TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.
Much has been said and written of late concerning Temperance Societies.
They have been represented by their friends as powerful engines for
effecting a total reformation from drunkenness, and improving the whole
face of society, by introducing a purer morality, and banishing the
hundred-headed monster, intemperance, and all its accompanying vices,
from the world. By their opponents, they have been ridiculed as visionary
and impracticable—as, at best, but temporary in their influence—as
erroneous in many of their leading views—as tyrannical, unsocial, and
hypocritical. Their members are represented as enthusiasts and fanatics;
and the more active portion of them—those who lecture on the subject,
and go about founding Societies—traduced as fools or impostors. Such are
the various views entertained by different minds of Temperance Societies;
but, leaving it to others to argue the point, for or against, according
to their inclinations, I shall simply state what I think myself of these
institutions—how far they do good or harm—and under what circumstances
they ought to be thought favourably of, or the reverse. Truth generally
lies _in mediis rebus_, and I suspect they will not form an exception to
the rule.
Temperance Societies proceed upon the belief that ardent spirits are,
_under all circumstances_, injurious to people in health, and that,
therefore, they ought to be altogether abandoned. I am anxious to think
favourably of any plan which has for its object the eradication of
drunkenness; and shall therefore simply express my belief that those
Societies have done good, and ought therefore to be regarded with a
favourable eye. That they have succeeded, or ever will succeed, in
reclaiming any considerable number of drunkards, I have great doubts;
but that they may have the effect of preventing many individuals from
becoming drunkards, is exceedingly probable. If this can be proved—which
I think it may be without much difficulty—it follows that they are
beneficial in their nature, and consequently, deserving of encouragement.
That they are wrong in supposing ardent spirits _invariably_ hurtful in
health, and they are also in error in advocating the instant abandonment,
_in all cases_, of intoxicating liquors, I have little doubt; but that
they are correct in their great leading views of the pernicious effects
of spirits to mankind in general, and that their principles, if carried
into effect, will produce good, is self-evident. Spirits when used in
moderation, cannot be looked upon as pernicious: nay, in certain cases,
even in health, they are beneficial and necessary. In countries subject
to intermittents, it is very well known that those who indulge moderately
in spirits are much less subject to these diseases than the strictly
abstinent. “At Walcheren it was remarked that those officers and soldiers
who took schnaps, _alias_ drams, in the morning, and smoked, escaped the
fever which was so destructive to the British troops; and the natives
generally insisted upon doing so before going out in the morning.”[45]
The following anecdote is equally in point. It took place on the Niagara
frontier of Upper Canada, in the year 1813. “A British regiment, from
some accident, was prevented from receiving the usual supply of spirits,
and in a very short time more than two thirds of the men were on the
sick list from ague or dysentery; while, the very next year on the
same ground, and in almost every respect under the same circumstances
except that the men had their usual allowance of spirits, the sickness
was extremely trifling. Every person acquainted with the circumstances
believed that the diminution of the sick, during the latter period,
was attributable to the men having received the quantity of spirits
to which they had been habituated.”[46] Indeed, I am persuaded that
while, in the tropics, stimulating liquors are highly prejudicial, and
often occasion, while they never prevent, disease, they are frequently
of great service in accomplishing the latter object in damp foggy
countries, especially when fatigue, poor diet, agues, dysenteries, and
other diseases of debility are to be contended against. It has been
stated, and, I believe, with much truth, that the dysentery which has
prevailed so much of late among the poorer classes in this country, has
been in many cases occasioned, and in others aggravated, in consequence
of the want of spirits, which, from the depressed state of trade, the
working classes are unable to procure; and should this assertion turn
out to be correct, it follows, that Temperance Societies, by the rigid
abstinence urged upon their members, have contributed to increase the
evil. The system is fortified against this disorder, as well as various
others, by a proper use of stimuli; while excess in the indulgence of
these agents exposes it to the attack of every disease and invariably
aggravates the danger. Water is unquestionably the natural drink of man,
but in the existing condition of things, we are no longer in a state of
nature, and cases consequently often occur wherein we must depart from
her original principles. There are many persons who find a moderate
use of spirits necessary to the enjoyment of health. In these cases it
would be idle to abandon them. They ought only to be given up when their
use is not required by the system. That such is the case in a great
majority of instances, must be fully admitted; and it is to these that
the principles of Temperance Societies can be applied with advantage.
Considering the matter in this light, the conclusion, we must come to is
simply that ardent spirits sometimes do good, but much oftener mischief.
By abandoning them altogether, we escape the mischief and lose the good.
Such is the inevitable effect, supposing Temperance Societies to come
into general operation. It remains, therefore, with people themselves to
determine whether they are capable of using spirits only when they are
beneficial, and then with a due regard to moderation. If they have so
little self-command, the sooner they connect themselves with Temperance
Societies the better. I believe that by a moderate indulgence in spirits
no man can be injured, and that many will often be benefited. It is their
abuse which renders them a curse rather than a blessing to mankind; and
it is with this abuse alone I find fault, in the same way as I would
object to excess in eating, or any other excess. People, therefore, would
do well to draw a distinction between the proper use and the abuse of
these stimulants, and regulate themselves accordingly.
