The tom-foolery of the permissive bill / [a Templar].

Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tom-foolery of the permissive bill / [a Templar]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    moderately support the measure as an instalment of 4cl. in the £1 ; or rather, as the lift of a mile on the road from Nottingham to Westminster ! It will probably, if well worked, have reduced, at the end of five years, our pauperism, lunacy, and crime, one or two per cent! and surely, the Journal does not expect us to get up our enthusiasm for a measure which treats the Publican so tenderly, and refuses to the public the smallest power of self-help? We ask for bread, and are treated with fine-speeches and a crumb from lordlv tables ! V Grandmother, all through her column of scolding, confuses to¬ gether two things that differ: namely, the grounds of personal abstinence from strong drink; and the grounds of legislation in regard to the Liquor Traffic. Teetotalism, in England, is quite a modern discussion; but legislative attempts to get quit of the evils of tippling-houses is a part of our medieval history. Granny, therefore, mistakes the point in debate : we will not say purposely, poor dear, but weakly and innocently. Ladies, not to say old ladies, have not the reputation of being logical and sticking to the point—unless it be the point of the needle : so we excuse her, but all the same correct her infirmity of judgment. She says :—u Teetotalers struggle to thrust their notions down our (granny’s) throat.” Now, with some knowledge of the dear lady’s capacity of 4 swallow,’ we should infer that there was no possibility of thrusting notions—for even large things tumble down easily into wide aper¬ tures. Our difficulty is in quite another direction—namely, how to thrust notions at all, even down the mental and metaphorical throat of one’s maternal ancestor ! Our ‘ notion’ is, that 4 notions’ penetrate reasonable souls only through the throat of evidence—and how are you to 4 thrust’ evidence ? Evidence does not admit of being used violently; and so the clear granny cannot be troubled by 4 struggles’ that are impossible. If we knew, indeed, how to force our notions into the mental throats of mankind, as we force a bolus down a donkey’s gullet, we might in pity try the plan upon that portion of the genus homo that has not yet ascended into the reasoning scale of development—but as this process of 44 thrusting notions” is unknown to us, we cannot, however willing, extend the benefit and help of the truth to the Journal and her unfortunate clan! Grandmother further doles forth her antique misconceptions, thus “The principle of the teetotalers—a principle which no amount of con¬ cession seems to have made more tolerant—appears to be, that in matters of diet the majority shall dictate to the minority.” Now, in fact, the dear old lady never made us any 4 concession’ at all—never gave us a single sugar-plum of any sort,—so that we must ascribe this statement to a lapse of memory : and softening of the brain is no uncommon complaint of age. Besides, the