, on the whole respect able and successful. A nan may easily re- cover from the moral effects. of g single de- baueh, or he may shake of habit which he sees has begun to master him, but few men have the strength of character fully to re- cover from the shock given to their self re- spect and the destruction of their reputation wrought by commitment to jail.
 The custom which prevails in New Haven and in many other cities is on the first sr- rest to discharge the prisoner as soon as he has become sober without bringing him be- fore the court. This is certainly better than to fine or imprison man for his first drunk, but man may even get drunk twice without being reprobate or without deserving to be made reprobate. -lg
 Another reason why the punishment for drunkenness fails of moral effect, is the very great inequality of it's application. It is the poor drunkard that is punished. The rich drunkard is very rarely arrested and almost never punished The punishment for drunk