Temperance Societies, however, though erroneous in some of their
principles, and injurious as applied to particular cases, may be of great
use towards society in general. Proceeding upon the well-known fact that
ardent spirits are peculiarly apt to be abused, and habitual drunkenness
to ensue, they place these agents under the ban of total interdiction,
and thus arrest the march of that baneful evil occasioned by their
excessive use. So far, therefore, as the individual members of these
institutions are concerned, a great good is effected at the sacrifice of
comparatively little. On such grounds, I fully admit their beneficial
effects, and wish them all success. At the same time, many sober
persons would not wish to connect themselves with them, for the plain
reason—that having never felt any bad effects from the small quantity of
ardent spirits they are in the habit of taking, but, on the contrary,
sometimes been the better for it—they would feel averse to come under any
obligation to abstain from these liquors altogether. Such, I confess, are
my own feelings on this subject; and in stating them, I am fully aware
that the advocates of the Societies will answer—that a man’s private
inclinations should be sacrificed to public good, and that for the sake
of a general example, he should abandon that which, though harmless to
him, in the limited extent to which he indulges in it, is pernicious to
the mass of mankind. This argument is not without point, and upon many
will tell with good effect, though, I believe, people in general will
either not acknowledge its force, or at least, refuse to act up to it.
Temperance Societies have had one effect: they have lessened the
consumpt of spirituous liquors to a vast extent, and have left that of
wines and malt liquors undiminished, or rather increased it; for although
the more strict members avoid even them, their use is not interdicted
by the rules of the Societies. By thus diminishing the consumption of
spirits, they have been the means of shutting up many small public
houses; of keeping numerous tradesmen and labourers from the tavern; of
encouraging such persons to sober habits, by recommending coffee instead
of strong liquor; and, generally speaking, of promoting industry and
temperance.
If a person were disposed to be very censorious, he might object to some
other things connected with them, such as the inconsistency of allowing
their members to drink wine and malt liquors, while they debar them from
ardent spirits. They do this on the ground that on the two first a man
is much less likely to become a drunkard than upon spirits—a fact which
may be fairly admitted, but which, I believe, arises, in some measure,
from its requiring more money to get drunk upon malt liquors and wine
than upon spirits. In abandoning the latter, however, and having recourse
to the others, it is proper to state, that the person often practises
a delusion upon himself; for in drinking wine, such at least as it is
procured in this country, he in reality consumes a large proportion of
pure spirits; and malt liquors contain not only the alcoholic principle
of intoxication, but are often sophisticated, as we have already seen,
with narcotics. I believe that, though not in the majority of cases,
yet in some, spirits in moderation are better for the system than malt
liquors: this is especially the case in plethoric and dyspeptic subjects.
Independently of this, it is much more difficult to get rid of the
effects of the latter. Much exercise is required for this purpose; and if
such is neglected, and the person is of full habit of body, it would have
been better if he had stuck by his toddy than run the risk of getting
overloaded with fat, and dropping down in a fit of apoplexy.
I know several members of the Temperance Society who are practising upon
themselves the delusion in question. They shun spirits, but indulge
largely in porter—to the extent perhaps of a bottle a-day. Nobody can
deny that by this practice they will suffer a great deal more than if
they took a tumbler or so of toddy daily; and the consequences are the
more pernicious, because, while indulging in these libations, they
imagine themselves to be all the while paragons of sobriety. Rather than
have permitted such a license to their members, Temperance Societies
should have proscribed malt liquors as they have done spirits. As it is,
a person may be a member, and follow the rules of the Societies, while he
is all the time habituating himself to drunkenness. These facts, with all
my respect for Temperance Societies, and firm belief in their utility,
I am compelled to mention; and I do so the more readily, as there is a
large balance of good in their favour, to overweigh whatever bad may be
brought against them.
But notwithstanding this, the fact that a habit of drunkenness is far
more likely to be caused by indulging habitually in spirits than in any
thing else, is undeniable; and Temperance Societies, in lessening the
consumpt of spirits, have accomplished a certain good, in so far as they
have thus been the means of diminishing, to a considerable extent, the
vice of drunkenness, of reclaiming a few topers, and preventing many from
becoming so who would certainly have fallen into the snare, had they not
been timously checked by their influence and example.
In conclusion, I have to repeat that I do not agree with the Societies in
considering ardent spirits always hurtful in health, or in recommending
the instant disuse of liquor in all cases of drunkenness. The reasons
for entertaining my own opinions on these points are given in the work,
and they are satisfactory to myself, whatever they may be to others. At
the same time, I fully admit that these institutions may often prove
eminently useful, and that the cases wherein they may be injurious to
those connected with them, are not many, compared to the mass of good
which they are capable of effecting. The man, therefore, who feels the
appetite for liquor stealing upon him, cannot adopt a wiser plan than
to connect himself with a body, the members of which will keep him in
countenance in sobriety, and, by their example, perhaps wean him away
from the bottle, and thus arrest him on the road to ruin.[47]