FEMALE INTEMPERANCE

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1880

FEMALE INTEMPERANCE.

EVERY one who realizes the importance and grandeur of woman's mission must view with real sorrow and alarm the increasing spread of intemperance among our wives and mothers.

Out of 83,746 persons arrested in London in 1878, 35,408 were for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Of these no less than 16,525 were women. Mr. Mansfield, the Magistrate at Marlborough Street, on taking his seat the other day, remarked that "the drunkenness of women was becoming quite intolerable, for out of a list of 26 persons charged, he observed that 17 were against women for drunkenness." The Lords' Committee on Intemperance have reported that the number of apprehensions of women for drunkenness is increasing; and this is especially the case in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Edinburgh. In the latter city, arrests in 1877 as compared with 1871, increased 43 per cent. It is impossible to draw but one conclusion from these facts, and if we wanted to confirm them we should not look beyond the vast net-work of causes, all of which do their part in leading so many astray. These causes are close at hand, and meet the unsuspecting at every turn. For instance, what is more common, after a shopping round has been done, than to adjourn to a restaurant or confectioners, often more than once in a day, for light refreshment, in the nature of a glass of wine, or malt liquor, or even brandy and soda water! This practice has grown to such an extent that in some large London West End Establishments drinking bars have been elaborately fitted up ostensibly for the accommodation of lady purchasers only.—Temperance Chronicle.