Mouood Mouood English Edition
A Few Quotations
If drink is an evil thing, let us prohibit it to all races in this country. Republic of South Africa Mr. R.B. Durrant
First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes the man. Japanese Proverb.
This (alcohol) poison is a recognised poison. We all know this. The noxious effects of alcohol are as obvious as the, light of moon day sun. It is common knowledge that it is a poison, and yet people persist in poisoning themselves. Dr. Charles Richet of Paris.
The curse of intoxication. Drunkenness takes away the man, and leaves only the brute; it dethrones reason from its seat, stupefies conscience; ruins health, wastes property, covers the wretch with rags; reduces wife and children to want and beggary, and gives such power to appetite that physically as well as normally, it is next to impossible to cure it. Mr. W. Jay.
Alcohol lessens man’s power of physical endurance, delays recovery from fatigue, increases the ill-affect of great heat or cold, blunts the senses, retards nerve response, diminishes self-control, blurs the judgement. Sir Alfred Pearce Could, K.C.V.O., M.S., F.R.C.S.
This spirit (of Islam) may be expected to manifest itself in many practical ways and one of these manifestations might be liberation from alcohol which was in spited by religious conviction and which was, therefore, able to accomplish what could never be enforced by external sanction of an alien law. Professor A. Toynbes.
Kings, Parliaments, Academies, Ministers, all those who claim to lead the masses, though well aware that alcohol degrades the people, do nothing to prevent this degradation. This is not merely stupid but shameful. Dr. Charles Richet of Paris.
It (Islam) has set an example of sobriety to the world and has shielded its followers from the drink plague which destroys the strength of the nations. Bishop Carpenter.
The combined harm of the three great scourges – war, famine and pestilence – is not as terrible as that of wine drinking. Gladstone.
The success of Islam in persuading its adherents to abstain from the use of wine is a notable achievement. David M. Kay.
Alcohol has none of the vitamins or minerals necessary for good health. Evening Standard (Special Correspondent).
Alcohol poisons the vital cells of the body, acts directly upon the nervous system and the brain, impairing one’s higher faculties, judgement, conception and control long before the least symptoms of drunkenness appear. Sir William Wileox, M.D.
Booze is the Matter of Crime
The following poignant pronouncement of Judge, William M. G. Emill of Chicago points out clearly the impressions which the drink habit -makes on those charged with the task of dealing with crimes records. Says he, Booze is the matter of crime. It gives life and sustenance to slums, dives, brothels, gambling dens, and pay-off joints.
It nerves to his deed the homicide, the stick-up man, the burglar, the thief and the thug. It fires the brain of the prostitute and the panderer. It feeds and inflames the passions of the week-mined and the degenerate. “I have tried an army of 50,000 human derelicts, most of whom were booze-soaked. With faces red and bloated, with eyes dull and languid, with bodies week and wasted, with clothing, foul and ragged, this vast army is for ever marching with unsteady step to the graves of the drunkard and the pauper or to the prison and workhouse.
“I have looked into the tear-stained face, of a still larger army of fathers and mothers and sisters, wives and husbands, as they have pleaded for the miserable wrecks that booze has made. I have seen with this army ten thousand pale faced, hollow-cheeked, ragged, hungry and starving children cursed by booze.
I have observed that every bandit crew that goes forth to murder starts from a saloon; that every panderer has his rendezvous in a grog, shop; that every den of thieves makes its victim drunk before it robs them; that every house of prostitution has its bar or is in partnership with booze; that every gambling den either is in a Saloon or sustains a close relationship with one; that the pick-pocket ‘trust’ is housed in a Saloon; that the spay-off’ joint for the crook and the crooked policeman is in a saloon, that the professional bondsman and character witnesses for thieves and hold-up men are saloon-keepers or bar-tenders.
Judges, legislators, mayors, governors and even Presidents sit dumb or quail in the presence of this monster, which enters millions of homes and leaves them desolate. “I have witnessed daily its ravages after it had spent its wild fury upon the helpless bodies of women and children, or after it had reaped for a night, in the public dance, its harvest of virtue, now dead for ever. I have observed that the last man to be employed and the first to be discharged is a victim of booze. Booze never built a park, a playground, a school or a church, but is the enemy of them all. War may be hell, but where it slays its thousands, booze destroys its tens of thousands”.
Three thousand twenty two saloons in Chicago maintain bed-rooms for the use of their patrons. Six hundred and thirty three Saloons operate restaurants, cafes and Cabarets; 718 have dance rooms and 63 ‘palm’ gardens. Private entrances are provided by 2594 Saloons. Federal Judge Lawdis remarks in this connection. “Here are thirty-two saloons confessedly managed by Mr. Buxt’s company and they have been steadfastly breaking the law for at least ten years”.
Vices to which Alcohol Gives Birth
Vices to which Alcohol gives birth. “When the alcohol vice has become a habit it is difficult to cure is men; it is all but impossible in women”, remarks Sir Andrew Clark, physician to Queen Victoria. This habit in women, ruinous to their own character and health in every sense of the evil, is astounding in effect on the offspring’s in a far greater degree than when the offending parent is the father.
The Brewer’s Journal editorially comments that “Newspaper advertising for beer should be designed to attract and appeal to women as well as men, for if beer is to be used in the home, women must be won over to it”, And, according to the same journal it is, “comparatively easy to convince the women”. The regular campaigns launched by liquor interests to promote the alcohol habit among the fair sex, is paying high dividends.
On a count being arranged, 160 girls were found to have gone into a single saloon in three hours. Mrs. Jane Deeter Rippon, Chief Probation Officer of the Domestic Relations Court and Mrs. Albert H. Smith, Secretary of the Association of City Police Matrons, Philadelphia, have stated that ever-increasing numbers of young girls of respectable families are succumbing to the alcohol evil.
According to their responsible declarations, “These girls are not ordinary prostitutes, but shop-girls and other young girls from 16 to 22 years of age. Scores of such girls are nightly drunk in the Cafes of the city”.
A number of commissions on vice, the Chicago Vice Commission, the Philadelphia Commission among them have conclusively established that there is a close connection between the traffic in liquors and commercialised vice. According to the Wisconsin Legislative Committee, appointed to investigate the conditions of the vicious service. “The Committee finds that the chief direct cause of the down-fall of women and girls is the close connection between alcoholic drink and commercialised vice.”
The Chicago Commission “found the most conspicuous and important element next to the house of prostitution itself was the saloon and the most important financial interest – the liquor interest,” in the Commission’s investigation of the Social Evil. It goes on to say that “As a contributory influence to immorality, there is no interest so dangerous.” The Chicago Commission investigated the conditions prevailing in 445 saloons. Of these “No less than 236 were nothing but houses of prostitution. There were in them counted 928 prostitutes”.
“Children, girls whose innocence yet followed hard upon their shame, tiny boys and even babies, messengers far under-age and half-frightened countrymen were found in practically every saloon while drunken women, short skirted and blear-eyed, with sin and disease written strong upon their faces, lolled beside them and drank imitation drinks for which exorbitant prices had been charged. Indecent exposures of the person and almost unbelievable community freedom were prevalent in Saloons of apparent exterior respectability”.
