DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsoftemp01steb 
 

.intuit:' 
 
HOME OF THE INTBMPERA'IE. 
 
 ♦ 
 
FIFTY 
 
 TEAES HISTOEY 
 
 OF THE TEMPEEAHOE CAUSE. 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 THE GREAT NATIONAL CURSE, THREATENING THE PURITY AND 
 
 . m 
 
 STABILITY OF OUR INSTITUTIONS, SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS; 
 
 THE .fruitful' SOURCE OF POVERTY, MISERY, CRIME, 
 
 AND DEGRADATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND 
 FAMILY. 
 
 DESCRIBING 
 
 THE PROCESS OP MANUFACTURING LIQUOR^; POISONOUS 
 INGREDIENTS USED IN ADULTERATION; OFFICIAL RE- 
 PORTS OP REVENUE RECEIPTS FROM ITS SALE. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 OF THE VARIOUS MEANS ADOPTED FOR ITS SUPPRESSION THROUGH 
 LEGISLATION, OPEN AND SECRET TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES ; 
 WASHINGTONIANS; GOOD TEMPLARS; GOOD SAMARI- 
 TANS ; DAUGHTERS OF SAMARIA, ETC., FROM THE 
 FIRST ORGANIZED SOCIETY TO THE PRESENT 
 TIME. 
 
 CAREFULLY PREPARED FROM THE MOST RELIABLE AND EMINENT AUTHORITIES. 
 
 BY J. E. STEBBINS, 
 
 A-UTIIOR OF MOSES AND THE PROPHETS, CHRIST .VND THE APOSTLES, FATHERS AND 
 martyrs; glory of -the I.HMORTAL life, ETC. 
 
 WITH 
 
 A PULL DESCRIPTION OP THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OP THE NEW PLAN OP 
 LABOR BY THE WOMEN UP TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 BY T. A. H. BEOWN, 
 
 REPORTER FOR THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE, WHO HAS BEEN CONSTANTLY IN 
 THE FIELD. 
 
 ILLUSTE AT ED.YoIhCbUa GENTS, ONLY. 
 
 HARTFOED: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY L. STEBBIHS. 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO:— HENEY HOWE. 
 
 M. A. PARKER & CO., 163 AND 165 CLARK ST., CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 L. STEBBINS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
c 
 
 
 1 ,'7 . 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In order to insure efBcient action in any direction, it is 
 highly important there should be a full understanding of all 
 those things which have a practical bearing on the subject 
 in hand. In general, there is a vague sort of recognition 
 of the claims of Temperance — a thoughtless assent to 
 their transcendent importance ; and yet there is a deplora- 
 ble apathy and indifference among the mass of the people 
 with reference to the whole matter. With a want of con- 
 sideration, and perhaps a want of knowledge, they are^ in 
 great measure, ignorant of the gigantic proportions intem- 
 perance is assuming in the land, and the impending danger, 
 in consequence, to all the dearest and best interests of hu- 
 mankind. They are not aware of the startling facts, which 
 are as so many revelations of- the power and extent of a 
 mighty evil that is working ruin in society, and impoverish- 
 ing and degrading, not only individuals and families, but 
 even the nation itself. They do not know how long is the 
 procession that is marching on under the black banner of a 
 most determined foe, nor of the blight and desolation the 
 enemy is spreading in its . course. They are but slightly 
 moved by the stirring appeals that are now and then made 
 to them by a passing lecturer, for they have no intelligent 
 appreciation of the broad, urgent, and pressing need for 
 action. To meet this condition of the common people, is 
 the design of the present volume, and in its, preparation 
 access has been had to the best and most reliable author- 
 ities of this country and of Europe. 
 
 It aims to gi%m a faithful representation of the drinking 
 system, in its every aspect. It shows what it does and must 
 inevitably do in the case of any person who allows himself 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 to come under the influence ^of it, in any degree. It gives 
 a record of the alarming results that attend it, and pictures 
 the fearful end of the tippler — darkly shaded, indeed, but 
 true, as too many can testify. The story needs to be told ; 
 told until the people — as the heart of one man — shall awake 
 to the tremendous issues, and be moved to take part in the 
 stern conflict ; told until the eyes and ears of aU mankind 
 shall be open to see and hear the sights and sounds that are 
 associated with this phase of public and private life ; told 
 until it shall reach the remotest hamlets, and inspire with 
 courage and earnestness that shall be as a universallj’' pop- 
 ular sentiment to resist the assaults of a dreaded invader. 
 Temperance or Intemperance is the question. Shall the 
 benignant reign of the one give us peace and prosper- 
 ity,' or the wasting desolation of the other be our grief 
 and our cui'se ? The answer belongs to the people. 
 Then, let none turn away from these candid and impartial 
 statements. Let no prejudice deter an}" one from a delib- 
 erate survey of the important work. ' Lot no one shut his 
 heart against the conviction these truths are calculated to 
 awaken. It is a vital subject. It touches man’s interest 
 at every point. It appeals to every attribute of his na- 
 ture, his affection, his honor, his ambition, his dignity, and 
 as he regards his salvation, in all these and more, he should 
 take heed to the call. 
 
 For such an end as this we would send this volume into 
 eveiy family. We would introduce it into every home, and 
 say to its inmates — it was meant for j’our highest weal ; 
 take and read it. Let fathers and mothers give it to their 
 sons as they go out into the world, and bid them ponder 
 and practise ; so shall it be to them as a shield in the time 
 of temptation, and fortify them in the hour of danger ; and 
 thus there shall be a good beginning in the work of reform, 
 that shall gladden the homes and hearts that are to add to 
 the stability and glory of the American Eepublic. 
 
 J. E. STEBBtNS. 
 
I<i^t of 
 
 Home of the Temperate, 
 
 Home of the Intemperate, 
 
 Drinking Punch and Flip, 
 
 Drinking Cider, - - . 
 
 Wine at Dinner, . . . 
 
 The Club Room, - - - 
 
 Billiard Saloon, . . . 
 
 Respectable Bar, - - - 
 
 The Groggery, - - - . 
 
 Alms House and Potters-field, ' - 
 Young Lady Offering Her Lover Wine, 
 The Result, ... 
 
 German Beer garden, - - - 
 
 Wine at Twenty-one, 
 
 Whisky and Brandy at Twenty-eight, 
 AU Kinds at Thirty-five, 
 
 Healthful, . . _ - 
 
 Moderate Drinking, 
 
 Drunkards, . . - - 
 
 Ulcerous, - ’ - 
 
 Pase. 
 
 Fronti^ieee. 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 - 33 
 33 
 
 - 63 
 63 
 
 - 63 
 63 
 
 - 63 
 63 
 
 - 75 
 75 
 
 - 97 
 108 
 
 - 108 
 108 
 
 - 108 
 108 
 - 108 
 108 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Delirium Tremens, - . . . _ 
 
 Delirium Tremens, - - • . . _ . . _ 
 
 The Five Points, 
 
 A New Tork Dancing Saloon, . - . . . ^35 
 
 Signing the Pledge, - - . . . . . 
 
 Police Court, - . . . . . -176 
 
 Washingtonians, 234 
 
 John B. Gough, - - - - . . 399 
 
 Dio Lewis, - 399 
 
 Dr. O. P. Jewett, 399 
 
 Mrs. Runyan, 399 
 
 Mother Stewart, 399 
 
 First Call, or Laying Siege to Van Pelt’s Saloon, - . . 345 
 
 Van Pelf Surrenders, - - - - . -351 
 
 Saloon Keeper Surrenders and Signs the Pledge, - - - 421 
 
 Singing Outside the Saloon, ..... 443 
 
TABLE OF COl^TE^^TS 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Inteivepeeance — THE Natioh’s Cuese. 
 
 OTJR FAIR HERITAGE. THE CURSE UPON IT. — NATURE ANB EXTENT. 
 
 . — UNITED STATES TAX, — CAPITAL INVESTED. FIRST DISTILLATION. 
 
 — DRINKING IN HIGH PLACES. — ORDINATION BILLS. — FIRST SOCIE- • 
 TIES. — TOTAL ABSTINENCE, — THE CRISIS Page 17 
 
 CHAPTER .II. 
 
 Physiological View oe Ihtempeeahce. 
 
 AFFINITY OF NATURAL AND MORAL. — DEFACES THE HUMAN FORM. — 
 THE doctor’s EXPERIMENT. — A PHILOSOPHER’S APHORISMS, ALCO- 
 
 HOL NO PROTECTION AGAINST COLD. — ASSERTION OP AN ENGLISH 
 SAILOR. — STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. — DR. JEWETT’s TES- 
 TIMONY AS A MEDICINE ‘ 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Intemperance as related to Heart and Intellect. 
 
 RELATION OF MIND AND BODY. — KINGLY POWER OP INTELLECT. — 
 DOOM OF TALENTED MEN. — QUEEN CITY STATESMEN. — THE WAN- 
 DERING BEGGAR. — POWELL’s OPINION. — EPICURUS. — HUGH MILLEr’s 
 TESTIMONY. — THE MORAL NATURE. — EFFECTS OP MORAL BLIGHT. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Social and Religions Outlook. 
 
 NO PAET or BEING UNTOUCHED. — HOME, THE HEART OF THE SOCIAL 
 WORLD*. — THE YOUNG MAN. — CASE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. — POT- 
 BBTY NOT THE GREATEST CUESE. — LOSS TO SOCIETY. — BLIGHT 
 UPON THOSE FACULTIES WHICH BUILD UP RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 62 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 CHARTER V. 
 
 Origin of the Evil. 
 
 MODERATE DRINKING. — EFFECT OF A SINGLE GLASS. — SUPPOSITION OF 
 ITS LIFE-LONG INFLUENCE. — MODERATION INVOLVES THE GREATER 
 
 DANGER. THE MEETING. — THE PAUPER’S STORY^ — LITTLE BY 
 
 LITTLE - 02 
 
 • 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 What is the Stlmhlant? 
 
 CLEOPATRA. — THE FIRST STEP. SOCIAL PARTY. NEW Y'EAR’s CUS- 
 
 TOM. — THE CREEK INDIAN. — ANECDOTE OF HENRY WILSON. — CHEM- 
 ICAL TESTS. — PORT AND MADEIRA, SO CALLED. WINE DEALER’S 
 
 CONFESSION. PROF. BUTLER’s TESTIMONY, HORACE GREELEY’S. — 
 
 VOICE FROM PERSIA. — DR. HOLLAND. — CALIFORNIAN IDEAS. — BIBLE 
 STAND-POINT 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Ale and Beer. 
 
 MANKIND SEEK SELF-GRATIFICATION. — WILL BEER INTOXICATE. — 
 “LOST OR STOLEN.” — .BEER OF GERMAN ORIGIN. — THE BEER-LOV- 
 ING NEIGHBOR. — “ THE LITTLE THING.” — BEER BILL IN ENGLAND. — 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. — FRUIT OF INDULGENCE. — BEER-BREWERS* 
 CONVICTION 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Rum ahd Brahdy. 
 
 STEPPING DOWNWAED. TEMPEEANCE PILLAES DISEEGAEDED. VriFE’S 
 
 METHOD OF EEFOEM. THREE STAGES OF DKINK. — ALCOHOLIC DE- 
 RANGEMENT OF THE STOMACH OF THE BLOOD. THE INEBRIATE’S 
 
 CONFESSION. THE PHYSICIAN’S STORY. RICH AND POOR ALIKE 
 
 FALL. — WILKES BOOTH. CASE OP DELIRIUM TREMENS. — THE MAN 
 
 WHO THOUGHT HIMSELF SAFE. — THE MANIAC’S SHRIEK. . . . 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Where is it foltsu? 
 
 ALCOHOLIC MISERY CANNOT BE PAINTED. — LOVE OF GaTN THE PRO- 
 PELLING MOTIVE. LORD CHESTERFIELD’S REMARK. RUM SELLER S 
 
 TREATMENT OF AN OLD MAN. — THE COUNTRY’ TAVERN. — HOMES AND 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 7 
 
 HAUNTS OF THE DRUNKARD. — FITE POINTS. — GROCERS’ NETS. 
 
 FREE LUNCH HOUSES. — FIRST-CLASS HOTELS. — CLUB-ROOMS. — EU- 
 ROPEAN AND MODERN STYLE. — POWER OF EXAMPLE 120 
 
 C H A P T E R X . 
 
 Pbobabilitt of Reform. 
 
 HOPE A DIM STAR. — THE YOUNG LADY’S VICTIM. — INDIVIDUAL RIC - 
 FORM. — GOUGH. — J. HAWKINS* — CONFESSION OF A CONDEMNED 
 CRIMINAL. — FATHER OF THE REV. NEWMAN HALL. — HOPELESSNESS 
 OF THE WORK. — CONFESSION OF CHARLES LAMB. — SALVATION NOT 
 IN RECLAIMING THE DRUNKARD, BUT IN SAVING YOUTH FROM BE- 
 GINNING 141 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Blighting Effects upon. Society. * 
 
 CELESTIAL INQUIRER. — CLAIMS OF THE LIQUOR FIEND. — INTEMPER- 
 ANCE PRODUCES POVERTY. — INCIDENT WITH A BOSTON LECTURER. 
 
 FRUITFUL SOURCE OF PAUPERISM. — THE “SOCIAL EVIL ” STIMU- 
 LATES THE MURDEROUS PROPENSITY. — PROMPTS TO SUICIDE. 
 
 OPPOSES RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. — INDUCES PROFANITY. — THE EN- 
 EMY OP THE MISSIONARY. — THE ‘ INDIAN'S PROTEST. — APPEAL TO 
 THE CHURCH .‘ 167 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 National Loss. 
 
 THEORY OF SOUND. — WHAT CONSTITUTES NATIONAL LIFE. — “BANK 
 FOR LOSINGS.” — PRODUCTIVE LABOR OF THE NATION LESSENED BY 
 
 A DRINKING HABIT. — MOTIVES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. THE GRAIN- 
 
 DESTROYING CURSE. — OBSTRUCTS TRADE AND COMMERCE. IMPAIRS 
 
 THE ARMY AND NAVY. CURTAILS THE POWER OF LITERARY INSTI- 
 TUTIONS. — AN IMAGINARY PICTURE. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 W ha t is the RbmeHy? 
 
 NO “happy valley” BUT IN FANCY. — MORAL SUASION. — SIGNING 
 THE PLEDGE. — SELF-RESPECT NEVER REGAINED. — GOUGH’s CON- 
 FESSION. — TOTAL* ABSTINENCE THE ONLY TRUE REMEDY. — THE 
 COURT CLERK. — TESTIMONY OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. — ANEC- 
 
8 
 
 TABLE OE CONTENTS, 
 
 DOTE OF FAERAGUT. — BTBLE PRINCIPLES. — HOMES FOE INEBRI- 
 ATES. VIEWS OF MR. POMEROY. FROM THE PATIENT’S STAND- 
 POINT. — chaplain’s STATEMENT. — LAW INTERFERENCE. . . . 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Temper ANCE Wobkees. 
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES IMMORTAL. — DR. BACON ON SLOW IDEAS. — THE 
 FIRST PLEDGE. — THE EARLY AGITATION. — DR. JUSTIN EDWARDS. — 
 
 THE FEARLESS PREACHER. HON. THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN. DR. 
 
 JEWETT. — REV. THOMAS P. HUNT. — REV. JOHN PIERPONT. — JUDGE 
 CROSBY. — “ THE NOTT CONTROVERSY.” — FATHER MATHEW. — FA- 
 THER TAYLOR. — WASHINGTONIANS. — JOHN B^^GDDGH 217 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Temperance Societies. 
 
 UNITED ACTION, FIRST NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONVENTION. — VIEW 
 OF DR. HITCHCOCK. — MEETING AT FANEDIL HALL. — REV. JOHN 
 MARSH. — world’s TEMPERANCE CONVENTION AT LONDON. — TEM- 
 PERANCE AND LIFE INSURANCE. — SONS OF TEMPERANCE. — GOOD 
 
 TEMPLARS. — THEIR ORIGIN. FATHER BRISTOL. — TEMPLARS OF 
 
 HONOR AND TEMPERANCE. — EXTRACT FROM TEMPLARS* MANUAL. — 
 RECHABITES. — GOOD SAMARITANS. — IS TEMPERANCE A FAILURE ? 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Adulteeation of Liquoks.' 
 
 FASHION AND PURITY. — THE COLORADO SALOON KEEPER. — FOURCROT, 
 THE FRENCH CHEMIST. — PROFESSOR LEE's STATEMENT. — ASSER- 
 TION OF DR. STORY. — STRYCHNINE. — STRAMONIUM. — THE DEAD 
 FISHERMEN. — THE IRISH TOPERS. — COCCULDS. — CONFISCATION AT 
 BOSTON. — ANALYTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF DR. COX. — PURCHASE OF 
 NEW YORK PHYSICIANS. — “ GUIDE ” RECEIPTS. — THE DRUGGIST’S 
 BRANDY. — RUM. — GIN. — BEER 258 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 License and Pkohibition. 
 
 GOOD AND EVIL AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER. — THE TWO LEADING PRIN- 
 CIPLES. FOR WHAT DO WE GRANT LICElfSEi’ MINER BEFORE THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. — A HUNDRED DIFFERENT LAWS. — 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 9 
 
 DECI/ARATION OP DR. HUMPHREY. — CONSTABLE’S REPORT. — STATE 
 
 BOARD OP CHARITIES. WHAT ALBERT BARNES SAYS. PROHIBITION 
 
 THE ONLY THING. — PROTECTIVE POWER. — ENGLAND’S P(JsiTION. — 
 
 NEAL DOW FATHER OF PROHIBITION. — TESTIMONY AS TO RESULTS. 
 
 CALL TO ACTION 274 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Legislative Action. 
 
 TREE OP LIBERTY. — ANCIENT EMPIRES. — SUPPRESSION. — ORIGIN OP 
 THE MAINE LAW. — MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATION. — CONNECTICUT 
 AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. — NEW YORK. — SPEECH OF HENRY WARD 
 BEECHER. — OPPOSITION AT TAMMANY HALL. — LOCAL OPTION. — 
 CIVIL DAMAGE. — MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS. — THE PLEADER’s WORDS. 
 — THE GREAT TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 288 
 

 % 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 11 
 
 WOMEN’S TEMPERANCE CRUSADE, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. By Dio Lewis. 
 
 EARLY IMPRESSED WITH THE POWER OP PRAYER. — THREE HUNDRED 
 AND FORTY LECTURES ON THE feUBJECT. — THE FIRST INSTANCES 
 WHERE THIS POWER WAS TRIED UPON GROG SHOPS. — DIXON, ILL .4 
 AND BATTLH CREEK, MICH., DRIVE OUT ‘ THE DRAM SELLERS. — 
 HOW THE MOVEMENT WAS SMOTHERED IN MANCHESTER, N. H. — 
 THE MOVEMENT ANALYZED. — A PRAYER MEETING FROM BEGINNING 
 TO END. — DIFFERENCE IN PRAYERS. — THE PLAN WHICH LARGE 
 CITIES SHOULD ADOPT 341 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT. — THE NEW LAW FOR THE SUP- 
 PRESSION OP INTEMPERANCE. — DIO LEWIs’s PLAN AT HILLSBORO’. — 
 WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE THE NEXT PLACE. — HOW SLATER WAS 
 SQUELCHED. — THE FIRST TABERNACLE. — SIEGE OF CHARLIE BECK, 
 
 ETC. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XX* 
 
 MARVELLOUS SPREAD OP THE MOVEMENT. — SUDDEN REDEMPTION OF 
 WILMINGTON. — THE EPIDEMIC IN GREENFIELD. — THE FAMOUS SIEGE 
 OF VAN PELT AT NEW VIENNA. — HIS WICKEDNESS AND HIS SURREN- 
 DER. — THE GLOOMY HISTORY OF MORROW A GOOD TEMPERANCE 
 
 tract. ABOUT SELLING CORN TO DISTILLERS. — A WAYNESVILLE 
 
 PRAYER MEETING REPRODUCED. — A FORTY-NINE DAYS* SIEGE AT 
 
 CORWIN 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE LEGAL CASES. WERE THE WOMEN TRESPASSERS ON 
 PRIVATE RIGHTS ? — THE CELEBRATED DUNN SUIT. — THE WARNING, 
 THE TABERNACLE, AND THE INJUNCTION. — OTHER FUTILE EFFORTS 
 TO ENJOIN THE WOMEN. — THE SCHEIDE INJUNCTION, AND HOW IT 
 WAS DISSOLVED. — LEGAL PROSECUTIONS AT LEBANON. — A COMPARI- 
 SON OF THE LAW AND GOSPEL METHODS 393 
 
12 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OP TEMPERANCE LAWS. — THE CELEBRATED ADAIR AND 
 BAXTER LAWS. OTHER MUNICIPAL AND STATE LEGISLATION. — THE 
 “ MCCONNELSVILLE ORDINANCE.” — HOW FAR THE LAWS HAVE 
 FAILED IN EXECUTION, AND THE REASONS THEREFOR. — LITIGATION 
 UNDER THE ADAIR LAW- — DAMAGES SELDOM RECOVERED IN THE 
 CITIES, BUT OFTEN IN THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS 410 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE TRIUMPHAL MARCH OF DIO LEWIS. — THE MAN AND HIS OPINIONS. — 
 THE XENIA MASS MEETING. — INAUGURATION OF THE WORK IN SPRING- 
 FIELD, LEBANON, MOUNT VERNON, ETC. — MOTHER STEWART, THE 
 SPRINGFIELD LEADER. — INTERVIEWS WITH SALOON KEEPERS. — WHY 
 THE MASS MEETING AT COLUMBUS FAILED. — THANKSGIVING JUBILEE 
 AT WASHINGTON COURTHOUSE. — THE TRANSFORMATION OF XENIA, 
 MOUNT VERNON, ETC. — REMARKABLE SURRENDER OF THE SHADES OF 
 
 DEATH 425 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT SPREADS TO INDIANA. — SHELBYVILLE THE FIRST POINT 
 
 ASSAILED. A JUVENILE SPREE THE 33IMEDIATE CAUSE. — THE HOME 
 
 OF THE AUTHOR OF THE BAXTER LAW. — NOBLE WORK OF THE QUA- 
 KER LADIES. OF RICHMOND. — SUDDEN UPRISING IN FORT WAYNE. — 
 HOW THE INDIANAPOLIS WOMEN DIRECTED THEIR ENERGIES. — PRAYER 
 AND THE BAXTER LAW JOIN HANDS 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The woman’s movement in the large cities. — different condi- 
 tions IN CITY AND CODNTRY. — THE EXPERIMENT FIRST TRIED IN 
 DAYTON. HEROISM OF THE PRAYING BANDS, AND INSULTING CON- 
 DUCT OF THE MOB. EXCITE.MENT PRODUCED BY THE CAMPAIGN iN 
 
 COLUMBUS. DISCOURAGEMENTS FROM EVERY QUARTER. PRAYER 
 
 MEETING IN THE CAPITOL. — HOYV THE MUNICIPAL CODE WAS SAVED 
 
 INTACT. THE CRUSADE IN CLEVELAND. — CINCINNATI A FORMIDABLE 
 
 POINT. THE THREE STAGES OP THE MOVEYIENT THERE. INTENSE 
 
 OPPOSITION OF THE LIQUOR SELLERS AND GERMANS. — THE CHURCHES 
 PUT TO GOOD USE. PROCLAMATION Oi* THE MAYOR, ETC. . . . 461 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 the movement in THE EAST. — ON THE PACIFIC COAST. — IN THE 
 SOOTH AND WEST. — WORCESTER THE TRIAL POINT IN NEW ENG- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 13 
 
 LAND. — THE WESTERN PLAN DISCARDED. — THE INTEREST IN NEW 
 TORK CITY. — INFLUENCE OP TRE CRUSADE FELT IN CONGRESS. — 
 DESCENT UPON THE MARYLAND 'LEGISLATURE. — GREAT RESULTS IN 
 PHILADELPHIA. — DISGRACEFUL SCENE IN CHICAGO. — IN GENERAL. 486 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LICENSE VS. PROHIBITION. — THE PROHIBITIONISTS TRY TO CAPTURE 
 THE woman’s MOVEMENT. — LICENSE VIGOROUSLY OPPOSED BY THE 
 LADIES. — THE EIRST GRAND CONVENTION IN COLUMBUS. — PROHI- 
 BITION STATE CONVENTION AT MT. VERNON. — SECOND WOMAN’S CON- 
 VENTION. — MASS MEETING IN CINCINNATI FOR AND AGAINST LICENSE. 
 — GRAND woman’s ANTI-LICENSE CONVENTION IN CINCINNATI. . , 497 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OPPOSITION TO THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT. — 
 BITTER ARTICLES AND ABSURD STORIES PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN 
 PAPERS. — A SPECIMEN OF BEER DRINKERS’ RESOLUTIONS. — ATTI- 
 TUDE OF THE CATHOLICS. — ARCHBISHOP PURCELL’s LETTER, — A 
 MANSFIELD PRIEST’S ANATHEMA. — DR. J. G. HOLLAND IN OPPOSI- 
 TION, ETC., ETC 511 
 
Jfi 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Intemperance — the Nation’s Cuese. 
 
 OUR FAIR HERITAGE. — THE CUESE UPON IT. — NATURE AND EXTENT. 
 
 — UNITED STATES TAX. — CAPITAL INVESTED. — FIRST DISTILLATION. 
 
 — DRINKING IN HIGH PLACES. — ORDINATION BILLS. — FIRST SOCIE- 
 TIES. — TOTAL ABSTINENCE. — THE CRISIS. 
 
 A EAIEEE heritage is not to be desired than that 
 which is given to the dweller upon American soil. 
 Whether we look at the munificence of nature, or that 
 which hath been wrought out by the agency of men in 
 their onward march to civilization, we are compelled to 
 say that ours is a goodly land. 
 
 From the forest-crowned hills of New England’s re- 
 motest corner to the sunniest slopes on the Pacific shore,, 
 there are countless forms of beauty and grandeur to. 
 challenge admiration, besides an equal display of those 
 things which develop into the more substantial utilities, 
 of life ; making the country what it is — rich and pros- 
 perous. The enthusiast in every direction may find in 
 the rock-ribbed hills, the winding streams, the smiling 
 meadows and broad prairies, the wild and picturesque 
 valleys, the snow-clad mountains and the stretch of 
 2 
 
18 
 
 mTEMPEEAJsXE, 
 
 ocean, that which will meet his every want, foster his 
 wildest ambition. The adventurer pushes on to new 
 and unexplored regions, and at every step opens up new 
 wonders to the gaze of the world. 
 
 The speculator, in his search for more of treasure, 
 turns over the stones which hide the golden dust and the 
 shining metals, and he finds that Nature opens her veins 
 and rewards him with a lavish hand. They who would 
 look above these material considerations, and desire the 
 elevation of mankind in a higher sense, find their Avishes 
 met and their hopes strengthened in the universal diffu- 
 sion of knowledge, the number and variety of the insti- 
 tutions which have for their object the accomplishment 
 of these very ends. 
 
 The social, political, and religious advantages which 
 are denied to so many of the nations of the earth,- are 
 open to the mass of the people ; and altogether, we are 
 constrained to say, it is a goodly heritage. IVith these 
 God-given conditions, that were designed to make man- 
 kind happier and better, we yet fail to come up to the 
 requisite standard of goodness and vu’tue. The original 
 paradise, we know, was dismantled by the fall, and since 
 then there is no portion of the world without its dark 
 feature.s ; but enough was preserved from tho wreck and 
 ruin to remain as a rich legacy, had it been cherished 
 and kept as it should be. No one can look abroad at 
 the present time, and not be painfully conscious that 
 there is a fearful curse upon us — that there is a blight- 
 ing infiuence at work — a canker eating into the A'ery 
 heart of society, and sapping the foundations of our 
 dearest and best institutions. This gigantic eA’il, this 
 'Cruel monster, is Intemperance ; and its frightfully in- 
 creasing power and prevalence are enough to startle a 
 world from its lethargy and indifference, and incite to 
 active measures for the suppression of that which is be- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 19 
 
 coming a terrible and wide-spread devastation. Were a 
 foreign foe to invade our country, and arrogate to them- 
 selves superior power by dictating laws in opposition to 
 those of our own beneficent government, with what 
 earnest and decisive measures would they be met ! How 
 strongly would the spirit be rebuked ! N o means would 
 be left untried to quell the disturbing forces. No sacri- 
 fice would be counted too dear to win the result, and 
 restore harmony, by sending back the threatening in- 
 vaders, and looking well to internal fortresses. But 
 more to be dreaded than the wiliest and most deter- 
 mined external foe Is this modern Giant of Inteffiperance 
 that is stalking through the length and breadth of our 
 land, leaving misery, poverty, crime, and every species 
 of ruin in its path. The rebellious hordes may attempt 
 invasion and raise their own issues, and all this will be 
 met, for at the clarion call of the country thousands will 
 rush to the scene of conflict, armed, equipped, and 
 nerved for a mighty onset ; but the stronger and more 
 seductive influences that are unceasingly at work, prey- 
 ing upon the vital interests of the nation, are left com- 
 paratively unchecked, and altogether without means 
 commensurate with the necessities of the case. A want 
 of consideration, it may be, is one prominent reason for 
 the neglect. Many perhaps deplore it as it comes witlfin 
 their own narrow range of observation, perhaps within 
 the circle of tlieir acquaintance ; but a thoughtful, in- 
 telligent, broad view reveals the fact of a nation in peril 
 — a nation in so much danger that it calls for the wisest 
 and most careful legislation, that, if possible, the immi- 
 nent and threatened evil may be averted, and the cloud 
 lifted that encircles us with so much of gloom. 
 
 Sad as the contemplation of these things may be, it is 
 nevertheless a duty of every lover of his race, every 
 citizen who is interested in maintaining a fair and pros- 
 
20 
 
 INTEiyiPEKANCE, 
 
 perous condition of things in the countrj^ to look the 
 startling and alarming facts in the face, that they may 
 he prepared for intelligent co-operation in the great work 
 that needs to be done. To say nothing of the countless 
 forms of wretchedness that is induced l^y the Demon of 
 Drink, it is like a desolating scourge, that is impoverish- 
 ing our land, robbing its inhabitants of everything that 
 should be their glory and their pride. Estimates made 
 with regard to the consumption of spirituous liquors are 
 perfectly appalling. It has been said by one interested 
 in these calculations that “ there is a sufficient quantity 
 of fermented and distilled liquor used in the United 
 States, in one year, to fill a canal four feet deep, fourteen 
 feet wide, and one hundred and twenty miles in length.” 
 “ The liquor saloons and hotels of JSTew York city” alone, 
 he says, “ if placed in opposite rows, would make a 
 street like Broadway eleven miles in length.” The 
 statement is intensified in the assertion that “ the places 
 where intoxicating drinks are made and sold in this 
 country, if placed in rows in direct lines, would make a 
 street one hundred miles in length. If the victims of 
 the rum traffic were there also, we should see a suicide 
 at every mile, and a thousand funerals a day.” Could 
 “the drunkards of America,” he continues, “be placed 
 in procession five abreast, they would make an army 
 one hundred miles in length.” And all this vast com- 
 pany, under the influence of that which is nothing' less 
 than soul-destroying fire, are continually adding to the 
 long catalogue of crimes which unrestrained human pas- 
 sion is capable of committing ; and thus it is that our 
 public records are stained with the recital of the most 
 atrocious and daring deeds of cruelty that fiendish mabce 
 can perpetrate. They carry the flaming torch of the 
 incendiary in one hand, and the knife of the murderous 
 assassin in the other ; and the fire and the bloodshed 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 21 
 
 create a momentary sensation, and it lias gone. Theo- 
 retically, public sentiment is against all this. It deplores 
 the existence of so tremendous an evil ; but practically 
 the great part of the people have been soothing them- 
 selves to sleep when they ought to have been awake 
 and in earnest to meet the emergencies of the age in 
 this direction. 
 
