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he ABSTAINER A Monthly Temperance Magazine for circulation in South Wales and Monmouthshire. f£ Communications for the Editor should be addressed to the Offices of the Union 35, WINDSOR PLACE, CARDIFF. Vol. XXI. 8. AUGUST 1910. ONE PENNY. idhiNh 7*He> ei^i/AE. N his charge to the grand jury at the Assizes, opened at Swansea on July 18th, Mr. Justice Scrutton made a remarkable reference to the influence of drink on crime. With one exception, he said, while the crimes revealed in the calendar were numerous, it was not of a heavy character, and when one took into account that in their large county they had sailors continually coming ashore after voyages, and miners continually coming to the light alter working in the mines, he was afraid one must always expect a certain amount of crime in the county; but he felt that when popular education and the growth of social feeling- had succeeded in making- it more a disgrace than at present for a man to be drunk, and when legislation had given fewer facilities to a man for obtaining drink, half his work as a criminal judge would be gone. The greater number of the crimes in that calendar were due to the influence of drink on the men who committed them. &3&S S CTBEENT TOPICS, g£ Drink and Crime. The recent pronouncement of Mr. Justice Scrutton on opening the Assizes at Swansea is but one of many similar utterances made by judges for very many years past. Crime is one of the heaviest charges on the overtaxed ratepayers. Still the public calmly submits. An ever- increasing cry is raised about the heavy cost of education, parks, drainage, feeding hungry children, medical examination and the increasing demands on the Municipality for the health and well-being of the community, but we listen and long for the voice that is raised against the ever- pressing burden to the ratepayers through the drinking customs of society. The community is cursed, social reform is retarded, but "the trade " will brook no interference with "its rights." It is bad policy to make many thousands poor that a few might be made rich. Still another Warning. On the same day, Mr. Justice Darling, at the Birmingham Assizes had his attention drawn to the complaint by a juryman, that when the fees had been paid by the officer of the Court, one juryman took the whole of the money remarking that it was customary to spend it in drink. On a protest, the complaining juryman had some very rude remarks made to him. The Foreman admitted the facts, and his Lordship said it was a most improper practice to take the money and treat it as to be spent in drink, and he hoped it would not be repeated Half the Crime they had to deal with at the Assizes was due to people taking too much drink, and it was a sad state of things if jurymen there, who ad« ministered justice and brought people to a proper mode of life, the moment they left the Court gave an exhibition of that kind. Some Specimens of Crime. A postal official, in receipt of ^"155 a year, is charged with stealing a postal packet. A doctor said prisoner, when he saw him, was suffering from delirium caused by alcohol and drugs. A labourer, who pleaded guilty to wounding another, said he was drunk at the time. The judge remarked that drunkenness was no excuse for crime. Another man was charged with causing grievous bodily harm to his wife. A blow with a saucepan broke her collar bone. The judge remarked that evidently this was a drink stricken home. Prisoner had been convicted 21 times of drunkenness.