Chapter II: Part 2

Who does not remember the terrible rush for the last drop of drink when Prohibition seemed to be coming with the New Year? Long queues of women besieged the whisky shops in Glasgow. There were women of all ages, said the _Daily Mail_, tottering in grey hairs, young wives with babies in their arms, and men of the loafer type. “There was not a respectable citizen,” says the _Mail_, “who did not deplore this discreditable scene, but the remarks of passers-by provoked only torrents of insult.” The promise of the new year and the new Government, alas, was not fulfilled, and now in place of Drink Queues we have Food Queues. Let us see what drink is doing among our soldiers’ wives:

Of 3000 soldiers’ wives being cared for in South London, 2000 are
splendid, while 1000 are sinking daily to lower and lower levels
through drink.

_Records of Shaftesbury Society_

A soldier’s wife, with a separation allowance of 32_s._ 6_d._ a
week, drank most of it away, ruined her home, neglected her
children, and became a lunatic.

_Records of Claybury Asylum_

A young soldier’s wife, hitherto “quite an elegant type,” is rapidly
becoming a drunkard. Women hitherto sober have not the courage to
keep from women’s drinking parties, and young girls come out of
factories and go to publichouses in little groups.

_Records of Charity Organisation Society_

Outside a public house in Dublin 15 small children were crying in
the cold, waiting for their mothers. Ninety-four drunken women came
out in 25 minutes. There were ten drunken soldiers, and two girls of
15 were thrown into the street hopelessly drunk.

_Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1915_

In Dundee over 170 wives of soldiers gave way to drink last year,
and cruelly neglected their homes.

_Records of the N. S. P. C. C._

A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy,
which he sent to London with a pitiful appeal for help.

“Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my
four beautiful children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a
fearful letter I have received from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the
first and only letter I have received from him. Sir, I shall be most
anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow
I have ever received.”

This is the little boy’s letter:

Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home.
Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months
and months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick
it any longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the
tests, but mother would not sign the papers, for which I am
sorry. If mum would sign I could go away to Portsmouth on
Thursday, but she will not. At the present moment she is half
drunk and keeps jawing me so that I could knife meself. I’ve
lost my new job because mum would not wake me in the morning,
and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and the
children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but
I can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope
_you_ will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I
now conclude with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie.

A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses
in Birmingham in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into
one house the people streamed at nearly 500 an hour.

_Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915_

For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never
really sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them,
“going to their homes and doing all in our power, but it beats us.”
In 23 families, with 178 children born, 61 were dead.

_Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the drink trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the 3,500,000 tons of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the 2,000,000 tons waiting in Canada?=

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The Roll of the Dead

No more pitiful record of the war is there than that unnumbered roll of men lured from our armies by this liquor trade, and cast into dishonoured graves. We can take only a few of them.

A number of soldiers at Ormskirk came into camp drunk on Christmas
night. A request for quiet led to a fight, and one of the men was
struck two blows and was dead the next morning.

_Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 28, 1915_

A Liverpool soldier, drinking continuously, had overstayed his
leave, and in a quarrel about this he stabbed his brother dead.

_Facts in “Liverpool Courier,” April 20, 1917_

A soldier invalided from France, having recovered from his wounds,
gave way to drink, assaulted an officer, and hanged himself in his
prison cell.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 11, 1916_

A young lieutenant shot himself in an hotel near Trafalgar Square,
and among the documents read at the inquest was a letter striking
him off his battalion for drinking and gross carelessness.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” October 27, 1916_

A captain in the Army ruined by drink, with a fine record of
military service, started drinking on his way to a shooting range in
London, and in a struggle he shot a detective dead.

_Facts in “Daily News,” September 20, 1915_

In the Scottish Express, between Doncaster and Selby, a drunken
corporal of the Coldstream Guards was showing his rifle to a friend
when it went off, the bullet killing a munitions works director in
the next compartment, and narrowly escaping a lady in the
compartment beyond. The corporal had in his pocket a bottle of
whisky, which was freely handed round.

_Facts in “Daily News,” December 3, 1915_

A soldier who had been drinking heavily was placed in the guard
room, and died after a night of groaning, evidently as the result of
a fall.

_Records of Greenwich Coroner, January 1, 1915_

A young soldier arriving from India on Christmas morning was
arrested three days later, after a drunken fight in which a man was
killed.

_Westminster Police Records, December 28, 1914_

A soldier spent a day’s leave in Manchester, ate and drank very
heavily, and was found dead the next morning from choking.

_Records of Manchester Coroner, December 28, 1914_

A soldier home on leave was found drunk with his wife. They had been
throwing pots at one another, and on Christmas morning the woman was
found dead with a wound in her head.

_Records of Oldham Coroner, December 24, 1914_

Three gunners had four drinks each of rum, and at midnight lay down
to sleep in a garden at Lee, where one was found dying from alcohol.

_Facts in Local Papers at Lee, June 1915_

A soldier died from alcohol in a house where drink was unlawfully
sold.

_Facts in “Manchester Guardian,” April 8, 1915_

A private in the Welsh Fusiliers died from alcohol, cold and
exposure. He left a publichouse with a 4_s._ bottle of whisky, and
was found dead on the roadside next morning, with the bottle almost
empty.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 13, 1915_

An old man who was said to be in a drunken condition was wounded in
a fall with a soldier from Gallipoli, and died a few days after.