 A long, sad wail comes up from desolated homes, 
 broken hearts, crushed hopes, and squandered fortunes, 
 all over the land ; and with it there is borne on the 
 breeze the despairing cry, “Is there no help for us?” 
 To-day there seems a disposition to heed the cry, and 
 haste to the rescue ; and thrice happy will be the day 
 wdien these efforts shall be crowned with success. It is 
 no trifling issue. It is not the work of any limited 
 period of time, but an unceasing and persistent warfare 
 waged against it will eventually do much towards sub- 
 duing it. Philanthropists and good men need to be on 
 the alert. Evil and selfish principles are active under 
 the dominion of the enemy. 
 
 The investment of capital and the enlistment of en- 
 ergy in these departments are strikingly at variance with 
 the enginery for good. In the single State of New York, 
 where there are over seven thousand churches, there are 
 over twenty-one thousand licensed dram-shops. There 
 are no computations for the practical sorrows which flow 
 out of this extended traffic. The sighs and tears, the 
 groans, miseries, and woes, cannot be told ; yet statistics 
 enable one to form some idea of what these may be, 
 when it is considered what the nature of the cause is 
 which produces the effect. The amount of tax collected 
 by the United States on spirits for a single year of re- 
 cent date, with the amount in quantity which it repre- 
 sented, aggregated a money interest of over -1400,000,000. 
 The corresponding tax upon beer for the same time, with 
 
22 
 
 IKTESIPEEAXCE, 
 
 the same representation, showed a money value of 
 $300,000,000 more. Added to this Avas the interest of 
 the wine trade, of about $75,000,000. This, together 
 with the import trade of liquors, beer, and wine, pre- 
 sented a total of nearly $165,000,000. This has nothing 
 to do with the vast amount of capital im'ested in the 
 requisite buildings and machinery to carry on the stu- 
 pendous work, nor with the expense invoh^ed in the 
 various demands in the prosecution of the .trade. This 
 swells the figures far beyond those we haA^e gAen. Xor 
 does the cost stop here. Back of all this is a story of 
 loss which no money can supply. It has been said, if 
 one were to take a final -count of even this sum, at 
 twenty thousand dollars a day, it would take more than 
 an ordinary lifetime to complete the task ; that, if it 
 were in gold, and loaded in Avmgons, it would fill more 
 than a thousand wagons of a ton each, and, if in sih'er, 
 it would require more than fourteen thousand, while the 
 procession would extend over seventy -five miles ; and 
 all this would be but the representation of a single year 
 of the terrible traffic. 
 
 It is estimated that there are those so confirmed in the 
 habit of intemperance as to bear the name of drunkard, 
 as to make an army of 600,000 in the United States ; 
 60,000 of these aniiually pass out of sight, filling dis- 
 honored graves, “ unwept, unhonored, and unsung,” 
 because every trace of their manhood had been obliter- 
 ated, and every promising hope blasted, by their mad 
 career. NotAvithstanding this lamentable fact, the places 
 they knew are filled by others ; and the unbroken ranks 
 pursue their march, to re-enact the same fearful trage- 
 • dies, and reach the same untimely end. Those who 
 pander to the wants of this A’ast multitude are selfish 
 and unscrupulous in their measures, and unceasingly ply 
 their ruinous arts, regardless of the consequences. 0th- 
 
- ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. * ' 23 
 
 ers may seek to advance the moral and spiritual interests 
 of the country, but they are everywhere met by this 
 mighty obstacle. 
 
 The unequal contest is observed in the calculation 
 that while $12,000,000 are annually spent in keeping 
 watchmen upon the hills of Zion, $700,000,000 are em- 
 ployed in ministering to the depraved appetites of men, 
 inducing morbid conditions of mind and body, thus 
 bringing into action a host of counteracting influences, 
 which hinder the salvation of the country. Could the 
 money that is appropriated in this direction be diverted 
 from its accustomed channel, and go to swell the tide of 
 human interests, churches, schools, colleges, libraries, 
 and every benevolent institution would dot every por- 
 tion of our land ; life and health giving streams would 
 flow through all its borders ; and from countless homes 
 and hearts would issue such a jubilant anthem as was 
 never before sung upon earth. 
 
 It may be asked, “ Is it worse now than in the days 
 of old ? ” However that may be, it certainly ought to 
 be better ; but a glimpse of the past may .give some sat- 
 isfaction to the propounder of such a question. Fashion 
 and custom throw about these things, as in all others, 
 their various forms at different periods, so that we And 
 things regulated by another standard entirely as we go 
 back. 
 
 A thousand years of the world passed away in blissful 
 ignorance of the nature and power of alcohol. Even 
 its existence, as extracted from fermented liquor, was 
 unknown. Then the people of Arabia wrought out the 
 discovery which has proved such a curse, not only to this 
 nation, but to almost every other. When the process 
 was first accomplished, “ no one knew what this product 
 of distillation was , nor was there any language that had 
 for it even a name. They, however, called it alcohol. 
 
INTEMPEEAifCE, 
 
 24 • 
 
 and that is now the chemical name in every country. 
 The word had been previously used in Arabia as the 
 name of a fine powder, which the ladies had used to 
 give brilliancy to their complexions. It was soon ascer- 
 tained to be a poison, and no one thought of using it for 
 a drink. About the year 1230, it began to be used in 
 the south of Europe as a medicine ; and from thence its 
 use gradually extended for that purpose over various 
 parts of the civilized world. Judging from its immedi- 
 ate effects,” it was thought to be a valuable boon to the 
 human race, cheering, strengthening, and prolonging 
 existence, intensifying all the enjoyments of mankind, 
 adding those that were hitherto unknown, until it came 
 to be denominated “the water of life.” The most 
 extravagant things were written extolling its peculiar 
 and wonderful properties. Said a writer of the times, 
 in the quaint language of the period, “ It sloweth age, 
 it strengtheneth youth, it helpeth digestion, it abandon- 
 eth melancholie, it relisheth the heart, it lighten eth the 
 mind, it quickeneth the spirits, it keepeth and preserv- 
 eth the head from whiiling, the eyes from dazzling, the 
 tongue from lisping, the mouth from snaffling, the teeth 
 from chattering, and the throat from rattling ; it keepeth 
 the stomach from wambling, the heart from swelling, the 
 hands from shivering, the sinews from shrinking, the 
 veins from crumbling, the bones from aching, and the 
 marrow from soaking.” 
 
 With such ideas of its transcendent virtues, it is not 
 strange that the indulgence of it as a beverage became 
 more and more common. Ignorant of its physiological 
 effects, and glorpng in the exhilaration of the draught, 
 many came to think they could not live without it. 
 More and more extensive became its use ; and in 1581, 
 during the Netherland war, we find the English giving 
 it to their soldiers, to fit them better, as they supposed. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 25 
 
 for- their work, and kindle anew their warlike propensi- 
 ties. It was not until the year 1700 that the people of 
 our own country became interested in the matter of dis- 
 tillation, and then a distillery was opened at Boston. 
 From that time the business rapidly increased, and 
 spread through various parts of the United States, so 
 that in 1815 the nximber of distilleries had come to be 
 numbered by thousands, sending out millions of gallons 
 of the fiery stimulant for a waiting people. “ With the 
 mass of the people,” it is said, “distilleries were for a 
 long time considered a blessing to the country. They 
 furnished, it was thought, a ready market for the surplus 
 grain ; they gave a new value to the orchard, whose 
 superabundant fruit could at once be converted into 
 brandy ; they brought ready employ to the carpenter, 
 the cooper, the carrier, and furnished the nation with 
 an excellent article, which it was importing from Hol- 
 land and the West Indies at great cost. Pious men, 
 deacons of churches, owned and labored in them, with- 
 out loss of character. It is even affirmed that one of 
 New England’s strongest divines, filling one of the best 
 pulpits in the land, ministering to the spiritual wants of 
 a large congregation, was during the week employed in 
 perfecting the operations and superintending the affairs 
 of a distillery, which was adding to his material gain. 
 
 If a convention of ministers was to be held, the exhil- 
 arating element was the chief attraction. Among the 
 curious items of history at the present day, are some 
 such bills, where brandy and cider were by far the 
 largest appropriation. The following bills in connection 
 with a church in Hartford, Ct., will serve as characteris- 
 tic specimens of these times. On the back of the first 
 bill is written, “ Ordination : eight pounds allowed, and 
 order given on treasurer in full.” 
 
26 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 The South Society, in Haetfoed, 
 
 To ISEAEL SeYIMOUE, De. 
 May 4tli. To keeping ministers, &c. 
 
 2 mugs tody, <£024 
 
 6 segars, 0 5 10 
 
 1 pint wine, .030 
 
 3 lodgings, 0 9 0 
 
 May 5tli. To 3 bitters, 0 0 9 
 
 3 breakfasts, 0 3 6 
 
 15 boles punch, 1 10 0 
 
 24 dinners, 1 16 0 
 
 11 bottles wine, 3 6 0 
 
 5 mugs flip, 0 5 10 
 
 3 boles punch, 0 6 0 
 
 3 boles tody, 0 3 6 
 
 £8 3 11 
 
 This was the year that Hartford was first incorporated 
 as a city. 
 
 Still another, on a similar occasion, of a later date, 
 illustrates the pecuharity of the times: — 
 
 South Society 
 
 To Thomas Seymoue, De. 
 
 For the expenses attendiiig the Ordination of Mr. Fhnt, 
 April 19 and 20, 1791.* 
 
 To 50 lemons, at 10s., £0 10 0 
 
 3 gallons of wine of D. Bull, . . . . 0 16 10 
 
 1 gallon of ditto of G. Burnham, ... 0 6 6 
 
 1 ditto of cherry rum, 0 10 0 
 
 1 gallon of best spirits, 0 6 0 
 
 2' quarts of brandy, 0 3 0 
 
 * This was for sixteen men to dine one day, and foity the second. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 27 
 
 To 1 large loaf of sugar, 16 lbs., at Is. 6(7., . £1 
 1 brown sugar, half quarter, 10s., . . . 0 
 
 half barrel best cyder, 0 
 
 60 wt. of best flour, 0 
 
 24 lbs. of butter, 0 
 
 10 doz. eggs, at 6(7., 0 
 
 1 bushel of apples, 0 
 
 spices, 0 
 
 raisins, 0 
 
 3 lbs. of coffee, 0 
 
 1 lb. of tea, 0 
 
 18 lbs. best beef, 0 
 
 2 qrs. veal, &c., 0 
 
 1 turkey, . . . ' 0 
 
 1 doz. -fowls, 0 
 
 3 hams, at 6(7., 0 
 
 vegetables, 0 
 
 pickles, 2s. 6(7., • . . . 0 
 
 pipes. Is. 6(7., 0 
 
 tobacco, 4s. 3(7., 0 
 
 2 bushels oats, 0 
 
 hire of attendance, 1 
 
 hire house cleaned, 0 
 
 walnut wood, 0 
 
 extra trouble,' 3 
 
 4 0 
 10 0 
 
 6 0 
 12 0 
 18 0 
 
 5 0 
 3 1 
 
 6 0 
 
 3 0 
 
 2 4 
 8 0 
 6 0 
 
 15 10 
 6 8 
 
 12 0 
 18 6 
 8 6 
 2 6 
 1 6 
 
 4 3 
 
 3 0 
 
 16 0 
 
 4 0 
 8 0 
 0 0 
 
 Total, £16 15 7 
 
 The generous mixture went the rounds, until spar- 
 kling wit and brilliant sarcasm were in full play. At one 
 time, for the greater refreshment of the whole man, a 
 little cracker was piit in the cup. At a certain gather- 
 ing of these ministerial dignitaries, the tender conscience 
 of one of the brethren became somewhat disturbed by 
 the indulgence, and tasted the cra(?ker, while he refused 
 the accompajiying potion, whereupon a reverend brother 
 remarked, in tones of sarcastic rebuke, “ You will eat 
 the devil, but not drink his broth.” 
 
 For a long time, ministers were wont to prepare them- 
 
28 
 
 INTEMPEKA2fCE, 
 
 selves for their morning exercises on the Sabbath by an 
 extra dram. The wedding and the funeral were alike 
 occasions for its use. School committees took their seats 
 at the last day among the juvenile crowd ; and the flow- 
 ing bumper was there, to call out all the goodly qualities 
 of their natures, and bring the social current into livel}'’ 
 exercise. In short, the use of the alcoholic stimulant 
 became general among the American people. It came 
 to be considered the grand panjicea for all the ills of hfe, 
 a necessity for all classes of people and all conditions of 
 being. It fortified one against the heat of summer and 
 the cold of winter. The “glass” was associated with 
 every object and interest of life. Seldom was a bargain 
 ratified without it, and a social party or visit was never 
 complete aside from it. It was the parishioner’s wel- 
 come to his pastor, an important jrart to a friendly greet- 
 ing. The decanter, with its usual accompaniments, was 
 an . essential feature of house-furnishing. At stated 
 times it was regularly resorted to, until custom marked 
 the morning di-am as indis2:)ensable, one at eleven and at 
 four o’clock, and still another to prepare for the slum- 
 bers of the night. These were necessities. Those inter- 
 spersed were governed by inclination and convenience, 
 or by the peculiarity of circumstance. During the war 
 of the American Revolution, government furnished the 
 soldiers a regular allowance of the article, under the 
 mistaken apprehension that it would make them better 
 soldiers. When the war closed and the men disbanded, 
 carrying the habits of the barrack to' their homes, it- was 
 found that the custom of drinking intoxicating liquors 
 was becoming so universally prevalent in all classes of 
 society, that the more thoughtful and intelligent began 
 to walre up to the subject, and consider the importance 
 of doing something to check what seemed to them a 
 rapidly growing evil. Licensed by the government, and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 31 
 
 sanctioned, as it had been, by the Christian church, the 
 public mind had failed to grasp it in its true bearings. 
 Neighborhoods and communities had hailed the distillery 
 as a means of blessing to them. It enhanced the value 
 of their hard-earned products, and filled their otherwise 
 scanty coffers with wealth. Altogether, it had become 
 a mighty and complicated enterprise ; but no candid 
 observer could shut his eyes to the fact that, whatever 
 might be said for it, it was* nevertheless a prolific source 
 of wretchedness and want. The conviction pressed 
 itself home upon the strongest and best minds that some- 
 thing must be done. The yeomanry of the land would 
 not be likely to begin the work of reform ; for, wdrile 
 those in higher walks and circles were sajung, by tlieii 
 example, it was good for them, they felt justified in its 
 use themselves. If it was good for the minister in his 
 work, it was not less so for the weary tiller of the soil. 
 The ablest and best talent of the times became enlisted 
 in the cause, and the inevitable tendency of the wide- 
 spread habit was held up to view. The public mind, 
 once aroused to the contemplation of the subject, became 
 thoroughly in earnest. Agencies were set in motion, 
 societies formed, pledges drawn up, and signed, and the 
 people called to take a decided stand against that which 
 experience denounced as a great wrong. From time to 
 time, earnest speeches were made, and the work of re- 
 form went steadily on. The decanters were withdrawn 
 from the sideboards of .the higher and more influential 
 circles. 
 
 The tide of publie sentiment turned against the prac- 
 tice. Some began to be more shy and reserved in its 
 use. But, while the stronger concoction was put out of 
 sight in good measure, cider became the common bever- 
 age. Ordinary families filled their cellars with barrels 
 of this article for their winter use, and not a meal of the 
 
32 
 
 INTEIMPERANCE, 
 
 day was complete without it. At every neighborly call, 
 the mug of cider went the rounds, and it was not un- 
 common that forty and fifty barrels were little enough 
 for the demands of a common household. As in Massa- 
 chusetts the work of distillation had commenced, so 
 there were inaugurated some of the first reformatory 
 movements of the times. In 1813 a society was formed 
 that had for its object the suppression of intemperance ; 
 but, inasmuch as this had only to do with what was con- 
 sidered the '■‘•too free use” of the corrupting drink, it 
 fell short of the demand. The views of some promi- 
 nent Englishmen found their way to our shores, in which 
 total abstinence was set forth as the only true basis of 
 action. Dr. Lyman Beecher, Dr. Edwards, and some of 
 the leachng spirits of New England, fell in with the doc- 
 trine, and lent their powerful arguments to the new 
 issue. Gradually the leaven permeated society, reno- 
 vated the church, and from that time temperance became 
 one of the leading questions of the age. Societies rap- 
 idly multiplied; organizations were effected that had dor 
 their sole object the mitigation of an evil winch was ac- 
 knoAvledged to be the greatest curse of the nation. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the effort that has been made, 
 the curse still remains, and the question is still before 
 the people, “ What shall be done to uproot the social 
 evil?” for such is the phase it assumes. The voice of 
 the people crieth out against the use of the deadly stim- 
 ulant. A stigma rests iqDon the sale of it ; and thou- 
 sands, impelled by the loA'e of gain, and j’et fearful of 
 losing ■ their respectable standing, will resort to every 
 trick of artifice and e^mry form of secrecy to carry on 
 their unhallowed trade unbeknown to tlie world. It is 
 smuggled in every manner, labelled Avith every conceiA*- 
 able device, paraded by numberless mysterious signs ; 
 and private entrances and curtained rooms iu all our 
 
DRINKING PUNCH AND PLIP. 
 
 DRINKING CIDER. — (Stt pugt 32.) 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 33 
 
 cities and villages lure the unwary youth, until they are 
 under the dominion of the tempter before the watchful 
 eye of even the family has discovered the danger. 
 
 A certain phase of American life doubtless tends to 
 foster this unhealthy and unhappy condition of things. 
 The rapid and extended communication among our peo- 
 ple, the exciting chase for wealth, the eager determina- 
 tion to rise above their fellows, and the propensity to 
 ignore the slow methods of accumulation, have all won 
 for us the reputation of a fast-going people. This un- 
 natural excitability demands an artificial stimulus. It 
 will have it. The youth of the country cannot bide the 
 plodding necessities of their condition, and they rush to 
 the cities to realize their brilliant ideal of life. A large 
 part of them enter the arena, and engage in the contest, 
 before their characters are formed and their principles 
 are established ; and, without the restraints of home, 
 they fall an easy prey to the seducer, and are in the 
 meshes .of the destroyer ere they are hardly conscious 
 of their position themselves. Retreat then seems im- 
 possible, and they rush on in reckless indulgence and 
 extravagance, until they meet the end of their fate ; and 
 too often it is a sad story of ruin and disgrace. Thus it 
 is that intemperance is becoming fearfully manifest 
 among the young men of the land. Could something 
 be done to place an effectual check upon these buddings 
 of evil, and hinder their rapid working and develop- 
 ment, it would be a glad day for the American people. 
 A crisis is upon us. It is a grave, complicated, and mo- 
 mentous question. The social and moral bearings of the 
 subject demand attention. Political and religious influ- 
 ence needs to be exerted in its behalf. A revolutionary 
 movement of right impetus and character is loudly called 
 for. The wretched system of adulteration that prevails 
 at the present time, with its vast proportion of poisonous 
 
INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 d4 
 
 compounds, makes the habit of drinking now more per- 
 nicious in its effects upon soul and body than it was in 
 the days of the fathers. 
 
 The mass of the people are ignorant of these things 
 to a great extent. Let them carefuUy look into these 
 things ; candidly trace the origin, workings, and results 
 of the whole matter ; and then study out, if they can, 
 the solution of the mighty problem. What shall be done 
 to secure the salvation of our country from the curse of 
 Intemperance ? 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ' Physiogloical View op Intempeeance. 
 
 AFFINITY OF NATURAL AND MORAL. — DEFACES THE HUMAN FORM. — 
 THE doctor’s EXPERIMENT. — A PHILOSOPHER’S APHORISMS. — ALCO- 
 HOL NO PROTECTION AGAINST COLD. — ASSERTION OF AN ENGLISH 
 SAILOR. — STATEMENT OP PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. — DR. JEWETT’S TES- 
 TIMONY AS A MEDICINE. 
 
 The variety, beauty, and harmony of the natural 
 world are due to certain laws and conditions, and these 
 latter are reahzed in proportion to the natural order and 
 worldng of the first. So it is with man. He is placed 
 in his appropriate sphere on the earth, subject to condi- 
 tions and laws also, and without the recognition and 
 observance of these he stands a jarring element in the 
 moral world, never coming to answer the end of his 
 creation. Could we expect the beautiful alternation of 
 sunshine and shadow ; the warmth, freshness, and life of 
 summer ; the silence, frost, and vigor of winter, with all 
 the attendant advantages and pleasures of the different 
 seasons, if the laws of the universe were to be deranged, 
 and act contrary to their original design? As well might 
 we expect this as to suppose that man could retain his 
 wonted activity and power, when every part of his body 
 was under the influence of a demoralizing element, the 
 direct tendency of which was to weaken, depress, and 
 undermine the whole constitution. In the early his- 
 tory of alcoholic indulgence, thousands violated the laws 
 of their physical being, without being conscious of what 
 3 
 
36 
 
 INTEMPERAIJCE, 
 
 tiey were doing. The people had not an intelligent 
 conviction of the effect of the powerful stimulant upon 
 the human system. They were not aware of the injury 
 that was constantly being done by the unnatural inter- 
 ference with the stomach, brain, and, indeed, every organ 
 of the body. It is to be feared that even at this enlight- 
 ened day there is a want of knowledge — at least of 
 consideration — with reference to this phase of the 
 matter. It involves the vitahty of the whole system, 
 and, that disturbed and weakened, man is shorn of his 
 strength, and robbed of his power in every direction. 
 “•Alcohol,” says an Enghsh physician of eminence, — 
 and the same profession of our own country concur in 
 the opinion, — “ is primarily and essentially a lessener 
 of the power of the nervous system.” No one who has 
 watched the gradual transformation of a man from his 
 first cup in the morning to the perpetual and insatiable 
 calls of a diseased and depraved appetite at the last, 
 cannot fail to come to a like conclusion. Every step of 
 the way betokens less and less of the power of resistance, 
 — of nervous force and energy. Humanity is disfigured 
 by thousands of living instances of this sad truth. All 
 the dignity and beauty of the human form become wast- 
 ed in them. The story is written on every line of their 
 countenance, so that all the world may read as they 
 pass. The brightness of the eye becomes dimmed ; the 
 vacant look and the meaningless stare take the place 
 of the thoughtful, inquiring gaze of intelligence. The 
 face becornes bloated, the hands nerveless, the whole 
 figure bent and powerless, the step unsteady ; and the 
 whole man, like a stately ship that has been stranded 
 upon the waters, is dismantled and useless. 
 
 In order to prove the depressing nature of the stimu- 
 lant, a certain physician subjected himself to its opera- 
 tion, and thus writes concerning it : “ Some years ago,” 
 
ITS ASPSCT AKD ITS EEIVIEDY. 
 
 37 
 
 he says, “I purposely placed myself under tlie influence 
 of alcohol. At eight o’clock P. M., and three and a 
 half hours after partaking of a light tea, I took one 
 ounce' of rectified spirits of wine diluted with two ounces 
 of water ; ten minutes afterwards I repeated the dose. 
 The first perceptible effect was a sensation of warmth in 
 the region of the stomach, followed immediately by a 
 chilliness over the whole surface of the body, though 
 the temperature in the room was at 68° Fahrenheit. 
 This was speedily followed by reaction. The pulse indi- 
 cated arterial excitement, and I breathed more rajjidly 
 than usual. As soon as the spirit rose to the brain, the 
 cheeks became flushed, the eyes sparkled, and the tem- 
 poral arteries throbbed. I then felt an irresistible ten- 
 dency to talk, and became very loquacious. This was 
 attended with an involuntary screwing of the mouth, 
 a meaningless laughter, and an attempt to sing. In fact, 
 I felt ‘ jolly.’ But, together with this, there w3,s an un- 
 steadiness in my gait ; my legs felt very light. There 
 was a giddiness in my head, and a strange confusion in 
 my mental powers. The ability to fix the attention 
 upon any subject was greatly impaired, but the imagi- 
 nation was excited, and the fancy wild and restless. 
 Ideas came and went, and I had no power to retain 
 them. As I had not partaken of alcohol for many 
 years, its action upon me was very striking and rapid,, 
 and soon became almost overpowering.” The causes of 
 these various symptoms he thus describes : “The sense 
 of heat and ivarmth in the region of the stomach was. 
 undoubtedly owing to the acrid property of alcohol irri- 
 tating the mucous membrane of that delicate organ. 
 The sense of chilliness, extending over the whole surface 
 of the body, was clearly due to an interference with the 
 capillaries of the surface and the functions of the skin. 
 But were not the exhilaration and jollity, the brightening 
 
38 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 of the eyes, and the glowing of the countenance, indica- 
 tive of increased activity of the circulation in the brain ? 
 If so, alcohol must be a stimulant. But I remember 
 that this state was attended by other symptoms, indicat-' 
 ing not stimulation, but depression. There were light- 
 ness of the head and of the legs, unsteadiness of gait 
 and movement, with a certain bewilderment and obtuse- 
 ness of the mental powers. I then saw that two of the 
 properties of alcohol were concerned in producing these 
 symptoms. The unsteadiness of gait and motion was 
 to be attributed to the narcotic action of the di'ug just 
 then coming into operation, depressing the cerebellum, 
 which regulates voluntary motion, and also the cere- 
 brum, the seat of the intellectual powers. The excite- 
 ment was owing to the irritant property of alcohol 
 affecting principally the base of the brain. The alcohol 
 being rapidly absorbed from the stomach, and carried to 
 the brain, its acrid properties at once come into play. 
 The delicate tissues of the brain, at its base, are irri- 
 tated, and blood flows to this part ; j'et not sufficient at 
 first to produce congestion, but only increased activity 
 in the circulation. , The region of the brain which is 
 the seat of the reasoning and moral faculties, is the first 
 to suffer, leaving the other part (the seat of the animal 
 propensities) excited, while its functions are uncon- 
 trolled by reason and conscience. After this, even the 
 cerebellum becomes narcotized, and the whole nervous 
 system oppressed. On the whole, we concluded that 
 the symptoms we experienced were produced by the 
 combined volatile, acrid, and narcotic properties of al- 
 cohol.” 
 
 The practical working of it everywhere, and • in all 
 classes, demonstrates beyond a doubt that it is antago- 
 nistic to the human constitution. Some have been pos- 
 sessed with the idea that the use of it, as a drink, was 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 39 
 
 a material aid in the process of digestion ; but a variety 
 of experiments makes it plain that it renders it more dif- 
 ficult. “ A tonic is that which gives tone or firmness 
 to an organ, and therefore is the opposite of that which, 
 by exciting an organ to extra action, is certain to impair 
 its tone, and therefore no such property can be ascribed 
 to the alcoholic stimulant, so called. A philosopher of 
 long ago contradicted the statement that this could have 
 anything to do as an aid, and with his name are associ- 
 ated the aphoristic remarks, “ Water-drinkers have keen 
 appetites,” and that “ Hunger is abated by a glass of 
 wine.” 
 
 Some of the lovers of the article would fain assert 
 that it is food in itself ; that it is extracted from the 
 nourishing grains of the earth, and its final condition 
 retains some of its nutritive qualities still ; but scientific 
 analysis has exploded this theory, and common observa- 
 tion has confirmed it. 
 
 It is also urged that there is a benefit accruing from 
 the warmth it gives to the body, thus giving it power to 
 resist the cold ; but this, though a wide-spread, is still a 
 mistaken apprehension. All experience of travellers in 
 the coldest and severest climates prove, beyond a ques- 
 tion, that it hides within itself none of this power. The 
 voyager in the arctic regions bear unequivocal testimony 
 to the injuriousness of spirits on tliis very account, when 
 used to any extent in the high latitudes. It lowers the 
 vital temperature, rather than increases it. A healthful 
 flow and condition of the blood are the life of the system, 
 and this becomes poisoned and diseased by the introduc- 
 tion of the fiery liquid, and there is no power of resist- 
 ance in any direction. It is well nigh impossible to 
 combat disease with this to contend with. Health- 
 producing . remedies cannot have their legitimate action 
 when swept away by a current of impure blood. 
 
40 
 
 INTEMPEBANCE, 
 
 Says one, in ■writing upon these things, “ As soon as 
 the alcohol makes its ■way into the organism and diffuses 
 through the fluids, so soon there is depression, so soon 
 respiration falls, carbonic acid gas from respiration de- 
 creases, and muscular strength, consciousness, and sensi- 
 bility decline. Speaking honestly, I cannot admit the 
 alcohols through any gate that might distinguish them 
 as. apart from other chemical bodies. I can no more 
 accept them .as foods than I can chloroform or ether. 
 That they produce a temporary excitement is true ; but 
 as their general action is' quickly to reduce animal heat, 
 I cannot see ho-w they can supply animal force. To re- 
 sort for force to alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the 
 act of searching for the sun in subterranean gloom, until 
 all is night.” 
 
 An English sailor asserts that “A Danish crew of 
 sixty men, well supplied ■with provisions and these fiery 
 waters, attempted to winter in Hudson’s Bay ; but fifty- 
 eight of them died before spring. An English crew of 
 twenty-two men, destitute of these waters, and obliged 
 to be almost constantly exposed to the cold, wintered in 
 the same bay, and only two of them died.” 
 
 It has been said that, “If the human body were trans- 
 parent, and the operations of its organs in sustaining 
 life visible, every man might see that nature itself 
 teaches that the drinking of alcohol cannot be contin- 
 ued by a man without hastening his death.” From the 
 first formation of the habit a physical malady has com- 
 menced, and nothing can control or avert it but an 
 entire removal of that which induced the condition. 
 The maddening thirst which it engenders has nothing 
 natural about it. None of the natural and God-given 
 provisions of the earth meet its demands, or assuage the 
 intensity of its cravings. By the activity and arrange- 
 ment of the organs of the human system, they have as 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 41 
 
 much to do “ as is consistent with permanently health- 
 ful action, and with the longest continuance of human 
 life, when men take nothing but suitable food and 
 drink.” 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been said of the physi- 
 ological aspect of the case, and all that has been de- 
 clared of its inevitable results in arresting vitality, a 
 large number of physicians still deal largely in its use 
 with their patients, professedly to secure just the oppo- 
 posite effect. A distinguished chemist of our own 
 country. Professor Silliman, pronounces it of the same 
 nature as chloroform and ether ; and no one would 
 think of giving either to a weak and sinking patient as 
 a restorative. Some, who are in the habit of visiting the 
 sick and the dying, declaim loudly against this practice 
 of thus giving the stupefying potion, thus beclouding 
 the intellect and obscuring the vision of those who 
 should see and feel clearly and rationally. 
 
 Dr. Jewett thus quotes a conversation on this point : 
 “ ‘ In what state of mind did the man die ? ’ asked a 
 gentleman of a Christian brother, who, the day previ- 
 ous, had spent some time with a dying friend. ‘ I can- 
 not tell you anything about his state of mind, wheth- 
 er cheered by Christian hopes or otherwise,’ said the 
 friend ; ‘ for he was, for the last twenty-four hours of 
 his life, completely intoxicated by the large quantity 
 of liquor givefi him, with a view to support him in his 
 sinking condition ; and,’ added the gentleman, who was 
 a faithful and devoted Christian, and often in the 
 chambers of the sick to speak words of comfort and 
 Christian counsel to the suffering, ‘ I cannot, these days, 
 get any comfort or do any good by visiting the sick and 
 the dying, for a large portion of them die drunk. So 
 much brandy is given them that the feeble brain reels 
 under its influence, and they have no realizing sense of 
 their condition.’ ” 
 
42 
 
 EsiTEMPERAXCB, 
 
 For all sorts of diseases, and all conditions of being, it 
 is the universal and favorite prescription with some. 
 Either from ignorance, or a want of due respect to 
 hygienic laws, it is the same thing for heat or for cold, 
 for the want of a thing or its superabundance. Says 
 the above writer, “ A good lady some time since asked 
 me if I thought it likely that the drinking of ale or 
 milk punch by a nursing mother would affect the child. 
 ‘ Of course, madam,’ I replied. ‘ But why did you ask 
 the question?’ This was her answer: AVhy, aU the 
 whUe my daughter followed the prescription of her 
 doctor, and drank milk-punch, we could scarce!}^ keep 
 the little one awake, even while dressing it. It slept 
 nearly all the time, day and night.’ ‘ Yes, madam,’ I 
 replied, ‘ and it was precisely the same sleep that the 
 poor drunkard enjoys when we find him stretched by 
 the fence or on the sidewalk.’ ” 
 
 A great work 'will be done for the coming age if the 
 false impressions of the nature and tendency of these 
 things shall be corrected, and sometliing be introduced 
 that shall add to the power of the human system, in- 
 stead of diminishing and wasting its force and energ}*. 
 The physiological argument for the cessation of strong 
 drink as a beverage. is lu-gent and strong, to say nothing 
 of its extensive use by the medical profession. The 
 body is the temple of the soul, and for the sake of the 
 sacred thing enshrined within it. Temperance should be 
 written upon every portal, and made guardian of the 
 sacred interests. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. . 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Intemperance as related to Heart and Intellect. 
 
