The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1888-05-26
AN ESSAY ON PRACTICABlLITY
OF PROHIBITION.
PART IL.
(Continued.)

Lit behooves me now to investigate,
scrutinize and criticize, first, the
hopeless drunkard, and secondly,
the moderate tippler.
In ages past it was foregone
conclusion that the sins of the father
would be visited on the offspring.
Whether contemplating human mis-
cry or animal defect the rule to this
day holds good. Like will beget
like, and though we find certainly in
this, as any other general rule, eX-
ceptions, which are very few and
rare indeed, l yet base my asser-
ton on this unalterable law of nature
when | hold that drunkard is born
and not made. Taste for alcoholic
drink may be and always is cultivat-
ed by habit, but the various effects
which drink has on different lndi-
viduals is caused through predis-
position either pro or con which is
entirely dependent upon natural and
inbred causes. The exceptions
above mentioned have, of course,
only reference 10 the rule that like
begets like and not to this predispo-
sltion, as there have been instances
where no known member of drunk
ards family had this predisposition
and then again where drunkard
had children without it.
The general term drunkard is APP
piled to man who is slave to
drink, whose every thought is drink
and who finally succumbs to
it, not necessarily through the
habitual drinking of alcoholic
coholic beverage, but rather through
this innate and inbred constitutional
desire which leads him nolens volens
to immoderate indulgence and fin
ally premature death.
Although poverty, sickness, long
hours of labor, small wages, igno-
rance and an aimless life have been
saddled with the responsibility of
this weakness, yet maintain that
the man or woman who is subject to
it, who, simply and independently
of the above causes, tastes liquor,
and because tasting it, becomes an
uncomfortable slave to it, is and
must be born with this terrible de-
sire. For such person there is no
middle course. He either must join
the ranks of total abstinence or die
of delrium tremens. All statistics
tend to show that this class of men
is found in every rank and station
of society, thus proving that these
pitiable men are not the victims of
conditional circumstances, but are
born with this constitutional pecu-
liarity which makes them slaves to
alcoholic drink.
To deride, ridicule or despise such
a man is equal to hooking, sighting
or laughing at a cripple. Both are
deformities one mentally, the
other physically. Friends, there is
no object in this beautiful world of
ours which demands your consider
alton more, nor appeals to your
commissioning, humane and noble
feelings of pity to such an extent as
does this mental deformity which we
call drlnkard.
If we were all such, / say from
the bottom Of my heart prohibit
drink forever. But as we are not,
we, with our predominant sense of
self-preservation of our habtual
appetites, with our cussed contrari-
ness of opposing that which is forced
upon us by total abstainers, we, |
say, the moderate drinkers rebel
and deny the right of any one to
NEEDLE with our desires.
In this argument we have no con-
Germ with other countries. This is
a home question which should be
fought out on our own ground and
on our own statistics. AS far as /
know the natives of these islands in
years gone by were as happy as a
beautiful climate, and bountiful
nature could make them. Sickness
almost unknown, the common vices
of civilization never dreamt of,
death occurring rarely from anything
but old age, these people enjoyed
happiness, unpublished, uncaught
and natural as it was, which the
white men never dreamt of. 1t
would have been well for this peo-
pie if Christianity, with all its senti-
mental pomp of divinity and drink
had not come among them, scatter
ing the poisoned cup and more
poisonous example of so-called civil
ization.
TWAS Christianity which introduce
ed this curse of drink among the
contented people of Hawaii, and
now it is this very same Christianity,
after killing two-thirds of the popula-
ton through their unnatural contact,
which has taught them the develish
delight of intoxication, that dictates