_Facts in “Daily Mail,” January 17, 1916_

An elderly man, seeing a drunken soldier lying in the street, went
to his assistance, and was killed in a disturbance that followed.

_Record of Yorkshire Assizes, November 21, 1916_

A soldier was found drowned in the Trent. He was described as a good
man at his work, but not steady, and had been drinking.

_Facts in “Newark Advertiser,” August 4, 1915_

A terrible disturbance occurred in a camp at Portland Reservoir
after the closing of the canteen one Sunday night. A large number of
men who had been drinking created a disturbance, in which bricks and
stones were used, a tent collapsed, and the officers were called to
quell the riot. The captain, drawing his revolver, rushed with two
lieutenants into a hut where men were shouting and struggling, but
appeals had no effect—the men “did not appear to hear or recognize
their officers,” and one man raised his rifle and took aim at them.
At least fifty shots were fired, and a young corporal fired many
shots through the window into the darkness. In the morning a soldier
was found dead. Nobody knew who shot him, but the corporal thought
he must have done.

_Records of Dorset Assizes, Spring 1915_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=whether it is true that more food is being destroyed each week in breweries and distilleries than by submarines?=

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The New Drinkers

“_No complaints have reached the War Office of youths who were total abstainers having become confirmed drunkards since enlistment._”

So we are told in the House of Commons. The records of the War Office are clearly incomplete, and the information from the camps may here be supplemented by unchallengeable witnesses of what happens in the horrible drink canteens run by the Army Council.

A soldier who was wounded at La Bassée, a total abstainer until
then, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for killing his uncle while
drunk. He was a newsvendor, aged 21, and had no memory of the
tragedy in which he killed his uncle at a Christmas party.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” January 13, 1916_

A private in the Royal Scots Fusileers, aged 17, was charged with
murdering a bugler boy, aged 16, in his regiment. The private became
mad drunk in the camp canteen, went back to his hut, locked himself
in and fired two shots, one of which entered another hut and killed
the bugler. “Was there no one with power to say how much drink
should be given?” asked the judge, and an officer said there was no
one. “Then it was high time power was given to the commanding
officer,” said the judge. “Was there to be no restraining hand to
prevent young boys from fuddling themselves in canteens?”

_Facts in the “Times,” November 21, 1916_

An old man sat in a tram in great distress. He had lost his boy at
the Front. When he joined the Army he had never tasted alcohol, but
when he came home on leave to see his mother he was drunk every
night. He was drunk the night he went away, and in three days he was
dead. “The last we saw of him,” said the poor old man between his
sobs, “was his going away drunk, and his mother, who is
old-fashioned in her faith, cannot get it out of her mind that no
drunkard can enter the Kingdom of God.”

_Facts told by Dr. Norman Maclean_

Many young officers, called upon to share the wine bill at mess,
naturally say, “If I have to pay I may as well drink my share,” and
one man accounted for ten glasses of champagne. On a Guest night in
his mess several more “were under the table.”

_Facts in “Dublin Daily Express,” April 1916._

A boy got his V.C., and came home wounded. The publican in his
street sounded his praises in the taproom, where they subscribed to
the bar for 120 pints for him when he arrived. He came home and
began to drink it, and was nearly dead with it before he was
rescued.

_Facts related by Bishop of Lincoln_

When the Scottish Horse Brigade were at Perth whisky was literally
forced down the men, and they were inundated with floods of bad
women.

_Brigadier-General Lord Tullibardine_

A teetotal household had two boys in an officers’ training camp, and
they gave pitiable accounts of drinking. Boys from school had a
drunken sergeant put over them, and a canteen in the midst of them.
“Our boys never saw drink before,” one father wrote.

_From a letter to Dr. Norman Maclean_

A boy of 17, discharged from the Navy, spent 8_s._ one night on beer
and rum, and created a disturbance in a workshop at Sheffield.

_Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 11, 1916_

Mr. Justice Atkin, charging the Grand Jury at Bristol, said that in
nearly every case where a soldier was tried in the Western Circuit
the defence was drink. One lad of 18 was treated to eight pints of
beer in two hours, and did not know what happened. That sort of
thing, said the judge, must seriously impair the efficiency of the
troops when sent to the Front.

_Record of Bristol Assizes, Autumn 1914_

Two boys, 15 and 17, were fined for being drunk in munition works.
One was discovered just in time to save him from carrying molten
liquid.

_Birmingham Munitions Tribunal, Dec. 1916_

“A boy joined the Royal Navy as a carpenter, living in barracks and
working on shore. Every day he was given ‘grog’ for his rations,
although he never asked for it and never took it.”

_Facts in letter to the Author_

Such are the tragedies of boys handed over in our camps to drink and its temptations. What of the girls in our munition shops? They have learned to drink in thousands since the war began—respectable girls leaving home to go into munitions, respectable young wives alone at home. With no restraining hand upon them, with new companionships and pocket-money flowing freely, it is not surprising the temptation should be too strong for them. We can take only one or two cases.

The girl-wife of a Cardiff seaman died in the street from exposure
after drinking in publichouses with other girls.