 EELATiON OF MIND AND BODY. — KINGLY POWER OF INTELLECT. — 
 DOOM OF TALENTED MEN. — QUEEN CITY STATESMEN. — THE WAN- 
 DERING BEGGAR. — POWELL’s OPINION. — EPICURUS. — HUGH MILLER’s 
 TESTIMONY. — THE MORAL NATURE. — EFFECTS OF MORAL BLIGHT. 
 
 “ My mind to me a kingdom is,” was an immortal 
 strain of one of the poets ; and when he uttered the 
 fervid exclamation, he paid a glowing tribute to the dis- 
 tinctive feature of man — to that which raises him high 
 above all the lower orders of creation, and makes him 
 first, chiefest, and best among all the creations of the 
 Infinite, Mind is the glory of man, and the wealth of 
 a kingdom but faintly shadows forth its scope and des- 
 tiny, Its aspirations are as high as heaven, and its ex- 
 istence commensurate with that of the great Eternal 
 himself. The body is the casket which holds the price- 
 less thing, and no philosopher may be able to tell just 
 how they are bound together — to tell precisely how the 
 mysterious union, the subtle relations, and the hidden 
 springs are adjusted ; but one thing is certain, they 
 act and re-act, and the harmony or friction of one pro- 
 duces corresponding conditions in the other. It there- 
 fore follows that, if, from any cause whatever, the 
 machinery of the body becomes powerless and inert, 
 the higher faculties of the soul are retarded accordingly, 
 hindered in their growth and development, and nar- 
 
44 
 
 INTEIMPEEANCE, 
 
 rowed down in their capacities for action in every way. 
 If the body be constantly under those depressing influ- 
 ences which are inseparably connected with the physio- 
 logical conditions of intemperance, it cannot be a fit ally 
 for the mind within. It cannot be a help to it. From 
 the very necessity of its relation, it must affect its color- 
 ing and character ; and if it does not build up, it will 
 pull down ; if it does not elevate and soften, it will de- 
 grade and harden. Who shall count the loss ? Who 
 sum up the fearful aggregate of the mental waste that 
 has come to the world by reason of this single habit 
 alone ? Some of the brightest intellects the world has 
 known have gone out in obscurity and darkness ; their 
 light has been quenched in rayless, starless gloom, and 
 they sleep in dishonored graves, living, if at all, in the 
 memories and hearts of men, only as standing monu- 
 ments to proclaim against the folly of excessive drink- 
 ing. Names that might have graced the pages of history 
 in every department of science, letters, and art, find no 
 place there, because their rare endowments were slighted 
 and perverted by their own reckless and unhallowed in- 
 dulgence. 
 
 We declaim against the folly and ignorance of the 
 heathen, who gloat over the oracles of superstition, 
 building their altars, and bringing their offerings to the 
 strange gods of their own fancy ; but the countless dev- 
 otees that flock to the shrine of Bacchus in our own civ- 
 ilized land, and in our own enlightened age, is vastly 
 more- to be wondered at. To see men, who were made 
 to reflect the image of the Divine, deliberately, wantonly 
 throw away their birthright — men who are fully con- 
 scious of their responsibility, duty, and destiny, to spurn 
 it all, and pander to the cravings of a diseased appetite 
 which they themselves have taken pains to create — is a 
 greater sin than heathenish folly has yet committed. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 45 
 
 Poets, with brilliant imagination, who might have 
 sent out their thrilling melodies into the heart of a sad- 
 dened world, dispelling many shadows and lifting many 
 burdens, have foregone their privileges,, and given them- 
 selves to drink, which has become to them a demon, 
 that has hushed all the sweet cadences of song, making 
 themselves miserable and the world more sad. 
 
 Historians have used the destroying stimulant, until 
 the unsteadiness of their hands has compelled them to 
 lay down the pen, which might have recorded the inci- 
 dents of a passing age in such a manner as to insiire the 
 gratitude of their posterity in all coming time ; but their 
 career has been cut short, and their influence brought 
 to an end, because they had wound about themselves 
 the galling chains of intemperance, and could not again 
 be free. Men of clear perception and keen intellectual 
 vigor are fltted to become philosophers, and there are 
 many of these who might have enriched the world’s 
 thought, and shed light and knowledge upon the intri- 
 cate problems of moral and mental working ; but they 
 have failed, because their perceptions have been dimmed 
 and their vigor diminished before the work was done. 
 
 Statesmen have been lost to the country in this way, 
 and an endless amount of talent crushed and lost sight 
 of in the wreck and ruin involved in this the curse of 
 our land. Intellect would hold kingly sway, if it might. 
 The gigantic evil has crept into the councils of the na- 
 tion , and there, where wisdom, prudence, and modera- 
 tion should rule and reign ; where the gravity, weight, 
 and importance of arguments and decisions affect the 
 interest and des'tinies of nations, — there have been 
 found representatives of the people, singled out from all 
 others for their superior ability, who yet were unfit to 
 sit in judgment, because the faculties of their minds 
 were deranged and impaired, their judgment warped 
 
46 
 
 rS'TEMPERANCE, 
 
 and clouded, by unduly imbibing the- exciting and poi- 
 sonous ch’augbt. In the Queen City of the West is a 
 young man of rare ability and promise. The people 
 have not been slow in the recognition of his statesman- 
 like qualities, and have conferred upon him some of the 
 highest honors of the state. His clear understanding 
 of legislative working, and his broad and comprehensive 
 views of legislative demand, hSve won for him an envi- 
 able distinction, and given him a large place in the appre- 
 ciation of an intelligent public. Nothing stands between 
 him and the high road to congressional fame but the 
 habit of intemperance, which is coiling itself about him, 
 and bids fair to hold him in its anaconda-like embrace. 
 There are times when, for days together, he gives him- 
 self up to the fatal indulgence, and all his powers of in- 
 tellect are as though they were not. Without a revolu- 
 tionary movement to hold him in check, his doom is 
 sealed. His mind will fail, his intellect droop, and he is 
 gone. And this is but a single instance of a countless 
 list of similar cases. Several years since, a man called 
 at the door of the writer, a wandering beggar. Forbid- 
 ding in every aspect of his appearance, one felt an invol- 
 untary shrinking from his presence. Aimless, homeless, 
 and friendless, he went hither and thither, fulfilling 
 none of the duties he owed to himself as an individual, 
 and of course wholly regardless of those incumbent upon 
 him as a citizen. Spurned from the doors of men, he 
 hated and cursed them all. He added nothing to the 
 stock of human happiness, and his life was a miserable 
 failure with himself ; and yet that man was a graduate 
 of one of the most prominent colleges 'of New England. 
 He entered the institution with high hopes and flattering 
 prospects. His friends fondly imagined that such fine 
 talent must meet with more than ordinary success, and 
 they looked to see him come out in the foremost ranks 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEJIEDY. 
 
 47 
 
 of the honored. But in an evil hour he yielded himself 
 to the spell of the tempter, and he went down, until his 
 once soaring intellect was gone, the dignity of his man- 
 hood sacrificed, the strength of his character lost, and 
 every trace of his noble ambition had vanished. The 
 stories of faded intellects are sad ones. The annals of 
 intemperance are full of them, and history, observation, 
 and experience are confirming the mournful truth con- 
 tinually. 
 
 Says Frederick Powell, a noted English writer, — 
 
 “ The drunkard is a degraded man intellectually. 
 Our Creator has endowed us with mental faculties that 
 we may work out the higher purposes of life, and fulfil 
 our grand destiny. He has endowed us with judgment 
 and understanding, that we may inquire into the causes 
 of things, and, by comparing one thing with another, 
 arrive at the truth. He has also endowed us with im- 
 agination and fancy, that we may, as it were, revel in a 
 world of beauty of our Dwn creation. He has endowed 
 us with memory, that we may treasure up events and 
 facts, and thus garnish our minds with mental wealth. 
 Now, intemperance obscures the judgment and weakens 
 the understanding, so that a man is unable to discover 
 or to appreciate truth. It distorts the imagination, and 
 fills the chambers of the soul with pictures obscene and 
 foul. It perverts and paralyzes the memory, which, 
 instead of treasuring up useful knowledge, becomes a, 
 receptacle for the dregs of knoAvledge, and thus only 
 adds to the soul’s pollution.” 
 
 Thus it is that degradation is stamped upon the high- 
 est and best part of being, and the distinctive glory of 
 man departs. .There has been a prevalent notion among 
 some that one could think and write better under the 
 infiuence of an exciting stimulant; but. numberless tes- 
 timonies of professional men go to corroborate the state- 
 
48 
 
 ISTTEMPEEAKCE, 
 
 ment that, so far from being an aid, it seriously detracts 
 from the working power of the brain. Almost all the 
 great and continuous thinkers of every age have united 
 in this one conclusion, that alcoholic action is a sure and 
 certain hinderance to intellectual progress. The philoso- 
 phers of antiquity set a good example in this respect. 
 Epicurus, the great founder of a philosophical system, 
 urged temperance as the only passport to the enjoyments 
 of life, and the only means of attaining to the perform- 
 ance of its virtues. Over his gateway he kept the fol- 
 lowing inscription : “ Passenger ! here thou wUt find 
 good entertainment ; it is here that pleasure is esteemed 
 the sovereign good. The master will receive thee cour- 
 teously ; but take note, thou must expect only a piece 
 of cake and thy fill of water. Here hunger is not 
 provoked, but satisfied ; thirst is not excited, but 
 quenched.” How different this from the many costly 
 and elaborate entertainments of the rich at the present 
 day, where wine and spirits fill the goblets of the feaster 
 and the feasted, and the sparkling mixture is quaffed, 
 the exhilaration begins, and deeds and sayings are re- 
 corded that bring them down to a level with the lowest 
 circles, if it be they escape a positive disgrace to human- 
 ity ! In Egypt wine was forbidden to both priest and 
 king, because it was deemed prejudicial to the interests 
 of clear-headed reason, and the welfare of the nation 
 demanded the full exercise of this. 
 
 Hugh Miller, so well known as one of Scotland’s in- 
 tellectual workers, thus speaks of an occasion when 
 two glasses of wliiskey were presented to him. “ It 
 was considerably too much for me,” he says ; “ and 
 when the party broke up, and I got home to my books, 
 I found, as I opened the pages of my favorite author, 
 the letters dancing before my eyes, and that I coiild no 
 longer master the sense. The condition into which I 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 49 
 
 had brought myself was, I felt, one of degradation. I 
 had sunk by my own act, for the time," to a lower level 
 of intelligence than that on which it was my privilege 
 to be placed ; and,' though the state could have been no 
 very favorable one for forming a resolution, I in that 
 hour determined that I would never again sacrifice my 
 capacity of intellectual enjoyment to a drinking usage, 
 and with God’s help I was enabled to hold by the deter- 
 mination.” 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock, of Amherst College, has left on record 
 his testimony to the fact that mental labor can be per- 
 formed vastly better when one is free entirely from arti- 
 ficial stimulus. While making a geological survey in 
 Massachusetts, which involved peculiar and long-contin- 
 ued exertion, he says, — 
 
 “ I was usually employed from sunrise until ten o’clock 
 at night, with little interruption ; yet, during all my 
 wanderings, I di’ank not one drop of alcohol, and I 
 found myself more capable of exertion and fatigue than 
 in former years, when I was in the habit .of taking occa- 
 sionally stimulating drinks.” 
 
 Mr. S. C. Hall, a well-known author, says, — 
 
 “ I live by the labor of my brain, and can testify that, 
 since I have become a teetotaler, I have had an increase 
 of intellectual power, and can work three times longer 
 than when I indulged, even moderately, in the use of 
 strong drink.” 
 
 Statements might be multiplied, were it necessary ; 
 but no one can look into the subject at all without 
 being convinced of the truth of these things as a prin- 
 ciple. Besides all these intellectual considerations, there 
 is still another side to the picture. Man has a moral 
 constitution. There is Conscience, that faithful monitor 
 in the human breast. When we attempt to do wrong, 
 Conscience says, “ Beware ! and think of the divine law 
 
50 
 
 INTEMPBEANCE, 
 
 and its consequences.” When we walk uprightly and do 
 well, then we seem to hear her sweet voice ciqdng, 
 “Well done!” There is also that keen appreciation 
 of the good, the beautiful, and the true, and those noble 
 affections that so adorn and bless human nature. But 
 intemperance hurls Conscience from her lofty seat, and 
 her voice ceases, or sounds unheeded ; those noble senti- 
 ments of rectitude and purity are weakened ; the kindly 
 affections of the human breast become withered ; whilst 
 every evil passion and vile propensity are fostered into 
 frightful development and ruinous exercise. Thus the 
 man who drinks to excess, and gives up the key to the 
 citadel of reason, is a lost man. It matters not how rich 
 the endowments of his nature may be, he is povertj'- 
 stricken in every respect. 
 
 “ The gteat and essential evil of intemperance,” says 
 Dr. Channing, “ is the voluntary extinction of reason. 
 The great evil is inward, or spiritiial. The intemperate 
 man divests himself for a time of his rational and moral 
 nature, casts from himself self-consciousness and self- 
 command, brings on frenzy, and, by repetition of this 
 insanity, prostrates more and more his rational and 
 moral powers. He sins immediately and directly against 
 the rational nature, that divine principle which distin- 
 guishes between truth and falsehood, between right and 
 wrong action, which distinguishes man from the brute. 
 This is the essence of the vice, what constitutes its 
 pecuhar guilt and woe, and what should particularly 
 impress and awake those who are laboring for its sup- 
 pression. All the other evils are light compared with 
 this, and almost all flow from this ; and it is right, it is 
 to be desired, that all other evils should be joined with 
 and follow this. It is to be desired, when a man lifts a 
 suicidal arm against his higher life, when he quenches 
 reason and conscience, that he and all others should re- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 51 
 
 ceive solemn, startling warning of the greatness of his 
 guilt ; that terrible outward calamities should bear wit- 
 ness to the inward ruin which he is working ; that the 
 handwriting of judgment and woe on his countenance, 
 form, and whole condition should declare what a fearful 
 thing it is for a man, God’s rational olfspring, to re- 
 nounce his reason and become a brute.” 
 
 A man with a blighted moral nature is a sad specta- 
 cle ; no sadder sight in all the world. Every avenue to 
 good is closed. However fine his sensibilities may have 
 been, they become blunted. Arguments are powerless. 
 He will not be convinced. Tears, sighs, entreaties, are 
 without avail. The most affectionate pleadings are as 
 nothing. The offices of love are all unheeded, and there 
 is but httle hope that salvation will come to such a 
 one. Surely it is enough to excite the pitying tears of 
 even the angels in heaven, if they are permitted to take 
 a look into the ways of the sons of men. To see crea- 
 tures so gifted of Heaven, capable of rising ever nearer 
 and nearer to the one great central idea of all perfec- 
 tion, yet abandon all aspiration and effort, and effectu- 
 ally bar the door against all progress, — surely they 
 must count it an anomaly in the universe, and force the 
 exclamation. Verily it is a fallen world. 
 
 4 
 
52 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SociAii AND Religious Outlook. 
 
 NO PART OP BEING UNTOUCHED. — HOME, THE HEART OF THE SOCIAL 
 WORLD. — THE YOUNG MAN. — CASE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. — POV- 
 ERTY NOT THE GREATEST CURSE. — LOSS TO SOCIETY. — BLIGHT 
 UPON THOSE FACULTIES WHICH BUILD UP RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 
 
 There is no one isolated stand-point*’ where we may 
 take our position, and with one sweeping glance take in 
 the whole effect of the mighty evil we are considering. 
 The complicated nature of manldnd forbids this. They 
 who have traced its influence upon the physical part of 
 being, and seen how surely and effectually it degrades 
 the moral and intellectual, wfll also be prepared to be- 
 hold the completion of the work in its social and religious 
 aspect. Could it be seen that there was any part of the 
 man that could escape the ravages of the destroyer, 
 that some little corner of the being somewhere would 
 preserve its natural conditions, and remain the same, 
 we might say there was some redeeming feature in the 
 case ; but it is apparent, beyond a doubt, that nothing 
 is left untouched by the blighting, withering influence 
 of intemperate indulgence. There were harmony and 
 adaptation at the beginning, and it was meant they 
 should be preserved. To ignore the requisite conditions 
 is to blast the whole scheme. The divinely-appointed 
 institutions of the world, for the happiness of mankind, 
 involve the necessity of a social nature ; and the perfec- 
 tion and development of this are clearly connected vith 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 63 
 
 mind and heart. With the powers of these weakened 
 and blunted, there is no more capacity for true social 
 enjoyment. There is no more blessed boon given to 
 man for his earthly condition than home. There is no 
 one provision which so completely meets the varied 
 wants of his nature as this ; and he who allows the ten- 
 drils of his heart to spread the farthest, and take the 
 deepest, strongest hold of this, is the man who is most 
 secure against all the temptations and evils of a siren 
 world. It is here that all the social affections bud and 
 blossom. It is here that their richest and sweetest fra- 
 grance is shed. “Here,” it is said, “is the heart of the 
 social world.” Men are what their homes are ; chil- 
 dren what their homes make them. 
 
 It is the place where all the social qualities of the 
 nature should be unfolded, cherished, and enjoyed ; a 
 place where the interminghng of thought and affection 
 should be constantly making one happier and better ; 
 and if allowed its practical and legitimate working, it 
 will tend to the reahzation of this end. It is true, those 
 who are wont to quaff the wine when it is red, base 
 their arguments for its use strongly upon its social qual- 
 ities and influence ; but who does not know that it 
 destroys all the finer feelings of humanity, and makes 
 the once cheerful and pleasant spirit of the household 
 its most dreaded foe ? 
 
 The demon of drink has been permitted to enter thou- 
 sands of homes in our land, and wherever it has gone, 
 it has hushed every song "of joy, killed out every hope, 
 and brought only poverty, wretchedness, and every 
 form of misery in its train. 
 
 We need no other evidence of its transforming power 
 of the social affections, than to see what it hath wrought 
 here. It banishes domestic peace, for there is nothing 
 left for it to feed upon. The sharpest agonies and the 
 
64 
 
 INTEIIPERANCE, 
 
 keenest pangs are associated with this phase of the ques- 
 tion. The lives of wives, mothers, and sisters are cru- 
 elly embittered all the way through, because husband, 
 brother, and son are all lost — are meaningless terms, 
 when their hearts have been made callous, and their 
 social nature robbed of its beauty. Says the eloquent 
 Dr. Kitchell, “ Much of this is concealed fi’om the 
 public gaze as long as concealment is possible. Back 
 of the visible ravages of intemperance, and deeper than 
 all these, there lies a field of devastation which has 
 never been fully explored, and can never be more than 
 partially reported. It is the wasted realm of the social 
 affections, the violated sanctuary of domestic peace.” 
 “ It is here that the higher and inner life o'f woman is 
 marred and tortured, her most sacred and cherished 
 affections crushed and blighted. These are private sor- 
 rows, that her most intimate confidant must not know, 
 so anxious is she to sustain the good character of those 
 so dear to her. But from this inner world of suppressed 
 wretchedness there will occasionally burst forth to the 
 ear of human pity a piercing cry of those who writhe 
 under the slow torments of a desolate heart and the 
 overflow of misery. It is merely what inadvertently 
 escapes through chasms violently rent open, and tells 
 sadly of a sea of anguish that is stifled forever in its 
 secret recesses. The bursting hearts of mothers for theh 
 ruined sons ; of wives from whose life all 'joy and hope, 
 all love and tenderness, have been blotted out ; of daugh- 
 ters’ shame, crushed and doomed to penury and dis- 
 grace — could we look on all these grief-stricken females, 
 some of whom have been well off, happy, and respected, 
 now doomed to brutality and want, each with her own 
 peculiar history of woe, we should ask no further wit- 
 ness to the heinous guilt of the rum traffic, or the right- 
 eousness of law against the destroyer of all these.” He 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 55 
 
 who was designed to be the friend and protector of 
 woman is in no wise fitted for his place .when he is 
 under the debasing influence of strong drink. The ob- 
 servation of every one will furnish examples of those 
 who have dethroned the dearest friends of their hearts, 
 and sundered every social tie, rather thaii forego the 
 so-called pleasures of the exhilarating beverage. 
 
 It is not many years since a young man in Massachu- 
 setts went to the grave of a drunkard in the very vigor 
 of his youth. Nurtured in the bosom of an affectionate 
 family, he was the object of fond solicitude, aud bright 
 hopes were entertained of his future success in life. In 
 an evil hour he yielded to the fascinations of the cup, 
 and when it became apparent that the habit was taking 
 fast hold of him, an earnest effort was made to save him. 
 But parental counsel, sisterly entreaty, and friendly ad- 
 vice were nothing. If he stayed in his career long enough 
 for conscience to whisper of the wickedness of his course, 
 he speedily silenced the voice of the monitor, by imbib- 
 ing the poison still more deeply. His father thought to 
 expostulate with him once more, and promised to set 
 him up in business and provide handsomely for his start- 
 ing, if he would seek to free himself from the habit that 
 was upon him, and which would surely end in his de- 
 struction. But the susceptibility and ambition of even 
 that youthful spirit were gone, and he replied to ‘the 
 touching appeal, with heartless indifference, “I had 
 rather have my drink ; ” and the broken-hearted father 
 followed his son to a drunkard’s grave at the early age 
 of twenty-three. Love and kindness, that are so po- 
 tent under other circumstances, have but little effect 
 here. The innocent and eloquent pleadings of a child 
 that would soften and subdue the most obdurate heart 
 in a man that was sober, make no impression here, for 
 aU that distinguishes man is scorched, burned out, and 
 
56 
 
 INTEjVIPEEA27CE, 
 
 all the distinctive attributes of his nature are dead, and 
 he stands like a withered tree, only awaiting its time to 
 fall. — An instance that came under the observation of 
 the writer, in Western New York, illustrates the case 
 in hand ; and yet it is but one of the many that are 
 acted over and over again every day in every part of 
 the land. Ralph W was a young man of prepossess- 
 
 ing appearance and marked ability. Affable and cour- 
 teous in his manner to an unusual extent, brilliant and 
 gay in his conversation, sparkhng in wit and repartee, 
 he was the life of every company, and no circle was con- 
 sidered complete without him, in the community where 
 he lived. He paid his attentions to an estimable and 
 worthy young lady, and when it was known that the 
 engagement was ratified that bound them together, she 
 was congratulated as having won a rare prize. Up to 
 this time he had only sipped a little now and then to 
 please his gay acquaintances; but the insidious habit 
 worked on insidiously until it became a confirmed thing. 
 Meantime he was married and settled down in a quiet 
 and attractive home. In the course of time a son and 
 daughter were added to his family, and he still main- 
 tained his rej)utation as a kind and tender husband, a 
 thoughtful and loving father; but all the while the 
 appetite for strong drink had been gaining ground, until 
 it overtopped all other considerations, and it became 
 known that he was frequently intoxicated. For a long 
 time his social popularity covered a multitude of sins, 
 and his family sought in every wa}* to shield him fi-om 
 public disgrace ; but there is no way for these things 
 when the man becomes thoroughly wedded to his cups. 
 Dead to all feelings of shame himself, he cares for noth- 
 ing but how he may quell the maddening thirst. Yield- 
 ing to this, he went reeling through the streets, carrying 
 untold misery and anxiety into his home, breaking the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 
 
 57 
 
 hearts that otherwise would have been as dear to him 
 as life. — Sometimes reason is dethroned by causes alto- 
 gether beyond human control, and persons turn against 
 their dearest and best friends, and it is sad ; but it is far 
 less aggravating in its conditions than where people 
 deliberately and wilfully pervert their higher nature, 
 and render themselves incapable of exercising ordinary 
 thought or affection. Even woman has buried aU her 
 gentler qualities in this remorseless grave. It is a hu- 
 miliating fact that she has laid aside every endearing 
 virtue of wife and mother, sister and daughter, and gone 
 into the depths of degradation which the indulgence 
 will inevitably produce. In country places this may 
 not be seen or known ; but the miserable hovels, the 
 wretched abodes of squalor and want in all our large 
 cities, tell the mournful tale, and are the unmistakable 
 signs of what rum will do. Crowds of neglected and 
 forsaken children show how utterly dead to every social 
 instinct and affection those have become who should 
 have been their guardians and protectors. So true is 
 it that all that is good will die out of the heart, in either 
 man or woman who gives up to the debasing influence 
 of strong drink. There have been those who have been 
 ready to sing to the praises of the “flowing bowl,” but 
 no one was ever enticed to drink of the foaming, spar- 
 kling mixture but found, all too late, that a ven- 
 omous serpent lurked at the bottom, which poisoned the- 
 life of his manhood, and gave warrant of his death at 
 the beginning. Says a writer already quoted, “Intem- 
 perance is to be pitied and abhorred for its own sake 
 much more than for its outward consequencesv These 
 consequences owe their chief bitterness to their criminal 
 source. We speak of the misery which the drunkard 
 carries into his family. But take away his own brutal- 
 ity, and how lightened would be those miseries!. We 
 
58 
 
 INTEMPEEA2TCE, 
 
 talk of his wife and children in rags. Let the rags 
 continue, but suppose them to be the elfects of an inno- 
 cent cause. Suppose the drunkard to have been a vir- 
 tuous husband, and an affectionate father, and that 
 sickness, not vice, has brought his family thus low. 
 Suppose his wife and children bound to him by a strong 
 love, which a life of labor for their support, and of un- 
 wearied kindness, has awakened ; suppose them to know 
 that his toils for their welfare had broken down his 
 frame ; suppose liim able to say, “ We are poor in this 
 world’s goods, but rich in affection and religious trust. 
 I am going from you, but I leave you to the Father of 
 the fatherless, and to the widow’s God.” Suppose this, 
 and how changed those rags ! How changed those cold, 
 naked rooms! The heart’s warmth can do much to 
 withstand the winter’s cold ; and there is hope, there is 
 honor, in this virtuous indigence. What breaks the 
 heart of the drunkard’s wife ? It is not that he is poor, 
 but that he is a drunkard. Instead of that bloated face, 
 now distorted with passion, now robbed of every ^leam 
 of intelligence, if the wife could look on an affectionate 
 countenance, which had for years been the interpreter of 
 a well-principled mind and faithful heart, what an over- 
 whelming load would be lifted from her ! It is a hus- 
 band whose touch is polluting, whose infirmities are the 
 witnesses of his guilt, who has blighted all her hopes, 
 who has proved false to the vows which made her his ; 
 it is such a husband who makes home a hell, not one 
 whom toil* and disease have cast on the care of wife and 
 children. Drunkenness brings poverty, but this is not 
 the greatest curse. Could the sweet influences of love 
 and trust be restored, thousands would take all the in- 
 conveniences and privations of this without a murmur. 
 Were any new disease to come into the land, that had 
 anything like the power, that showed anything hke the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 59 
 
 deadly working of intemperance, how would it be- 
 dreaded ! How its nature would be studied, and rem- 
 edies be sought to lessen its power, and ameliorate the 
 condition of its victims ! But hardly a conceivable dis- 
 ease could maintain its perpetuity like this, or be so 
 wide-spread and devastating in its effects ; and yet it 
 goes on, annually slaying its thousands and tens of 
 thousands, while only a few are trying to arouse the 
 slumbering people. 
 
 The man is not only lost to himself and his family, 
 but he is lost to society. He is fitted for none of the 
 duties which devolve upon him in this respect. The 
 high privileges of citizenship, like every other good, are 
 disregarded and forgotten. Could the blight and waste 
 now produced by drinking be reversed, and the refresh- 
 ing, invigorating, and life-giving principles of temper- 
 ance have full sway, what a tide of blessing would be 
 poured upon the social institutions of our country ! 
 The day of millennial glory would come in a thousand 
 times sooner. 
 
 There is woe enough written upon the nature of man, 
 could we stop here ; but there is another shading to the 
 picture, before it is complete. The religious element 
 of man’s being gives him claim to kinship with the Eter- 
 nal. The spiritual within him is traced by the finger 
 of a divine Arclutect, and when the superscription be- 
 came visible and manifest, it read, “ Thou art immortal; 
 thy being shall be co-extensive with the Infinite, and 
 thou shalt reign when the dust of ages has ceased to 
 be.” With this dignity stamped upon his nature, man 
 stood alone, a thinking, rational, immortal creature ; the 
 highest, best, and crowning glory of all God’s creations. 
 More of the divine perfections were to be reflected from 
 his being than from ajiy other. It was meant that he 
 should illustrate God’s ideal of good more fully than all 
 
60 
 
 INTEMPEEAl^CE, 
 
 the world beside. So strongly did this desire enter into 
 his plan, that when man turned aside from his high des- 
 tiny, and by wilful transgression forfeited his original 
 birthright, the costliest sacrifice that heaven or earth 
 could devise was instituted to restore him to his lost pos- 
 sibilities. Redemption wrought out new phases, and re- 
 instated mankind in a position of glorious opportunity, 
 where all the capabilities and demands of his threefold 
 nature might be fully met and exercised. These were 
 as broad as the world, and as vast as eternity ; but there 
 was no limit or discouragement in the work as long as 
 the given faculties were allowed their legitimate play, 
 and made to fulfil their appropriate ends. It is not a 
 light thing to have a soul in charge. When God sends 
 men into the world, he sends them with this gift, and 
 he says, “ Take care of it for me, and I Avill give thee thy 
 wages.” “ Thou shalt live and reign with me if thou 
 do it well. All thine earnest efforts in this direction 
 I will crown with success, and own at the last.” A 
 work like this, it is clear, demands the fullest play of 
 the best faculties. If a man stupefies himself Avith drink, 
 or anything else, he cannot think ; and if thought is 
 quenched, he cannot reason ; and if reason do not act, 
 there can be no wise judgment ; and without this there 
 is no decision, which, in its turn, fails to bring any real 
 achievement ; so that it may truly be said, that “ intem- 
 perance is the mightiest force that clogs the progress of 
 all good,” in whatever phase it be viewed, social, moral, 
 intellectual, or religious. * 
 
 In estimating the ravages of alcohol, another thus 
 sums up the results : — 
 
 “ It has taken the glory of health from the cheek, 
 and placed there the reddish hue of the wine-cup. 
 
 “ It has taken the lustre from the eye, and made it 
 dim and bloodshot. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 61 
 
 “ It has taken beauty and comeliness from the face, 
 and left it ill-shapen and bloated. 
 
 “ It has taken strength from the limbs, and made 
 them weak and tottering. 
 
 “ It has taken fiimness and elasticity from the steps, 
 and made them faltering and treacherous. 
 
 “ It has taken vitality from the blood, and filled it 
 Avith poison and seeds of disease and death. 
 
 “ It has taken the impress of manhood from off the 
 face, and left the marks of sensuality and brutishness. 
 
 “ It has bribed the tongue to madness and cursing. 
 
 “It has turned the hands from deeds of usefulness, 
 to become instruments of brutality and murder. 
 
 “ It has broken the ties of friendship, and planted 
 seeds of enmity. 
 
 “ It has made a kind, indulgent father a brute, a ty- 
 rant, and a murderer. 
 
 “ It has transformed the loving mother into a very 
 fiend of brutish incarnation;” and besides all this that 
 happens to the individual and family, there is yet the 
 broader and national view, which will be considered as 
 Ave proceed. 
 
62 
 
 INTEMPEEA^SrCE, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Origin of the Evil. 
 
