‘And then pay compensation to the owner. That would be rather a costly matter.’
‘No; I would put it the other way. Take, for instance, a consumptive couple in humble life. They marry early. The mother has a large family. The father dies of consumption before he has reached middle age, after being in a hospital for months, supported at the public expense, and he leaves his children, if they live, to be supported by the parish. If there is to be compensation, it is not the State that ought to be asked to pay it. If drink be one cause of poverty, surely hereditary disease is another. In a perfect community neither should be allowed to exist. Think of such awful things as epilepsy and insanity, and cancer and scrofula, none of which science can cure! Why not ask society to stamp them out? It is downright wickedness to allow them to be propagated in our midst.’
‘Public opinion would never consent to that.’
‘No,’ replied Buxton; ‘I am quite aware of that; but I would create a public opinion that would regard such marriages with horror, and then they would gradually become rare. Men and women have duties to society, and have to think of something else than the gratification of selfish passion or mere animal instinct. It is thus hereditary disease may disappear, and the nation be all the stronger and happier and richer. I know there are good people who look upon such afflictions as the result of the Lord’s chastening hand, and as they bury wife, or husband, or son, or daughter, learn to kiss the rod—as they call it—and to thank the Lord that He thus is weaning them from the world, and preparing them for a better world, whither they tell us their loved ones are already gone. I have no sympathy with that state of mind. It seems to me almost blasphemous, as the bereavements they rejoice in for their supposed sanctifying effects are simply the natural result of their own folly and imprudence and disregard of natural law. In the days of ignorance how did we treat the insane? Why, they were regarded as victims of Divine wrath, and the priest was called in—and of course well paid—to exorcise the evil spirit. That we do not do so now is a proof that we are a little wiser than our fathers—that, in fact, we are not quite such thundering fools; but we have a good deal yet to learn, nevertheless.’
‘The fact is,’ said Wentworth, ‘a man must learn to deny himself for the public good. Rather a difficult task that. If the victim of hereditary disease refuses to marry and have children, hereditary disease will die out. Is not that asking too much of human nature?’
‘There we must appeal to the law for the protection of the general public. The community is of more importance than the individual.’
‘But there is no law that cannot be evaded.’
‘Exactly so. Laws against drunkenness are constantly broken, but they have a beneficial effect nevertheless. A prohibitory liquor law goes too far. To act on the idea that a glass of claret, or beer, or cider does mischief to anyone is absurd. Walter Mapes was right when he wrote in praise of drink. As the old monk writes—
‘“A glass of wine amazingly enliveneth one’s internals.”’
‘You are right there,’ replied Wentworth. ‘Last summer I was at a seaside watering-place. There had been a regatta there, and I had written a description of it for our paper. In a day or two after the event was celebrated by a grand dinner at the leading hotel, to which I was invited. Unfortunately, on the day of the dinner I was desperately ill. My head was splitting; my skin was as tough as the hide of a rhinoceros; I ached in every limb. I went to the medical men of the district; there were two of them in partnership. No. 1 made me believe that I was in a bad way; No. 2 made me out worse. “Could I go to the dinner?” I asked. “By no means,” was the reply. “Take this medicine, go home and go to bed, and we will come and see you in the morning.” Ill as I was, I went to the dinner. It was a very jovial one, and I sat drinking champagne till late. I went home, slept like a top, and woke up as well as I ever was in my life. The next morning the doctor came. “Ah,” he said, “I see you look all the better for my medicine.” I said, “I did not take a drop of your medicine. I went to the dinner, drank champagne all night, and it was that which cured me.” “Very strange that,” said the doctor. “The very things we think poison have often quite a contrary effect.” My own opinion is that if I had taken the medicine I should have been ill for a week at least. I don’t take wine as a daily drink, because I can’t afford it, for one reason, and for another because I believe, taken daily, it has a mischievous effect. But there are times when it does good, and life is not so joyous that we can afford to dispense entirely with the pleasant stimulus of wine. I would not prevent its manufacture. No society has ever existed without the winecup for its feasts and holidays. I would not put down the liquor traffic. I would only shut up the drink shops. It is they that cause the drunkenness which does so much mischief, and there is no need for their existence at all.