_Records of Pontypridd Coroner, December 27, 1916_

A publican at Lincoln was fined £5 for allowing children to be drunk
on his premises. Ruth Onyon, 14, and Rose Herrick, 16, were found in
his house with a soldier. They had been in five houses and had ten
drinks each and reached home helplessly drunk.

_Facts in “Sheffield Daily Telegraph,” Sept. 1, 1916_

A number of cartridge workers were summoned for taking drink into a
munition works. One young woman was led to the surgery drunk at
half-past four in the morning; another was discharged because she
could not stand. Sixteen girls subscribed for four bottles of wine
and whisky.

_Records of Leeds Munitions Tribunal, April 28, 1916_

Two girls of 16 and 17 were fined for being helplessly drunk in an
explosive works, the magistrates pointing out that their conduct
imperilled the lives of other workers.

_Records of Coventry Munitions Tribunal July 24, 1916_

The men and girls at a large armament works drank all night. Girls
would lurch into the dormitory dead drunk at 2 a. m.; one lady was
up till 4 a. m. letting in drunken girls. As a result of drunkenness
there was an explosion at these works, two men being killed and six
injured.

_Facts in “Spectator,” Jan. 20, 1917_

A Dublin publichouse was found full of girls and soldiers, all
drunk. Three drunken girls were taken away by six soldiers.

_Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1916_

In half an hour 367 girls entered Birmingham publichouses, scores
under 18. Stout and beer were chiefly drunk, but whisky and water
also, and some port wine. Ten young girls were quite drunk.

_Facts in “Birmingham Daily Post”_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask,

=in view of the fact that American soldiers are not to touch alcohol, what arrangements the Government proposes to make for them in this country?=

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Back to the Homeland

Everywhere we hope and pray for peace, for the day when the men will come home; but we may dread the day if the men come home to drink and its temptations. The sudden release of millions of men, the certain reaction after the terrible stress of these three years, is fearful to contemplate with the door of the tap-room open. There would be an end of civilization itself for days and weeks and months, and for many a town at home the Peace would be worse than the War.

We owe it to these men to listen to the warning of the Prison Commissioners who printed these words in their report last year:

=When war is succeeded by peace there will come a time of trial for those who have never turned their backs to a bodily enemy. With the passing of military discipline our brave fellows will be tempted to forget the hardships and miseries of the trenches in a burst of uncontrolled pleasure and license, and, if trade be bad and work difficult to obtain, the lapse may, if not checked, become a step on a downward career.=

It is not imagination merely. Judges, coroners, police, and all who face the crime and misery of life, know well the bitter things that happen when men come home without restraint. There are witnesses innumerable. Let us hear a few of them.

A captain in the Royal Flying Corps drove a motor-car through
London, knocked a man down, drove on, and ignored the police, who
eventually mounted the footboard and found the officer drunk.

_Bow Street Police Records, June 3, 1916_

A lance-corporal on Chesterfield station was so drunk that he walked
off the platform and fell on the line as a passenger train came up.

_Chesterfield Police Records, June 2, 1915_

A corporal of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, leaving the
Front with 150 rounds of ammunition and his service rifle, came out
drunk into the streets of West Ham and began firing his rifle.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” July 10, 1915_

A soldier who had received a cartridge from his son at the Front,
put it in his rifle, and while drunk fired it in the streets of
Manchester.

_Manchester Police Records, January 27, 1915_

In the early hours of the morning two unarmed soldiers were fired at
in Woolwich by a drunken soldier, who chased them for a long
distance, firing shots all the time, until he was arrested.

_Facts in “Alliance News,” February, 1915_

Drunkenness among soldiers and sailors is appalling. Unoffending
travellers are delayed by drunken sentries. Sailors landing after
weeks of arduous toil in the North Sea find it easy to get so drunk
that some are drowned, some die from exposure, and many return to
their ships in a condition of helpless inebriety.

_Facts in “Inverness Courier,” May 1915_

Two drunken soldiers entered the parish church at Codford, set fire
to the vestry, threw down the altar cross and candlestick, broke a
stained-glass window, and tore leaves out of a Bible 200 years old.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” April 3, 1916_

A drunken soldier at Cannock was imprisoned for drawing his bayonet
in the streets. “If I meet a policeman I will murder the dog,” he
said, and, meeting one, he threatened to cut off his head.

_Police Records at Cannock, March 1916_

400 soldiers tried to get a drunken man from the police in Grantham.

_Facts in “Grimsby News,” July 30, 1915_

A drunken sergeant was found forcibly detaining a girl at Hornsey.
On the police interfering, the drunken soldier drew his bayonet.

_Facts in “Daily News,” September 7, 1916_

Three splendid-looking fellows, minesweepers, were traveling on the
Highland Railway. “All were married men,” said a fellow passenger,
“happy and proud of their homes, and they spoke with ache still in
their hearts something of their lives and work. Well, these men
succumbed during the journey. A change of trains was their
opportunity, and I left them in a nearly helpless condition.”

_Facts in “The Spectator,” April 8, 1916_

A lady visited a soldier’s wife and found her at home with all her
clothes in pawn. Her husband and brother had both been home from the
Front, and in one week had spent £8 on drink.

_Facts in the “Cork Constitution,” Dec. 10, 1915_

A labourer, home from tunnelling work at the Front, was fined 13_s._
for drunkenness on his 33rd appearance, having spent £45 in seven
days.

