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LOliD DUN GANNON AS A LEGISLATOR.I

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I 1 PAUPERISM OF SHROPSHIRE…

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R.OUOUGH M'AG; OF RATES' COURT.

WREXHAM COUNTY COURT. I

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WREXHAM…

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ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WREXHAM TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. The annual meeting of the Wrexham Temperance Society took place on Monday last. In the afternoon a finance meeting took place at the Temperance Hotel, Regent-street, wh n the following statement was read In the evening a public meeting took place in the Music Hall. The chair was occupied by W. Law, Esq, of the Vron Cilliery, who openei the proceedings in a 1 .1 very eloquent address ot some length. Alter alluding to the smallness of the numbers present at the beginning of the meeting, which had been accounted for partly by the circumstance of there being a lecture of a scientific character that evening in the Town Hall, in connection With the Literary Institute, he advised the managers to endeavour in making their arrangements, to select an evening for their meeting when it would not interfere with other meetings of a useful character. With regard to the object on which they bad met, all parties were ready to unite with them in denouncing the evils of drunkenness, but they were sometimes charged by their opponents with exaggerating those evils. His opinion was that many of the evils connected with the drinking system were not known to the public. According to a recent article in the Quarterly Review," the sum an- nually expended in this country for intoxicating drinks, was sixty millions-out of this twenty millions was spent by the working classes. A sum sufficient to make a thousand miles of railway at two thousand pounds per mile-five times the distance from here to London-and that every year. It was a sum of money that would build fifty Great Easterns. It would educate, board and I clothe four hundred children. All classes were infected with these drinking customs from the highest to the lowest-there was not a family to be found who had not to mourn some one who had fallen a victim. They had had had warning enoughs- if they doubted this, let them look at their police courts, at their gaols, and their asylums, at their poor houses. Let them watch the drunkard, look at his cheerless home, his heart broken wife, and his ragged children. How was all this to be cured ? In two ways. First, by abstaining: secondly, by prohibiting the salo of intoxicating drink. Lead us not into tempt ition, but deliver us from evil, were two of the petitions of that prayer which every mother taught their infants to lisp. That prayer was repeated by every Church of England ininiister six times every Sunday morning. Some said it was a degrading thing to take the pledge—that teetotallers were something less than men on account of having done so. Did not every member of any society do the same thing ? When they joined their cricket or their rifle clubs did not fhey bind themselves to obey the rules of those societies ? They, as tecioallers, had but one rule-that rule was to abstain* The second part of their plan was to prohibit the sale of these drinks deliver us from evil." The Maine Law had done much good in America, and it would do the same here. But to attempt to carry out the Maine Law at once would be perfectly absutd-what they proposed was a permissive bill, which would enablo them to put down every public-house in a district, when two out of every three of the inhabitants were willing to do so. They had a precedent for this in the Public Libraries Bill, whereby, if two thirds of the inhabitants voted for its adoption, a rate could be imposed upon that township for the support of a public library. This bill would be brought forward next session-it may not pass—but then it would be brought forward again and again until it did pass (cheers.) The Rev. Joseph Jones next briefly addressed the meeting. He predicted that tho movement, though not popular or fashionable at present, must eventually buc- ceed, because it had the approval of heaven. Mr W. H. Darby was next called upon. He said it always gave him great pleasure to stand on a temperance platform. He had nothing new to bring before them, but would content himself with reading one or two ex- tracts with a iiew more particularly of showing the progress the question was making amongst the clergy of the Church of England, 200 of whom had lately signed a declaration, which had been headed by the Dean of Carlisle. Mr Darby then read the following extract from a speech made by the Dean of Carlisle:— He was now fully persuaded that Christian friends had no idea of the extent and ramifications of the misery that is oc- casioned in this country at this moment, not as he had stated in print, by drunkenness, but by the dririk-fop. plause)- by that which intoxicates: he did'nt care what it was called, or what heap of words were in the Bible about it—what he meant was the something which made a niiU drunk; only he was quite sure it was not water. People had no idea of the amount of secret drinking there was. They said that among the upper or richer classes th re was much less drinking than there used to be. But there was a grc.:t deal of secret drinking. No. body knew anything about it, but it came out now and then-it bubbled and leaked out in spite of them. He had often thought people appeared stupid, and when he came to ask the cause-it was drink." Mo one had any idea of the extent of the evil they had to contend against, and therefore it was that people thought it was to be dealt with as other moral evils are dealt with, and that there was no necessity for any special or peculiar efforts to be