 MODERATE DRINKING. — EFFECT OF X SINGLE GLASS. — SUPPOSITION OF 
 
 ITS LIFE-LONG INFLUENCE, — MODERATION INVOLVES THE GREATER 
 
 DANGER, — THE MEETING. — THE PAUPER’S STORY. — LITTLE BY 
 
 LITTLE. 
 
 While enumerating and considering the tremendous 
 consequences of so destructive a habit, ve are con- 
 strained to ask, Where is the beginning of these tilings ? 
 How is it that it is started and fostered, until it gains 
 such relentless hold, that there is no escape from it ? 
 No more important question can he propounded at the 
 present time, if it be asked with a view of finding a 
 remedy that shall meet the emergencies of the case, and 
 check the prevalence of a habit that is becoming so uni- 
 versal and prevalent. Learned men may discourse long 
 and eloquently upon the origin of the races ; but it is 
 not half as important as to discover the application of 
 means that shall free them from chains which keep their 
 bodies and souls in slavish bondage. Scientific men 
 will brave any amount of hardship and fatigue ; will 
 encounter the dangers of the most inhospitable regions 
 and the fiercest climates, while following the obscure 
 windings of some stream that may, perhaps, lead them 
 to its hidden source, and all to satisfy the curiosity of an 
 eager and speculative people ; but there is yet a mighti- 
 er problem to solve than these, and they who give the 
 best practical solution may uplift, and perchance save, a 
 nation. 
 
THE BEGINXING AND THE END. 
 
ITS ASPECT AI<nD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 65 
 
 The beginning of a thing is sometimes disproportion- 
 ate to the ends accomplished ; yet -in everything there 
 is a starting-point, around which clusters' the main fea- 
 ture of interest, and with which is associated all that 
 comes of it. Almost everything in nature is small at 
 the first. It is the bud, the leaf, the stem, the branch, 
 the trunk, the unfolding and developing process all the 
 way; and a similar law controls and determines the 
 conditions and habits of men. It is emphatically true 
 with the habit of drinking; it begins with a little, — 
 just a httle now and then, — and he who takes it never 
 dreams of going beyond the bounds of moderation. 
 Mankind are wont to glory in their power of resistance, 
 and they spurn the warning Avith indignation that possi- 
 bly that “ little ” may weaken that power. A moderate 
 indulgence can do them no harm, they think ; and yet it 
 is the way in which all drunkards are made. This 
 first stage of intoxication is considered by some to be its 
 worst phase. A physician of the present times, who 
 has written upon “ moderate drinking,” as the “ worst 
 phase of intemperance,” says that the most fearful con- 
 sequences of this state is, “ that it deprives a man of 
 that calm reflection and sagacious foresight so essential 
 to the correct performance of his duties in every relation 
 of life. If the privation of reason is only partial, then 
 the victim is not the same person he would be if in a 
 natural condition , and a very large proportion of our 
 public men are stunted and distorted in this way. The 
 passions and emotions are more easily aroused, and are 
 less under the control of the will. 
 
 “ From this it will be perceived no man is safe after 
 having drank one small glass. He is a changed man, 
 and will say and do things that he would not say or do 
 unaffected by liquor. He has parted with a portion 
 of his discretion, which is among the higher attributes 
 
66 
 
 INTiaiPEKAXCE, 
 
 of Ms manhood. He has lost some of his reason. While 
 his passions are more readily provoked, he has become 
 weakened in the power of self-control. He is not only 
 more inchned to do wrong, but is less liable to restrain 
 himself from wrong doing. He has, therefore, under- 
 gone a very serious transformation ; and if not ready for 
 an evil deed, he is certainly more hable to be led into 
 vice and crime. Such is the effect of the most moder- 
 ate use of alcoholic beverages,” and “in order to obtain 
 a clear comprehension of the hijury to the brain and 
 nervous system, which is caused by one drink of any 
 kind of liquor containing alcohol, we have only to sup- 
 pose the effect or fuddle, however slight, to be as last- 
 ing as life itself ; that Nature was not kind enough to 
 relieve its victim, in due time, of the maudhn and per- 
 plexing burden ; that there was no balm in Gilead for 
 such a case, and no means under heaven by which he 
 could become a sober man again. Could we conceive 
 of a greater affliction, short of the entire wreck of 
 reason, than a mortal thus doomed to carry in his blood 
 and in his brain that one portion of alcohol, during all 
 the days and nights of his earthly existence ? Would 
 not such a wretch cross the seas, and wander to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth for his rehef ? Would he 
 not sigh continually for deliverance, and long for sobri- 
 ety or death ? and if the intoxication of one glass would 
 be such a horrible calamity, in case it was permanent 
 and hopeless, it must he equally had u'liile it lasts.” 
 
 People declaim loudly against the lower and baser 
 forms of intoxication ; but the same writer continues his 
 statement by saying, that while these have been cen- 
 sured and paraded, “ the evils of onoderate tipphng, of 
 themselves, and apart from all tendency to excess, have 
 never been adequately depicted.” “ Extreme drunken- 
 ness,” he says, “ with all its pains and horrors, is a 
 
ITS ASPECT AXD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 67 
 
 condition that carries with it a salutary disgust and a 
 wholesome warning ; it is, therefore, a blessed thing, 
 compared with moderate drinking, in every light in 
 which it can be viewed. It is a blessing to the drinker, 
 because it punishes him for the violation of his moral 
 and physical nature. It makes him stupid, and unable 
 to do the mischief he would be more likely to do in a 
 moderate state of intoxication. It presents a strddng 
 lesson to all, of some of the miseries inseparable from 
 the drink fashion. The lowest class of drunkards would 
 be ashamed to drink, if they were not sustained by 
 the example of their more respectable and moderate 
 associates ; they would not be seen at a place where 
 none but their own tribe were admitted ; the liquor 
 traffic is kept up by moderate drinkers ; no human 
 being could be found base enough to keep a den for the 
 exclusive accommodation of sots. The sots are relieved 
 of self-disgust by mixing themselves up with moderate 
 drinkers as much as possible. If there could be no tip- 
 pling without vulgar excess ; if every man that uses 
 alcohol as a drink would imbibe a sufficient quantity to 
 make him beastly drunk every time he tasted it ; if 
 there were but two classes in the country — helpless 
 sots and consistent teetotalers, our condition would be 
 vastly better than it is now, and it would continue to 
 improve rapidly. The sober class would increase and 
 the sots diminish, until this greatest of all evils would 
 disappear. The second stage of drunkenness may be 
 a sorer affliction to the individual and to his family; but 
 the greatest calamities and the saddest disasters come 
 from moderate, and not from immoderate intoxication. 
 A man with a moderate quantity of alcohol in his brain 
 will often be super-serviceable and over-officious in the 
 transaction of business, and will be very apt to blunder ; 
 and the blunder may, owing to his position and the na- 
 
68 
 
 INTEMPEKAKCE, 
 
 ture of his duties, he of such a character as to destroy the 
 lives, property, and happiness of hundreds of his fellov- 
 beings ; whereas, if ruore deeply intoxicated, he would 
 not attempt anything of the kind, and if he did he 
 W’ould be arrested in his temerity by others. His trust, 
 would be forfeited, his position lost, and his power to 
 vex and trouble extensively would be gone The evil, 
 of course, will be greatest where it affects the greatest 
 and most influential minds. Such, if topers, must neces- 
 sarily be moderate, because they move in a sphere from 
 which the poor sot is excluded, and have charge of 
 interests with which he is not permitted to meddle ; and 
 it is among these, the master spirits and controllers of 
 human affairs, that alcohol does the most harm.” 
 
 Could an effectual check be given to this habit of so- 
 called moderation, would men of respectable standing 
 cease to begin with the glass of occasional cheer, it 
 would be comiraratively easy to arrest this vice of the 
 age. This has been called the “ devil’s railroad, with a 
 steep downward grade to the depot of destruction ; ” 
 and it is certain that the multitudes who throng the 
 highway of intemperance, or, at least, most of them, 
 took their first steps very moderately. The first glass, 
 in thousands of instances, has been taken hesitatingly 
 and shrinkingly ; but the sense of shame and the power 
 of resistance have been less with the second, and still 
 less with the third, and so on until there is no more 
 trace of pride or honor left. 
 
 In a volume compiled by E. C. Delevan, of Eew York, 
 he narrates the following thrilling scene ; and as it illus- 
 trates in a forcible manner the present j)hase of the sub- 
 ject, we give the story as he records it. The people of a 
 certain town were gathered together to discuss the merits 
 of the license question, and decide whether to authorize 
 any one to deal out the article among them or not. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 69 
 
 “ The town had suffered greatly from the sale and use 
 of intoxicating liquors. The leading influences were 
 opposed to total abstinence. At the meeting, the cler- 
 gyman, a deacon, and the physician were present, and 
 were all in favor of continuing the custom of license, — 
 all in favor of permitting a few men of high moral char- 
 acter to sell alcohol, — for they all agreed in the opin- 
 ion that alcohol in moderation, when used as a beverage, 
 was a good creature of God ; and also, to restrict the 
 sale or moderate use was an unjust interference with 
 human liberty, and a reflection upon the benevolence 
 of the Almighty. They all united in the belief that, in 
 the use of alcohol as a beverage, excess alone was to be 
 avoided. The feeling all appeared to be one way, when 
 a single teetotaler, who was present by accident, but 
 who had been a former resident of the town, begged 
 leave to differ from the speakers who had preceded him. 
 He entered into a history of the village from its early 
 settlement ; he called the attention of the assembly to 
 the desolation moderate drinking had brought upon 
 families and individuals ; he pointed to the poorhouse, 
 the prison-house, and the graveyard for its numerous 
 victims ; he urged the people, by every consideration of 
 mercy, to let down the flood-gates, and prevent, as far 
 as possible, the continued' desolation of families by the 
 moderate use of alcohol. But all would not do. The 
 argument of the clergyman, the deacon, and the physi- 
 cian, backed b3'' station, learning, and influence, were 
 too much for the single teetotaler. No one arose to 
 continue the discussion, or support him, and the presi- 
 dent of the meeting was about to put the question, 
 when all at once there arose from one corner of the 
 room a miserable female. She was thinly clad, and her 
 appearance indicated the utmost wretchedness, and that 
 her mortal career was almost closed. After a moment 
 5 
 
70 
 
 INTESIPERANCE, 
 
 of silence, and all eyes being fixed upon her, she 
 stretched her attenuated form to its utmost height, then 
 her long arms to their greatest length, and raising her 
 voice to a shrill pitch, she called upon all to look at 
 her. 
 
 “ ‘ Yes,’ she said, ‘look upon me, and then hear me. 
 All that the last speaker has said relative to moderate 
 drinking as being the father of all drunkenness, is all 
 true. All practice, all experience declares its truth. 
 All drinking of alcoholic poison as a beverage, in health, 
 is excess. Look upon me. You all know me, or once did. 
 You all know I was once the mistress of the best farm 
 in this town. You all know, too, I once had one of the 
 best, the most devoted of husbands. You all know I 
 had five noble-hearted, industrious boys. Where are 
 they now ? Doctor, where are they now ? You all 
 know. You all know they lie in a row, side by side, in 
 yonder churchyard ; all, every one of them, filling the 
 drunkard’s grave ! They were all taught to believe 
 that moderate drinking was safe, — excess alone ought 
 to be avoided ; and they never achnowledyed excess. They 
 quoted you, and you, and you — pointing with her shred 
 of a finger to the priest, deacon, mid doctor — as author- 
 ity. They thought themselves safe under such teachers. 
 But I saw the gradual change coming over my family 
 and prospects with dismay and horror ; I felt Ave were 
 all to be overwhelmed in one common ruin. I tried to 
 ward off the blow ; I tried to break the spell — the 
 delusive spell — in which the idea of the benefits of 
 moderate drinking had involved my husband and sons. 
 I begged, I prayed: but the odds were greatly against 
 me. The priest said the poison that was destroying my 
 husband and boj'S was a good creature of God ; the 
 deacon (who sits under the pulpit there, and rvho took 
 our farm to pay his rum bills) sold them the poison ; the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS E.EJ.IEDY. 
 
 71 
 
 physician said that a little was good, and excess ought 
 to be avoided. My poor husband and my dear boys fell 
 into the snare, and, one after another, were conveyed 
 to the dishonored grave of the drunkard. Now look at 
 me again. You probably see me for the last time ; my 
 sand has almost run. I have dragged my exhausted 
 frame from my present abode, your poorhouse, to warn 
 you all — to warn you, deacon ! — to warn you, false 
 teacher of God’s word,’ — and with her arms high 
 flung, and her tall form stretched to its utmost, and her 
 voice raised to an unearthly pitch, she exclaimed, — 
 ‘ I shall soon stand before the judgment seat of God ; 
 I shall meet you there, ye false guides, and be a swift 
 witness against you aU.’ 
 
 “ The miserable female vanished ; a dead silence per- 
 vaded the assembly : the priest, deacon, and phj^sician 
 hung their heads. The president of the meeting put 
 the question, ‘ Shall we have any more licenses to sell 
 alcoholic poisons, to be drank as a beverage ? ’ The 
 response was unanimous, ‘ No ! ’ and such would be the 
 verdict of all Christendom, could they unitedly listen to 
 similar tales of suffering and woe, that are written, if 
 not on the visible page, on the sensitive tablets of the 
 human heart, in letters of fire.” These stories have 
 almost invariably the same beginning. It is little by 
 little. A few sands washed from the base of a strong 
 dike may seem as nothing ; but a little more,, and this 
 repeated, may send the rushing waters on beyond con- 
 trol ; and so it is a glass here, and a glass there, that cre- 
 ates the remorseless craving, which knows no bounds. 
 But. who offers that glass ? and what is it ? Let the 
 next chapter tell. 
 
72 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 What is the Stiiviulaht 
 
 CLEOPATRA. — THE FIRST STEP. — SOCIAL PARTY. — NEW TEAR’s CUS- 
 TOM. — THE CREEK INDIAN. — ANECDOTE OF HENRY WILSON. — CHEM- 
 ICAL TESTS. — PORT AND MADEIRA, SO CALLED. — WINE DEALER’S 
 CONFESSION. — PROF. BUTLER’S TESTIMONY, — HORACE GREELEY'S. 
 VOICE FROM PERSIA. — DR. HOLLAND. — CALIFORNIAN IDEAS. — BIBLE 
 STAND-POINT. 
 
 It is said of the beautiful, accomplished, and queenly 
 Cleopatra that she dissolved a precious gem in a glass, 
 and drank it, at one of her royal banquets, that she 
 might show her proud retinue of attendants there was 
 nothing too dear and costly to minister to the pleasure 
 and contribute to the aggrandizement of one of her rank 
 and position. Strange and foohsh as this may seem, it 
 is, nevertheless, less strange and less foolish than the 
 conduct of those who press the glass to their lips, into 
 which they throw ambition, honor, reputation, and every 
 good that makes life a joy and a blessing. This is to 
 throw away every possibility and privilege of manhood, 
 and make the whole history a long and significant blank 
 which should he a record of virtuous and worthy deeds. 
 It is none too easy to build up a high and noble charac- 
 ter, amid the difficulties and allurements of a waj’^ward 
 world, if the best conditions of being are regarded ; hut 
 it is utterly impossible when one is under the dominion 
 of decidedly adverse influences. To trace these to their 
 source, in connection with this subject, is to find them 
 hid in the bosom of the family. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 73 
 
 “ Tell me,” said a gentleman to one who had become 
 a miserable, wretched inebriate, in the days of compara- 
 tive youth, — “ tell me, where and what was it that first 
 led you into this course of intemperance ? ” 
 
 “ It was wine at my father’s table, sir,” replied the 
 doomed and unhappy man. “ Before I left the shelter 
 of the paternal roof, I had learned to love the drink that 
 has been my ruin. The first drop that ever passed m}’' 
 lips was handed to me by my now broken-hearted 
 mother.” 
 
 Doubtless many would make a similar confession, if 
 pressed with the same inquiry. There, are a great many 
 homes in the land where a choice collection of spirits is 
 considered an indispensable part of their domestic econ- 
 omy. The amount of these determines, in great meas- 
 ure, their wealth and standing. The}'’ form a part of 
 the regular furnishing of the table, and the strength and 
 qualities of these various compounds are the subject of 
 enthusiastic comment among the honored guests of the 
 household. The younger and unsuspecting members 
 grow familiar with the thing, and the practice may not 
 be associated in their minds with anything that is low. 
 This is the beginning of the downward course of many. 
 The habitual use of cider and wine at the table has led 
 thousands into the open sea of intemperance. They go 
 out into the broader theatre of public life, where temp- 
 tation is thicker and fiercer, — where companions of 
 kindred tastes and habits are only too glad to excuse 
 themselves by seducing others, — and they fall an easy 
 prey to the tempter. The social party presents its at- 
 tractions, and there, too, sparkling wine is considered an 
 indispensable requisite for the occasion. The ruby cup 
 goes the rounds, and the unnatural light is kindled in 
 the eye, an unwonted ardor is imparted to conversation, 
 and the general hilarity betokens the power of that 
 
74 
 
 INTEMPEEAKCE, 
 
 whicli is upon them. These things become rooted in 
 the social system until they are a prevalent evil. The 
 customs of fashionable society stamp them with a dignity 
 and importance which the majority come to feel they 
 must imitate, or forfeit their claims to respectable stand- 
 ing, not dreaming that the imitation threatens those 
 claims more disastrously than the neglect of them could 
 possibly do. 
 
 It has been customary, in years past, for the fashion- 
 able circles of the city, and of the country too, to open 
 their doors on the first day of the new year, and extend 
 the hospitalities of their homes to their numerous friends. 
 Men from every profession turn out to do honor to the 
 reception of many a distinguished and generous hostess ; 
 and congratulations are exchanged over the dainty wine- 
 cup very politely, and sometimes, it may be, heartily. 
 This is repeated again and again through the da)', here 
 and there a little, until they seek their rooms at night 
 flushed, excited, dispirited beings, more inclined to 
 drown their discomfort in a fresh draught than to seek 
 to free themselves from it by a total refrain. In a recent 
 discussion of a certain committee among the officials 
 at Washington, one of the honored disputants thus 
 spoke : — 
 
 - “I heard last night a statement from one of the Creek 
 Indians. There the United States has a law with a 
 severe penalty for selling liquor to the Indians. This 
 man, well educated, of five and thirty years of age, 
 stated that in all their community he scarcely saw a 
 di’unken man ; that once in a while, as they went down 
 on the line of the railroad, one would be tempted, but, 
 as a general rule, there was no part of their whole terri- 
 tory where a drop of intoxicating liquor could be found ; 
 and that, if a man brought in a keg or bottle of it, and 
 it could be found, it was immediately destroyed. And 
 
YOUNG LADY OFFEKING HER LOVER WINE. 
 
 THE RESULT. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 77 
 
 this man stood up as a specimen of a savage who had 
 grown up without the use of intoxicating drinks, for he 
 said, — 
 
 “‘To this hour, there has never a drop of alcoholic 
 drink passed my lips, and I never was really tempted 
 but once in my life, and that was in the city of New 
 York, three years ago, when our delegation was taken 
 there. We were invited to a gentleman’s house and into 
 his parlor, and the lady of the house passed round a 
 waiter with Avine-glasses, and came to me and offered 
 me a glass of wine, and I for the moment was tempted.’ 
 It was a lady in an elegant house in New York. ‘ But,’ 
 said he, ‘ I thanked her, and said I would prefer a glass 
 of water.’ ” 
 
 Had all our young men the moral courage of the In- 
 dian, there would be little to fear , but most of them 
 are unwilling to offend the fair lady Avho so graciously 
 offers it, though their judgment condemns the custom, 
 and they know it is tightening the chains that bind them 
 to a fearful habit. Sad and humiliating as the confes- 
 sion may be, it is too true that ladies are responsible for 
 many a poor drunkard’s beginning. They do it in this 
 way, under the cover of politeness and the sanction of 
 fashion. Young ladies and gentlemen mingle together 
 in rides and various amusements, and, rather than wound 
 the sensitive gallantry of their attendants, the girls will 
 sip of the wine, and thus strengthen the propensity in 
 their brothers and friends. 
 
 A party of college students invited some young ladies 
 to take a ride to a neighboring town for an evening’s 
 enjoyment. The contents of the flowing bowl were 
 deemed necessary to promote it. They all drank of it, 
 and before they could reach home their jollity attracted 
 the attention and merited the rebuke of every lover of 
 sobriety in their way. 
 
78 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 “ O thou invisible spirit of wine ! if thou hast no 
 name to be known by, let us call thee — Devil.” So 
 sang Shakspeare long ago ; and let any one take his 
 stand-point from American social life and manners, he 
 would utter the same exclamation with equal empha- 
 sis now. The beverage has a large place at the tables 
 of the wealth}^ and no entertainment can be given in 
 honor of distinguished personages or occasions but the 
 toasts and sentiments must find their point in the cheery 
 wine. It speaks but poorly for the moral courage of 
 men that they will not froAvn upon the custom, when 
 they know it to be injurious to the highest interests of 
 those concerned. There is only now and then one who 
 is strong enough to stand up, and openly adhere to his 
 convictions of right, when the temptations of these flat- 
 tering circumstances surround him. Henry "Wilson, of 
 Massachusetts, and the "Vice-President of the nation, was 
 such a man, and the people honor him for the integrity 
 of his principles, and the manliness and decision of his 
 course at the beginning. Twenty years ago he went to 
 "VVashington with a petition to Congress from the people 
 of his native state. Although comparative!}' young, his 
 rising fame had singled him out as one eminently fitted 
 for the important commission. W^hile there, he received 
 an invitation to dine with John Quincy Adams. His 
 name had long been associated with the highest offices 
 in the country, and it was no small honor to the newlv- 
 fledged statesman to be counted worthy of a place 
 among the established dignitaries of the land. He had 
 been poor, and was then a mechanic in moderate circum- 
 stances, and altogether unused to the ways and appear- 
 ances of official dignity and style, and his name and 
 place he had yet to win. Great men sat at the table — 
 the greatest in the land ; and should not the youthful 
 aspirant for political distinction imitate the example of 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 79 
 
 his superiors ? The trying moment came when Mr. 
 Adams extended to him the invitation, — 
 
 “ Will you drink a glass of wine with me, sir ? ” 
 
 Temperance was one of the acknowledged virtues of 
 the young man. He had planted himself firmly against 
 everything that could intoxicate. But the eyes of many 
 greater than he were upon him, and would it be best to 
 risk his reputation upon so small a thing as the refusal 
 of a glass of wine ? It was not easy to decline such a 
 request from his venerable host. Those about him, older 
 and in some respects much wiser than himself, drank, and 
 it all conspired to produce embarrassment ; but amid his 
 blushes and hesitation his manhood asserted itself, and 
 he replied, — 
 
 “ Sir, I never take wine.” 
 
 It has been said that Massachusetts heard that answer, 
 and set him down for a trusty servant forever after. 
 Whatever influence the act may have had upon the 
 brilliant assemblage at the time, it has found its place 
 among the incidents of history, and made his name, to- 
 gether with the subsequent consistency of his conduct 
 in this direction, a power to the cause of temperance 
 everywhere. 
 
 There are those who think that wine is the least ob- 
 jectionable of all the so-called exhilarating drinks ; that 
 it is the purest, the most healthful and innocent bever- 
 age, aside from that which nature itself has provided, 
 that can be had. They feel comparatively safe in its 
 indulgence. But who does not know that, in these days 
 of modern avarice, there is scarcely anything left that is 
 pure ? Addison told us long ago of philosophers who 
 were daily employed in the transmutation of liquors, 
 and, “by the power of magical drugs and incantations, 
 raising, under the streets of London, the choicest prod- 
 ucts of the hills and valleys of France, squeezing claret 
 
80 
 
 INTEJMPERANCE, 
 
 out of the sloe, and drawing champagne out of an 
 apple.” The present system of adulteration leaves 
 nothing untouched. Quoting from one having author- 
 ity, he says,— 
 
 “ Who -does not know that nine tenths of the wine 
 consumed is but brandy, or something worse, under an- 
 other name ? In France and other European countries 
 are extensive establishments for the manufacture of all 
 the choicest varieties of wines ; and you may as well 
 know that, when you have paid a round price for wines 
 imported direct from the wine-growing districts and in 
 original packages, you are yet most likely paying for 
 what never smelt a grape. I do not say,” he contin- 
 ues, “ that there are no pure wines ; but I say that adul- 
 teration is the law, and purity the exception, and that 
 wdnes are so skilfully ‘ doctored ’ with well-selected 
 drugs as to escape even chemical tests as to their qual- 
 ity. An able writer goes so far as to affirm that ‘ wine 
 has become a myth, a shadow, a very Eurydice of life. 
 There is no such thing, we verily believe, as honest grape- 
 juice ivine remaining ; nothing hut a vile compound of 
 poisonous drugs and impurely obtained alcohol. And all 
 our beautiful Anacreontics are merely fables, like the 
 rest ; for wine hath died out from the world, and the 
 laboratory is now the vineyard.' ” 
 
 It is said “ that there is perhaps nearly a hundred 
 times as much Port wine (so called from Oj^orto) sold 
 and drank as can be made from all the grapes raised in 
 the region of Oporto, including the whole Douro Val- 
 ley.” And another writer declares that, “if the Douro 
 River were a thousand miles long, instead of only sixty, 
 it could not furnish grapes enough to make all this ocean 
 of ‘ Port’ wine. The whole world of fashionable topers, 
 invalids, and imbeciles are drinking wine made out of 
 the little handful of grapes grown on the banks of a 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 81 
 
 small creek in Portugal ! The miracle of feeding five 
 thousand souls from ‘five loaves anjl a few small fishes,’ ” 
 he says, “is as nothing compared to this.” 
 
 This is only one feature of the ease, only one branch 
 of the trade, and that foreign. But our own country is 
 pronounced the largest “ wine-growing district ” in the 
 world ! It is asserted that “ here are furnished a million 
 times more baskets of champagne (with exact imitation 
 of foreign brands) than are put up of the pure juice in 
 all the champagne districts of Europe ! By passing the 
 oil of whiskey through carbon, a Madeira is made, at a 
 profit of five hundred per cent., which few can tell from 
 the genuine.” Madeira grows thirty thousand barrels of 
 wine yearly, while America alone boasts of the annual 
 consumption of fifty thousand barrels of the same arti- 
 cle. These wines are produced at a veiy trifling cost by 
 the use of neutral spirits, or even with “ whiskey, vine- 
 gar, sulphuric acid, beet-root, alum, lead, logwood, pot- 
 ash, cider, copperas, and the like.” Of these and other 
 wines, the city of New York manufactures to the value 
 of eight million dollars every year , and these go out to 
 be employed largely in the mere formation of intemper- 
 ate habits, that by and by must and will have something 
 stronger for their support. 
 
 “ It is a notorious fact,” says one of the daily journals, 
 “ that even the California champagnes have been driven 
 from the market by ‘ doctored wines,’ or have themselves 
 been ‘ doctored’ to meet the popular demand.” 
 
 A wine dealer, in the bitterness of his penitential sor- 
 row, made the acknowledgment, on his death-bed, that 
 “he had often seen his customers wasting away around 
 him, poisoned by that he had meted out to them ; and 
 that same vrine, which was the cause of their decline, was 
 often prescribed by their physicians as a means , of their 
 recovery.” 
 
82 
 
 IN TEMPERANCE, 
 
 There is a lamentable ignorance among the mass of 
 the people upon this, whole subject. If, by any enlight- 
 ening process whatever, the scales can be made to fall 
 from their eyes, a brighter and better condition of things 
 will be inaugurated, unless men persistently take the 
 position which compels us to say, “None are so blind as 
 those that will not see.” 
 
 The voice of antiquity is clear and distinct upon this 
 question. Far back in the history of the earlv ages, long 
 before the birth of Christ, a Chinese emperor declared, 
 “ in a solemn assembly of states, that wine must be for- 
 bidden to his svibjects, because it was the fruitful source 
 of evil, and all manner of social disturbance.” In the 
 year 600, Mohammed prohibited the use of wdue among 
 his followers, “because it was the prolific cause of vice 
 and crime.” And Plato approved “the Carthaginian 
 law that no sort of wine be drunk in the camp, nor au}'- 
 thing save water,” by reason of its inevitable tendency 
 to produce drunkenness and insubordination. The laws 
 of Sparta were made rigid on this point, and the most 
 stringent measures resorted to, to put an end to the 
 drinking of wine. “ Slaves were made drunk, and ex- 
 hibited in this condition to youth, in order to inspire them 
 with abhorrence of this filthy vice.” 
 
 It is to be remembered that all this comes down to us 
 from centuries when the people were vastly better fitted 
 to give decided issue upon the power of wine to promote 
 or hinder temperance, for to them even the art of distil- 
 lation was unknown. 
 
 There has been a widely-spread notion that native 
 wine is not intoxicating in its nature ; that in wine- 
 producing countries, where it Avas used as a common 
 and almost exclusive beverage, intemperance was com- 
 paratively unknown. But the testimcny of modern 
 travellers has nearly exploded the theory. If it be 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 83 
 
 not so apparent to the American as he is passing through 
 these countries, it is because these are shut out from the 
 higher and better conditioned class ; and in all the pub- 
 lic means of conveyance, and in all the circumstances in 
 which he is naturally thrown, he does not come in con- 
 tact with this phase of life. Prof. Butler lived several 
 years in Europe, both in city and country, and was 
 therefore better qualified to give a correct judgment of 
 the matter than those who formed their impressions 
 from a hasty transit through the region. 
 
 “We have heard Americans assert,” he says, “that 
 there is no drunkenness in any country where wine 
 takes the place of stronger liquors. Now, we have 
 sifted this matter thoroughly, both in Italy and Switzer- 
 land, and are bound to deny the truth of this statement. 
 Why is it, then, that so little drunkenness is seen by 
 strangers ? Because Italian laborers rarely begin their 
 potations until the day’s work is over. They carouse 
 from about nightfall until midnight, when, money spent 
 or credit exhausted, they reel home, and the cries and 
 groans of wives and children soon tell of the fury and 
 brutality which mark the drunkard the world over. 
 Thinking it probable that brandy did most of the mis- 
 chief, I inquired as to this point. In every case, my 
 questions caused surprise, and the answers were always 
 the same : ‘ No, no ! it is wine — always wine.’ ” 
 
 Rev. E. S. Lacy, of San Francisco, spent several 
 months in Switzerland, and thus writes : — 
 
 “ I have just spent six months in a country place, 
 where the people do nothing but work in the vineyards ; 
 where wine is cheap and pure, and far more the bever- 
 age of the laboring classes than water ; where none 
 think of making a dinner without a bottle of wine ; 
 where all the scenery is of the most elevating and enno- 
 bling character. Here more intoxication was obvious than 
 
84 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 in any other place it was ever my lot to live in. On holi- 
 days and festal occasions, you might suppose all the 
 male population drunk, so great are the numbers in this 
 deranged and beastly condition. On Sunday afternoons 
 young men go shouting along the streets. Intelligent 
 Germans inform me that tliis is the great social evil of 
 their country, a place where wine, if not ver}^ cheap, is 
 never adulterated, and where great quantities of it are 
 drunk.” 
 
 Louis Philippe, the King of France, in an interview 
 with one of our own countrymen in 1838, described the 
 intemperance of his people as very great, and declared 
 that wine was its producing cause. 
 
 The Duke of Orleans made the statement to Mr. 
 Delavan, the person referred to, and also said that, in 
 those districts where the most wine was made, there 
 was the greatest wretchedness, and the most frequent 
 appeals to government for aid.” 
 
 When Horace Greeley was travelling in France, he 
 made these observations from her ga}^ capital : — 
 
 “ Wine will intoxicate — does intoxicate. That there 
 are confirmed drunkards in Paris and throughout France 
 is notorious and undeniable. You can hardly open a 
 French newspaper that does not contain some account 
 of a robbery perpetrated upon some person stupefied by 
 over-drinking ; a police case growing out of a quarrel 
 over the wine-cup ; or a culprit, when asked to say why 
 the sentence of the law should not be pronounced 
 against him, reply, ‘ I was drunk when this happened, 
 and know nothing of the matter.’ That journejunen 
 are commonly less fitted for and less inclined to work 
 on Monday than on other days of the week, is as noto- 
 rious here as it ever was in any rum-drinking city that 
 could be named.” 
 