_Facts in “Daily News,” Oct. 11, 1916_

A disabled soldier was selling papers in Kingsway, London. He was
proud of his military record and the character his colonel gave him.
He was trying to compound for a pension; he thought he would settle
for £50. “Mind you,” said he “there is not a better character in
London than mine, and I shall get the £50. Then I shall have a
month’s booze.” “What, with that fine character of yours?” a
gentleman said to him. “Yes,” said the man, “when I came home, and
could leave the hospital, there was £50 due to me, and I had a
regular booze.”

_Facts known to the Author_

A soldier with twelve years’ clean record in the Army was sentenced
for felony after being made drunk by his friends.

_Police Records of Southport, January 9, 1915_

No Government has ever received more warnings than the three war Governments have received concerning drink. There is no room for them here, but we may call a few witnesses such as cannot be ignored by a nation looking forward to the day when millions of men will be home again.

A house in Westminster reeked with filth and drink and drunken
overseas soldiers, “and it would be better,” said the Crown
Solicitor, “if power were given to the police to sweep such places
off the earth.”

_Westminster Police Records, Aug. 1916_

A sapper seaman was found dead at the quay. Another seaman said his
friend had seven drinks. They left the publichouse arm-in-arm, and
went to the quay. There he saw a corporal, who was boatswain for the
night, and was drunk. Leaving the sapper, he got the corporal into
the boat, and went back for his friend, but the sapper had
disappeared.

The lieutenant: “The deceased was one of the quietest boys who had
ever been on the ship, and one of the best oarsmen. The whole
trouble was that it was pay day.”

The Coroner: “Prohibition during the war would be a blessing to all.
It seems to be a very rotten state of affairs.”

The foreman: “Drink.”

The lieutenant: “Prohibition would be the best thing.”

The Coroner: “This poor man, unfortunately, is one of many.”

_Facts in “Western Daily Mercury,” January 8, 1917_

A publican at Dover was fined £20 for selling a bottle of whisky to
a sailor. The Admiral said drink undermined the efficiency of the
patrol vessels, and those who supplied it directly assisted the
enemy, and might be the cause of the loss of very many lives.

_Police Records of Dover, October 6, 1916_

A private in the Northumberland Fusiliers, aged 23, was charged with
burglary while drunk. His father and three brothers were in the
Army. He took part in the battle of Loos, was wounded at Salonika,
and was recommended for distinction for helping to save a wounded
officer.

During the whole of Christmas leave he was drinking, made drunk by
his friends who were probably proud of his having held part of a
trench against a German bombing party. His captain described him as
a good soldier in peace, and brave in action—a man whose disgrace
would be felt by the regiment.

Mr. Justice Rowlatt said everyone was hoping for the time when
millions of brave men would come home after facing incredible
dangers, and we must look forward almost with terror to having these
men exposed to drink and its temptations. What would be the state of
the country in such a case unless we could make a clean sweep of
drink? We should have to face this question over and over again, and
the sooner we faced it the better.

_Records of Derbyshire Assizes, February 1917_

Whoever allowed soldiers or sailors to drink to excess, said the
Mayor of Tynemouth, should be tried by court-martial for treason. He
would be recreant in his duty to God, to himself, and to the
citizens, if he did not call attention to the brutalising of so many
townspeople and the callous conduct of the “waster” element in the
drink trade. He had no quarrel with those who conducted their
business properly.

_Facts in Tynemouth papers, February, 1915_

The Aldershot command appealed for the closing of half the
publichouses, to save the men from temptation when the troops are
demobilised and return with their pockets full of money.

_Record of Workingham Licensing Sessions, 1917_

The _Army and Navy Gazette_, in an article disapproving of the
Prohibition Campaign, issues a terrible warning which should be
printed on the door of the room in which the Army Council meets.
These are its words:

“It is on record that towards the end of the siege of Sebastopol rum
was made too regular an issue, with the result that almost every
soldier who survived to return home became a drunkard.”

The siege of Sebastopol lasted less than a year, and that is the work of the rum issue for a few months. If rum does that in months, what will it do in years?

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Into the Firing Line

Lord Kitchener is dead, but there are two things that are with us still—that rare little note that he gave to his men as they went out, warning them of drink; and that infamous note sent out by a drink firm in London, begging our people to send out drink to our men. They can guarantee it right up to the firing line, they say, and even when our shells could not get there through drink, drink seems to have found its way. It can get on to transports when the Ministry of Munitions is waiting urgently for shipping space; it can commandeer our vans and horses and trains when these mean life or death to us; it seems to get past any regulation; it goes about with the power of a king, doing its work where it will.

It is regrettable that our troops at the Front cannot get more
British Beer.

Managing Director of Allsopps, July 14, 1916

Dear Sir, In answer to your inquiry, the only limitation in the size
of cases consigned to officers in the Expeditionary Force is that
they must not exceed 1 cwt.

We can guarantee delivery right into the front trenches. The cases
are handed over at Southampton to the Military Forwarding Officer,
and the A.S.C. see them right through. We are shipping hundreds of
cases weekly. Yours faithfully,

_Letter from a Wine and Spirit firm in London_

So drink finds its way to the front, to weaken our troops, with all their matchless heroism. Let us call the witnesses who have seen the work it does.

