The Blandford and Wimbourne Telegram. — 1882-03-31 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

INTEMPERATE " TEMPERANCE." To Me Editor.  Sir,—No one who has the welfare of his fellow men at heart can read in the public papers the daily record of crimes, directly or indirectly, attributable to the abuse of alcoholic drink, without wishing to do all in his power to reduce the se-called "national" crime of drunkenness. It must therefore be with deep regret that such an one reads the intemperate speeches which are frequently made In the name of temperance at meetings such as those held last week in the Bournemouth Winter Gsrden. The who value truth even more than feet °fallen' must ever find it imposeible to ce-operate with men who bolster up a cause which requires no such fictitious aid with slander arid falsehood; and when men in the positon of Canon Wilberforce descend to the the of such language as is attributed to him in the re port of his speech at that meeting, it is no wonder it toe small fry of teetotal stump-orators indulge in—if possible—still grosser epithets for thoee who do not agree with them in their condemnatten of the ministate use of alcoholic liquors. We cannot but remember that if the Decalogue coot tins no special commandment against intenivreance, it does contain the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," and I fail to see that such an accusation as Canon Wilberforce brings against the vendors of alcoholic liquors is rendered any lee a breach of this command by his somewhat hypocritical preface that "he had not one unkind word to say of them." He is reported to have said that the trade itself "is devilish," and that men (meaning, I presume, brewers, distillers of spirits, and importers of wine) are sent to Parliament "who have built up colossal fortunes out of the misery and destitution of their brethren, and whose every guinea is spotted with the blood of widows and orphans." He is here apearetetly not speaking of *hose who conduct an illegitimate trade in liquor, either by its adulteration or by fixing it in eamessive quantities upon customers, as may be done by some publicans, but he applies, if I understand him, this gross calumny to the whole trade. Canon Wilberforce thus places himself in the dilemma, that either he must, with numerous infidel teetotalers condemn alcoholic liquor in itself and pronounce its use to he sinful, which involves nothing short of blasphemy against Him who, in His own words "came eating and drinking," or if he admit that it is permissible to follow the divine example, he must be guilty of the grossest injustice in condemning those who are in that case engaged in legitimate trade, for to admit that the use of it is lawful, and yet ts make the vendors responsible for its abuse is no whit less preposterous than to charge with murder the chemht who sold to Dr. Lamsm the aconitine with which he committed the crime, for which that wretched man is condemned to the gallows ; or to say that the money of chemists in general is st tined with the blood of murdered men or miserable suicides, because the poisonous drugs they vend are thus ebutted ; or again to make the gunsmiths responsible for the crimes of Irish assassins. It is a remarkable fart that as though with view to the teetotal heresy of the present day, our Lord not enly Himself used wine, but by a special miracle actually made it for the marriage feast when the supply ran short, thus for ever giving His sanction and approbation to the producers of alcoholic liquors. I am not desirous of entering into a defence of the moderate use of alcoholic drinks, but will only ebserve that beyond question numbers of persons have injured their health (some fatally) by total abstinence, and that if it be a sin to injure the health by excess, it may at least be open to question whether it be not equally a sin to do so by abstinence—a view which appears confirmed by the admonition of St. Paul to Timothy. I have confined myself to one quotation from Canon Wilberforce's speech, but before closing I will give one more, as to ye hich I will leave it to your readers to judge, whether it be not something more than a breach of good taste, to give expression to such an implication as is involved in it, before a mixed audience, and at a meeting convened for the promotion of temperance. He is report-el to have said, "The first thing they " (the clergy I suppose) "had to do was to put themselves on the side of the people of England in all their trials and sufferings, and in all the oppression, the robbery and the wrong that was heaped upon them. "—I am, int., your obedient servant. H. RADCLYFPE Mumma.. The Lodge, Parketone, March 20th, 1882.  SUPPLYING LIQUOR TO DRUNKEN PEOPLK —lt la as well that people should know that giving drink to persons who have already had too much may possibly involve them in a charge of manslaughter. One of the Derbyshire coroners gave this piece of legal information on Thursday to a young woman at Buxton, who acknowledged giving her stepfather, a beerhowe keeper, 18 or 19 glaeses cf beer in succession, from the drinking of which he died. The jury found that the drink was the cause of death, but the woman who supplied it escapedovith a severe censure...Globs.