THE HON. CONRAD DILLON.
TEMPERANCE AND THE SOLDIERS.
What a fascinating book might be written about the story of temperance work in the Army! Long before any attempt at organised effort, the gallant Havelock had seen the necessity of inculcating "sober habits" among our brave defenders. Coming to our own times, Miss Sarah Robinson, Mrs. Daniells and her daughter at home, and the Rev. J. Gelson Gregson in India, have laboured with more or less success to bring about a change in the state of affairs. The National Temperance League did a vast amount of pioneer work through its military agent, the late Samuel Sims. The formation of the Army Temperance Association a few years back, gave the movement a position which even the most sanguine of its friends would not have ventured to expect. There can be little doubt that this result is largely due to the far-seeing intelligence which its devoted Honorary Secretary, the Hon. Conrad Dillon, has brought to the work. His sagacious counsels, unfailing tact, and extraordinary power of attracting the sympathetic co-operation of the commanding officers, have combined to place the work upon a footing from which it is scarcely likely to be displaced. At the autumn manœuvres on Salisbury Plain the Army Temperance Association was much in evidence, and a number of most successful meetings were addressed by the Hon. Conrad Dillon and the popular secretary of the Association, Mr. Clare White. The Patron of the Association is the Duke of Cambridge; the President is the Duke of Connaught; the Chairman of the Council is Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, and the Chairman of the Executive Committee is General Sir Martin Dillon, K.C.B. The Association publishes an attractive periodical entitled On the March, and its comparatively small subscription list is supplemented by a Government grant of £500. It speaks volumes for the thoroughly satisfactory nature of the work done that the Government actually parts with this little plum annually. The amount might easily be doubled in view of the saving to the nation which the improved stamina of the Army has effected, an improvement most certainly traceable to the efforts of temperance workers.
ON SALISBURY PLAIN.
(Working the Field Telegraph.)
VETERAN STANDARD BEARERS.
The close of the year was marked by the death of some notable pioneers of temperance. The Rev. G. H. Kirwood, M.A., was for upwards of fifty years identified with the cause in Hereford, and the Rev. Isaac Doxsey for even a longer period in the metropolis. Charles Pollard, of Kettering, could be credited with sixty years' untiring advocacy; John Faulkner, of Derby, had been an abstainer for fifty-five years; and William Symington, of Market Harborough, had reached the patriarchal age of eighty-nine. Apart altogether from the noble work which these lamented worthies accomplished, their long lives present a concrete argument as to the benefits of total abstinence which it will take a great deal to explain away. May the example of their consistent perseverance prove an incentive to young men to follow in their steps!
THE COLONY FOR INEBRIATE WOMEN, DUXHURST.