Soldiers at the front, tried for drunkenness, have declared that
they have received drink from home. Men sometimes receive flasks in
the trenches. They are exhausted, the stimulant revives them for a
minute or two, and the harm is done. “And then (says Col. Crozier)
they get about two years’ hard labour.”

_Letter from Colonel Crozier, commanding 9th Royal Irish Rifles_

As a result of a Court-martial investigating charges of excessive
drinking among the officers of a regiment at the Front, the Army
Council removed the commanding officer from his post.

_Records of Court-martials, 1916_

In the torrid climate of Mesopotamia, in defiance of all military
medical history, rum was issued to the men instead of food and
sterile water, and the presence of cholera, dysentery and other
diseases, was attributed to this by Sir Victor Horsley. “Our gross
failures and stupidity,” he said, “are in my opinion due to whisky
affecting the intellectual organs and clearness of our leaders. They
do not realise that alcohol in small doses acts as a brake on the
brain.”

_Facts in a letter from Sir Victor Horsley, May 13, 1916_

Battalion Headquarters—colonel and chaplain present. Enter Adjutant:
“The rum ration is due tonight, sir; am I to distribute it?” The
colonel (nobly and in a voice audible all over the trench): “No!
Damn the rum! To hell with the rum!”

_Chaplain’s letter in “Alliance News,” June 1916_

At a court-martial in Newcastle, a sergeant-major, charged with
misappropriating funds of the sergeant’s mess, pleaded that during
this period a resolution of the mess had come into effect, providing
free drinks during Christmas and the New Year.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 17, 1916_

“In the Flying Services one has seen more than one good man go to
the dogs through drink, or become fat and flabby and useless through
just the excess of alcohol which falls short of taking to drink in
the usual acceptance of the term. More men take to drink because of
the ‘have another’ custom than because they like or need alcohol,
and simple Prohibition would stop all this nonsense straight away.
This kindly note is not the outpouring of a teetotal fanatic, for I
suppose I have paid in my time rather more than my share of the
nation’s drink-bill; it is merely a perfectly sound argument in
favour of increasing the nation’s efficiency at the expense of its
chief bad habit.”

_The Editor of “The Aeroplane”_

A lieutenant in the trenches, knowing that the rum ration made him
cold, threw his rum on the ground. His captain saw him, and
threatened to report him. “You do, sir,” said the lieutenant, “and I
will report you for being drunk on duty.”

_Facts in possession of the Author_

A seaman serving on a ship in Cork Harbour died from alcohol. Found
drunk and unknown, he was put on a stretcher and died.

_Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 9, 1915_

“Over three-quarters of the court-martials I have had anything to do
with are due directly or indirectly to drunkenness. Many thousands
of competent N.C.O.s and soldiers have been punished, and become
useless to the nation during their punishment, as a result of drink.

“I have never been a teetotaler, and have rather opposed the radical
temperance agitation, but am now changing my views as I see our
success over here hampered and our progress towards victory retarded
so obviously by drink.”

_Letter from a Lieut.-Colonel at the Front, seen by the Author_

The captain of a British merchant ship, drunk on the bridge, ordered
his chief gunner to fire 50 rounds of shell at nothing. The gunner
fired four rounds to appease him. Going through the Mediterranean,
the drunken captain ordered his gunner to fire at a British hospital
ship, and the incident led to a struggle for life, which ended in
the captain’s being put in irons, tried, and sentenced to five
years’ penal servitude.

_Record of Devon Assizes, Exeter, February 2, 1917_

An officer was left in charge of a British ship. Mad with drink, he
went among the men and shot one dead. He is now in an asylum.

_Case reported to the Admiralty_

The crew of a Dutch ship arriving in the Tyne was placed under a
naval guard after a drunken riot in which three were killed.

_Facts in “Daily News,” September 14, 1915_

The captain of a Norwegian barque mysteriously disappeared, and the
vessel arrived in port from the North Sea. The mate, who had been
drinking heavily, was seen, with a hammer in his hand, with the
captain in a corner, bleeding from wounds about the head.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 8, 1916_

A seaman ashore in Glasgow, “wild with drink and passion,” was
terribly wounded in a quarrel in a public-house, and died the same
night. A youth of 19 was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.

_Records of Edinburgh High Court, Dec. 1916_

A barge-loader at West India Docks died from alcohol, and three
other men were removed in an ambulance after drinking rum.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” May 9, 1916_

Orders were given on a steamer for the boats to be swung out in
readiness for submarines. The first and second officer, having been
drinking, could not do their duty.

_Records of Liverpool Marine Board, April 13, 1917_

The jury returned a verdict of murder against a youth of 19 who,
after drinking one night, went on to his ship and killed the second
officer.

_Records of Hull Coroner, April 24, 1917_

A drunken captain in command of a drifter landed with an armed party
on the Isle of Man. He posted the men on the quay, and gave them
orders to allow no one to pass. Declaring he would shoot every
person who came within reach, he fired twice, and threatened to kill
two police officers.

_Facts in “Times,” October 6, 1916_

Such is the work of drink wherever it finds a soldier to entrap—the drink the Navy carries free from Southampton to the trenches; and from America comes the news, as this page is being written, that the Army and the Navy of our Western Ally, like the Army and the Navy of our Eastern Ally, are to be under Total Prohibition.

