The Blackpool Herald. — 1883-06-08 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

ASSOCIATION. THE SACRAMENTAL WINE QUESTION.  This week a series of mission meetings are being held in the Alpine Hall, Blackpool, in connection with the local branch of the British Women's Temperance Society, and addresses delivered by local ladies from several towns in inland Lancashire. At the meeting on Monday evening (the first of the series).  Miss FRYERS (President of the Blackpool Society) took the chair, and opened the proceedings with a few well chosen and appropriate remarks. The longer she lived the more she came to the conclusion that there was no safety from the evils of drink except by totally abstaining from it. (Hear, hear.) Coming along one of the streets of Blackpool the other day she noticed that a cheap trip had come into the town. Amongst the number were two respectably dressed women, and I yet they were both so drunk that they could Iscarcely walk along the footpath. Did not that prove there was still plenty of work in the world for teetotallers to do. This was a glorious work we tetotallers were engaged in, a pure work, a good work, and a work which was fast winning its way to perfect and complete success. Mrs. LAW (Blackpool) remarked that some people objected to women taking part in great social movements like this great cause of teetotalism ; but she was altogether of opinion that it was a woman's work to persuade other women to become total abstainers. She remembered that some little time ago, at a temperance meeting held in Blackpool, a quart of bitter beer was analysed, and the result was a sediment of black looking stuff, like ink, which proved to be strychnine. Now she had a lady friend who declared that whenever her husband got drunk on bitter beer, he tried either to hang himself, to cut his throat, or to commit suicide in some other way. Drink was at the root of almost every bad thing in this world, and it was the duty of women as well as men, to try their utmost to extripate the evil. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. BOSLEY (Blackburn) said she was young in the temperance cause compared with some of her sisters on the platform' but she had made up her mind to do her part in this great and glorious cause. Seeing what she had in Blackburn of the drinking habits of women, of even young mill girls, she could no longer keep in the background, but came forward to endeavour to rouse other women to work in this noble movement. (Hear, hear.) There were thousands of women round about us who were so desperately low down that they even did not feel their own degradation. One July afternoon, now nearly two years ago, she (Mrs. Bowdsley) was on the North Pier with a friend. It was a blazing hot day, and she and her friend turned into one of the wind shades on the pier. There they saw several women, one of them with a baby in her arms a baby only a few months old. When she (Mrs. Bowdsley) first sat down she did not notice that the woman with the baby was the worse for drink. But presently the baby began to cry. The mother jolted it about, but still it cried. It was a miserable-looking baby, and she (Mrs. Bowdsley) spoke to the mother; and then discovered that the woman was quite tipsey. The friend who was with the tipsey mother said it was no use speaking to her, for she had been tipsey since ten o'clock that morning. Well, the baby continued to cry, until at last the mother put her hand into her pocket and pulled out one of those vile bottles called, she believed, an "excursionist's bottle." The tipsey mother took hold of the baby's nose, and deliberately poured some of the strong spirit in the bottle down the poor little thing's throat. ("Shame.") That was too much for me (the speaker went on to say). I could not stand it any longer. I lost control of my temper, and 1 rose up and snatched the bottle of spirit from the mother, and hurled it right away into the sea. (Hear, hear.) I then found, on making enquiries, that the woman and her friends had come over from Southport with one of the steamers. So I went to the captain of the steamer, who very kindly said he would take charge of the woman until the boat went back to Southport. So the end of it was, the poor tipsey woman, by this time almost incapable, was taken into the cabin of the steamer, and kept there until the steamer sailed at night. (Hear, hear.) That was the sort of thing frequently to be seen at Blackpool in the season by people who went about with their eyes open. If we only conceive of the utter degredation and misery going on around us, day by day, at home and wherever we went, we would rouse ourselves to do something to snatch others from the temptation and misery which surrounded them. We, who were total abstainers, should do our very beat for our weaker sisters, or the time would come in our lives when we would be sorry that we had not done so. (Hear, hear, and applause.) 'She could not understand people coming to such a beautiful and health-restoring place as Blackpool was, and at the same time taking drink day after day to their meals and in public-houses, thus doing away with much of the good the sea-air would otherwise do them. (Applause.) _ . _  Mrs, RENSHAW (oswaldtwistle), said any one who came to Blackpool in. the summer could see for themselves that there was a great deal of drinking going on ; but still she was glad to see that this summer there were large numbers of people here who were wearing the "blue ribbon." She asked women, for their own sakes, for the sake of their I children, for the sake of their husbands, for the sake of all their family ties, to join this temperance movement, and assist in putting down the great evil of intemperance. (Applanse.) I This concluded the meeting.