 The testimony of other travellers, equally prominent 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 85 
 
 and reliable, all concur in establishing the same conclu- 
 sion. We give but one more observation with reference 
 to the French people, and that is from the pen of 
 Charles Dickens : — 
 
 “ The wine-shops are the colleges and chapels of the 
 poor in France. History, morals, politics, jurisprudence, 
 and literature, in iniquitous forms, are all taught in these 
 colleges and chapels, where professors of evil continually 
 deliver those lessons, and where hymns are sung nightly 
 to the demons of demoralization. In these haunts of 
 the poor, theft is taught as the morality of property, 
 falsehood as speech, and assassination as the justice of 
 the people. It is in the wine shop the cabman is taught 
 to think it heroic to shoot the middle-class man who dis- 
 putes his fare. It is in the wine shop the workman is 
 taught to admire the man who stabs his faithless mis- 
 tress. It is in the wine shop the doom is pronounced of 
 the employer who lowers the pay of the employed. The 
 wine shops breed, in a physical atmosphere of malaria 
 and a moral pestilence of envy and vengeance, the men 
 of crime and revolution. Hunger is proverbially a bad 
 counsellor, but drink is worse.” 
 
 A voice comes to us from Persian lands, in the testi- 
 mony of those who have lived and labored there, and 
 are familiar with all the customs and manners of the 
 native population. Mr. Labaree, who has long been a 
 missionary in that land, writes to this country after 
 this manner : — 
 
 “ If I had any sentiments favorable to the moderate 
 use of wine when I left America, my observations dur- 
 ing the seven years I have resided in this paradise of 
 vineyards have convinced me that the principle of total 
 abstinence is the only safeguard against the great social 
 and religious evils that How from tne practice of wine 
 drinking.” 
 
86 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 Describing the scenes between vintage and Lent, he 
 says, — 
 
 “ As you might suppose, drunkenness in its various 
 grades becomes too common to excite surprise. Priests 
 apologize with tlie greatest coolness for irregularity of 
 conduct b}’" stating that they were, at the time, under 
 the influence of wine. 
 
 “ Carnival week, preceding Lent, is especially noted 
 for the amount of wine consumed. The devotees of the 
 boAvl now give themselves up to the greatest excesses. 
 Midnight orgies, low songs, and boisterous quarrels re- 
 sound from almost every street. Multitudes, at other 
 times moderate drinkers, are drawn almost irresistibly 
 into this vortex of drunken revelry. A fellow-mission- 
 ary tells me that on visiting, at the carnival season, last 
 year, a large Christian village of eight or nine hundred 
 inhabitants, he found, on inquiry, that from two to three 
 hundred were drunk, atid that some one Avas in similar 
 condition in ail but about twenty houses out of one hun- 
 dred and thirty.” And he adds, “ There is scarcely a 
 community to be found Avhere the blighting influences 
 of intemperance are not seen in families distressed and 
 ruined, property squandered, character destroyed, and 
 lives lost.” 
 
 Dr. Holland sums i;p the whole thing Avhen he writes, 
 from the sunny land of the vine, his convictions upon 
 this important subject. These ideas have been embod- 
 ied in various forms into the temperance literature of 
 the country ; but they furnish so strong a declaration 
 against the utility of domestic wine, and its power to 
 diminish the evil of intemperance, we give it a place 
 here. 
 
 “ There is no question,” he says, “ that the people 
 would be better, healthier, and happier, and much more 
 prosperous, if there were not a vineyard in the canton. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. * 87 
 
 We have been told in 'America — and I fully believed it — - 
 that, if a people could be supplied with a cheap wine, thej^ 
 would not get drunk ; that the natural desire for some 
 sort of stimulant would be gratified in a way that would 
 be not only harmless to morals, but conducive to health. 
 I am thoroughly • undeceived. The people drink their 
 cheap white wine here to drunkenness. A boozier set 
 than hang around the multitudinous caf^s here it would 
 be hard to find in any American city ; even here they 
 enjoy the license of the Maine law. The grand differ- 
 ence in the drunkenness of an American and Swiss city 
 is found in the fact that the man Avho has wine in him is 
 good-natured, and the man who is equally charged with 
 whiskey is a demon. There is no murdering, no fight- 
 ing, no wrangling. The .excitement is worked off in 
 singing, shouting, and all sorts of insane jabber. Then 
 the steady, old white-wine topers come into blossom. 
 If you can imagine a cauliflower of the color of the 
 ordinary red cabbage, you can achieve a very adequate 
 conception of faces that are not uncommon in all this 
 wine-growing region. So this question is settled in my 
 mind. Cheap wine is not the cure of intemperance. 
 The people here are just as intemperate as they are in 
 America ; and, what is more, there is no public senti- 
 ment that checks intemperance in the least. The wine 
 is fed freely to children, and by all classes is regarded as 
 a perfectly legitimate drink. Failing to find the solu- 
 tion of the temperance question in the Maine law, fail- 
 ing to perceive it in the various modes and movements 
 of reform, I, with many others, have looked with hope 
 to find it in a cheap and comparatively harmless wine ; 
 but, for one, I can look in this direction hopefully no 
 longer. I firmly believe that the wines of Switzerland 
 are of no use, except to keep out whiskey, and that the 
 advantages of the wine over the whiskey are not very 
 6 
 
88 
 
 INTEMPEKAXCE, 
 
 obvious. It is the testimony of the best men in Switzer- 
 land — those who have the highest good of the people 
 at heart — that the increased growth of the grape has 
 been steadily and correspondingly attended by the in- 
 crease of drunkenness. They lament the planting of a 
 new vineyard as we at home regret the opening of a new 
 grog shop. They expect no good of it to anybody. 
 They know, and deeply feel, that the whole wine-pro- 
 ducing enterprise is charged with degradation for their 
 country. A large amount of land in this canton of 
 Vaud is surrendered to the cultivation of the gi’ape ; 
 and, as the wine of Switzerland is never heard of out 
 of Switzerland, it is plain that it is all drunk here. In- 
 deed, I have been assured that the wine produced in 
 this canton is drunk mainly in the canton itself. Now, 
 from Villeneuve to Morges — a distance of twenty-five 
 miles, as I guess somewhat at random — the entire lake- 
 side, averaging half a mile in width, is a vineyard. One 
 can say, with literal truth, ' that, throughout the entire 
 territory I describe to you, no crop but grapes is grown. 
 For the last three weeks, the whole working population, 
 men and women, have been in these vineyards gathering 
 the crop. The teams are employed in transporting the 
 immensely large casks of new wine from the presses to 
 the cellars of their owners, to the vaults of the owners 
 who have purchased it, and to the railroad depot, for 
 transportation to the storehouses of speculators in other 
 quarters. 
 
 “ There is an endeavor on the part of these people to 
 throw a romantic interest around their vintage. The 
 casks go through the streets with gay bouquets of flow- 
 ers in their bung-holes ; but, from what I have seen here 
 of the effect of wine, the show is all a sorry farce. 
 
 ■“I was told, before leaving America, that I should be 
 obliged to drink wine or beer in Europe. One good 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. SS 
 
 clerical friend assured me that I could not get through 
 Great Britain safely without drinking beer. As I did not 
 like beer, the prospect was not pleasant. Indeed, I felt 
 about as badly discouraged as Brigham Young declares 
 he did when the duty of polygamy was made known to 
 him by heavenly revelation. W ell, I did not drink beer, 
 and I got through Great Britain very comfortably in- 
 deed. None of my party drank beer, and all survived, 
 not only, but improved, upon cold water — the terribly 
 poisonous water of Great Britain ! In Paris I took the 
 ordinary red wine. In Switzerland I continued it with 
 great moderation, until I was thoroughly satisfied that 
 every glass I drank damaged not only my health, but my 
 comfort. Now I drink no wine at all ; and that member 
 of my party who has drank nothing but water from the 
 time of leaving America, has experienced not one parti- 
 cle of inconvenience from the practice. We have all 
 concluded that wine-drinking in Europe is just as un- 
 necessary as in America, and that there was never a 
 greater mistake than the supposition that alcohol in any 
 form is necessary as a daily beverage for any man or 
 woman.” 
 
 What is true with reference to the subject is equally 
 true in our own land. A voice comes to us from the 
 sunny climes of the grape in our own country, testifying 
 to the same thing. At a state convention of the friends 
 of temperance in San Francisco, in 1866, the following 
 resolution was adopted : — 
 
 “ Resolved, That we consider the project of banishing 
 intemperance from California by introducing the general 
 use of wine as a beverage, to be a delusion and a snare.. 
 Even were it possible to exclude ardent spirits, and sub- 
 stitute' the fermented juice of the grape, there is no 
 reason to look for any other results than followed in the 
 ages of antiquity, when wine was the only intoxicating 
 
90 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 beverage, and when tbe drunkenness of wine-drinking 
 nations provoked the wrath of God, and the denuncia- 
 tions of Holy Writ.” 
 
 Then and there they denounced the manufacture of 
 wine “ as destructive to the highest political and reli- 
 gious interests of the commonwealth.” 
 
 Said the Rev. Dr. Stone, — 
 
 “ I had entertained a sort of hope that the manufac- 
 ture of pure wines, and their introduction into general 
 use, would crowd out the gross and strong liquors, and 
 diminish intemperance. I am now fully convinced that 
 this hope was groundless and delusive. -It is in evidence 
 that full two thirds of all the wine is converted by the 
 manufacturers into brandy. It also appears that in the 
 wine-growing districts intemperance is on the increase, 
 extending even to the youth of both sexes. There is no 
 loay hut to take ground against the production of grapes 
 for all such manufacture. Tins touches a large and 
 growing pecuniary interest, and will provoke strenuous 
 opposition ; hut we must save this state, if it can he done, 
 from such investment of capital and labor, and from the 
 unavoidable result of drunkenness, profligacy, and crime.” 
 
 An editor of a California paper thus writes : — 
 
 “ Through some parts of these mountains, as well as 
 in the valleys, there is arising one species of production 
 fraught with dire evil to the producers and the country. 
 It is that of wine-making. Abeady wine has become as 
 nheap as milk, and is as freely drank, till mam’ once 
 sober men are growing habitually intoxicated. In one 
 wine-growing neighborhood, we are told that young 
 girls seventeen years of age reeled through the streets 
 under the intoxication of pure California wine. Hen 
 once of- worth now are, through wine, lost to society, 
 and becoming a fear and disgrace to their families. One 
 leading man enumerated to us five of his acquaintances 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY, 
 
 91 
 
 who, once noble men, are now to be called drunkards 
 through wine. Many of the temperance men who fol- 
 lowed the wine-growing delusion are now returning to 
 their proper senses. We know of some whose sons are 
 drunkards ; of others who have fallen victims, themselves 
 to the curse of appetite. We are not romancing in these 
 statements ; we know whereof we affirm, and can name 
 not a few who were forced to choose between the alter- 
 natives of a drunken family or an abandonment of the 
 wine business. One of these related to us personally 
 this fact in these words : ‘ Myself and my whole family 
 were fast becoming drunkards upon our wine ; and the 
 daily quantity drunk by each increased so rapidly as to 
 threaten to consume the profits of the business.’ ” 
 Notwithstanding this and a host of similar testimony, 
 there are those who yet fail to be convinced, and fly 
 from it all to the shadow of Holy Writ, thinking that 
 there they are shielded from the attacks of the would- 
 be temperance reformer, who would rob them, as they 
 think, of their cherished pleasures. Although they be 
 confronted with the declaration there that “ wine is a 
 mocker,” they pass that by, to linger at the marriage 
 feast in Cana, whence an incontestable argument in 
 their favor is supposed to be drawn. If miraculous 
 agency was deemed worthy to supply the deficiency on 
 this cheerful Occasion by the highest of all authority, 
 then was it not unquestionably a good thing ? There 
 are elaborate and learned discussions by men of reputa- 
 tion and talent to prove that the wines used on this and 
 other solemn occasions were not fermented wines at all ; 
 that, when Christ used it as a significant emblem at the 
 last touching memorial with his disciples, it was the 
 simple “fruit of the vine,” without any intoxicating ele- 
 ment at all. We propose not to enlarge here upon this 
 topic. There is something in the idea that “ the word 
 
9 ;^ 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 ‘ Wne ’ occurs in the Bible two hundred and sixtj-one 
 times. One hundred and twenty-one times it contains 
 warnings ; seventy-one times it contains warnhigs and 
 reproofs ; twelve times it denounces it as poisonous and 
 venornous; and five times it totally prohibits it.” It 
 sums up the whole thing in one broad and sweeping 
 assertion — “No di-unkard shall enter the kingdom of 
 heaven.” 
 
 W e have dwelt thus long upon wine and its influence 
 because a love for the weaker leads to the stronger — 
 because here the first downward step is so often taken 
 in the path that leads, in the end, to disaster and rmn. 
 Dash the wine opp-, and you save multitudes. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Ale and Beer. 
 
 MANKIND SEEK SELF-GRATIFICATION. — WILL BEER INTOXICATE ? — 
 “lost or stolen.” — BEER OP GERMAN ORIGIN. — THE BEER-LOV- 
 ING NEIGHBOR. “ THE LITTLE THING.” BEER BILL IN ENGLAND. 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. — FRUIT OF INDULGENCE. — BEER-BREWEES’ 
 CONVICTION. 
 
 Mankind have long been seeking “ the philosopher’s 
 stone,” that should turn everything into “gold.” They 
 have been trying to find something that would make ordi- 
 nary hard things in their way lighter, easier, and more 
 fanciful ; something that would meet all their wants and 
 passions, their desires and appetites, so as td cause less 
 trouble to conscience, and preserve them from the haunt- 
 ing conviction that they were sacrificing their manhood 
 to a forbidden indulgence. So, after this manner, they 
 have been trying to persuade themselves that the milder 
 form of stimulant might minister to their craving neces- 
 sities, and yet keep them in the path of safety, and ex- 
 pose them to less censure ; for before the faculties are 
 benumbed by artificial means, the good opinion of fellow- 
 men is a strong incentive to action. It is to be doubted 
 if man experiences keener pangs than those which come 
 to him in the first knowledge that he has forfeited the 
 esteem of those about him by the open committal of that 
 which they denounce. For fear of this the man who 
 loves stimulating drink will hesitate, will carefully and 
 cautiously enter the secret place, and drop his head and 
 
94 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, • 
 
 avert his gaze if he thinks there is any danger of recog- 
 nition from those whom he would have remain in igno- 
 rance of his deed. For this reason, men who would 
 not be seen drinking a glass of brandy will unhesitat- 
 ingly take the foaming beer, and think they have done 
 a light thing ; but observation, as well as the conclusions 
 of science, fully demonstrate the folly of those who im- 
 agine that ale and beer are among the wholesome and 
 inoffensive drinks. Like many other inconsistent <iues- 
 tioners, they go to work to prove the question, “ Will 
 lager beer intoxicate?” when experience, observation, 
 and testimony have decided it beyond controversy. “ As 
 well ask me if two and two make four,”, says one. It is 
 true that the percentage of alcohol in this is smaller, by 
 far, than in most other compositions of the kind, and it 
 takes larger quantities to insure intoxication ; but never- 
 theless the spirit is there, and does its work. A short 
 time since the following striking paragraph appeared in 
 print : — 
 
 “ Lost or Stolen. 
 
 “ Through the agency of villains, under the disguise 
 of friends, the undersigned has lost within the few past 
 years the following items of property, viz. : — 
 
 An unencumbered estate ; 
 
 A vigorous constitution ; 
 
 A fair moral character ; 
 
 A good standing in society ; 
 
 An active, healthful conscience. 
 
 Also, at the same time, or soon after, the affection of 
 a wife, of children and friends. The miscreants who 
 have thus robbed me are members of one family. Their 
 names are Rum, Gin, Brandy, Wine, and Ale. Another 
 base fellow, a recent emigrant from Germany, named 
 Lager ^ it is supposed had a hand in the robbery, as he is 
 much in the company of the above-named brotherhood 
 of thieves, and appears to be of kindred character. The 
 villains are. stiU lurking in the city. Whoever AviU ap- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 95 
 
 prehend tliem and bring the cidprits to justice shall 
 receive the thanks of those most interested, and a cup 
 of cold water.” 
 
 This beer is a drink of German origin, the saloon for 
 its vending a distinguishing vcharacteristic of their coun- 
 try. They are fitted up in fine style, and the proprietors 
 allure a crowd of customers by the attractions of music, 
 by spreading tables with tempting luxuries, and provid- 
 ing for every form of gay festivity. Hither the people 
 resort continually, and on the Sabbath, men, women, and 
 children fiock to these scenes of hilarity, and may be 
 seen, each with their glass of beer, in the various stages 
 of excitement which the drink is calculated to produce. 
 Among the things that have come to us through the in- 
 fluence of German immigration is the re-production of 
 this same custom. Wherever a german settlement is 
 found, the sign of beer is prominent. They take the 
 brewery with them wherever they go, and it is heralded 
 on the corners of all the streets. There they act over 
 and over again the scenes of their fatherland ; and they 
 who know anything about it know that the end thereof 
 is riot and confusion. A beer-drinker is nothing less 
 than an intemperate man. His appearance indicates the 
 same marks of dissipation as others. There is the same 
 bloated and disfigured aspect ; the look of the face de- 
 generates into the same sensual expression as is written 
 there by stronger mixtures. It may be slower in doing 
 its Avork, but it is, nevertheless, essentially the same. 
 Because of its sIoav working, many mistake its character 
 altogether, and the keg of beer finds its way, regularly, 
 into many families that would scorn the idea of bearing 
 anything else but a reputation for temperance. Those 
 in the lower walks of life, who drink largely and con- 
 stantly, exhibit the same disposition that the intoxicated 
 man always does. A neighbor of the AAU'iter was addicted 
 
96 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 to the habit of drinking, and it was almost always con- 
 fined to lager beer. The contents of a beer cask would 
 suffice hut for a day or two, and at the times of these 
 inordinate indulgences, he was in the lowest depths of 
 intoxication. Morose in his family, when in his sober 
 moments he was remarkably kind ; neglectful of his 
 business, when otherwise he was industrious — and alto- 
 gether brutish and insensible. The glass of ale and the 
 draught of beer, prescribed for health, and drank until 
 it is considered a daily necessity, have kindled an iiTe- 
 sistible appetite with a great many — an appetite the 
 insatiable cravings of which could not be met without 
 something far stronger ; and that stronger potion has 
 unmanned the individual and destroyed the man. A 
 clergyman once remarked, “ One of the smartest 5mung 
 men we ever raised in our place fell out of the midst of 
 his college course a drunkard. Why ? He took lager 
 beer. Rank, pride, education, elevated society, ambi- 
 tion, and religious influences, — every motive that could 
 lead him to refrain, — held back the young man ; ” “ and 
 who,” he says, “ shall measure the power of that passion 
 for drink which ruined Irim ? ” 
 
 “A glass of ale is a ‘little thing,’ a ‘small affair,’ ” 
 says John B. Gough, that mighty worker in the cause 
 of temperance ; “ but I care not what it is holds a man, 
 so long as he is held by it.” “ Some men,” he says, “ play 
 with this ‘ little thing ’ until they are in the position of 
 the poor fellow outside the lines, when he called out, 
 “ I’ve got a prisoner.” “ Bring him in.” “ He won’t 
 come.” “Well, then; you had better come in without 
 him.” “ He won’t let me.” 
 
 A certain man had a son who became so addicted to 
 the frequent use of the cup, that it threatened to hold 
 him fast in its slavish chains ; for there is that beneath 
 the foaming surface that is like unto a binding fetter to 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 99 
 
 the body and soul of every man who imbibes so freely. 
 Awaking to the consciousness of his condition, he re- 
 solved to begin the work of reformation, and for eighteen 
 months he adhered to his resolution, and his friends 
 exulted in the hope that he was safe. Happening one 
 day to be at a public house, where he saw a clergyman 
 call for a glass of beer, the sleeping demon within him 
 awoke, and he said to himself, “ If he can take a glass 
 of beer, why cannot I?” With that he did take, and 
 the flood-gates were open — the power of resistance was 
 gone. He took another, and another, until hope and 
 effort, pride and ambition, died out, and he became a mis- 
 erable sot, and his death was the death of the drunkard. 
 
 The same arguments are urged with reference to 
 beer that have been urged in connection with wine. 
 Many have supposed that it would lighten the ravages 
 of intemperance ; that it would diminish its sad results 
 a thousand fold, because its quality and nature were less 
 baneful. The English Parliament enacted what was 
 termed “ the beer bill,” on this assumption, in 1830. 
 Some of the strongest minds of the realm supported the 
 measure, with the avowed conviction that it would fur- 
 nish the people with a “wholesome beverage,” and 
 “preserve their morals from contamination.” After the 
 passage of the bill, the Duke of W ellington declared it 
 to be “a greater achievement than any of his military 
 victories.” But the result of its action was sad enough. 
 In less than a year the strongest supporters of the meas- 
 ure were surprised by the sudden and general demoral- 
 ization produced. Among others, the Rev. Sydney Smith 
 had looked to the passing of the bill as one of great 
 importance — an omen for good ; but only two weeks 
 after it came into effect, he wrote, “ The new beer bill 
 has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those 
 who are not singing are sprawUny. The sovereign peo- 
 
100 
 
 INTEMPEEAiTCE, 
 
 pie are in a beastly state.” Another writer declares, 
 that, “ from his own knowledge he could positively assert 
 that these beer shops had made many who were pre- 
 viously sober and industrious now drunkards, and many 
 mothers had also become tipplers.” 
 
 Another argument of the beer supporters is, that its 
 evolution from nourishing grains make it eminently con- 
 ducive in repairing the waste of the human system, but 
 Professor Chandler, of Columbia College, in subjecting 
 the whole to a rigid chemical analysis, has dissipated this 
 theory, and shown that the nutritive qualities of its dis- 
 tilled condition are meagre indeed. 
 
 So, in whatever light we look at it, from whatever 
 point of observation we consider it, there remains noth- 
 ing favorable to the adoption of beer as a favorite and 
 wholesome beverage. All theories that tend to this 
 crumble and fall before the tragic scenes of history and 
 experiences. If any doubt it, let them visit the shops 
 and the saloons where this liquid draught is constantly 
 dealt out and consumed, and behold the invariable and 
 inevitable tendenc}^ of the whole thing. Let them wit- 
 ness the bacchanalian revelry of those who tarry long at 
 the beer, and then say, if they can, wherein lies the 
 innocence and harmlessness of the drink. It is there 
 that every low and debasing influence is at work ; there 
 that every low amusement is resorted to, and there the 
 enginery of evil kept in motion — the fires kindled, and 
 the flames fed b}’ men whose baser passions are stirred 
 to the unhallowed work by the unnatural pressure that 
 is upon them. Then we feel like taking up the senti- 
 ment of the poet of the past, in another sense, and ex- 
 claiming, “ O thou invisible spirit of ‘beer,’ had we no 
 other name to call thee by, we should christen thee as the 
 Bard of Avon baptized the spirit of wine long ago, and 
 recognize in this the grim portrait of him who presides 
 over the world of woe.” 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSTD ITS EEMEDT. 101 
 
 There is now and then a ray of hope, that comes 
 athwart the gloom. Some are awaking to the considera- 
 tion of the consequences which the custom of beer drink- 
 ing involves. A sensation has recently arisen, by the 
 conviction and corresponding action of a prominent 
 brewer in Newark, N. J. He was one of the largest 
 and wealthiest dealers in the place, had been in the 
 business twenty-five years, and amassed a fortune esti- 
 mated at half a million. All through the city of New 
 York his beer was in popular demand. A few weeks 
 since, under the conviction of duty which pressed upon 
 him, he abandoned the pursuit which had engrossed his 
 mind for a quarter of a century ; discharged those whom 
 he had in his employ ; and declared his work, in the ordi- 
 nary direction, to be at an end. Thus he tells his story : 
 “Three years ago I stopped drinking any kind of beer 
 or liquor, and have not ta.led a drop since. Latterly 
 I began to think that it was inconsistent for me to make 
 for others what I deemed hurtful to myself. .When I 
 finally came to the conclusion that my business was 
 wrong, and that to continue in it would simply be to 
 outrage ray conscience, I promptly resolved tq stop and 
 I have done it.. I intend that this building, if used at 
 all in future, must be devoted to other purposes. I re- 
 solved not to sell my business ; I wanted it stopped. 
 My action is not the result of religious excitement or 
 conversion, but a conviction of what was my duty. I 
 suppose that a good many Germans will take offence at 
 what I have done ; and I am very sorry. The brewers, 
 too, will be offended v but, once convinced, as I. am, that 
 intemperance is the great curse of the world, I shall never 
 again have anything to do with beer making. The Ger- 
 mans are sensitive on this question ; but I guess, on 
 second thought, they will admit m}^. right to hold my 
 own views ; I certainly would not interfere with theirs. 
 
102 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 Since getting out of the traffic, I have felt like a new 
 man, — as though a load had been lifted from my con- 
 science.” Would similar resolutions be acted upon by 
 those in like circumstances, and engaged in the same 
 business, what burdens would be lifted from thousands 
 of human hearts that now lie crushed and bleeding, with 
 hope and gladness all gone out of them ! Not only would 
 those immediately concerned share in the delightful sense 
 of relief, but the crowd of those more remote, over whom 
 the rushing tide of woe has swept, would lift up their 
 heads, and breathe more freely under the new condition. 
 When conviction shall have taken a wider range, and 
 duty a broader sweep, there will not be so many wagons 
 passing through our streets, piled up with the casks 
 which contain the elements of disease and death, and 
 are suggestive of all manner of unpleasant things. Even 
 now they are passing the window, bent on their sad mis- 
 sion — and where are the hearts and hands that are 
 waiting to stay the blighting curse ? Where are those 
 who would stay the filling of the cup, ere it be lifted to 
 the lips of those who wipe out every symptom of a 
 healthy taste in draining the fiery contents ? 
 
 The times demand that they lurk no more in their 
 hiding-places, but come forth with courage and strength, 
 and wage open war with the formidable tyrant that 
 leadeth so many captive at his wdll. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.' 
 
 Rum and Brandy. 
 
 STEPPING DOWNWARD.* — TEMPERANCE PILLARS DISREGARDED- — WIFE’S 
 METHOD OF REFORM. — THREE STAGES QF DRINK. — ALCOHOLIC DE- 
 RANGEMENT OF THE STOMACH — OP THE BLOOD. — THE INEBRIATE’S 
 CONFESSION. — THE PHYSICIAN’S STORY. — RICH AND POOR ALIKE 
 FALL. — WILKES BObTH. — CASE OF DELIRIUM TREMENS- — THE MAN 
 WHO THOUGHT HIMSELF SAFE. — THE MANIAC’S SHRIEK. 
 
 We read of “ stepping heavenward,” and as all the 
 beautiful possibilities of such a course dawn upon us, 
 everything that is good and true with'in us bows before 
 it. We see how all the discipline of such a life tends 
 to the exaltation of the soul ; how all surrounding cir- 
 cumstances and attendant providences are so many re- 
 fining processes to lift up and ennoble the heart ; how 
 the secret and mysterious working of the invisible good 
 shines out through the eyes, and reveals itself in every 
 line of the face, until we, too, discover the rounds of the 
 ladder of light up which sxich are climbing, and which is 
 lost in the depths of the blue ether beyond. 
 
 By the law of association we are borne upward, also. 
 We trace the history of such ones with those feelings of 
 intense satisfaction which we imagine the watchful 
 guardians of the celestial world to feel when those 
 whom they have been commissioned to “ bear up,” and 
 minister unto, upon the earth, are obedient unto the 
 heavenly vision, and wake to the harmonies of their 
 angelic touch. But who shall turn from this to give an 
 adequate description of the one stepping downward — 
 
104 
 
 mTESIPEEAXCE, 
 
 downward to the very brink of perdition, recklessly near- 
 ing the verge of remediless ruin, and all the while writing 
 the direst prophecies for himself ? Meantime, the shad- 
 ows which precede coming events, are settling down into 
 the “blackness of darkness^’ forever. 
 
 O, it is enough to make the angels weep, if they are 
 ever permitted to look down from their abodes of celes- 
 tial purity and blessedness, and behold the multitude 
 who are stepping, yea, rushing -on, in this broad high- 
 •way of intemperance. To see those who should be re- 
 flecting the glory of their creation, wilfully blotting out 
 every trace of that which divinity stamped upon them, 
 and prostituting all their gifts before an unholy and un- 
 hallowed shrine, is enough to stir even heaven with 
 pitiful indignation. • There is no language strong enough 
 to denounce the folly of such a course ; and yet the sad 
 truth is acted out a- thousand times, over and over, every 
 day and every year. TVe are so familiar with the re- 
 ccital of all this waste and perversion ; so accustomed to 
 the story of guilt and wretchedness — the wrongs and 
 woes involved, that they too often fail to excite more than 
 a sigh of commiseration, or, at most, the silent tear of 
 pit}’'. We have followed these unhappy beings while 
 taking the first steps in their downward course, and we 
 come now to the last station of their “ Black Valley 
 Railroad,” just ahead of which is the Depot of Destruc- 
 tion, and beyond, the track is lost in the shadows of the 
 Infernal. We have seen them begin thoughtlessly — 
 take the first steps remorsefully and shrinkingly, and we 
 have seen them grow gradually bold and defiant, until 
 they have reached the abandonment of every worthy 
 impulse, and provoked the fury of a tempest which 
 . they knew would leave them a wrecked and stranded 
 thing on the shores of time, with scarce a ray of hope 
 that they could ever again be restored or refitted for the 
 
ITS ASPECT APTD ITS EEjMEDT. 
 
 105 
 
 position they had lost — if, indeed, they go not out of 
 sight entirely. 
 
 This is the point where the strongest of alcoholic 
 mixtures will alone suffice to meet the want ; where the 
 slow steps of the first grade have passed into the rapid 
 strides of a steep declivity that knows no resistance. 
 One by one the pillars of Temperance, against which he 
 may have leaned in time past, have been swept away, 
 and there remains nothing more for his support or his 
 safety. He is impelled onward and downward by the 
 momentum of his own deeds. Reason, Science, Reve- 
 lation, and Experience are said to.be the guide-boards 
 in the way of every man, each pointing, with unerring 
 finger, to the gate- of the wise, and warning against the 
 path of the destroyer ; but what are all these, and what 
 the evils to which they point to him, who is controlled 
 by rum and brandy, and e-very sensibility stupefied 
 thereby ? What to him are the calm deductions of 
 reason, when the proper functions of his judgment have 
 no more play ? 
 
 What to him are unfoldings of science when the fac- 
 ulties of perception have been dimmed and bleared until 
 there is no more power of vision remaining ? And what 
 the monitory tones of revelation and experience, when 
 conscience is deadened to every sound ? when hope 
 ceases to allure, and fear stirs no compunction ? There- 
 seems no avenue by which the confirmed inebriate can be- 
 reached. His soul is effectually barred against all warn- 
 ing and entreaty. Now and then, it may be, there comes, 
 a lucid interval, when the memory of what is lost comes 
 over the mind, and there comes a humiliating sense of 
 the degradation -that rum has occasioned, accompanied 
 by a momentary desire to be free from the galling bon- 
 dage. The right treatment, at such a time, doth some- 
 times work a change. “ What brings you here, Mary ? 
 
 7 
 
106 
 
 INTElMPERAlSrCE, 
 
 said a man to his wife, as she entered the saloon where he 
 had been leaving his money and his mind. She had 
 pondered the fact over and over, until, in her despera- 
 tion, she resolved to risk the attempt of a daring deed, 
 and follow him to his well-known haunt. “It is very 
 lonesome at home,” she replied, “ and your business sel- 
 dom allows you to be there.” There was a touching look 
 of grief on that face, a^plaintive sorrow in her tone as she 
 said, “ To me there is no compan}'- like yours ; and as you" 
 cannot come to me, I must come to you. I have a right 
 to share your pleasures, as well as your sorrows.” 
 
