Some 30 or forty students assembled last night in Sever 11, to hear Dr. Lyman Abbott's address to the Total Abstinence league. Dr. Abbott stated in the beginning that he had a great dislike to speak on temperance questions, and a greater dislike to refuse to speak; that he was not a prohibitionist; that he denied the right of any man or body of men to prescribe to any other man or body of men what they should or should not eat, drink or wear. There are several undisputed facts which bear on the temperance problem. First, alcohol and distilled liquors are poisonous and not foods; second, wines and other fermented liquors are not foods in the ordinary sense of the term, and neither serve to build up issues nor to warm the body; third, they do however arrest decay of the tissues, so that they may be very beneficial to old men, but never to young men in good health; fourth, the saloon is an evil-it is the poor man's club; fifth, all drinking between meals is injurious.
With these facts in view every young man has to decide for himself; is it wise or unwise to drink moderately? He who has his mind made up to drink and he who has his mind make up not to drink has a great advantage over him who does not know whether to drink or not. The latter is always on the horns of a dilemma. Dr. Abbott's own advice to any young man would be to regard all alcoholic liquors as medicines.
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