made against it. No one knew how seiiously the drink interfered with moral and social progress until I they examined for themselves, and there were abundant ns.tance of people who were at first opposed to Teeto- .alism finding, on making personal visits to certain dis- nets, that there was but one remedy for the evil, It wa? all very well for people sitiil- in their drawing- roc ns to pass sneakingly by a p.ib'.h-'jouse and say, ] 'o w nasty it isbu1. let the:n go and facs the demon in 'c str-et. and alleys, and they would s .0 thit this is thL jnly weapon that they could use agiinst the evil. I" h ::> He referred to the exertions of the e'er^vman's wife 6t Shrewsbury, and to the wender'ul results w hich had I crowned those efforts; -nl stated thaf he had receiv-d a communication from ill3 vicar of Whitby, since the publication of his pamphlet. Whitby was a seaport i abounding with drunken sailors. For thive years the rufaM laboured without aav app-irent result. He n-"as?.cd3ndtcc'u''J a?i?)n.!v. but !n never could get the ra:'n to attend. At length he bejan to "is:t thÚr ,,e. t t'le m:?n t?) atten(l. At ',cn g tl?i be be?,tn t,3 vis;t t h eir homes on an cvtnin? whn the men were in "nd then ho found the cau-e of their nbsencc was drink. He con- versed air I reasoni-i with thmi, became h:ms.:lf a Teeto- ,n !t i ,n, a;il i n,)w a zg :-Cit taler, and pers jaded others to join him, aad now a grcit reformation had taken plaee in the to«-r., and the people were more orderly and more comfortable in their !'< in -q. At first the vicar had not been a Teetotaler — ict many of the clergy were-indeed it was amu-insr to s. I a meeting of the clergy if some goo.i-irm.ci c-ira'« among them happened to say, I am a Tcet"t.vcr lot the course of two years, however, the vie r of Whi: bv had made 1,300 members of the Teetotal Society, a; J had gained over every clergyman unJ e .-ery dissent:ng minister, except one clergyman who was forbidden by the physicians. The dean concluded thus—They do a great deal cf mischief, these doctors; and I have eschewed them long ago. They are terrible for pre- scribing porter, brandy and water, and so on. Well, the vicar's church is filled, his schools are prosperous, and in going among the cottages of the fishermen, instead ol foul blasphemy, drunkenness, and miserable fighting, all is i peaceable and contented the people are getting them- sel ves good clothing, and are raising themselves in the social scale. If a man wishes to raise himself in the political so.de, the best thing is to become a Teetotaler, and spend no more money in drink. I trust that we shall go on now every one of us, unmoved by ridicule, un- shaken by argument, increased in strength and in noe conviction of our own consciences, knowing that, if we fear God and please him, we have nothing to fear in this world to come." Mr Darby next read the following ex- tract from a speech by Mr Smithies, Editor of the British. Workman, with reference to the efforts of Mrs Wightnictn, in Shrewsbury Within the last three months three books written by ladies had been published which seemed destined, by God's blessing, to produce a social revolution in the land—' Ragged Homes, and How to Mend Them,' by M rs Bailey; < Haste to the Rescue,' by Mrs Wightman; and The Missing Link,' by Mrs Raynard. Amongst the Christian ministers of the land these books were having a great, though silent influence, and they would, he believed, lead to a movement that woul.1 surprise the friends of Temperance. Having been greatly interested in the statements contained in Haste to the Rescue,' he was induced to pay a visit to Shrews. bury and the locality especially described, and he found that the extent of the reformation effected had not been at all overstated. The change was great and wonderful. After going to the homes of some of the reformed men, and having his heart made glad by what he saw and heard, he went to the Vicarage and conversed with Mrs Wightman herself, and learned from her husband that from seventy to a hundred individuals had by her means been induced to become regular attendants at church, who never used to go to a place of worship before. These results had mainly been brought about by the force of example. Till that lady signed the pledge herself, her efforts seemed to be all thrown away. The I signing of the pledge gave her a power with the people she sought to reform which she never had before. When Haste to the Rescue' had been out only three weeks, the authoress learnt that three clergymen had, through readina- it, been induced to sign the pledge." Mr Bott was next called upon. He said he could bear testimony to the good Mrs Wlffhtmau had done from his own personal knowledge. At Christmas he received an invitation from this good lady, when he saw 170 in- dividuals taking tea together, who were formerly in the habit of spending £4,00 per annum in intoxicating drinks, all of which was spent now in procuring domestic comforts. With regard to the twenty millions spent by the working classes there was by no means a small pro- portion of that spent in Wrexham. They had lately lost one of their most noble champions, but they had deter- mined not to let the good works he had commenced die out. Efforts were about to be made to open the Work- ing Mens* Reading Room again. On Monday there would be a social tea party connected therewith, and a public meeting afterwards in the Music Uall, when Mr. Thomas, of Etlesmere, would be preaeut, and would no doubt give them a thrilling address. They also intend- ed to start again the Saturday evening concerts (cheers.) Tho proceedings were much enlivened by Mr Seth Roberts singing a temperance melody between each of the addresses, and the meeting was brought to a close by singing the dox dogv, and the Rev Joseph Jones pro- nouncing the beadiction.

WREXHAM BOARD OF GUARDIANS.I

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