The Blackpool Herald. — 1883-07-27 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

MRS. YOUMANS AT THE BLUE RIBBON HALL. THE MAYOR OF CREWE ON THEI NON-POLITICAL ASPECT.  On Sunday evening, a Gospel Temperance Service was held in the Blue Ribbon Hall, Yorkshire-street, Blackpool. Alderman Ainsworth, J. P. (ex-Mayor of Crewe), presided, and in the course of some remarks said that on this great question of temperance, at the present time, tota, abstainers should be prepared to waive Liberalism and Conservatism, and vote only for those candidates who would vote straight in Parliament for Local Option on the licensing question.—Mrs. Youman's (Ontario), in the course of a long address founded on a comparison between the license given by King Ahasuerus to Haman (as recorded in the Book of Esther), and the licensing question at the present time in the British Islands and in Canada, said the people were mainly responsible for the continuance of the liquor traffic, and it was more important than ever that, cn this temperance question, there should be more earnest enquiry and thought throughout the country, What gave the drink traffic its power? It was the licensing of it. What we license we protect. That was what had been done in England for hundreds of years, and for eighty years in Canada. The result was that to-day the liquor traffic was more " regulated " than it ever was before ; but it was all of no use. The other day Canon Wilberforce declared that we might as well try to regulate the toothache as try to regulate the drink traffic. We wrap the flag of our country—the Union Jack—about the traffic, and declare it a legal traffic. She believed, however, that the conscience of the country was awakening on this subject ; that the liquor traffic would soon be a thing of the past ; that in a few years time it would be just as much a crime in Britain to sell drink as it now is to sell a man into slavery. Take away the license, and the selling of drink would be at once illegal—you make it a crime. What was morally wrong should never be made legally right. The possession of the franchise was a tremendous responsibility, and "anyway, anyway, out of the world" should the electors put this drink traffic. The drink which caused the murderer to expiate his crime upon the scaffold was sold under the license of the law. Canon Wilberforce declared that three-fourths of the taxation in this country was required because of the liquor traffic. Lord Shaftesbury,a commissioner in lunacy, declared that seventenths of the lunacy in this country was the result of the liquor traffic. Some people argued that it was scarcely right to speak on this temperance question, on the Sabbath. But it ought to be taken into account, and be publicly recognised by every professing Christian, that the liquor traffic was more in the way of the gospel than any other obstacle. In conclusion Mrs. Youmans asked if the ladies of Blackpool were doing all they could to promote the cause of temperance in the town, or were some of them saying—" Oh, I need not trouble myself about t." But the effects of the liquor traffic were getting into homes that would otherwise be pure and happy,. and men and women were going down to drunkard's graves that might be leading good and useful lives were it not for drink. It was no use asking that the law should put down the liquor traffic, and we ourselves personally refrain from using our individual influence at election times. There had been too much bowing to the liquor traffic. Business men bowed to it, and even ministers and the church bowed to it. All that sort of tampering with an evil would have to come to an end, and she asked every one in the congregation that night to bring all their individual influence to bear, so that the end might come about all the sooner.