 “ But to come to such a place as this ! ” expostulated' 
 the husband. “ But no place can be improper where you 
 are,” said the poor, discouraged wife. “ Whom God 
 hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Taking 
 up the glass of spirits which the keeper of the saloon 
 had poured out for him, who had become his frequent 
 customer, she raised it to her lips. 
 
 With a look of unutterable astonishment he ex- 
 claimed, “Surely you are not going to drink that?” 
 “Why not?” said she; “you say that you drink to 
 forget sorrow, and surely I have sorro^ys to forget.” 
 Pier children stood by her side in all their wondering 
 innocence, and she gave to them what their father had 
 called the cup of blessing. “ Woman ! woman ! ’• cried 
 the father, in great excitement, “you are not going to 
 give that stuff to the children?” “Why not? Can 
 children have a better example than their father's ? Is 
 not what is good for him good for them also ? It will 
 put them to sleep, and they will forget they are cold and 
 hungry;” and, resolutely holding the cup, she said, 
 “Drink, my children; this is // t, and bed, and/ood, and 
 clothing. Drink : you see. how much good it does j’our 
 father.” It was enough. With seeming reluctance she 
 suffered her husband to lead her Imme, and all that 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 ■ 107 
 
 night all the powers of good and evil within him were 
 struggling for the mastery. He thought of all that had 
 brought him and his family to where they were ; to what 
 a height of anguish his devoted wife had risen to inspire 
 her with daring for such an act ; what depths of despair 
 she must have fathomed ere she determined upon that 
 first step — that dreadful, doubtful lesson. To have ap- 
 propriated that one more glass, which she had snatched 
 from his grasp, might have made it too late to compre- 
 hend and escape the situation. As it was, he resolved, 
 if there was any help for him, on earth or in heaven, he 
 would reform ; and he did. The loving wife rejoiced in. 
 the suceess of her effort, and was wont to recall her first 
 and last visit to the dram shop with a peouliar but mel- 
 ancholy pleasure. 
 
 There are different stages of alcoholic derangement, 
 and the hopefulness' of reform, and the ability to meet 
 it, is somewhat in proportion to these. The first is a 
 state of excitement, where the drink has had simply a 
 mirth-producing effect, and he who is thus wrought 
 upon feels that the world is jolly ; that he can bid dull 
 care be gone, and sing the hours away, regardless of 
 any serious obligation or claim. Thousands drain the 
 contents of the cup just for this reason, because, it brings 
 to them a blessed forgetfulness of what is imposed upon 
 them in the various relations in life ; and their straitened 
 means and inefficient natures make them shrink from the 
 necessary contest. Their duties to theniselves and their 
 families, their creditors and their country, are so many 
 impelling motives to the indulgence of that which will 
 hush these clamors, and send them into a world where 
 none of these things are. 
 
 The last stage involves the loss of the mental and 
 moral faculties so completely, that all the bright visions 
 of happiness, which made life so radiant at the begin- 
 
108 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 ning, all pass away, and the person reels and falls under 
 the general benumbing influence, without consideration, 
 or appreciation of anything. This is the chmax of the 
 ^ di'unkard’s condition. But there is yet an intermediate 
 grade, where, perhaps, most of the crimes associated with 
 intemperance come in. There is a point prior to the 
 extreme mental and moral degradation of the last stage, 
 when these faculties of being are not paralyzed or sus- 
 pended, but are, nevertheless, so confused and bewil- 
 dered, that they are not awake to actual results and condi- 
 tions, and not beyond the power of action, and therefore 
 ^ are' ready for the committal of any deed. Here comes in 
 the overwhelming conviction that alcohol is a terrible en- 
 emy to the best interests of society ; inasmuch as, by its 
 influence, there remaineth no more fitness in man for the 
 right performance of anything. We have seen, in the 
 general physiological influence upon the human system, 
 what detriment it works upon all the organs of the body, 
 and how, by the operation of fixed laws, it extends itself 
 to the mind, the social affections, and the moral sensibili- 
 ties. But let us trace its inevitable workings more mi- 
 nutely, and observe the changes wrought by its intro- 
 duction into the stomach. That organ, in its healthy 
 state, as the first representation indicates, is slightly 
 reddish, tinged with yellow, and the blood-vessels are 
 invisible. Alcohol is taken, and these become enlarged 
 and distended, though the stimulant be taken but moder- 
 ately. Taken in larger quantities, “ the inner coat of 
 the stomach becomes corroded with small ulcers, which 
 are covered with white crusts, with the margin of the 
 ulcers elevated and ragged.” Still later, when the man 
 gives himself up to days and nights of habitual indul- 
 gence, there “ is seen a high degree of inflammation ex- 
 tending over the surface, changing its color to deep red, 
 and in some points exhibiting a livid appearance.” From 
 
S^TSIPTOMB 
 
 ^LL kinds at 35. 
 
 '^HlStfEY & BFIAMDY aT 2®' 
 
 Wine at zt- 
 
 DIAGRAMS OF THE STOMACH JN VARIOUS CONDITIONS. 
 
 MODE R,aVTE dr I NKTtSTG 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 109 
 
 this it goes on to the last fearful scenes, when delirium 
 comes in to draw a veil over everything, and there is a 
 dark-brown, flaky substance over the stomach, beneath 
 which is traced an inflammation that seems but little 
 less than an incipient state of mortification. “ But there 
 is still another principle,” says Thomas Sewell, medical 
 professor in Columbia College, “ on which the use of 
 alcohol predisposes the drunkard to disease and death.” 
 Not only is it the fearful cause of this wretched condi- 
 tion of the stomach, “ it acts on the hlood^ impairs its 
 vitality, deprives it of its red color, and thereby renders 
 it unfit to stimulate the heart and other organs through 
 which it circulates ; unfit, also, to supply the materials 
 for the different secretions, and to renovate the different 
 tissues of the body, as well as to sustain the energy of 
 the brain — offices which it can perform only while it re- 
 tains the vermilion color and other arterial properties. 
 The blood of the drunkard is several shades darker in 
 its color than that of temperate persons, and also coagu- 
 lates less readily and firmly, and is loaded with serum — 
 appearances which indicate that it has exchanged its 
 arterial properties for those of venous blood. This is 
 the cause of the livid complexion of the inebriate, which 
 so strongly marks him in the advanced stages Qf intem- 
 perance. Here, too, all the functions of his body are 
 sluggish, irregular, and the whole system loses its tone 
 and energy. If alcohol, when taken into the system, 
 exhausts the vital principle of the solids, it destroys the 
 vital principle of the blood also, and, if taken in large 
 quantities, produces death ; in which case the blood, 
 as in death produced by lightning, by opium, of by vio- 
 lent and long-continued exertion, does not coagulate. 
 
 The inebriate having, by the habitual use of intoxicat- 
 ing drinks, exhausted, to a greater or less extent, the 
 principle of excitabihty in the sohds, the power of re- 
 
no 
 
 INTEJIPEEA^rCE; 
 
 action, and the blood having become incapable of per- 
 forming its ofSces also, he is alike predisposed to every 
 disease, and rendered liable to the inroads of every 
 invading foe. So far, therefore, from protecting the 
 system against disease, intemperance ever constitutes 
 one of its strongest predisposing causes. Superadded to 
 this, whenever disease lays its grasp upon the drunkard, 
 the powers of life being already enfeebled bj’ the stimu- 
 lus of alcohol, he sinks unexpectedly in the contest. 
 Indeed, inebriation so enfeebles the powers of hfe, so- 
 modifies the character of disease, and so changes the 
 ojperation of medical agents, that unless the young phy- 
 "sician has studied thoroughly the constitution of the 
 drunkard, he has but partially learned his profession, 
 and is not fit for a jDractitioner of the present age.” 
 
 True as the latter statement may be, it is, nevertheless, 
 a most humihating confession that the degeneracy of the 
 times in this respect calls for so much of training and 
 effort to meet the demands of its "various aspects. We 
 cannot deny that the individual and collective influences 
 of this wide-spread traffic are sad and mighty ; that it 
 is as though a vast army were all the while marching 
 on to the other world, composed of those who thought, 
 when they enlisted, they could regulate their part in 
 the campaign to suit themselves, but found, all too late, 
 they were deceived, and were under the dominion of a 
 tyrant that would not let them go. 
 
 The vast majority of those who come under the power 
 of rum and brandj* are hopelessly beyond retreat. De- 
 ceived, deluded, and enslaved, such are held fast under 
 bonds of iniquity. All the strongest principles of man's 
 nature — fear, shame, ambition, and love — are powers 
 less to restrain the slave of alcohol. All the terrors of 
 human and divine law, and the love of an infinite re- 
 demption, are alike unavailing. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS RE M E D Y. 
 
 Ill 
 
 “ If a bottle of brandy,” said an inebriate, “ stood at 
 one band, and tbe pit of bell yawned at tbe other, and 
 I knew that I should be pushed in as soon as I took one 
 glass, I could not refrain.” There is nothing upon earth 
 that produces such demoniac frenzy, nothing that makes 
 one so utterly dead to every sentiment of humanity, 
 so perfectly reckless of his destiny, for weal or for woe, 
 in this world and the next. Dr. J.e'wett, in a tract enti- 
 tled “ Bound, and How,” thus remarks : “ ‘ Why,’ it is 
 asked, ‘ does not the man know that he is thus sure to 
 destroy his life, and that soon ? ’ ' ‘ Certainly.’ ‘ And 
 does lie not know, too, that he is afflicting terribly a 
 most excellent family?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And wasting his 
 estate? ’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And sacrificing a once enviable rep- 
 utation ? ’ ‘ Yes.’ ‘ Why, then, does he not stop drink- 
 
 ing ? ’ ‘ Go and ask him ; and if you can, by kind words 
 and treatment, gain his confidence so that he will talk 
 freely with you in relation to the matter, he will tell 5mu 
 he cannot. He used to declare that in his case there was 
 no danger. ■‘ I can drink,’ he once said, ‘ or let it alone, 
 as I choose.’ He uses no such language now. Others 
 may; but for him, he has received a terrible education. 
 Perhaps it has come too late ; but he now fully under- 
 stands the power of his enemy, and the strength of the 
 chain with which he has suffered himself to be bpund. 
 He has probably tested its strength a score, it may be a 
 hundred times, striving to break it with the full purpose 
 of his will, but as often he has failed ; and now, per- 
 haps, he has readied the last stage. It is one of despair. 
 He now drowns reflection by drink, secures what relief 
 he can from the torture of a disorganized nervous sys- 
 tem by deep draughts of the poison, and awaits what to 
 him seems the inevitable plunge.” 
 
 The history of one such is essentially the history of all. 
 From the moderate and occasional use of -the lighter 
 
112 
 
 INTElVIPERAifCE, 
 
 spirits he goes on to the frequent and inordinate use of 
 the stronger, until, almost unconsciously, he is beyond 
 recall. Says the author just cited, “ At the conclusion 
 of a lecture delivered in one of our Western States, a few 
 years since, on this subject, a gentleman requested me 
 to accompany him to his office. He was, as I learned, 
 a physician in extensive practice, and a professor in a 
 medical college. I -complied with his request. On 
 entering the office, he asked me to be seated, and, clos- 
 ing the door, took a seat near, and directly in front, and 
 facing me. His eyes filled with tears, and every feature 
 of his countenance, which was a noble one, was agitated 
 with emotion, as he thus addressed me : ‘ Dr. Jewett, 
 I am one of the unfortunate ones whose cases you have 
 been considering this evening ; and I have reason to fear 
 that it is noAV too late for me to make any successful 
 effort to break the chain which binds me.’ ‘ Indeed,’ 
 said I, ‘ let us hope not. Have you made the effort, 
 doctor?’ ‘Yes; and so far I have failed,’ was his sad 
 reply. He added, ‘ I have again and again resolved, 
 with all the strength of my nature, that I Avould never 
 drink another glass of intoxicating hquors, and yet I 
 have drank again within twenty-four hours.’ ‘ Why 
 did you drink, doctor, after having resolved and prom- 
 ised yourself you would not ? ’ I asked. Xow I beg my 
 readers to understand that I did not ask that question 
 for information. I knew quite well why he drank again ; 
 but I wished to learn how he,<i man of science, a teacher 
 of medicine, would express the facts of the case. It was 
 in substance as follows : ‘ Usually,’ said he, ‘ when I 
 have formed a resolution to abstain in future, it has 
 been at the close of unusually hard drinking, when the 
 folly, shame, and peril of the thing have come very viv- 
 idly before my mind ; and then I have said, and with 
 emphasis, “ This thing ends here. Not another glass, on 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 113 
 
 any consideration, or under any circumstances. But I 
 did not properly estimate the change that would come 
 over me as the liquor, during the night, should be elimi- 
 nated, or cast out of my system. In the morning I 
 would be nerveless and wretched, and the first impulse 
 would be to supply the system with the coveted article. 
 But I had resolved that I would not, and so would 
 keep about until the hour of breakfast. I would take a 
 little food, perhaps, and a cup of coffee ; but it did not 
 meet the demands of my nervous system. I would feel 
 a deadly sinhing at the pit of the stomach ; my hands 
 were tremulous, as was, in fact, my whole body ; I could 
 not control or use my mind to any purpose, or scarcely 
 my body ; and my misery, increasing every hour and 
 moment, would at last reach a point where it would 
 seem quite impossible to endure it longer. It would 
 seem, in fact, as if I was sinking into the very pit of 
 hell i and in sheer desperation I have rushed to the near- 
 est place of supply, and swallowed again the accursed 
 thing that has brought all this upon me.’ And he 
 added, with an expression of despair in that noble coun- 
 tenance which I shall not soon forget, ‘ So I expect it 
 will be, in the future, until I drop into the grave, as 
 thousands of poor fellows have done before me.’ ” 
 
 And this is the inevitable tendency. From it there is 
 no escape. There are but few who intend to come to 
 this when they begin. They mistake the weakness of 
 their own fallen nature, or the strength and power of 
 that with which they have to do, or both, and enter the 
 dangerous arena before they are aware of it. It not 
 only takes the simple, uneducated, and poverty-stricken 
 class, and makes them more so, but it embraces in its 
 relentless grasp the higher — the refined, educated, 
 wealthy, and most promising of young and old in the 
 best circles. The most favored and intelligent fall into 
 
114 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 the snara with others less gifted, and it writes the same 
 unmistakable characters upon all. There are no hiero- 
 glyphics here. The world knows the drunkard wher- 
 ever he he. His looks tell it, his words betray ‘it, and 
 his steps reveal it to every passer-bj^, . as plainl)^ as 
 though it were stamped in so many letters on his fore- 
 head. He is himself a walking sign, a perpetual monu- 
 ment to the enslaving power of strong drink. It would 
 seem that the very sight of such men would be enough 
 to warn the young against the folly of even tasting a 
 drink .that is producing such terrible consequences. 
 There is nothing like the indifference that 'is manifested* 
 here, in the history of any other malady with which 
 the world is conversant. Men will take every possible 
 precaution, shrink from contact with an infectious dis- 
 ease, that lasts but a little, and may never prove mortal, 
 and yet these same persons will pour down the brandy, 
 
 ■ when they know full well its debasing effect and deathly 
 working, and see the living testimony to the truth all 
 about them. They will look upon the most unprece- 
 dented acts of cruelty and injustice, and attempt to 
 excuse and palliate the crimes, because those concerned 
 were laboring under a temporary loss of sense by reason 
 of too much alcohol. After Wilkes Booth had matured 
 his plan to take the life of President Lincoln, there 
 was still a depth in his graceless soul from whence came 
 a shuddering at the guilt and horror of his premeditated 
 scheme. He could not summon sufficient courage to 
 strike the dreadful blow, and he rushed into a saloon, 
 and cried, “ Brandj^ ! brand}’!” Not until that irritat- 
 ing genius had effaced every shadow of a good impulse 
 from his being, did lie dare to aim the fatal ball at the 
 defenceless head of one of the best men that ever filled 
 the executive chair of the American nation. 
 
 It makes the brain wild, and sends it, a whirling, reel- 
 
■sxjtTvanx wnianan 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 117 
 
 ing, giddy thing, beyond the bounds of reason, where it 
 is subject to no law, and not a fit instrument for action 
 in anything or anywhere ; and finally the culmination is 
 reached in that most wretched of all conditions— delir- 
 ium tremens. Probably there is nothing in all the world 
 that brings to the spirit of man so full a realization 
 of the horrors of the “ bottomless pit,” as that which 
 comes in experiences like these. Abandoned of all that 
 is good, and consigned, as it were, into the hands of him 
 who only seeketh to destroy, he. finds him laughing at 
 his helplessness and mocking at his fear. Satan has no 
 more powerful ally in the accomplishment o'f his work 
 than brandy ; and when that has done all that it can do, 
 he is satisfied, for the destructive work is complete. ' He 
 lets loose his emissaries around the bed of such a one, 
 and there is no escape from the hellish torture which well 
 nigh rends soul and body. Pie gives them no welcome . 
 picture for the eyes to feast upon ; he lets them hear 
 no sounds but the doleful shrieks of despair, or feel any 
 change but the thickening of the darkness, and the 
 fiercer burst of the storm. 
 
 “ The room is full of devils,” said one in this condi- 
 tion. “ They are in my hair — pull them out ! They are 
 laughing and grinning at me from the wall — send them 
 away! ” And with the beaded perspiration on his brow, 
 cjuivering and shrinking, he sought to screen himself 
 from their gaze by hiding under the bed-clothes. But 
 the foul spirit was there ; and starting and shrinking he 
 exclaimed, “ I’m rushing through the streets of hell — 
 see them laugh on both sides of me! What looks of 
 scorn ! What derision ! I must leave it ; ” and the hands 
 of strong men only restrained the attempt to leap forth — 
 to spring forward anywhere, so as only to be saved from 
 the impending doom. There was no relief, whichever 
 way he turned. “ I am treading on millions of worms ! 
 
118 
 
 INTEItIPEKANCE, 
 
 serpents are tissing and writhing under my feet — O, 
 lift me up ! O, take me away ! ” And so, with such an 
 outlook, amid these fearful sights and sounds, he grap- 
 pled long with these tormenting, taunting foes. 
 
 Strange, beyond all coiiiprehension, that with a knowl- 
 edge of these results any one will clutch the glass that 
 binds him to such a fate ; that he will throw himself 
 into the embrace of all this fiendish mahciousness, and 
 drink on, with the awful doom staring him in the face. 
 Brandy writes a cannot upon every movement of the 
 will ; and one might as well undertake to escape from 
 death, when the inexorable mandate has gone forth at 
 the divine bidding, as to free himself from the utter 
 helplessness of being, which an advanced stage of drunk- 
 enness induces. 
 
 “ A few years since, a man of splendid abilities, when 
 temporarily released from the power of the destroyer, 
 gave to the world a touching and graphic sketch of his 
 purposes and views in the following lines : — 
 
 ‘ I’ve tlirown the bowl aside ; 
 
 Eor me no more shall flow 
 
 Its ruddy stream, its sparkling tide. 
 
 How bright soe’er it glow ; 
 
 I’ve seen extended wide 
 Its devastating sway ; 
 
 Seen reason yield its power to guide, — 
 
 I’ve cast the bowl away.’ 
 
 He, however, miscalculated his strength, and, notwith- 
 standing these just views and excellent purposes, he 
 sleeps in the grave of the drunkard. So true is it, that 
 when once the passion is excited, the appetite formed, 
 however hard and long one may seek to sub.due and put 
 it away, it is at best but the lulling of the demon to a 
 temporary sleep, and it is ready to spring forth and over- 
 power him at the slightest provocation. There is no 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 119 
 
 power of intellect, no brilliancy of attainment, no energy 
 of character, or strength of purpose, that counts much of 
 anything in this warfare. If the battle has been waging 
 long, t^ere is but little chance for anything but perma- 
 nent defeat. Now and then the shouts of victory are 
 heard over the rise of some low-fallen one ; but they are 
 rare. Those who begin the mad career are almost sure 
 to step down and still downward, until they reach the 
 lowest depth. They may slide slowly, — perhaps almost 
 imperceptibly at the first, — but the momentum is still 
 constantly increasing, until at last, in the wanton reck- 
 lessness of his thirst, he shrieks. In hell they never 
 want for rum ; haste, drive me down, 
 
 “ Where rum is free ; where revellers reign, 
 
 And I can wear the drunl^ard’s crown.” 
 
120 
 
 INTEMPEKA2TCE, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Where is- it fourto ? 
 
 ALCOHOLIC MIgEET CANNOT BE PAINTED. — LOVE OP GAIN THE PP.O- 
 
 PELLING MOTIVE. LORD CHESTERFIELD’S REMARK. EDM SELLER’S 
 
 TREATMENT OF AN OLD MAN. THE COUNTRY TAVERN. — HOMES AND 
 
 HAUNTS OP THE DRUNKARD. — FIVE POINTS. — GROCERS’ NETS. — 
 FREE LUNCH HOUSES. FIRST-CLASS HOTELS. CLUB-ROOMS. EU- 
 
 ROPEAN AND MODERN STYLE. POWER OF EXAMPLE. 
 
 There have been many discoveries made in the world 
 by the perseverance and ingenuity of man, that have sent 
 a thrill of joy and a tide of blessing over all the people ; 
 but could the full significance of the discovery have been 
 comprehended when the process of distillation was first 
 evoked, it might have been written, in letters of blood 
 and characters of fire, from one end of heaven’s broad 
 arch to the other, “ Woe unto the world because of this.” 
 It was bad enough that sin planted the image of woe 
 around the habitations of men at the beginning, but this 
 made it go deeper and rise higher ; caused it to assume 
 vastly greater proportions, and take on an aspect of 
 fiercer malignity, than it otherwise would have done. 
 
 There are no calculations that can sum up the amount 
 of human misery that has come to the world through the 
 medium of this alcoholic, agent. The delineations of jien 
 and pencil have shadowed it forth in every conceivable 
 light, but there is that remaining which 'can never be 
 shadowed forth — never be written — that spends itself 
 in the silent recesses of burdened, acMng hearts — in 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 121 
 
 sighs and tears that are not seen, except to an eye that 
 is • omniscient. We have seen what it can and will do. 
 We have studied its nature and its effects, observed the 
 different grades of its presentation, and followed the dif- 
 ferent stages of their action ; and now the questions be- 
 fore us are. Who is responsible ? Where is it found ? 
 And how is it that the habit of drinking is so universal ? 
 
 In the first place, a love of gain is the absorbing pas- 
 sion of men. Whatever opens the way to this will be 
 eagerly pursued. Questionable though the means may 
 be, there are usually argumentative opiates enough to 
 soothe the restless conscience, and keep it comfortably 
 quiet, when its disturbing forces come in competition 
 with the coveted acquisition. In the early history of the 
 rum traffic, before its manufacture had come to be con- 
 sidered a degrading business, there was' required no such 
 education of this sort ♦to bring him up to the work ; but 
 in these days of .enlightened conviction, when the whole 
 thing is pronounced morally wrong, it requires more 
 daring in a man to stand up and declare that ‘he will put 
 gold in his coffers, though it be at the expense of every- 
 thing that others hold dear. But the passion impels 
 the daring, and there are not -wanting men everywhere, 
 who are ready to invest their capital and devote their 
 energies to the manufacture of that which, though prof- 
 itable, is ruinous to every interest of the world. They 
 satisfy themselves by saying, “It will be had. If I do 
 not furnish it, others will, and society is no worse for 
 what I am doing;” — and so the work goes on, the 
 facilities are multiplied, the suppljr is increased, and it is 
 bottled, barrelled, and circulated everywhere. Verily 
 the manufacturer is responsible for this. 
 
 Close these fountains that are feeding the streams 
 which are wearing their polluting channels into the heart 
 of society, and doubtless their proprietors would cry out 
 
122 
 
 IRTEIMPEEANCE, 
 
 for their gains as strongly as the drunkard would plead 
 for his dram. The vast enginery of distillation is kept 
 in motion in this way. As long as the propelling power 
 of avarice is the distinguishing characteristic of men, so 
 long it will continue, more or less. 
 
 Not until there is a mighty moral revolution that shall 
 elevate the standard of public sentiment higher than it 
 ever yet has been, will the actors in this part of the 
 drama be roused to consider what they are doing. Just 
 so long as it is made to. flow out among the people, just 
 so long will they gather it up, and all the long catalogue 
 of woes that follow in its train will be swelling all the 
 while. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield calls these manufacturers- of spirit- 
 o.us liquors '■^artists in huonan slaughter;''^ and John 
 Wesley declares these traffickers to be poisoners-gen- 
 eral. They murder by wholesale,” he says; “neither 
 does their eye pity or spare. And what is their gain ? Is 
 it not the blood of these men ? Who would envy their 
 large estatfis and their sumptuous palaces ? A curse is 
 in the midst of them. The curse of God is on their gar- 
 dens, their walks, their groves ; a fire that burns to the 
 nethermost hell. Blood, blood, is theirs ; the foundation, 
 the floor, the walls, the roof is stained with blood.” 
 
 This greed for gain is exemplified among all those who 
 are interested in disseminating the drink in whatever 
 form. Hard by the manufactory is the public house, 
 and, indeed, in every town, village, and hamlet of the 
 land, these institutions are opened, in every variety of 
 style, professedly to meet the wants of the people, but 
 primarily to get money ; and in order to insure the last 
 consideration, a bar is thought to be an indispensable 
 requisite. If addressed on the importance of discontin- 
 uing this part of their business, because of the demoral- 
 izing influence in the community in which they live, the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 123 
 
 men who conduct them exclaim, “ As well shut up my 
 house as to close my bar. It would not pay ; ” and so 
 there is hardly a place anywhere in the most retired sec- 
 tions but what affords the poison to anybody that will 
 call for it. Those who sell justify themselves on the 
 ground that they do not ask the people to come and buy ; 
 that they only keep a supply to meet a demand, and 
 if men will take and drink more than is good for them, 
 the consequences belong to them. Why should they 
 share the responsibility ? 
 
 It was a remark of Oliver Goldsmith’s, that he “ never 
 saw a city or village yet whose miseries were not in 
 proportion to the number of its public houses.” The 
 crowd who loiter about these places illustrate very for- 
 cibly the miserable tendency of the whole thing. • They 
 advertise the lowest condition of society ; for it is here 
 the idler, the lounger of every description, are wont to 
 meet, and here congregate all those elements of disturb- 
 ance which decent travellers feel like shunning. 
 
 The boys in the place are apt to gather around, and 
 witness what is going on, and if they happon to escape 
 the snare of the drunkard, they become familiar with 
 every kind of vulgarity and profanity. The rum seller 
 himself, if he had any mercy in his nature at the begin- 
 ning, soon loses . everything of the sort, and spurns the 
 man from the door that he has helped to make brutish. 
 
 A gentleman who was travelling put up at a public 
 house in a country place, and thus relates a scefte which 
 came under his observation at the time : “ While warm- . 
 ing ourselves by the fite in the bar-room one Saturday 
 night, we observed the bar-keeper dealing out liquor to 
 a venerable man, who, with- tremulous hands, put the 
 intoxicating cup to his lips. He seemed intelligent, was 
 well dressed, and had the appearance of being a respec- 
 table man, abating his intemperance. We learned after- 
 8 
 
124 
 
 » LMTEMPEEAlSrCE, 
 
 wards that such was his character at home, and that he 
 lived in an adjoining town, and was waiting for a con- 
 veyance to take him to the point of his destination. At 
 midnight the man became noisy, to the annoyance of the 
 inmates, by reason of the liquor he had received at the 
 bar ; whereupon the bar-keeper, with characteristic be- 
 nevolence, turned him out of doors to spend the rest 
 of a most piercing cold night in the -street. The next 
 morning we heard the bar-keeper boasting, with a fiend- 
 like exultation, how he had disposed of ‘ the noisy old 
 devil.’ We told him it was cruel to feed a man with 
 rum until he had deprived hifn of his senses, and then 
 turn him out to perish because he did not aet as a rational 
 man. The fire had scarcely been kindled in the morn- 
 ing, before the old man, shivering with cold, came back 
 into the bar-room, where he was again received as a good 
 customer. He formed one of the bar-room eompany all 
 the Sabbath, alternately snoring in a chair and drinking, 
 and acting like a maniac. About ten o’clock Sunday 
 night — being satui-ated with rum — his hospitable land- 
 lord again turned him out into the street ; and it was an 
 intensely cold night. About an hour after he was out, 
 a man eame in, who said he had seen the old fellow sit- 
 ting on the ground, and had taken him up and thrust 
 him into a tailor’s shop. But for this act of kindness he 
 would have frozen to death in a verj^ short time ; and 
 here,” continues the traveller, “is a specimen of the 
 tender mereies of the rum seller.” When the contents 
 of the poeket have been dropped into their till, there is 
 no more objeet for them to gain. They will fill the cup 
 and stir it well just as long as a man is eapable of hand- 
 ing out the change, and has enough wherewith to do it, 
 apparently thinking not, or caring, what the effect may 
 be upon those he is robbing to enrich himself. With a 
 complacent folding, of the hands, they pride themselves 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSTD ITS REMEDY. '125 
 
 upon tlie respectability of their position, and are content 
 with the basis of their fortune. Says a writer, “ I was 
 once walking through a beautiful country village, in 
 company with a farmer who had all his life resided in 
 the neighborhood. The rural scenery around was very 
 beautiful, with here and there touches of the romantic ; 
 presently we came to a very respectable looking public 
 house by the road-side. The landlady, a widow, stood 
 at the door, and, recognizing my companion^ nodded to 
 him, and he returned the saluation. The landlady was 
 a fine, portly-looking dame, with black silk dress, and 
 gold chain hanging down to the waist, and altogether in 
 keeping with the house. I remarked to my companion, 
 ‘ That certainly is a very respectable looking public house, 
 and a very courteous and respectable landlady, too.’ 
 My companion, replied, ‘You are quite correct; that 
 public house is the most respectably conducted house in 
 this neighborhood, and that landlady is a most respecta- 
 ble woman ; but I wish to tell you something about the 
 house. Thirty years ago that house was licensed for the 
 sale of intoxicating liquor, and, year after year, that 
 license has been renewed. Now, during those thirty 
 years, how many victims, think you, have perished in 
 consequence of the drink obtained in that house ?■’ Not 
 liking to hazard a guess, he said, ‘ Well, then, I will tell 
 you. In the course of those thirty years, to my certain 
 knowledge, thirty victims have perished most miserably 
 in consequence df liquor obtained at that house. Some 
 of them were opulent farmers, belonging to this neigh- 
 hood, and others were gentlemen of independent for- 
 tunes. Some of them, before their death, were reduced 
 almost to penury, and most of them died young, or in 
 the prime of life. Two or three of them were carried 
 out of that house insensible, and. died in their homes 
 shortly afterwards, and others died of fever, or of 
 
126 
 
 mTEHIPEKANCE, 
 
 delirium tremens, brought on by debauch at that 
 house.” 
 
