Anonymous

Photo: Gillman and Co., Ltd., Dublin.

THE HON. CONRAD DILLON.

TEMPERANCE AND THE SOLDIERS.

What a fascinating book might be written about the story of temperance work in the Army! Long before any attempt at organised effort, the gallant Havelock had seen the necessity of inculcating "sober habits" among our brave defenders. Coming to our own times, Miss Sarah Robinson, Mrs. Daniells and her daughter at home, and the Rev. J. Gelson Gregson in India, have laboured with more or less success to bring about a change in the state of affairs. The National Temperance League did a vast amount of pioneer work through its military agent, the late Samuel Sims. The formation of the Army Temperance Association a few years back, gave the movement a position which even the most sanguine of its friends would not have ventured to expect. There can be little doubt that this result is largely due to the far-seeing intelligence which its devoted Honorary Secretary, the Hon. Conrad Dillon, has brought to the work. His sagacious counsels, unfailing tact, and extraordinary power of attracting the sympathetic co-operation of the commanding officers, have combined to place the work upon a footing from which it is scarcely likely to be displaced. At the autumn manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain the Army Temperance Association was much in evidence, and a number of most successful meetings were addressed by the Hon. Conrad Dillon and the popular secretary of the Association, Mr. Clare White. The Patron of the Association is the Duke of Cambridge; the President is the Duke of Connaught; the Chairman of the Council is Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, and the Chairman of the Executive Committee is General Sir Martin Dillon, K.C.B. The Association publishes an attractive periodical entitled On the March, and its comparatively small subscription list is supplemented by a Government grant of £500. It speaks volumes for the thoroughly satisfactory nature of the work done that the Government actually parts with this little plum annually. The amount might easily be doubled in view of the saving to the nation which the improved stamina of the Army has effected, an improvement most certainly traceable to the efforts of temperance workers.

VETERAN STANDARD BEARERS.

The close of the year was marked by the death of some notable pioneers of temperance. The Rev. G. H. Kirwood, M.A., was for upwards of fifty years identified with the cause in Hereford, and the Rev. Isaac Doxsey for even a longer period in the metropolis. Charles Pollard, of Kettering, could be credited with sixty years' untiring advocacy; John Faulkner, of Derby, had been an abstainer for fifty-five years; and William Symington, of Market Harborough, had reached the patriarchal age of eighty-nine. Apart altogether from the noble work which these lamented worthies accomplished, their long lives present a concrete argument as to the benefits of total abstinence which it will take a great deal to explain away. May the example of their consistent perseverance prove an incentive to young men to follow in their steps!

AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

The Industrial Farm Colony at Duxhurst, Reigate, which owes its establishment mainly to the self-sacrificing devotion of Lady Henry Somerset, is an experiment which cannot fail to command the sympathy of everyone interested in the reclamation of inebriate women. To take the poor creatures away from their sordid surroundings, and place them in village homes with the attraction of out-door occupation, are the salient features of the work. Floriculture, gardening, bee-keeping, and poultry-keeping, are all engaged in; and, as some of the poor women must perforce bring their very young babies with them, a "Children's Nest" is part of the scheme. Dr. Walters, the medical officer, in a recent report gives some interesting particulars of sixty-four inmates:—

"Forty-eight were married women; sixteen were single.

"Twenty-nine drank spirits alone; fifteen drank beer and malt liquors; eleven drank any form of alcohol; four drank wine and spirits; three drank beer and spirits; one drank beer and wine; one took opium.

"Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to be able to speak with confidence regarding the ultimate cure of the thirty-three cases that are now marked as doing well.

"Regarding the failures:—Ten only stayed the full time: two of these had been in homes previously; one had been in an asylum, four were so broken in health that they were removed by the medical officer as unfit for treatment, seven were removed by their friends before the full period had expired."

The members of the National British Women's Temperance Association raise a considerable sum annually in aid of this beneficent institution, but financial help is much needed if the work is to be maintained with anything like efficiency.

THE PARLIAMENTARY OUTLOOK.

The reassembling of our legislators at St. Stephen's will once again give interest to the legislative aspect of the temperance question. The friends of Sunday closing are lending all their energies to a determined effort to "get something" in the new session of Parliament. We may also expect the usual crop of private members' notices dealing with varied phases of legislative control; and then the Report of the Royal Commission, from which great things are anticipated, will be sufficient to keep all interested parties on the alert. As if this were not enough, Sir Wilfrid Lawson may be counted upon to peg away at his project for bringing the House itself under the operation of the licensing laws; so for the next few months we shall find our morning papers liberally besprinkled with items of interest from a temperance standpoint.

A LITERARY MAN'S TESTIMONY.

As considerable interest has been taken in our recent references to the editor-in-chief of the New English Dictionary, we may remark that Dr. Murray makes no secret of his views. Speaking at a public meeting of teachers held in Oxford in 1894, he said that he claimed to be a teetotaller of more than fifty years' standing; and the great dictionary-maker added:—"I am perfectly convinced that I have been able to do my work in the world to a large extent owing to this fact; and that if I were to take stimulants I should be less able to do my work, and certainly my brain would be less fitted to deal with the complicated and somewhat difficult questions which often puzzle me a good deal."

COMING EVENTS.

Workers may like to make a note of the following important fixtures:—The annual meeting of Miss Weston's Royal Naval Temperance Society, Town Hall, Portsmouth, February 1st; Sunday Closing Demonstration, Birmingham, February 6th; Sunday Closing Mission, Sheffield, February 1st to February 15th; Sunday Closing Mission, Salisbury, February 13th to February 28th; a lecture on "The Scientific Evidence for Total Abstinence," by Dr. William Carter, at Liverpool, February 6th; and the annual meetings of the Church of England Temperance Society, Memorial Hall, Islington (March 13th), Exeter Hall (April 25th), and the People's Palace (May 2nd).