On the National Treatment of Dipsomaniacs.

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On the National Treatment, Physical, Moral, and Political, of Dipsomaniacs. By SIR JOHN STUART FORBEs, Bart.

THE

HE great cause of Temperance, though advocated on general, social, moral, and religious principles, with power and success for many years, had not assumed its position as a great political necessity till the United Kingdom Alliance took up the question, and forced the reluctant candidates for popularity to recognise the obligation of enrolling it among the popular questions of the day.

But at present we shall leave the Alliance to its proper mission-the inculcation of political truth, and we call on those whose constitutions, as well as their purses, are saved from the inroads of wasteful extravagance, to employ their resources in improving their own positions and augmenting the resources of the nation by all the judicious expedients which modern ingenuity has invented for rendering social combination subservient to individual comfort.

In following out this principle, things must be called by their right names, and conduct placed in its true light. Why is it that intoxication, that fruitful source of all other evils, is laughed at, connived at, and even encouraged, while if it is merely developed into one of its legitimate results, headstrong passion, violent mischief, or desperate crime, it would be disgraceful to screen it from merited reprobation? Alas, it is because society is still bewitched by the false gloss put upon this seductive vice, and good fellowship and reckless jollity are perversely set down as signs of good nature.

Move on one little step in the drunkard's career, and you come to the proper subject of these pages, the fully developed horror of the dipsomaniac's life. Time will not allow us to describe the deepening misery of this phase of the besotted actor's drama. Read the pages of Dr. Thorne, or "Ten Nights in a Bar-room." The scene has shifted from the noisy merriment, the ribald joke, the maudlin brawl, from which a tardy recovery was purchased at the expense of a loss of much time, and the pain of much remorse. All is now the sullen, distempered fever of a thoroughly disorganised frame. The law seizes upon the young thief, and in addition to his proper punishment insists upon his passing through a quarantine in a reformatory to prevent a recurrence of his lawless conduct. Why do we leave at large the helpless victim of his passions, who robs society of time and wealth, wastes his own health, character, and immortal interests, and debauches all around him, to run his infatuated course from which no power can avert the inevitable catastrophe, when others, under no more palpable aberration of intellect, are placed under suitable restraint to prevent further evil from their excesses?

I have been thanked, in his lucid intervals, by the drivelling slave of a morbid craving for making it more difficult to gratify his propensity, when one of the traps set for his destruction had been removed. Is not society bound, so long as it does not dispense with the sources of temptation which ruin the souls and bodies of its members, to give them a refuge from the evils they have not strength themselves to escape?

The first step towards bringing about a more wholesome tone of feeling in the public mind on this subject has been taken in the late amendment of the Scotch Public-house Act, whereby the old rule has been revived that makes it criminal for a man to bring himself into such a state that he not only obscures his own powers as a rational being, but renders himself a nuisance to others, and endangers his becoming prejudicial to society. Such a law will do much to disabuse people of the fallacious idea that they are entitled publicly to expose themselves as incapable of acting like responsible beings, provided they were not guilty of any flagrant breach of the peace. But this is not enough, society ought to step forward to protect these poor infatuated objects of debased propensity against themselves.

Our experience forbids despair even in the most inveterate cases. We have known several cases of complete recovery where useful members have been recovered for society by patient dealing and encouragement.

One case is that of a very clever tradesman, surrounded in like manner by all the endearments of home, and the example of well-conducted relatives, serving an indulgent master, who, for the sake of old connections, constantly forgave his deficiencies, but at last, wearied out by his irregularities, casts him off. Shakspeare's Claudio enunciates a truth which many feel

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flowery tenderness.

But his friends united to refuse him a home, and even charity could scarce procure for him a place to rest his head.

The trial worked patience, he was touched by the degrading consequences of his criminal indulgence. He solicited another trial, arrangements were made to remove him from unnecessary temptation, he gradually recovered his self-command and firmness of purpose, and has now for many months been a complete convert after years of misery.

We plead for arrangements which to the ordinary sufferer shall supply the place of such benevolent supervision. The physical sufferer is never abandoned by the physician. While there is life there is hope, and he is surrounded by an atmosphere suited to counteract the morbific tendency. Infirmaries, asylums, convalescent hospitals, are established, but the hopeless dipsomaniac, longing for a place to hide his head and to recover his powers of self-control, is left untended and abandoned to the ruin of perpetually increasing debility.

There is no natural objection or obstacle to the realisation of such a scheme as a place of refuge for these unhappy cases. In America a very large one has been erected at New York, and before the foundation was laid applications were received from many more than would have filled it. We know how many clergymen in remote places in the Highlands open a place of safety for a few disconsolate outcasts, in the almost hopeless attempt to secure for them a safe retreat; and we have been acquainted with some who have voluntarily gone to a lunatic asylum, to fortify by compulsory restraint their own infirmity of purpose. But for how few of the thousands yearning for emancipation from their self-inflicted trammels do these arrangements afford a resource.

The case is claimant, the cry is loud; the applicants for benevolent aid are legion. Do not let us reject their forlorn prayer. The only institution of which we have any notice in this country approaching the requirements of the case is the branch of the House of Refuge, in Edinburgh, provided for such cases. It is on so small a scale as to provide quarters for only twenty or thirty inmates, divided partially into two classes by a slight difference in board, beginning as low as seven shillings per week. In these wards many have already been fortified against the trials of the world, and resumed their position in society; and there are generally many more applicants than can be accommodated. It is a melancholy fact that the greater number of the patients are females, brought by their relations, not unfrequently their husbands, and voluntarily subjecting themselves to the discipline of the house.

