not have received sufficient support for its maintenance, albeit it had in Mr. Beagley and others an executive of never ceasing activity.
Another editorial from the St. Leonards Gazette is here reproduced as a local contribution to the literature of the year, and as showing some of the exaggerations of teetotal lecturers to which reference has been made.
Said the Gazette – "Raked Up" was the text of our leading remarks in the last but one issue of this journal, and the term would not be inappropriate if applied to those of the following week; for, although the latter had reference to a subject entirely diverse from the former, they consisted mainly of arguments raked up from a decadal past. The production, in fact, was a sort of plagiarism, but the piracy was akin to that which at a Social science Congress the
venerable Brougham once justified as a plagiary of one's own writing. In plain terms, it was confessedly a reproduction of facts and fancies in support of temperance; but real temperance as opposed to total abstinence. The ostensible object was to show (1st) that the views we entertained in earlier life had been confirmed by an experience of ten later years, and (2nd) that howsoever annoying the parliamentary veto of Mr. Lawson's Permissive Bill might be to the advocates of the proposed measure, such veto would prove a blessing rather than a curse to the country. A correspondent is of a different opinion, and he expresses a belief that if we would only defer our promised resumption of the subject for a few years longer we shall have arrived at a different conclusion. The reply to our friend’s suggestion is this:- The few years may never be ours, but even if they should be, the probability is that - as it now happens - the more we read and hear of total abstinence, the more rooted is our belief against the universality of its application, the chances of conviction are but few, and therefore whatsover further we may have to say, there is no time, we think, so good as the present. Quoting
again our own words- We should be sorry to venture a single remark that would militate against the praiseworthy efforts of the teetotal fraternity; we acknowledge the many benefits conferred on society by those efforts, and wish them Godspeed. But we claim pardon for our temerity in venturing to remind our readers of a few conditions which it may be convenient to the advocates of universal total abstinence and the supporters of the Maine law to overlook We know the weakness in some cases of human nature, and how prone it is to be led this way, and that way by influences good or bad with which it may come in contact; and we can readily understand the mission of those persons who, having uppermost in their mind the welfare of their fellow-creatures, employ their talents, their leisure, or their eloquence for their country's good.
But we imagine how possible - we had almost said how allowable to overdraw a picture, or to deepen its tints for effect, or to exhibit only its dark side, leaving its brighter side turned to the wall. But, for all that, the sentiment "Every evil has some good, and every good some evil", forms part of our creed; and hence it is that if we would be honest, it becomes us to examine a question in all its
