" DOWN GLASSES."
[To TEE EDITOR OF ins " Seecraroa."3
&n,—May I be permitted the courtesy of a little of your space to protest against the letter in your issue of January 27th signed " An Officer on Active Service in France "P With the advisability or the reverse of Prohibition in England for the period of the war I have no concern, but to introduce Prohibition amongst the forces in France would in my opinion be little short of criminal. I wonder whether the " Officer on Active Service " who writes so glibly has spent days on end in the trenches during the terribly cold weather we are having now, or whether he has some nice job miles behind the line. If he has had experience of the trenches, especially at night, he would hardly write as he does. Prohibition would mean the cessation of the rum issue, without which it is no exaggeration to say the men could hardly keep going. To spend fourteen hours in a frozen trench at all is bad enough, and the stimulus that rum affords is the saving of the men, but if they had no such stimulant I doubt very much if the majority could keep it up. And, further, what harm can a glass of beer do a man when he is in rest billets? Surely he has deserved it, and to suggest, as does your correspondent, that drunkenness in the Army is rampant is a disgraceful libel which every officer here would :support me in refuting. In conclusion, Sir, put your case for Prohibition on the grounds of Beer versus Bread and you have
a strong case, but put it as the teetotal fanatics put it, one of which your " Officer " apparently is, and you weaken your case
We have newer proposed Prohibition at the front, and we agree that the men would probably miss the rum ration greatly in the appalling conditions in which they fight. As a matter of fact. however, the consumption of alcohol in extreme cold is from the scientific point of view not indicated but contra-indicated: In the Arctic and Antarctic no intoxicants are allowed. They are short cuts to froatbites and death froni failure of bodily- heat. Alcohol sends the body temperature down. not up. Hot milk and sugar, not rum or whisky, are the best stimulants in very cold weather.—En. Spectator.]
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