The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-24


 gets drunk there are only two men wh'
 do so, The ratio given is for arrests
 and in this matter woman, as usual
 gets the worst end of the bargain
 She is less able than man to take car'
 of herself when drunk, and Is more
 likely to be silly or violent More like
 ly also to attract @ jeering crowd, ant
 not so likely aa the drunken man tt
 have pals, less intoxicated than her.
 self, to hold her up and get her out o,
 the way. Hence she is relatively more
 likely than the man to become charge
 on the care of the police, who, by the
 way, never arrest ony one for drunker
 ness unless they are obliged to, One
 could give many illustrations, but the
 latest will suffice. It was near Burling-
 ton House, Piccadilly. The man was
 sprawling on that busy and fashionable
 thoroughfare in the early afternoon
 hatless, unkempt helpless. But he had
 two men interested in getting him
 away. Three times within block he
 fell at full length, despite the efforts oi
 his friends, but was finally steered and
 dragged into a side street. At this
 point the Piccadllly policeman, who
 had been watching and following,
 turned back on his beat, glad to be re-
 lieved of responsibility, with the re-
 mark to an inquiring onloolSer that
 'they nabbed such cases only when
 there was nobody else to take care of
 them"
 The drink traffic here is a bigger thing than in the United States, more strongly intrenched in the long-stand- ing habits of society and more favored by the tolerant not to say approving, attitude of the churches. From the taxation of alcoholic beverages Great Britain gets thirty-six per cent. of it's national revenue, against twenty-nine per cent of the United States from this source, Not a great difference in the quantity of wine and spirits consumed per capita in the two countries. But in beer the per capita is enormously to the Americans credit, being 13.S per head in the United States against S2.7 per head in the United Kingdom. In Great Britain there are about one hun dred and fifty-six thousand places li- censed for the sale of intoxicants, and it is estimated that the number of peo- pie directly interested in the traffic, financially or in the way of labor, is seven hundred and fifty thousand At a rough calculation two hundred and fifty thousand of these are interested as shareholders in breweries and dis tilleries Five of the best known com panies show a share-list numbering about eight thousand names, and when one examines these names one gets revelation, If net a shock, as to the in- timate connection between the English church and the English public house, for in the share-list of those five com panies alone there ade no less than three hundred who put the prefix of Rev" to their names-bishops, deans, canons and ministers of lesser degree.
 To clearly realize the difference in the two countries, and especially the diff ferent attitude of English and Ameri- can churches toward this traffic, one has only to take note of how the Meth edists stand over here. There has been great progress amongst them in score oe years, but in comparison with their advanced brethren in America, they are such laggards in temperance reforma ton as to be almost out of the race, The largest Methodist body Is the British Wesleyan church. It is about as large as all the other Metho- dist churches put together. Annually, too, for many years, 1t has had a reso- Tut ion brought before It declaring that men engaged in the liquor traffic shall no longer be kept in office as stewards, etc. This Is not a proposition to disquality such men for church 1t simply proposes to dis qualify them for holding church offices. this comes up, and annually, by a large majority it is voted down. Such a resolution met this fate only last July, and action of this kind shows very clearly, not only how different in this respect English Methodism is from but on what very different footing the liquor traffic stands In the two countries.
 Just as the Methodist E,cumenica was closing one of the Lon lon daiies had the following item:
 Some of the American delegates have expressed great surprise at the smok- ng and drinking habits prevalent amongst English Methodist ministers. In America 1t is almost an unknown hing for a minister to smoke or drink, md American visitors have been great y disturbed to see ex-presidents of English conferences enjoying their ci- sars and their glass of champagne or and soda" This is given for what it is worth. Personally I didn't 1t this conference see any such indul- sences on the part of these high placed | ministers, but at the former Ecumeni- | al in City Road Chapel l was wit less to such things. Wine was In use ven in the vestries of the chapel it. i elf. While the conference was in ses- ion there were, of course, frequent | meetings of the local committee of ar- and these were held in ' oom the center table of which had as | ts chief ornament neither Bible nor ymn book, but a well-filled wine de- anter and a goodly array of glasses,
 But the American reader will under tand all these matters more fully from f, n interview had with a leading Eng ssh minister by one of the London dai- es. If this eminent gentleman, an off, ial of the late conference, was correct y reported, what he says may be taken s the defence of English Methodism gainst the censure passed upon 1t by ha mora a5yopoa1 fnY,,nprnOre eepti-