 These are the so-called respectable dram shops ; and, 
 if these are so prolific in sowing the seeds of discord and 
 sorrow, what shall we say of the countless places of 
 lower standing, in the more densely crowded towns and 
 villages, apart from rural surroundings? There are 
 some places where they pride themselves in not selling 
 to drunkards, but here there is no such restraint. It is 
 dealt o\it indiscriminately to the lowest, and, indeerl, 
 that class constitutes by far the largest part of their pat- 
 ronage. They are generally in the suburbs, and dingy 
 bottles are the sign in the window. It is here at these 
 places that we see the saddest sights, and observe the 
 worst phases of intemperance — here, where it is carried 
 so far that poverty and wretchedness tell their direst 
 tales in connection with it. The poor who will have 
 whiskey go to these shops — those who have no pride or 
 self-respect to maintain, who are past earing for what 
 anybody may say or think. There are plenty of those 
 who are re.ady to minister to the wants of such, for 
 money. Would any one read the sequel to all this, let 
 him go to the homes and haunts of those who tarry long 
 at these places. They are usually out — down and apart 
 from others — for respectable people have no sympathy 
 with such extreme degradation, and so they generally 
 congregate in a community by themselves, and it be- 
 comes a notorious quarter, where everj'tliing is in keep- 
 ing, and no well-meaning person ever cares to intrude. 
 “ Their houses,” it is said, “ are generally known by the 
 broken door-yard fence ; the fallen gate ; the windows 
 stuffed with old hats and rags ; the clapboards danghng 
 in the air ; the barns held up by props, and stripped of 
 their boards, which have been used for fuel ; a half- 
 starved horse standing in the street ; and several ragged 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 127 
 
 children, who, without hats or shoes, spend their days 
 in dragging brush-wood from the neighboring forests, or 
 in begging pennies from door to door, to buy their 
 mother a loaf of bread. The interior is like unto it. 
 There is no neatness or comfort there ; no bed but one 
 of straw, laid on knotted ropes ; here a show of a table, 
 and there a broken chair ; a half dozen broken plates, 
 rusty knives and forks, and iron spoons ; a mug for 
 cider, and a bottle for rum, and, whatever else fails, 
 these must be replenished. The last thing will be 
 pawned to secure the last drop. ‘ I have known them,’ 
 said a philanthropist who visited these places, ‘ to sell 
 the feathers from their bed, pound by pound, in order to 
 secure the accustomed dram.’ Neither carpet nor plaster- 
 ing is in such homes. If it is winter, the snow will lie 
 upon the bed, and the mother and . her children will be 
 seen huddlhig over a few embers, as their only refuge. 
 Night comes, but no sound of a father’s voice, with com- 
 fortable food to cheer and gladden. Children cry them- 
 selves to sleep. The mother sits and watches until the 
 inoon goes down, and distant footsteps are heard, and 
 horrid oaths are vented at not finding the door, causing 
 her heart to quail ; and a monster in human shape, but 
 the father of her children, bursts upon her, and perhaps 
 drives her out in the cold and dreary night, even in a 
 pitiless storm, compelling her to leave her babes to his 
 neglect or cruelty. Perhaps the mother herself, driven 
 by despair and desperation, becomes a victim to the 
 same habit, and adds the last bitter ingredient to the 
 dregs of home misery. Thus sowing the wind, they 
 reap the whirlwind, and what is transmitted to the chil- 
 dren prepares the next generation for a kindred harvest 
 of woe.” 
 
 Perhaps a more notable example than the Five Points, 
 in the city of New York, cannot be adduced to illustrate 
 
128 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 what a place and people may become when given over 
 to the full dominion of intemperance in its lowest form. 
 For years, the prominent feature in the case was an old 
 brewery, that threw its doors wide open to all the sur- 
 rounding population ; and, if all the foul spirits of the 
 nether' world had congregated there, it could scarcely 
 have been worse. A more ragged, dirty, miserable, beg- 
 garly set never -walked the earth' than was seen there. 
 Ignorance, vice, and every species of crime stalked defi- 
 antly through all the region. The dilapidated buildings 
 hardly covered their inmates. The very air was laden 
 with shrieks, wails, and oaths. A respectable person 
 could not pass through the quarter without having his 
 every sense shocked beyond measure. Whiskey was the 
 one consideration. It showed itself in every place and 
 every thing, 'hlany shunned it as a place where human 
 life was not safe. If any, urged by a feeling of pliilan- 
 thropy, were moved to do anything to amehorate the 
 condition of the wretched inhabitants, they . felt that 
 they took their lives in their hand when they attempted 
 to do it. As long as the Old Brewery stood, tliis state 
 of things continued. It did its work as a minister of 
 death for a long time. When, by the persistent efforts 
 of the wise and good, these doors were closed, there 
 came a change over the spirit of the place ; and the 
 atmosphere, so heavily charged with the fumes of the 
 distillery and the poisonous breath of so many drunk- 
 ards, became purer, and a more healthful condition of 
 things began to prevail. Who is responsible for all this ? 
 The inspired penman says, “Woe unto him that giveth 
 his neighbor drink.” 
 
 Here is the worst aspect of the case — the darkest 
 side of the picture. These are the deepest depths into 
 which intemperance can plunge its victims ; but it may 
 be there is yet a phase of the question that has a sadder 
 
THE FIVE POINTS. 
 
131 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 hue than even this. These persons, in the main, are 
 from the lowest grades of humanity, at the best. While 
 it' is true that drink has a tendency to bring and keep 
 them there, it is also true that this wide-spread visible 
 desolation is apparent more particularly among those 
 who are naturally ignorant, vicious, and unprincipled. 
 As persons of kindred tastes, habits, and customs are 
 apt to attach themselves together, so these people are 
 wont to associate themselves in a community, where 
 their propensities are least liable to be checked or dis- 
 turbed. In the most favoring circumstances, their moral 
 instincts would .be but feeble, and their higher apprehen- 
 sions narrow and slow ; but, while this does not excuse 
 them for going so much lower than they need to, it may 
 stamp the fact with significance' that their doom will not 
 be as dreadful, nor their guilt as- great, as those who fall 
 from greater heights, with more of obligation upon 
 them, and more light and knowledge around them. 
 
 We have said before that the primary and visible 
 effects of alcohol were the same in all cases ; that the 
 high and low, the rich and poor, are alike in this mat- 
 ter ; and yet there is a system of caste here, where the 
 lines are as rigidly drawn as anywhere else. There is a 
 class above these, who love the sparkling stimulant just 
 as well, perhaps, but who would not demean themselves 
 so much as to hang about these low places ; and various 
 are the artifices resorted to, to meet the wants of this 
 company. They have, it may be, a sufQcient moral sense 
 of the fitness of things to make them hesitate to go 
 boldly and openly forward in their indulgence ; and 
 those who are ready to help them may still have some 
 appreciation and fear of the public sentiment against 
 their efforts ; so they have a thousand ingenious and 
 secret devisings — a new and significant alphabet, that 
 their followers learn, but which common people are not 
 
182 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 supposed to understand. This not only meets the wants 
 of those we are referring to, but it has become a fruitful 
 means of beguilmg the unwary, and catching them, 
 spider-hke, in the net, where they are kept beyond the 
 possibility of recovery. The great question with the 
 dealer *is, “ How can I increase the demand for my 
 liquor, so that I may receive the profits arising from a 
 larger sale ? ” Acting from this incentive, he tries every 
 sort of plan, and, having undertaken it, every baser pas- 
 sion of his nature is lent to the work. There are a 
 great many ways of doing the thing in these modern 
 days — a great many novel arrangements got up to suit 
 the occasion, that show, at least, the activity of mind, 
 and its wonderful power of adaptation to circumstances. 
 In order to realize a grand pecuniary consideration, it 
 has become a branch business with many of various 
 trades and callings, and it is amusing^ not to say outrage- 
 ous, to see the endless forms of deceit that are manufac- 
 tured to cover and beguile. Grocers have opened side 
 doors, and printed on them in large letters, “ Sample 
 Room.” What more natural than to suppose such a 
 corner requisite for their legitimate trade ? What could 
 be less likely to excite suspicion under the circumstan- 
 ces, or who would think of questioning the motives of 
 the frequent visitors there ? There is always a way for 
 the hidden things of darkness to come to light, and so 
 it has come to be known that there are thousands of just 
 such places as these, where the samples are only exhibi- 
 tions of spirits, that are ready to be dealt out to men 
 who would thus conceal their shame. Proprietors of 
 country stores roll barrels into their cellars, and, by 
 some mysterious telegraphic communication, it is known 
 among a certain class that it is not molasses, or sugar, or 
 any such thing. They for whom it is provided under- 
 stand it all ; and there is no corner of that store that is 
 
its' aspect AISTD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 133 
 
 so well patronized, for the convenience of a sly back 
 entrance is appreciated. 
 
 To accomplish the object in the least objectionable 
 way, there are bottles of multiform size and appearance, 
 prepared with counterfeit labels, which profess to be the 
 mildest form of an attractive and popular beverage that 
 can be offered to the public ; and this class shelter them- 
 selves under this style, secretly exulting ill the thought 
 that the}’' are realizing their ambition, and blinding their 
 friends. In the cities, there are prominent rooms on 
 fashionable streets that hold out the sign, “ Free Lunch.” 
 Does it mean that some philanthropist, mindful of the 
 wants and ways of men, has gone systematically to 
 work, and fitted up rooms in the gayest and most fasci- 
 nating manner ; setting out tables, and furnishing them 
 temptingly, and elaborately ; placing about them a score 
 of the most beautiful and winning young ladies he could 
 command, to do the attendant honors ; hiring a band of 
 music to minister to the festivities of the dance, — does 
 he do all this, and then say to the young men of the 
 city, “ I did this all for you ; it is free : come in, and 
 take your fill of pleasure”? Does it mean all this? 
 Ah, no ! It has a far different meaning from this. We 
 will not call them philanthropists, but there are men 
 who do all this — make all this display — in order to 
 hide the main feature of their peculiar institution. Out 
 of sight is a well-filled bar, which is the centre about 
 which all these other things are made to revolve. All 
 the gathered fascinations and attractions are as so many 
 baits to allure men into the net that is spread for them. 
 Thus consummate art plies the work of death, and vir- 
 tue, reputation, and every good are sacrificed at these 
 worse than Moloch shrines. 
 
 But there are yet some who have not been reached. 
 The ^lite of the higher and more aristocratic circles are 
 
134 
 
 INTEMPEEAIJCE, * 
 
 yet tintonched. They might scorn the idea of being 
 seen at any of those places we have mentioned, and. so 
 special provision has been made for them. The all- 
 embracing arms of moneyed ambition would not leave 
 them out of its grasp. The luxurious appliances of 
 their own tables may perhaps serve for the satisfaction 
 of their OAvn every-day wants, but when they travel 
 their round of pleasure, they -must stop at magnificent 
 hotels, on broad avenues, where the lavish hand of 
 wealth has piled up luxury in a thousand dainty forms. 
 These structures stand as so many monuments of what 
 art and wealth can do, when used and applied by the 
 skill, energy, industry, and peculiar abihty of the peo- 
 ple’s architects. The palace-like arrangements of these 
 institutions are remarkable, but there is one thing in 
 which the lordly presiders are not quite at their ease. 
 If they would' please their customers altogether, and 
 make their vast scheme an entire success, they must 
 have a bar, and where shall they put it ? The tone of 
 public sentiment is so far against it they dare not give it 
 a conspicuous position ; so they go far back to the re- 
 motest corner, or perchance hide it beneath in the more 
 quiet baseiiieut. They give it the elegant adornments 
 befitting the character and reputation of such a house, 
 and the aristocratic man can walk in and quaff his glass 
 in all the et cetera of style. There is no danger that 
 he Avill encounter the man of low degree, for the spar- 
 kling liquids that shimmer and shine in the vessels of 
 fanciful mould ha^m too much of gold in their price to 
 admit of this. There he will not come in contact with 
 the lounging idler and the reeling peasantry, for the 
 marble floors and the gilded ceiling of those spacious 
 rooms wei’e never designed for such as these. The 
 polite and the affluent drinker alone must enter here. 
 The poison is x^oison stiU, but it is served in daintier 
 
NEW YOUK DANCING SALOON. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KBMEDY, 
 
 137 
 
 glasses ; and the reality of the difference is, it is made to 
 do its work in more genteel style. The social wants of 
 this* class have created? another demand — given rise to 
 an institution of another character, hut which, has asso- 
 ciated with it the degenerating influences of drink, and 
 that is the “ club-room.” There was a time in the his- 
 tory of England when its metropolitan city boasted of a 
 brighter galaxy of poets and literary men than was ever 
 before known. ' Never was so much of -talent gathered 
 together in one place as then and there. Never was 
 genius more ably and brilliantly represented. These 
 men were attracted to each other. Their common in- 
 terest in literary pursuits induced a congeniality of spirit 
 that brought them often into each other’s society. They 
 were invited to dine in company ; and their gay sallies 
 of wit, their pointed sarcasms and brilliant repartees, 
 their learned discussions and lofty utterances, are mat- 
 ters of history unto this day. They formed themselves 
 into a club, provided themselves with rooms, whither 
 they repaired at certain intervals, and made them places 
 of frequent resort. Some of these, profoundly gifted 
 men carried champagne into these circles, and it engen- 
 dered a free-and-easy sort of life, that attracted the 
 social and good-natured, who wanted a good time in a 
 refined way. By reason of the learning and culture 
 associated with it, the club came to hold a high rank, 
 and possess a high reputation among the literati for its 
 dignified exclusiveness. It was a place where social life 
 put oh its best dress. In the ever-increasing intercourse 
 of this and that country, we have come into possession 
 of the customs of that people and that time. The 
 American people are not slow to ajjpreciate and appro- 
 priate what they deem advantageous to their life, and 
 the fascination which time and distance have thrown 
 about this institution has invested it with a peculiar 
 
138 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 charm for them. What though they dispense with the 
 characteristic original feature, there is still enough to it 
 to form the basis of something tlmt will compensate for 
 the slower and more restricted enjoyments which the 
 prosy and practical condition of the domestic circle 
 enjoins. 
 
 The man of business, who is poring all day long over 
 columns of p^erplexing figures and harassing ledgers, is 
 glad, at the close of the day, to relax every nerve, and 
 find himself in a social atmosphere, where every sense 
 of his being is ministered unto, without any effort on his 
 part to keep up the excitement. The truest and best 
 moral action will send such a man home into the bosom 
 of his family to find it there ; but, lamentable as it is, 
 there' are thousands who will not do it, and so these vol- 
 untary organized clubs are formed, and furnished with 
 everything that genial, cordial, and generous natures 
 can bring to make them attractive. It may not be 
 strictly after the European pattern, but it is a place 
 where they can eat, smoke, sing, dance, and be hilarious 
 generally — a place where they do forget their manhood, 
 and degenerate into all sorts of lewd and gross immorali- 
 ties. Young men going from the country into places of 
 business in the city, for the sake of a more extended 
 knowledge of the world, are often attracted to these 
 places, where everything is so seductive, and they sel- 
 dom come out unscorched by the unnatural condition of 
 things within. Drink has a conversational, mirth-pro- 
 voking tendency ; and the laughing, jesting crowd come 
 to think they have found the joUiest place in all the 
 world, and they go again and again, until the stamp of 
 intemperance is written legibly upon them. 
 
 It is true there are different grades in these things. 
 They range all the way from the • affluent surroundings 
 of the most wealthy to those of far humbler pretension ; 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDT. 
 
 139 
 
 but, in them all, strong drink is working a general de- 
 moralization, and only that continually. It is to be 
 doubted if there be a worse school for morals in our- land 
 •than this ; and the results of the object-teaching in these 
 institutions, and the startling revelations in connection, 
 are such as would make mothers, wives, and sisters blush 
 and weep, if they knew them. 
 
 In countless other ways, and in channels we know 
 not of, the streams are being fed that flow out, winding 
 their course by all the hills and through all the vales of 
 the social system. Some may exult in their power to 
 carry on their nefarious traffic, and keep it hid from the 
 gaze of the world, but they are yet to be confronted 
 with the results of what they have done. The hearts 
 they have blighted, the hopes they have crushed, the 
 characters they have ruined, the reputations they have 
 blasted, the fortunes they have destroyed, are all so 
 many witnesses against them. It matters not so much 
 where the work began, — whether among the seductive 
 influences of the club or lunch room, or amid lower or 
 less pretentious surroundings, — it is ultimately the 
 same ; and he who manufactures and he who aids in 
 the circulation are alike responsible for the wreck and 
 the ruin so widely spread. 
 
 All classes of our people drink. It is becoming sadly 
 universal. Why is it ? May it not be because there is 
 such a systematic effort to meet the peculiar wants of 
 each individual class in its own peculiar way ? It is 
 true the lower class are influenced a good deal by the 
 higher. It is a great stimulant to the courage of the 
 poor and doubting man that his master above him does 
 the same thing that he does. If he had any feeling that 
 it was wrong, it wonderfully lessens that compunction ; 
 for he drinks it to drown care and. sorrow, and that man 
 has no need to do it. And here again comes in the 
 
140 
 
 INTElVIPEIlA^rCE, 
 
 question of responsibility. Those who, by the power of 
 their example, mislead others, and thus confirm them in 
 a habit they know to be ruinous, have a fearful account 
 to settle at some time. It may possibly be they may 
 know how far they, can go themselves, and how soon 
 they must stop, to keep them own barks from flounder- 
 ing in the deep waters ; but the humbler craft may not 
 be able to come near that point safely.' 
 
 It has been said, “ If the ‘ moderate drinker ’ would 
 abandon his cups, -within twelve years drunkenness 
 would be all but annihilated. We should only behold 
 here and there a solitary victim, holding out in vu’tue of 
 a strong constitution, a sad memorial of the drunken- 
 ness of a by-gone day.” 
 
 What a blessed day for the American people, if all 
 this active and complicated machinery of evil could be 
 laid aside in glorious disuse ! A longer stride towards 
 millennial glory could not be taken. Nothing that could 
 be done would clothe the earth with more of her prime- 
 val loveliness than this ; nothing that would so effectu- 
 ally raise mankind to the heights for which they were 
 destined, and give a grander and more speedy fulfilment 
 to the prophecies of coming good. May it not be that 
 the swelling tides which are filling the good with so 
 much apprehension are to be checked, and it shall be 
 written of them and upon them, “ Thus far shalt thou 
 go, and no farther ” ? 
 
. ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Pkobability oe Refoem. 
 
 HOPE A HIM STAR. — THE YOUNG LAHY’s VICTIM. — INHIVIHUAH RE- 
 FORM. — GOUGH. — J. HAWKINS. — CONFESSION OF A CONDEMNED 
 CRIMINAL. — FATHER OF THE REV. NEWMAN HALL. — HOPELESSNESS 
 OF THE WORK. — CONFESSION OP CHARLES LAMB. — SALVATION NOT 
 IN RECLAIMING THE DRUNKARD, BUT IN SAVING YOUTH FROM BE- 
 GINNING. 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed there will be any very ex- 
 tended and thorough work of reforniation in a public 
 way, as long as the manufacture and sale of ard.ent spirit 
 are allowed to .retain their present position. As long as 
 it is paraded at every corner, associated with almost every 
 pursuit, and intervoven with all the social customs of 
 the times, where is the probability that it will fall into 
 disuse, and the immense flood of evil that comes from it 
 be stayed in its course? We talk of the radiant star of 
 hope, but nowhere does it shine so dimly as here ; no- 
 where else is it obscured by clouds so • thick and dense. 
 Good men and women are praying that the darkness may 
 be dispelled ; that through -the pierced gloom there may 
 come a ray of light that maybe the earnest of a brighter 
 day that is yet to dawn ; that speedily the moral world 
 may be illuminated, and. mankind elevated from this low 
 condition to a higher and better life. To look at it 
 in the light of a wide-spread public reforrnation,. there 
 is a mighty work to be done. All the aggregated effort 
 of all the present existing societies has failed to do it yet. 
 They have worked wisely and well, but it needs more than 
 
142 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 human hand to pluck up the roots that have spread 
 themselves in every direction over every part of our 
 American soil. There needs to be a higher moral senti- 
 ment. There is a work demanded on the hearts and 
 souls of men. They need to be swayed by an irresisti- 
 ble Torce — a something superior to their low appetites 
 and passions, that shall renovate and endow them 
 with power of will to rend asunder the links of that 
 chain which will surely crush them in its tightening folds 
 unless they do. Hope cannot promise much as long as 
 the usages of society continue what they are. Just 
 as long as the favorites of wealth and the devotees of 
 fashion will persist in keeping wines and spirits upon 
 their tables, just so long is there danger that those who 
 surround them will be poisoned, and carry the infectious 
 taint with them wherever they go.. Neither will this 
 danger be averted as long as young ladies will offer and 
 urge a glass of wine upon their friends at the social 
 party or the congratulatory call. Could these things be 
 abolished altogether, it would be a long step on the 
 march of progress. It would be striking a blow at the 
 root, in very many cases, and there would be less occa- 
 sion for the poet to sing 
 
 “ Man’s inhumanity to man 
 Makes countless thousands mourn.’' 
 
 “ A young man, of no ordinary promise, unhappily 
 contracted habits of intemperance. His excesses spread 
 anguish and shame through a large and most respectable 
 circle. The earnest and kind remonstrance of friends, 
 however, at length led him to desist ; and, feeling that 
 for him to drink was to die, he came to a solemn resolu- 
 tion that he would abstain entirely for the rest of his 
 days. Not long after he was invited to dine, with other 
 young persons, at the house of a friend.” Says the one 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS EEIIEDT. 
 
 143 
 
 who tells the story, with emphatic iitternace, “ Did I say 
 friend ? Pardon me ; he could hardly be a friend who 
 would deliberately place on the table before one so lately 
 lost, now so marvellously redeemed, the treacherous in- 
 strument of his downfall. But so it was. The wine 
 was in their feasts. He withstood the fascination, how- 
 ever, until a young lady, whom he desired to please, 
 challenged him to drink. He refused. With banter and 
 ridicule she soon cheated him out of all his noble purposes, 
 and her challenge was accepted. Pie no sooner drank 
 than he felt the demon was still alive, and that from tem- 
 porary sleep he was now waking with tenfold strength. 
 ‘ Now,’ said he to a friend who sat next to him, ‘ now 
 I have tasted again, and I drink till I die.’ The awful 
 pledge was kept. Not ten days had passed before that 
 ill-fated youth fell under the horrors of delirium tremens, 
 and was borne to a grave of shame and dark despair.’’ 
 “And who,” says the writer of the sad tale, “would 
 envy the emotions .with which that young lady, if not 
 wholly dead to duty and to pity, retraced her part in a 
 scene of gayety, which smiled only to betray ? ” Sad as 
 it is, the young ladies themselves are falling under the 
 power of these pernicious habits, and it is confidently 
 asserted, on reliable authority, that there are many in 
 the highest circles-so given to indulgence in this direction 
 that they actually come under the condemnation of the 
 drunkard. Startling as the fact may appear, it is de-. 
 dared that “ nearly two thousand of the applicants 
 for admission to the inebriate asylum at Binghamton 
 have been rich men’s daughters ; and it is a truth equally 
 astounding, that these favored ones of fortune will travel 
 in foreign countries, and be seen in such condition as to 
 need some one to steady their faltering steps through 
 the streets. Dash every trace of the stimulating bev- 
 erage from the tables of the rich, and it is believed 
 9 
 
144 
 
 IXTEMPERAXCE, 
 
 that this most forbidding form of intemperance would 
 cease to exist. By a well-known principle, reformation 
 Avorks downward. The lower are always imitating the 
 higher, and an influence emanating from above would 
 gradually be felt upon those below. 
 
 But, deferring the considerations of public reforma- 
 tion mostly to another place, we propose to have mainly 
 to do Avith individual reformation in the present chapter ; 
 to behold the difficulties and probabilities of this, when 
 once a man is under the full dominion of the habit, 
 and to see hoAV, in the practical illustration, if it be not 
 utterly impossible, it approximates closely to it. There 
 are notable instances of men Avho have been rescued 
 from the lowest pit, and have become shinmg lights — 
 a marvel to themselves and everybody else ; but who 
 does not knoAV that thej^ stand upon ground that is ever 
 after quaking under their feet ? 
 
 Gough AA'as one of these ; but it was long he liA'ed in 
 utter dread and distrust of himself, lest his strength of 
 will and firmness of purpose should not be sufficient in 
 the day of his temptation. He Avas afraid of h imself ; 
 and who shall tell the horror of this trembling apprehen- 
 sion as it haunts a man in all his Avalks and AA'ays ? A 
 continual Avatching and battling is necessary all the time, 
 even after it seems the giant has been effectually slain ; 
 and in the first bitterness of the contest there are no 
 words to paint the torturing helxfiessness of the condi- 
 tion. John Hawkins thus tells the story of his life when 
 he first made an attempt to free himself from the bonds 
 which had enslaved him so long. At the age of twenty- 
 two he was a confirmed drunkard. “ He wandered far 
 off from his friends, to the West, where he suffered 
 every eAul from poverty, vice, and degradation : lived 
 years in Baltimore, Avithout providing food or clothing 
 for his family — a - living death to them.” “ My wife,” 
 
SidNINd 'I'lli; I'l.KIK 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 145 
 
 he says, “ would sit up for me until midnight, and watch 
 to see whether I came home drunk or sober. Often 
 have I fallen prostrate in the hall, and my little daughter 
 would cover me with a blanket until the morning light. 
 In June, 1840, I drank and suffered aAAdully — I can’t 
 tell how much I suffered in mind — in body everything, 
 but in mind more. I drank dreadfully the first tAvo 
 weeks in June — bought by the gallon, and drank, drank, 
 and was about taking my life — was drunk all the time. 
 On the 14th, I Avas aAvonder to myself ; astonished I had 
 any mind left ; and yet, in the goodness of God, it 
 seemed uncommonly clear. I lay in bed long after 
 my wife and daughter Avere up, and my conscience drove 
 me to madness. I hated the darkness of the night, and 
 when light came I hated the light. I hated myself — 
 my existence. I asked myself, ‘ Can I refrain ? is it 
 possible ? ’ I felt there was not a being to take me by 
 the hand, and say. You can. I felt that 1 had made my- 
 self friendless •, that I was without help or light — an 
 outcast ; and for a time the overAvhelming conviction 
 maddened me. I had a pint of Avhiskey, and thought I 
 would drink ; and yet I knew it was life or death with 
 me as I decided. I had ahvays loved my daughter, and 
 I felt that if I had a friend on the earth at all, it was 
 she. As she came into the room, she said, ‘ Father, 
 don’t send me after any more whiskey to-day.’ I Aras 
 tormented before, but this was an unexpected torture. 
 I commanded her to leave the chamber, and she went 
 away A^ith her eyes filled Avith tears. I coA'^ered myself 
 in the bed to hide myself away from the sight or sound of 
 a living thing, but more especially from my own loath- 
 some self. I .then thought of my past life, my degrada- 
 tion, misery of my friends, and felt bad enough. Hear- 
 ing a noise in the room, I looked out and saw my 
 daughter again present. Calling her to me, I said, ‘ I am 
 
146 
 
 rtsTTEMPEEANCnS, 
 
 not an^y with yon, and I shall not chink any more.’ 
 As we mingled oiu’ tears together, I arose and went to 
 the cupboard, looked at the enemy, and thought. Is it 
 ^ possible I can be restored ? and then turned my back 
 upon it. Several times, while dressing, I looked at the 
 bottle, but thought I should be lost if I yielded. No one 
 coidd be worse off than I Avas, no more degraded, no 
 more a slave to appetite. Soon after, I went to the So- 
 ciety for Drunkards, and there I found all my old bottle 
 companions. I told no one, not even my family, that I 
 was going. I felt that I had taken the first steps in the 
 way of reform, but I was by no means persuaded that I 
 could keep on in the way. There I met those with 
 whom I had fished, caroused, and got drunk. In that 
 condition we had stuck together like brothers ; and now 
 they laughed, clapped, and shouted, ‘ Here is Hawkins, 
 the regulator, the old hruiser.' But there AAms no response 
 in me for all this. I was too sober and solemn for that. 
 The pledge was read for my accommodation. They did 
 not say anything, but I knew they were looking over 
 my shoulder to see if I really would Avrite my name. 
 I never had such feehngs before. It was a great 
 battle. I once fought the battle at North Point, and 
 helped to run aAvay, too ; but now there Avas no such al- 
 ternative. I found the society had a large pitcher of 
 water, drank toasts, and told experiences ; and there I 
 laid my plan, for I did not intend to be a drone. Al- 
 cohol had promised me everything, but I had found it to 
 be a great deceiver, and there was no way but to wage 
 eternal war against • it, and I determined to do it. At 
 eleven o’clock I went home. Before, when I had staid 
 out late, I had gone to my home thoroughly intoxicated, 
 and my wife was watching for the same result, and was 
 planning some measure that yv'ould free her from the in- 
 creasing Avretchedness. My yard is coA'ered with brick, 
 
ITS ASPECT AED ITS REMEDY. 
 
 149 . 
 
 and as I went over this, she listened, as she afterwards 
 told me, to determine whether the gate door opened 
 drunk or sober ; for she had learned to distinguish the 
 peculiarity of sound that marked the condition. She 
 was standing in the middle of the room as I entered; 
 and, convinced that soberness was in the ascendant, she 
 greeted me with a smile, that I involuntarily returned. ‘ I 
 had put my name to the Temperance Pledge, never to 
 drink again as long as I hve,’ said I. We both wept 
 until our weeping awoke our daughter, and then we 
 cried all together ; and there was no sorrow in those 
 tears but those wrung out by the fear of relapse. I tell 
 you this,” he says, “ that you may know how hapj)y the 
 reformation of a drunkard makes his famil3^ I slept 
 none that night ; my thoughts were better than sleep. 
 Next morning, I went to see my aged mother — her who 
 had been praying twenty years for her drunken son; and 
 as I told her, she exclaimed, with unutterable joy in her 
 face, ‘ It is enough ; I am now ready to die.’ ” 
 
 If such be the joj’ of a single soul — of a single 
 household — at the first dawnings of hope, what a loud- 
 sounding anthem would it be that should celebrate the 
 restoration of the larger number that are sighing and 
 waiting for the same blessed redemption ! What a 
 glad era it would be for our domestic prosperity, could 
 these scenes be multiplied all over the land ! 
 
 A young man was convicted of murder, and while 
 confined in jail, under sentence of death, he wrote a let- 
 ter to warn others against a similar fate. The act had 
 been committed while under the influence of strong 
 drink, but the law held him responsible ; and his story 
 is but a repetition of the fact that it takes away reason, 
 and goads on to madness and destruction continually. 
 He writes, “ O that I could only portray the horrors 
 springing from the first glass ! You would shun it as you 
 
150 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 would the road in which Death, in his most hideous form, 
 was lurking. Would to God I had died before I knew 
 the love or passion strong drink can bring to its poor, 
 deluded victims ; for then I would have had kind friends 
 to weep and think kindly of me, as, in solemn silence, 
 they gazed into my tomb. 
 
 “ O, young man ! by all that you hold dear, shun the 
 cup — the fatal cup ! You may think you are able to 
 take a drink and leave it alone when you wish ; let me 
 entreat you, don’t try the experiment, for when it gets 
 hold it rarely ever lets go. It not only destroys you, but 
 friends must suffer also. Think well before you touch 
 the cup. Don’t say, ‘ I can take a drink and leave 
 off ; ’ the chances are against you. 
 
 “Would to God that one year ago I could have seen 
 strong drink as it really is, stripped of all the ornaments 
 thrown over it by those engaged in the traffic I — could 
 have seen it as a swift and sure road that was to lead to 
 my unhappy condition in a felon’s cell, with the prospect 
 of a shameful death ! 
 
 “ jNIy hands are ironed, irons are on 1113^ limbs, and I 
 am chained to the floor ; and whiske3’ has done it all. I 
 have lost friends, character, home, all that makes life 
 dear, b}^ not saying, No ! when asked to drink. I could 
 have said it. God gave me understanding ; I Jcnew right 
 from wrong ; but I flattered mj^self I could go so far, and 
 then rein up : now I am lost. Don’t believe in moderate 
 drinking ; there is too much danger in it. There is no 
 drunkard living biit thought he could leave off when he 
 wished. Say jmu that, ‘ Man}' drink, and do not what 
 I have done ? ’ All true — but none do as I did but what 
 drink — not one. All say at first, “ Whiskey shall not be 
 my master ; I am too much of a man for that.’ How 
 soon they find out that he who said, ‘ Wine is a mocker, 
 strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby 
 
ITS ASPECT Airo ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 151 
 
 is not wise,’ knew more akout it than they ! It will 
 hold one in fetters that are well nigh impossible to 
 wrench off. There is no other way in which the refor- 
 mation of these advanced drinkers can be secured but 
 by abstaining altogether. A little will keep the flame 
 forever burning, and it is so hard to come to the- conclu- 
 sion — not a ch-op — when habit cries out so strongly for 
 the indulgence ! ” 
 
 The father of the Rev. Newman Hall was an intem- 
 perate man. The narrative of his experience has come 
 before the world, under the title “ The Rescued Brand.” 
 He was an infidel and a drunkard, but was won over to 
 the true faith and to a life of soberness when he seemed 
 almost beyond hope. 
 
