The present position of the temperance question, especially in relation to the Christian Church.

Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present position of the temperance question, especially in relation to the Christian Church. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4 collect them; but from many sources very sad comments are borne to one, which would lead to the thought that many that ought to set examples to others are themselves perishing under this sin; that it is most certain that the sin of intemperance is spreading, and that its intensity—this is the point—is frightfully deepening. Of this I will produce two or three illustrations, one of which was sent to me, and one of great importance, not five minutes since. As to the numbers to which I allude, I will only specify one single fact that I noticed in the Pall Mall Gazette five days ago. I there see to my amazement that in Scotland last year there was spent fully seven millions sterling in the consumption of whisky. The total gross annual rental of all the lands and heritages of Scotland is eighteen millions, little more than twice as much as the amount spent in whisky by the people. Do not let us speak hardly of Scotland; I fear England would bear by no means a favourable contrast; but I just take figures as I happen to fall upon them which, practised as I am in these dreadful statistics, I confess perfectly astounded me, and this afternoon I copied the figures from the papers lest I should make some mistake, I suppose, therefore that this is quite enough to illustrate the frightful truth that I put before you, that mat¬ ters are becoming much worse. The second illustration came acciden- ally before me, and many of you may have seen it in the Times two or three days ago. To their great honour, at the Leeds Assizes, the fore¬ man of the grand jury told Mr. Baron Amphlett, the presiding judge, that they had a presentment to make, which I suppose means a solemn and formal statement, and it was in these words :—“ The grand jury in concluding their duties, and bearing in mind the observation of his lord- ship on the increase of crimes of violence, beg respectfully to invite the judge’s attention to the fact that nearly all the cases that have come be¬ fore them where violence has been committed, whether in aggravated assaults, or in the brutal beating of wives, or in the form of licentious outrages, the exciting cause has been strong drink, and the criminals are often shown to have issued from the public-houses or beerhouses in a state (listen to these frighfful words) when they had lost reason and self-control. That without offering any opinion on the efficacy of the different kinds of punishment, the grand jury believe that no degree of severity is sufficient to deter the drunkard whose blood is inflamed and his mind maddened by drink, from acts of violence and outrage. And it is therefore in the interest both of the victims and of the perpetrators of these crimes, in short of the whole of the public, that attention should be drawn as well to the exciting cause as to the severer punishment of each offence.” (Applause.) This was signed by the foreman of the grand jury, and I may venture to say, reflected the greatest possible honour on those who presented it, and thus enabled speakers like myself to appeal to their distinguished authority. I am glad to mention that we all are receiving assistance from one of our own judges, for this piece of paper has just been put into my hands, and it wiil be best for me simply to read it. u Mr. Justice Archibald, in summing up a case this afternoon, said ‘the miserable vice of intempe¬ rance is the cause of one-half of the cases that are brought into a