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=how much bread is destroyed each week to make beer for German internment camps in this country?=

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Drink and the Red Cross

If the full story could ever be told of the national tragedy of drink and the war there would be no more ghastly chapter than that which would tell how drink fought the Red Cross; how, without pity, it hindered the work of mercy that is the general consolation of the world in days like these.

We are coming to a famine not only in food, but in doctors. The death-roll has been heavy beyond all parallel; the strain on the medical services has been almost too great to be borne, and we look anxiously round to know where the doctors and nurses will come from. With Prohibition the problem would be largely solved, for the ordinary burden of life would be largely lifted from our doctors and hospitals, and thousands of men and women would be free to give themselves to the war instead of mending up and patching up the sordid effects of drink. A rich brewer gave a donation for extending a hospital. “Ah! but we should not have to extend if he would shut up his public-houses,” said a doctor.

It is easy to see how drink is telling all the time against our doctors, our nurses, and our hospitals everywhere. Let us call a few witnesses.

Somebody gave a glass of neat whisky to two wounded men at a garden
party in Tottenham. Both were drunk when the brake came to take them
home, and one died on the way.

_Facts in “Sheffield Telegraph,” September 3, 1915_

Three wounded soldiers at Oxford were overcome by four bottles of
rum smuggled into the hospital by visitors, and one of the men died.

_Records of Oxford Coroner, January 1916_

A wounded soldier asked for two hours’ leave, came back in four
hours drunk with whisky, and died after a terrible night in the
hospital.

_Facts in “Daily Mail”_

Two limbless soldiers were found helplessly drunk on the pavement at
Brighton. A publican was fined £20.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” November 25, 1916_

A wounded soldier, mentioned in despatches, was charged with causing
the death of a soldier with whom he had been drinking. Reeling under
a heavy blow, the injured man was helped to bed, but when the bugle
sounded in the morning he was dead.

_Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 21, 1915_

A soldier, aged 29, with a gunshot wound in his arm, died from
alcohol at Oxford. One Sunday night he and two other wounded
soldiers consumed four bottles of rum brought into the hospital.

_Records of Oxford Coroner, January 10, 1916_

Three soldiers in hospital uniform were found lying helplessly drunk
on the tramlines of Sheffield. Two were back from the Dardanelles.

_Facts in “Sheffield Star,” March 2, 1916_

Seamen on a ship bringing wounded to England from Boulogne were so
drunk that they interfered with the stretcher bearers, and one fell
across a wounded soldier lying on deck.

_Police Records of Southampton, May 14, 1915_

There was a paralysed and helpless man who was found hopelessly
drunk in hospital after his friends had visited him.

_Statement by Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred Pearce Gould_

An officer who has trained hundreds of men for the ambulance corps
declared that a large percentage of wounded are in a very nervous
condition, in which alcohol means collapse and almost certain death.

_Quoted in “Daily Mail”_

Lying helpless at a London station, moaning on the ground in drunken
delirium, was a lad in hospital blue who had, in truth, been wounded
by his friends. Drink was taking him again through the worst of his
experiences, and his mental pain was pitiable to see.

_Facts in the “Globe,” January, 1917_

Two drunken soldiers from Gallipoli made what a doctor described as
the most savage attack he ever saw on a civilian. They held a young
man’s head against a wall and pounded him unmercifully.

_Facts in “Daily News,” August 19, 1916_

A party of soldiers were seriously injured in a struggle to arrest a
drunken private at Pontefract. The publican called on the men in his
taproom to rescue the private, but the sergeants drove them off.

_Facts in “Daily News,” October 5, 1914_

A sergeant of a Welsh regiment, invited to drink by friends in
Waterloo Road, was picked up as he lay senseless, his pulse beating
feebly, his eyes wide open, and his body starving with cold.

_Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916_

A drunken man rushed from a publichouse and kicked a soldier
unconscious. The military police, chasing the man, were stoned. Four
soldiers were injured, one having his head cut open, and the
military were ordered to clear the place with fixed bayonets.

_Facts in “Daily News,” August 11, 1915_

The medical officer in charge of the Mental Block of a large
military hospital said to the Colonel: “I have the worst job of all,
and it is through Drink, Drink, Drink! Men recover fairly soon from
shell shock, but officers, especially the younger ones, who
habitually take wines and spirits, are subject to relapses every few
days. It is awful!”

_Facts in “National Temperance Quarterly,” May 1917_

Of the thirty war hospitals in Hertfordshire, with 8000 men passing
through them in the first thirty months of the war, there is not one
that has not had trouble with drink.

_Facts known to the Author_

A doctor from a Canadian hospital said a large percentage of their
troops had had to be sent back to Canada rendered permanently insane
through the action of alcohol.

_Facts in “Daily News,” October 31, 1916_

One terrible truth remains to be told of the crime of drink against the Red Cross. The most blessed thing in all the world today is alcohol, for it makes chloroform and ether, which soothe the pain of men. We cannot get enough of either of these consoling drugs, yet we go on wasting precious food to make more alcohol _to add to the sum of misery and pain_.

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=whether the bread ration applies equally to all; or if it may be exceeded if the excess is drunk instead of being eaten?=

and

=how many brewers’ vats have been imported this year on ships which had no room for urgent munitions of war?=

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stabbing the Army in the Back

All the world is learning now that the drink trade is the great confederate of venereal disease. It leads a man into temptation, destroys his power of resistance, and retards his chances of recovery.

