PLAYING THE GAME.
(To THE EDITOR OP TUE " SpEcnrort.") SIR,--We are on our honour; on our honour we must not rat more than our share. But all moderate drinkers of alcohol in this country—the only drinkers who really matter much and stand as a mighty barrier against the stopping of drink—are not keeping faith. The beer-drinkers in this country now are drink- ing away the vital food of three or four million people all the time—sugar for three millions and bread for four millions. It is especially hard on the poor, but I plead with the moderate drinker, not for men and women, who may be able and willing to suffer even hunger, but for the little children. if you take the children in this country under six years old you will find they are one-seventh of the population, and their rations come to five million pounds of sugar and twenty million pounds of bread. We can just afford to give them that. But the moderate drinkers of beer in this country, in addition to their ordinary rations, are drinking away the rations of these little children for more than half the year—six months' sugar and nine months' bread. A year's drinking, even with drink three-quarters stopped, robs Our child life of this enormous reserve of fifty per cent. and seventy-fire per cent. of our most vital foods. Our moderate drinkers aro generally good fellows, fair and square in their dealings with the world. They like to do the straight thing, and we may surely ask them to play the game.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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