A small fund to increase this branch of the establishment has been devoted by a charitable donor, and the directors are waiting only for its increase, by other benevolent well-wishers to the scheme, to begin a separate wing of the institution, where a proper system of superintendence may be effectively carried on.

The benefits of such arrangements will by no means be confined to the recoveries which may be made, the amelioration of the condition of the sufferers themselves, or the relief from relations and neighbours. The higher social object is to proclaim in loud tones the sad consummation of such evil courses, the banishment from society, and the subjection to restraint of personal free will, entailed by such abandonment of principle by those who may have once stood high among the proud owners of reason, but defiled the image of their Maker by habits more degrading than those of the beasts that perish.

Let this appeal plead for the outcasts who are beyond the reach of Temperance rules. While we assiduously train the young, and hold out the hand of fellowship to the adult Abstainer, let us also go down a few steps to recover if possible the failing steps from which the stable foundation of virtue seems to crumble, while at the same time we gather together the lost ones at the bottom of the ladder, shield them from further insult and misery by at least removing them from the surrounding circumstances of horror, and endeavouring to rouse in them some latent spark of better feeling, which if it cannot much improve their condition here, may at least secure a chance of saving them from eternal perdition.

Those who may be inclined to assist in this benevolent effort may depend upon having their contributions faithfully applied if sent to Mr. Graham, treasurer and governor, House of Refuge, Edinburgh.

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Benefit Clubs and Public-Houses. By HENRY DIXON, M.R.C.S., Coroner for South Oxon.

DESI

ESIROUS to be found working in each and every branch of the great Temperance Reformation, I venture to say a word on the great importance of using every exertion to put a stop to that most pernicious practice of holding benefit clubs at public-houses. Whilst considering it most valuable to keep the subject of Prohibition constantly before the Legislature and the public, it must be admitted of paramount importance to show the people by actual examples that houses for the sale of intoxicating drinks are not indispensable, as many believe them to be.

That this may be done, as regards the holding of coroners' inquests, my experience has sufficiently proved; and in this small town of Watlington we have two benefit clubs conducting their business without seeking accommodation from the publican.

One of these clubs is a strictly Temperance Benefit Society (the Independent Order of Nephalites), the other, although not composed entirely of Teetotalers, has so much of the Teetotal element infused into it as to hold its meetings in the Temperance Hall, and, I need not add, that nothing that can intoxicate is allowed to enter there.

So much is the evil arising from the practice of holding club meetings in public-houses generally felt and acknowledged, that I cannot but think it only requires the friends of Temperance seriously to set themselves to work in this matter, in order to bring about the desired change.

As a practicable and an efficient remedy, I would suggest the formation of Temperance Benefit Societies which, by having the support of honorary members, would be able to offer a liberal sick allowance on the lowest quarterly payments. Or, failing to form a strictly Total Abstinence Benefit Society, like influences and advantages might be brought to bear on existing societies, conditional on the arrangement to exclude beer, wine, and grog from their meetings and feasts, and to hold such meetings and feasts elsewhere than in public-houses. It does not require the mind of a Teetotaler to understand that the drinking practices too commonly associated with Benefit Societies are in direct contravention of the object and interests of such societies; and let the doctors say what they may about the virtues of alcohol, there are none who hold the office of medical officer to benefit clubs who would not far rather have the members Teetotalers, providing the doctor himself be not suffering from a form of mania known as chronic alcoholism.

Public-House Clubs. By F. A. NEW.

THE friends of Temperance and the Alliance are waging war against cise on political and social concerns; and I propose dealing briefly with one important element of the publicans' power-viz., the public-house club. I shall endeavour to point out the extent of the evil, the effect it produces, and the remedy to be provided.

The extent of the evil. There are in England and Wales, I believe, 64,455 licensed victuallers, and we may fairly estimate that ninetenths of these have one or more clubs attached to their houses-in fact, many have six or seven. It is estimated that there are not fewer than 3,052,000 members of benefit societies in England and Wales; and the Registrar states that one in nine of the population is a member of a legalised society, or one that is registered, but the great majority are not registered at all. A writer, who lives in one of the most flourishing manufacturing towns of the North, states that "about one-fourth of the male adult population of England are exposed to the temptation of the public-house through the medium of benefit societies alone." I believe this is not an exaggerated statement. Now, when we remember that in most of the old societies each member is compelled to spend from five shillings to six shillings per annum, including the monthly meeting and feast, and that in most of those of a later date he is expected to spend an equal amount, and generally spends a great deal more, we are not surprised that the landlord of the house, who is generally an office bearer, obtains an influence over his dupes, which he knows well how to wield when occasion requires.

Pernicious as are the indirect consequences of the clubs holding their meetings at public-houses, the direct evils are so great that we can only attribute the continuance of the system to the grossest ignorance respecting them. They include a large amount of profligacy and intemperance. Mr. J. Tidd Pratt, in his report for 1860, states that in one club ten gallons of ale are consumed every monthly meeting by a small number of members living in the neighbourhood, but paid for by the whole of the members. Mr. Ansell mentions a case where, "after a large quantity of beer had been consumed, ardent spirits were drank, and ultimately beer was thrown out of the window, because the whole of the money was to be spent for the good of the house." A member, in writing to Mr. Tidd Pratt, in 1859, complaining that £10 of the funds were spent for refreshment at the annual feast, says: "A number of disorderly men get intoxicated, and then quarrelling ensues, and last Thursday being the day for their annual feast, a number of little boys were made drunk for the sake of the fun, and were seen rolling into dikes, and other such like painful sights, and this at the expense of the society, whose funds have diminished during the last year upwards of £74." Another club held its meetings at the public-house, where each member had to spend a certain sum in liquor; "frequent quarrels took place, and at their last annual day