We can never know the truth about the extent of this disease, about the way in which the liquor trade, by breaking down tens of thousands of our men, has stabbed the Army in the back. But the number of soldiers incapacitated by this disease through drink is enormously greater than the number incapacitated by the most subtle or dramatic stroke devised by the German staff.

The lost man-power of the Army through this disease must be equal to the whole of the original British Expeditionary Force. The Government has given us figures for the Army at home last year, and they are 43 per 1,000—or over 100,000 cases for an army of 2,500,000 men. There were 7,000 cases in one Canadian camp alone.

Here are the black facts revealed in a debate in Parliament on April 23, 1917, when two distinguished Army officers, speaking with great restraint, sought to open the eyes of the nation to this plague fostered in our camps by drink:

“During the war we have had admitted into the hospitals of England
over 70,000 cases of gonorrhœa, over 20,000 cases of syphilis, and
over 6000 cases of another disease somewhat similar. I am quite
openly prepared to state that of these 20,000 cases of syphilis you
do not get much work out of them under two and a half years. I know
from what I have seen of the modern conditions of this War that you
may absolutely wipe them out, except for a few handfuls.

“When you come to the great mass of casualties under this head ...
the figures mean that you have =a Division constantly out of
action=. If you have anything like 70,000 men enfeebled, you find
that you suffer to that extent also. It is not only that you lose
the men, and not only the men who are partially cured are suffering
for many months to come, but their chances of recovery from wounds
are not nearly so good.

“I know of a hospital for venereal cases which it was found
necessary to expand from its normal accommodation for 500 or 600 up
to 2,000 cases, and they are continually full. It is a British
hospital in France. A figure I should like to submit to challenge is
that during the course of the war between 40,000 and 50,000 cases of
syphilis have passed through our hospitals in France. When you come
to gonorrhœa, the figure given me which covers that is between
150,000 and 200,000 cases.”

_Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917_

“Every Canadian soldier who comes to this country arrives here not
only a first-class specimen of a fine soldier, but as clean-limbed
and as clean a man as the Creator Himself could create. The fact
that in one only of the three Canadian camps in this country 7,000
of these clean Canadian boys went through the hospital for venereal
disease in fourteen months is not only a great discredit to any
Government in this country but has an effect in Canada which I can
assure the House does not make for a better feeling with the Home
Country, and does not make for what we all desire—Imperial Unity.”

_Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood in Parliament, April 23, 1917_

Those are unchallenged statements made in the House of Commons itself; they stand as a terrible indictment of this disease, and it is not to be denied that this evil could never have reached its present frightful proportions if Parliament had followed the King. Let us look at a few examples of the ravages of this vice allied so closely to the public-house.

It is not possible to tell the whole truth about drink; the language
in which it must be written would be offensive in a civilised
country. It must be said, simply, that soldiers in England have been
court-martialled for having been influenced by drink to commit
unspeakable offences against animals.

_Facts in Records of Court-Martials_

A special constable in a harlot-haunted district in London describes
how these harpies carry off lonely soldiers to their rooms, make
them drunk, and finally innoculate them, as likely as not, with
disease. Is it not possible to hold in check these women who prey
upon and poison our soldiers? asks Sir Conan Doyle.

_Letter in the “Times”_

One of the hot-beds of venereal disease to which drink leads our
soldiers, was kept by an Austrian woman in Lambeth, who was
receiving 15_s._ a week from the Austrian Government in April 1916,
and used to lure our soldiers when weakened by drink. All the men
seen to enter this house were either soldiers or sailors.

_Police Records of Lambeth_

A soldier from the Front with £18 was taken by a married woman to
her home, where he was found after a drunken bout with eight women,
all drunk. The woman’s children were terribly neglected.

_Police Records of St. Helens, November 30, 1915_

If you describe the Waterloo Road and the back streets as an open
sewer you will be somewhere near the truth. Not a day goes by
without bringing some soldier who has been waylaid.

_Facts in the “Times,” February 22, 1917_

A soldier came from the Front to go home to Scotland. He got drunk
near Waterloo, losing all his money and his railway pass. He spent
his leave living on charity, and returned to the Front without
having been near either his home or his friends.

_Facts in “Daily News,” February 14, 1916_

Here is the official proof of the relation of the drink trade to this traffic in disease. It is from the Report of the Royal Commission:

Abundant evidence was given as to the intimate relation between
alcohol and venereal diseases.

Alcohol renders a man liable to yield to temptations which he might
otherwise resist, and aggravates the disease by diminishing the
resistance of the individual.

Alcoholism makes latent syphilis and gonorrhœa active.

Our evidence tends to show that the communication in disease is
frequently due to indulgence in intoxicants, and there is no doubt
that the growth of temperance among the population would help to
bring about an amelioration of the very serious conditions which our
enquiry has revealed.

We desire, therefore, to place on record our opinion that action
should be taken without delay.

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=if, in view of Lord D’Abernon’s statement that Prohibition has failed in Canada, the Government will issue the figures showing the decrease of crime and the increase of wealth?=

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Price the Empire Pays

It is a bitter irony that while the men of the Empire have come to France to fight the enemy of mankind, this foe within our gates has struck a blow at the British Empire that generations will not heal. How many Empire men this private trade has slain we do not know, but we know beyond all challenge that it has weakened the bonds that bind our Dominions to the Motherland. This trade that throttles us at home can pull the Empire down, and it has started well. It has struck its blow at Canada.

Let us look at the plain facts which in other days than these would have caused a storm of anger that Parliament could not have ignored. Canada has followed the King; arming herself with her full powers, flinging herself upon her enemies with her utmost strength, she has swept drink out of Canada almost from sea to sea. But even before she did this Canada saw that alcohol must go from her camps if her men were to be fit to fight for England, and long before the Prohibition wave swept across the country, the Canadian Government removed all alcohol from the training camps. It was the deliberate choice of a Government and its people, and from that day to this there has been no reason for regret.

So the young manhood of Canada, rallying to the flag, was guarded from alcohol. She poured out her men in hundreds of thousands; they came to us from Prohibition camps; they came in Prohibition ships, and even here this trade that has us in its grip was not allowed at first in the Canadian camps; the only condition that Canada made—a condition implied but clearly understood—was properly regarded and obeyed.

We respected the desire of Canada, and kept her soldiers free from drink in their own camps. But a soldier cannot keep in camp, and in the villages around the Drink Trade waits in every street. The military authorities were willing for the Canadian Government to have their way inside the camps, but drink was free outside, and in these public-houses there was sown the seed that may one day break this Empire. The Drink Trade was so rampant outside the Canadian camps that Prohibition inside was almost in vain. We had to decide between breaking the word of the Canadian Government to its people or dealing with this trade as Canada herself has done; as Russia has done; as France and America are doing. It was the Empire or the drink traffic, and the drink traffic won, as it always wins with us.

It came about in October, down on Salisbury Plain. During one week-end a number of Canadian troops gave way to drinking in villages around the camps, and it was then that the grave decision was come to that the drink trade should be allowed to set up its horrible canteens in every Canadian camp. The change was made at the request of a British General, and we have the assurance of the Prime Minister of Canada that the approval of the Canadian Government was neither obtained nor asked. In handing the Canadian Army over to the drink canteens, in deliberately reversing the policy of the Canadian Government and its people, there was no consultation with Canada.

It is important to remember that this decision, fraught with tragic and far-reaching consequences for the Empire, was a pure and simple English act. We may imagine the Canadian view from the remark of a Canadian General, who said, “I know drink is a hindrance, but I can do very little, because in military circles in this country drunkenness is not considered a very serious offense.”

It would have been surprising if there had not poured in upon our Government a stream of protests, and from all parts of the Dominions they came. The Dominion of Canada, giving freely to the Motherland 450,000 boys and men, was moved to passionate indignation that England should scorn her love for them, should ignore the pleadings of their mothers and sisters, and should put in their way the temptations from which they were saved at home. Canada does not want our drink trade; she lives side by side with the United States, she sees that great country building up its future free from drink, and she sees America, splendid ally in war, as a mighty rival in peace.

And Canada is ready for the Reconstruction. She has followed the Prohibition lead of the United States, and already she has ceased to be a borrowing country. The very first year of Prohibition has seen this young Dominion, for the first time in her history, financially self-sustaining. Crime is disappearing; social gatherings are held in her gaols; she has set up vast munition workshops, and instead of borrowing money for her own support she has made hundreds of millions’ worth of munitions for which this country need not pay until the war is over, and then need never pay at all for the munitions the Canadians have used. Canada is in deadly earliest. She kept her men away from drink to make them fit; she has swept it away to make a clean country for those who go back.

And what is England’s contribution to this Imperial Reconstruction? _We have scorned it all._ The Prime Minister has said that this drink trade is so horrible that it is worth this horrible war to settle with it, yet we have sacrificed the love of Canada on our brewers’ altar. We can believe the Canadian who declares his profound conviction that but for this Canada would have sent us 100,000 more recruits; we can believe it is true that where responsible Canadians meet together in these days the talk is of how long the tie will last unbroken that binds the daughter to the Motherland. We can understand the passion that lies behind the resolutions that come to Downing Street from Nova Scotia; we know the depth of the yearning of those 64,000 mothers and wives of Toronto who signed that great petition to the Government of Canada begging it in the name of God to intervene.

We can understand it all; but let us call the witnesses, and let us see the price the Dominion pays for our quailing before this Kaiser’s trade.

Those Who Will Not Go Back

It is the great consolation of Canada that, though their sons may fall before this tempter’s trade in Britain, they will go back to a Canada free from drink. But some will never go back, and they are not on the Roll of Honour. They have been destroyed by the enemy within our gate, this trade that traps men on their way to France and digs their graves.

A young Canadian who had never tasted alcohol came from a
Prohibition camp in Canada, came to England on a Prohibition ship,
and was put in a camp with a drink canteen. He started drinking and
contracted venereal disease. Ordered home as unfit, in fear and
shame he sought a friend’s advice about the girl he was to marry.
“You can never marry her,” said his friend, and that night in his
hut the young Canadian blew out his brains.

_Facts in possession of the Author_

A young Canadian officer was sent home disgraced. Sodden with
alcohol, he left the train and shot a railway clerk dead.