 It is such a striking and illustrious example of a true 
 reformation, and withal illustrates the difficulties attend- 
 ing it so clearly, we give a sketch of his life, as pre- 
 sented by his son : “ When a young man, at Maidstone, 
 his business pursuits placed him in circumstances of 
 great temptation. Lively, amiable, generous, a genial 
 companion, enjo3dng a sprightly joke, and singing a 
 merry song, his society was much sought after. Social 
 enjoyments were invariably connected with the free use 
 of intoxicating liquors. He was thus led astray, and 
 ‘ erred through strong drink.’ Of his companions he 
 informs us, ‘ In the town where I reside were twelve 
 young men, who were accustomed, early in life, to meet 
 together for indulgence in drinking, and all manner of 
 excess. In the course of time some of them engaged in 
 business ; but their habits of sin were so entwined with 
 their very existence that they became bankrupts. Eight 
 of them died under the age of forty, without a hope be- 
 3"ond the grave ; three others were reduced to the most 
 abject poverty. Two of these had formerly moved in 
 very respectable circles, but they are now in the most 
 
152 - 
 
 rNTEjVIPERAiTCB, 
 
 miserable state of poverty, wretchedness, and dis- 
 grace.’ 
 
 “ Of this party he was a sort of ringleader, taking the 
 head of the table at convivial meetings, and sitting up 
 whole nights drinking, and inducing others to do the 
 same — never going to bed sober. He was an infidel, a 
 disciple of Tom Paine, both in principle and practice, a 
 blasphemer of the word of God, yet a good-natured man, 
 who would do anybody a kindness. At length he went to 
 reside at a distance, where, for a time, he refrained from 
 dissipation, was married, and everything seemed prosper- 
 ous around him ; but, instead of being thankful to God 
 for his mercy, and watching against his besetting sin, he 
 gave way to his old propensity. One dark night, in 
 the neighborhood of Stourbridge, he had been drinking. 
 The road he took went over a canal ; he missed tlie 
 bridge, and rolled down the bank to the edge of the 
 water. And here he seemed to have arrived at the end 
 of his wicked course ; but God, wlro is rich in mercy, 
 had caused a stone to lie direct!}^ in his path, and thus 
 spared him ; one turn more, and he would have plunged 
 into hell. His senses returned for a moment ; and, 
 seeing the water beneath him, he craAvled back again 
 into the road ; there he was picked up, and lodged 
 in a public house for the night. This was considered 
 merely as a lucky escape, and he continued to pursue 
 his career of sin as ardently as before. There were then 
 no Total Abstinence Societies to shield him. "When 
 every one drank, Avas it to be expected he Avould ab- 
 stain ? The advice generally given was, ‘ Use, but not 
 abuse.’ Yet with his peculiar temperament and habits, 
 one glass would so rouse his appetite that self-control 
 was gone, and he rushed forward to the abj’ss AA'hich, 
 when perfectly sober, he abhorred. 
 
 “ One of these sad relapses occurred on the occasion of 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEIMEDY. 
 
 153 
 
 a young minister visiting at his house, and taking brandy 
 and water . at luncheon. Thinking there could be no 
 harm in following such an example, he filled his own 
 glass, and was again overcome. After a course of drink- 
 ing for some days, having come to his senses, he began to 
 reason with himself on his guilt arid folly ; and, in an 
 angry, passionate manner, he muttered, ‘ O, it’s no use 
 for me to repent — my sins are too great to be forgiven.’ 
 He had no sooner uttered these words, than a voice 
 seemed to say, with strong emphasis, ‘ If thou wilt for- 
 sake thy sins, they shall be forgiven.’ The poor man 
 started at what he believed to be a real sound, and has- 
 tily turned round; but seeing no one, he said to himself, 
 ‘ Surely I have been drinking until I am going mad.’ 
 He fell on his knees, and, half-suffocated by his feelings, 
 he cried, ‘ O God, be merciful to me a sinner ! ’ At this 
 vbry time, special prayer was being offered on his behalf 
 by his wife and others. The poor wretch .was broken- 
 hearted ; and now his besetting sin appeared more hor- 
 rible than ever; but it mast be conquered, or he must 
 perish. Then commenced a contest more terrible than 
 that of conflicting armies ; the soul was at stake ; an 
 impetuous torrent was to be turned in an opposite course. 
 He noAV began to search the Bible, which he had once 
 despised. Here he saw that crimson and scarlet sins 
 could be blotted out ; that the grace of God was all- 
 sufQeient. He refrained from intemperance, commenced 
 family prayer, and hope again revived. But his deadly 
 foe still pursued him, and he was again overcome. Now, 
 his disgrace and sinfulness appeared worse than ever, 
 and with melancholy feeling, he cried out, in anguish of 
 spirit, that he was doomed to eternal misery, and it Avas 
 useless to try to avert his fate. His cruel eneiu}'- took 
 this opportunity to suggest to his mind that he had so 
 disgraced himself that it would be better to get rid of 
 
154 
 
 INTEJCPEEAiTCE, 
 
 his life at once. The razor was in his hand ; hut the 
 Sj)irit of the Lord interposed, and the weapon fell to the 
 ground. He would sometimes refrain for days and weeks, 
 and then again he was as had as ever. All hope seemed 
 now to he gone ; and especially, when, one day, after hav- 
 ing heen brought into great weakness through intempe- 
 rance, death seemed to he yery near. Not a moment was 
 to he lost ; he cast himself once more at the footstool of 
 his long-insulted Creator, and, with an intensity of 
 agony, cried out, ‘ Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon 
 me : Lord, he thou my helper.’ He sank down exhaust- 
 ed ; he could say no more, hut that prayer was heard. 
 
 “ A physician was consulted as to the possihility of med- 
 icine being rendered effectual to cure his intemperance. 
 The poor man would have suffered the amputation of all 
 his limbs, could so severe a method have rid him of his 
 deadly habit. Tlie phj’sician declared that if he would 
 strictly adhere to his prescription, not only the practice, 
 hut the very inclination for strong drink would subside 
 in a few months. The remedy was a preparation of 
 steel ; and eagerly did he begin to devour the antidote 
 to his misery. Every bottle was taken with an earnest 
 prayer to God for his blessing to accompany it. In a 
 private box, opened after his decease, a small parcel was 
 found, on Avhich was written, ‘ The mercy of God un- 
 speakable to J. V. H.’ It contained a phial bottle in 
 which Avas a little sediment, and the following affecting 
 document : ‘ This jAhial is one (of upward of three hun- 
 dred) of those out of wiiich J. V. H. drank a preparation 
 of steel, in the year 1816. It is preserved, like the pot 
 of manna, to shoAV the way in which the Lord delAered 
 his servant out of the Avilderness — out of a horrible 
 pit — out of his besetting sin. O, praised be tire Lord.’ 
 When this prescription was first taken, wine and spirits 
 were gAen up. But it Avas found that beer was sufid- 
 
ITS ASPECT AICD ITS EEJEEDY. 
 
 155 
 
 cient to excite the morbid propensity. After several 
 failures from this cause, beer, also, was rehnquished. 
 Then it was, and not until then, that the cure was com- 
 plete ; and from that day to the day of his death, being 
 a period of forty-two years, not so much as a spoonful 
 of spirituous liquors, or wine of any description, ever 
 passed the surface of that man’s tongue.” 
 
 In him reformation did its full work eventually, and 
 he became an earnest and efficient worker in every good 
 cause ; but no one but the man himself can tell the price 
 at which it was purchased. Once, while ill of typhus 
 fever, the physician proposed wine as an essential rem- 
 edy for his restoration ; but he rejected the idea, and 
 declared he “ woxild rather die.” 
 
 An accident led to his decease in his eighty-seventh 
 year. A slight operation was followed by erysipelas. 
 Again xvine was recommended. Mr. Hall, who had been 
 lying in a state of great weakness, apparently unaware of 
 what was said, emphatically groaned out, “Never! nev- 
 er! ” A fexv days before his departure he said to his son, 
 “Newman, if you jxreacli a funeral sermon for me, your 
 text must be, ‘ Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ’? ” 
 
 There is nothing but divine power, in connection with 
 total abstinence, that can bring up these lowly-fallen 
 ones to the true level of virtuous manhood again. It 
 requires the most powerful considerations that can be 
 brought to bear upon a man’s heart and conscience to 
 make him turn backward, when he has once reached the 
 foot of the lull. The almost superhuman effort that is 
 involved in climbing up again, makes the poor man feel 
 that it is easier to go with the current of his passions, and 
 keep on sliding ; and the probability is, that he Avill con- 
 tinue his drams, if it be but to bury the accusations that 
 taunt him in every sane moment. We know of a young 
 man who would awake after a night’s revellings with 
 
156 
 
 rIsrTEMPEEA2^CE, 
 
 tlie bitter cry “ I wish I was in heaven I ” So utterly 
 powerless did he feel himself to be in overcoming his 
 propensity, that he regarded everything unsafe until he 
 could be freed from the body, and beyond the reach of 
 temptation. Perhaps he overlooked the important con- 
 sideration that there is no salvation for these wilfully 
 perverted ones. The consciousness of being fettered 
 was upon him, and the torment and friction of this in- 
 duced the despairing cry. He was promising, talented, 
 the pride of his parents, and might greatly have adorned 
 the ministerial profession for which he was designed, 
 had he not yielded, as so many do, to the solicitations 
 of. boon companions. It is to be hoped he began the 
 work of reform before it was too late ; but none such 
 can stand where they might have stood had they re- 
 mained strangers to the degrading process. It burns out 
 all the freshness and vigor of a man’s character, and 
 when he would come up, it requires the constant appro- 
 priation of all his energies to keep himself on the right 
 track. If he could have this same strength and energy 
 to spend in blessing others, the cultivation of the moral 
 vineyard would be very different from what it is now. 
 Charles Lamb, in his “ Essays of Elia ” has given the 
 “Confessions of a Drunkard,” in which he vividly de- 
 picts the meaning of reform as applied to the individual 
 soul. This brilliant English essayist was in the habit 
 of taking a great deal of wine at his table, and it was 
 not uncommon for him to doze away his after-dinner 
 hours under its stupefying influence. 
 
 “ Kindly, upright, and witty,” he was a pleasant com- 
 panion for a large and gay circle. His amusing sallies 
 and humorous jokes always commanded attention, and 
 this, wdth his general culture, made him universally 
 popular. But here was his faihng — he could not pass 
 by the door of a' country tavern in his walks but he 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEIMEDY. 
 
 157 
 
 must enter for a draught. It is said that often, while 
 he was walking with the youthful and accomplished 
 daughter of Sheridan' Knowles, she was often left out- 
 side the haunts of gin, while he could gratify his insa- 
 tiable thirst — a thirst more powerful than love, and 
 more beguiling than affection. Not until young ladies 
 cease to smile upon such as these will the star of hope 
 be in the ascendant, and the matter of reform assume 
 the importance it demands. 
 
 The result of the convictions of this famed writer we 
 give in his own emphatic language. 
 
 “ Dehortations from the use of strong liquors have 
 been the favorite topic of sober declaimers in all ages, 
 and have been received with abundance of applause by 
 water-drinking critics. But with the patient himself, 
 the man that is to be cured, unfortunately, their sound 
 has seldom prevailed. Yet the evil is acknowledged, 
 the remedy simple. Abstahi. No force can oblige a man 
 to raise the glass to his head against his will. ’Tis as 
 easy as not to steal — not to tell lies. Alas ! the hand to 
 pilfer, and the tongue to bear false witness, have no con- 
 stitutional tendency. These are actions indifferent to 
 them. At the first instance of the reformed v/ill, they can 
 be brought' off without a murmur. The itching finger is 
 but a figure of speech, and the tongue of the liar can 
 v/ith the same natural delight give forth useful truths, 
 with which it has been accustomed to scatter then’ per- 
 nicious contraries. But when a man has commenced 
 sot — O pause, thou surly moralist, thou person of 
 strong nerves and a strong head, whose liver is hap- 
 pily untouched, and ere thy gorge riseth at the name 
 which I have written, first learn what the thing is ; how 
 much of compassion, how much of human allowance, 
 thou mayst vh’tuously mingle with thy disapprobation. 
 Trample not on the ruins of a man. Exact not, under 
 
158 . 
 
 INTEm^EEAi^CE, 
 
 SO terrible a penalty as infamy, a resuscitation from a 
 state of death almost as real as that from which Lazarus 
 rose not but by a miracle. Begin a reformation, and 
 custom will make it easy. 
 
 “ But what if the beginning be dreadful, the first steps 
 not like climbing a mountain, but like going through 
 fire ? What if the whole system must undergo a change 
 violent as that which we conceive of the mutation of 
 form in some insects ? What if a process comparable to 
 flaying alive be to be gone through ? Is the weakness 
 that sinks under such struggles to be confounded with 
 the pertinacity tvhich clings to other vices, which have 
 induced no constitutional necessity, no engagement of 
 the whole victim, body and soul ? 
 
 “I have known one in that state, when he had tried 
 to abstain but for one evening, — though the poisonous 
 potion had long ceased to bring back its first enchant- 
 ment, though he was sure it would rather deepen his 
 gloom than brighten it, — in the violence of the strug- 
 gle, and the necessity he has felt of getting rid of the 
 present sensation at any rate, — I have known him to 
 scream out, to cry aloud, for the anguish and pain of 
 the strife within him. Why should I hesitate to declare 
 that the man of whom I speak is myself? I have no 
 puling apology to make to mankind. I see them all, in 
 one way or another, deviating from the pure reasoir. It 
 is. to my own nature alone I am accountable for the woe 
 that I have brought upon it. I believe that there are 
 constitutions, robust heads and iron insides, whom scarce 
 any excesses can hurt ; whom brandy (I have seen them 
 drink it like wine), at all events, whom wine, taken in 
 ever so plentiful a manner, can do no worse injury to, 
 than just to muddle their faculties, perhaps never very 
 .pellucid. On them this discourse is wasted. They would 
 but laugh at a Aveak brother, who, trying his strength 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 159 
 
 ■with them, and coming off foiled from the contest, would 
 fain persuade them that suhh agonistic exercises are dan- 
 gerous. It is to a very different description of persons 
 that I speak. It is to the weak, the nervous, to those 
 who feel the want of some artificial aid to raise their 
 spirits in society to what is no more than the ordinary 
 pitch of all around them without it. This is the secret 
 of our drinking. Such must fly the convivial hoard in 
 the first instance, if they do not mean to sell themselves 
 for the term of life. Twelve years ago I had completed 
 my six and twentieth year. I had lived from the period 
 of leaving school to that time pretty much in solitude. 
 My companions were chiefly books, or, at most, one or 
 two living ones of my own book-loving and sober stamp. 
 I rose early, went to bed betimes ; and the faculties which 
 God had given me, I have reason to think, did not rust 
 in me unused. About that time I fell in Avith some com- 
 panions of a different order. They Avere men of boister- 
 ous spirits, sitters-up a-nights, disputants, drunken, yet 
 seemed to have something noble about them. We dealt 
 about the wit, or Avhat passed for it, after midnight, 
 jovially. Of the quality called fancy, I certainly pos- 
 sessed a larger share than my companions. Encouraged 
 by their applause, I set up for a professed joker ! I, who 
 of all men am least fitted for such an occupation, having, 
 in addition to the greatest difficulty Avhich I experienced 
 at all times of finding words to express my meaning, a 
 natural nervous impediment in my speech ! Reader, if 
 you are gifted Avith nerves like mine, aspire to any 
 character but that of a wit. When you find a tickling 
 relish upon your tongue, disposing you to that sort of 
 conversation, especially if you find a preternatural flow 
 of ideas settling in upon you at the sight of a bottle and 
 fresh glasses, avoid giving way to it, as you would fly 
 your greatest destruction. If you cannot crush the 
 
160 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 power of fancy, or that within you wliich you mistake 
 for such, divert it, give it some other play. Write an 
 essay, pen a character or description, — hut not, as I do 
 now, with tears trickling down your cheeks. 
 
 “ To be an object of compassion to friends, of derision 
 to foes ; to be suspected by strangers, stared at by fools ; 
 to be esteemed dull when 3"ou cannot be witty ; to be 
 applauded for witty when you know that j’ou have been- 
 dull ; to be called upon for the extemporaneous exercise 
 of that faculty which no premeditation can give ; to be 
 spurred on to efforts which end in contempt ; to be set 
 on to jirovoke mirth, which procures tlie procurer ha- 
 tred ; to give pleasure, and be paid with squinting 
 malice ; to swallow draughts of life-desti’Ojdng wine, 
 which are to be distilled into airy breath to tickle vain 
 auditors ; to mortgage miserable morrows for nights of 
 madness ; to waste whole seas of time upon those who 
 pay it back in little inconsiderable drops of grudging 
 applause, — are the wages of buffooneiy and death. 
 
 “ Time, which has a sure stroke at dissolving all con- 
 nections Avhich have no solider fastening than this liquid 
 cement, more kind to me than my own taste or penetra- 
 tion, at length opened my eyes to the supposed, qualities 
 of my first friends. No traces of them is left but in the 
 vices which they introduced, and the habits they infixed. 
 In them m3- friends survive still, and exercise ample ret- 
 ribution for any supposed infidelity that I ma}- have been 
 guilty of toAvards them. 
 
 ■ “ My next more immediate companions were, and are, 
 j)ersons of such intrinsic and felt worth, that, though ac- 
 cidentall}- their acquaintance has proved pernicious to 
 me, I do not knoAV that if the thing were to do over 
 again, I should haA^e the courage to eschcAV the mischief 
 at the price of forfeiting the benefit. I came to them 
 reeking from the steams of my late overheated notions 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS REMEDY. 
 
 161 
 
 of companionship ; and the slightest fuel which they un- 
 consciously afforded was sufficient to feed my old fires 
 into a propensity. They were no drinkers, but one from 
 professional habits, and another from a custom derived 
 from_ his father, smoked tobacco. The devil could not 
 have devised a more subtle trap to retake a backsliding 
 penitent. The transition from gulping down draughts 
 of liquid fire, to 'puffing out innocuous blasts of dry 
 smoke, was so like cheating him. But he is too hard 
 for us, when we hope to commute. He beats us at bar- 
 ter ; and when we think to set off a new failing against 
 an old infirmity, ’tis odds but he puts the trick upon us 
 for two to one. 
 
 “ That (comparatively) white devil of tobaeco brought 
 with him, in the end, seven worse than himself. It were 
 impertinent to carry the reader through all the processes 
 by which, from smoking' at first with malt liquor, I 
 took my degrees through thin wines, through stronger 
 wine and water, through small puneh, to those juggling 
 compositions, which, under the name of mixed liquors, 
 slur a great deal of brandy, or other poison, under less 
 and less water continually, until they come next to none, 
 and so to none at all. But it is hateful to disclose the 
 secrets of my Tartarus. 
 
 “Persons not accustomed to examine the motives of 
 their actions, to reckon up the countless nails that rivet 
 the chains of habit, or perhaps being bound by none so 
 obdurate as those I have confessed to, may recoil from 
 this as an overcharged picture. But what short of such 
 a bondage is it, which in spite of protesting friends, a 
 weeping wife, and a reprobating world, chains down 
 many a poor fellow, of no original indisposition to good- 
 ness, to his pqDe and his pot ? ■ 
 
 “ I have seen a print, after Correggio, in which three 
 female figures are ministering to a man who sits fast 
 bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him, 
 10 
 
162 
 
 INTEJ.IPEEANCB, 
 
 Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repugnance, 
 at the same instant of time, is applying a snake to his 
 side. In his face .is feeble delight, the recollection of 
 past, rather than perception of present pleasures ; languid 
 enjoyment of evil, with -utter imbecility to good ; a Syb- 
 aritic effeminacy, a submission to bondage ; the springs 
 of the will gone down like a broken clock, the sin and 
 the suffering co-instantaneous, or the latter forerunning 
 the former, remorse preceding action, — all this rej)re- 
 sented in one point of time. When I saw this, I ad- 
 mired the wonderful skill of the painter. But when I 
 went away, I wept, because I thought of my own con- 
 dition. Of that there is no hope that it will ever change. 
 The waters have gone over me. -But out of the black 
 depths, could I be heard, I Would ciy out to all those 
 who have but set a foot in .the perilous flood. Could the 
 youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious 
 as the opening scenes of life, as the entering upon some 
 newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and 
 be made to understand what a drearj^ thing it is, when 
 a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with 
 open eyes and a passive will ; to see his destruction, 
 and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the 
 way emanating from himself ; to perceive all goodness 
 emptied out of him, and 3*et not to be able to forget a 
 time when it was otherwise ; to bear about the piteous 
 spectacle of his own self-ruins ; — could he see my fevered 
 eye, feverish with last night’s drinking, and feverishly 
 looking for this night’s repetition of the folly ; could he 
 feel the body of the death out of which I cry each hour 
 with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered, — it were 
 enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the 
 earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation; to 
 make him 
 
 ‘ Clasp liis teeth, and not undo ’em, 
 
 To sutfer wet Damnation to run thro’ ’em.’ 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BBJMEDY. 
 
 163 
 
 “Yea! liut (methiiiks I hear somehod}'- object) if so- 
 briety be that fine thing you would have us to under- 
 stand, if the comforts of a cool brain are to be preferred 
 to that state of heated excitement which you describe 
 and deplore, what hinders, in your own instance, that 
 you do not return to those habits from which you would 
 induce others never to swerve ? If the blessing be worth 
 preserving, is it not worth recovering ? 
 
 '•'■Recovering ! O, if a wish could transport me back to 
 those days of youth, when a draught from the next -clear 
 spring could slake any heats which summer suns and 
 youthful exercise had power to stir up in the blood, how 
 gladly would I return to the pure element, the drink of 
 children, and of child-like, holy hermit. In my dreams 
 I can sometimes fancy the cool refreshment purling over 
 my burning tongue. But my waking stomach rejects it. 
 That which refreshes innocence only makes me sick and 
 faint. But is there no middle wa}^ betwixt total absti- 
 nence and the excess which kills you? For your sake,, 
 reader, and that you may never attain to my experience, 
 with pain I must utter the dreadful truth, that there is 
 none — none that I can find. In my stage of -habit (I 
 speak not of habits less confirmed, for some of them I 
 believe the advice to be most prudential) in the stage 
 which I have reached, to stop short of that measure 
 which is sufficient to draw on torpor and sleep, the be- 
 numbing, apoplectic ■ sleep of the drunkard is to have 
 taken none at all. 
 
 “ The pain of the self-denial is all one. And what that 
 is, I had rather the reader should believe on my credit, 
 than know from his own trial. He will come to know it 
 whenever he shall arrive at that state, in which, para- 
 doxical as it may appear, reason shall only visit him 
 through intoxication ; for it is a fearful truth that the 
 intellectual faculties, by repeated acts of intemperance, 
 
164 “ 
 
 IN TEIIPEE A2SrCE, 
 
 may be driven from their orderly sphere of action, their 
 clear daylight ministries, until they shall be brought at 
 last to depend, for the faint manifestation of their de- 
 parting energies, upon the returning periods of the fatal 
 madness to Avhich they owe their devastation. The 
 drinking man is never less himself than during iiis sober 
 intervals. Evil is so far his good.* 
 
 “ Behold me, then, in the robust period of life, reduced 
 to imbecility and decay. Hear me count my gains, 
 and the profits I have derived from the midnight cup. 
 Twelve years ago I was possessed of a healthy frame 
 of mind and body. I was never strong, but I think my 
 constitution (for a weak one) was as happily exempt 
 from the tendency to any malady as it was possible to 
 be. I scarcely knew what it was to ail in anything. 
 Now, except when I am losing myself in a sea of drink, 
 I am never free from those uneasy sensations in head 
 and stomach wliich are so much worse to bear than 
 any definite pains or aches. At that time I was sel- 
 dom in bed after six in the rhorning, summer or winter. 
 I awoke refreshed, and seldom without some merry 
 thoughts in my head, or some piece of a song to wel- 
 come the new-born day. Now, the first feeling which 
 besets me, after stretching out the hours of recumbence 
 to their last possible extent, is a forecast of the weari- 
 some day that lies before me, with a secret wish that I 
 could have lain on still, or never awaked. Life itself — 
 my waking life, — has much of the confusion, the trouble, 
 and obscure perplexity of an ill dream. In the daytime 
 I stumble upon dark mountains. Business, which, though 
 
 * “ When poor Mr. painted his last picture, with a pencil in one frcm- 
 
 bling hand and a glass of brandy and water in the other, his fingers owed 
 the comparative steadiness with which they were enabled to go through their 
 task, in an imperfect manner, to a temporary firmness derived from a repe- 
 tition of practices, the general effect of which had shaken both them and him 
 SO terribly. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY, 
 
 165 
 
 never particularly adapted to my nature, yet as some- 
 thing of necessity to be gone through, and therefore best 
 undertaken with cheerfulness, I used to enter upon with 
 some degree of alacrity, now wearies, affrights, perplexes 
 me. I fancy all sorts of discouragements, and I am ready 
 to give up an occupation which gives me bread, from a 
 harassing conceit of incapacity. The. slightest commis- 
 sion given me by a friend, or any small duty -which I 
 have to perform for myself, — as giving orders to a 
 tradesman, &c., — haunts me as a labor impossible to be 
 got through. So much the springs of action are broken. 
 
 “ The same cowardice attends me in all my intercourse 
 with mankind. I dare not promise that a friend’s honor, 
 or his cause would he safe in my keeping, if I were put 
 to the expense of any manly resolution in defending it. 
 So much the springs of moral action are deadened within 
 me. My favorite occupations in times past now cease to 
 entertain. I can do nothing readily. . Application, for 
 ever so short a time, kills me. This poor abstract of my 
 condition was penned at long intervals, with scarcely 
 any attempt at connection of thought, which is now so 
 difficult to me. The noble passages which formerly de- 
 lighted me in history or poetic fiction, now only draw a 
 few weak tears, allied to dotage. My broken and dis- 
 pirited nature seems to sink before anything great and 
 admirable. I perpetually catch myself in tears, for any 
 cause, or none. It is inexpressible how much this infir- 
 mity adds to a sense of shame, and a general feeling of 
 deterioration. These are some of the instances, con- 
 cerning which I can say with truth, that it was not 
 always so with me. Shall I lift up the veil of my weak- 
 ness any further? or is this disclosure sufficient? 
 
 “ I am a poor, nameless egotist, who have no vanity 
 to consult by these confessions. I know not whether I 
 shall be laughed at, or heard seriously. Such as they 
 
166 
 
 ■ INTEMPEKA^rCE, 
 
 are, I commend them to the reader’s attention, if he 
 finds his own case any way touched. I have told him 
 what I am come to. Let him stop in time.” 
 
 A more melancholy, heart-rending confession of the 
 influences of drink upon the whole man could scarcely 
 be given than is found in this recital. The love of it is 
 as though the poisonous fangs of a viper had been fas- 
 tened upon the whole system, disfiguiing and paralyzing 
 it beyond all cure. 
 
 It is true that now and then one is. freed from this 
 terrible power of the enemy, and restored to society and 
 friends again ; but we see what it costs. If those in the 
 higher walks of life, who are surrounded with every ad- 
 vantage, and have every inducement to cast off their 
 shackles, and take their rightful and enviable position 
 among the Avorthy, the educated, and refined, — if these 
 find it so hard to begin and continue the work of reform 
 Avith themselves, what shall we say of those in the lower 
 conditions of society, Avho have but little inotive and 
 little encouragement to undertake the herculean task ? 
 
 O 
 
 There are multitudes of such noAV who will go on their 
 Avay unchecked ; persons that are Aveak and irresolute 
 by nature ; those Avho luiA’e been ambitionless and inefiS- 
 cient always, and haA’e made themselA’es more so by their 
 habits. There is but little hope that these will ever 
 exercise the requisite energy and decision to meet the 
 emergenc}'- of reform. If the fallen pillars of Temperance 
 are to be raised again to their true position, it belongs to 
 the youth of the present day to begin the Avork. Those 
 Avho haA'e already formed the habit of drinking cannot be 
 relied upon at all to aid in the enterprise. They may 
 make an occasional spasmodic effort, but the chances are, 
 that they Avill prove a hinderance, and not a help. Our 
 hope of reformation lies not so much in reclaiming the 
 drunkard, as in saving those Avho haA^e neA'er tasted. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 16T 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Blighting Effects -upon Society. 
 
 CELESTIAL INQUIRER. — CLAIMS OF THE LIQUOR FIEND. — INTEMPER- 
 ANCE PRODUCES POVERTY. — ’INCIDENT IVITH A BOSTON LECTURER. 
 
 FRUITFUL SOURCE OF PAUPERISM. THE “SOCIAL EVIL” STIMU- 
 LATES THE MURDBROUS PROPENSITY. PROMPTS TO SUICIDE. 
 
 OPPOSES RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. INDUCES PROFANITY. THE EN- 
 
 EMY OF THE MISSIONARY. — THE INDIAN’S PROTEST. —APPEAL TO 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 “ Where are they lost, 
 
 If of such incubi we count the cost? 
 
 Jails, hospitals-, madhouses — they know well ; 
 
 And poorhouses o’ercrowded — they can tell.” 
 
 The imagination of a modern writer has met a visitant 
 from the heights above who thus accosted him: “Stran- 
 ger! inhabitant of the earth! what mean those dark, un- 
 sightly dens which I see scattered so frequently in the 
 dells and corners of the earth, that send forth vapor, 
 and fire, and smoke, and stench ? I see the busy mul- 
 titude wending their way thither from every point, laden 
 with the fruits of the earth, which were evidently de- 
 signed by the beneficent Creator for the sustenance of 
 man, and casting their burdens, unhesitatingly, into the 
 fiery crater. Again I have looked to see if anything was 
 borne away from these receptacles from which I might 
 infer that the fruits of the earth had been worked over, 
 and better adapted to the wants of man. But, though 
 long I’ve looked with painful eyes, I’ve looked in vain. 
 But I see issuing from every one of them, through dark, 
 leaden pipes, certain fiery streams. These flow out into 
 
168 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 numerous reservoirs ; and then, in innumerable smaller 
 streams, they are conveyed to your cities, and towns, and 
 villages, and all over your vast prairies, over your hills, 
 and through your valleys, to almost every habitation of 
 man. I see the multitude everywhere eager for its ap- 
 proach, and opening their houses, and their mouths even, 
 to receive the fiery fluid. I see the aged and the young^ 
 the decrepit and the healthy, the male and the female, 
 the high and the low, the rich and the poor, plunging, 
 with desperate strides, into the stream, and gorging them- 
 selves therefrom. I see parents laving their children 
 with it, and, ever and anon, pouring it down their necks ; 
 and the delicate female, even, receiving it to her bps ; 
 hut the effects which I perceive inevitably to follow upon 
 coming in contact with these streams, perplex and trouble 
 me much.” And so they go on, in alternate inquiry and 
 reply, until, having surveyed the whole ground, the airy 
 visitor pronounces the whole thing as “ the work of the 
 devil, — Satan’s greatest masterpiece, — his metamor- 
 phosis, by which brutes are made of the best material, — 
 by means of which, more than by any other instrumental- 
 ity, he keeps up his dark dominion over men ; ” and he 
 blesses God “ that there are no railways, or steam-power 
 by which these fatal streams can be conducted, or electro- 
 magnetic telegraph, by which the art of making them 
 can be conveyed to his own beautiful and happy world.” 
 But it needeth not the clear vision of a celestial being to 
 discover the sad workings and fearful ravages of this 
 mighty agent. It is too apparent to the view of ordi- 
 nary mortals to be questioned at all. Even a cursory 
 glance reveals all that the pure-eyed stranger saw. The 
 deplorable effects upon individuals, and society at large, 
 waken corresponding emotions in the hearts of all the 
 good, and they mourn over the fact that their fellow- 
 men will lend their support to means that are so dire in 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. . 169 
 
 their consequences. But what are those consequences ? 
 Hear what liquor — the foul fiend — hath been made to 
 say : “ Hear, all ye people of the world ! Hear ! I 
 claim the right . to load the bodies of men with a slow, 
 lingering disease, so that after ten years of suffering they 
 shall die some horrible and disgraceful death, at the rate 
 of one hundred thousand a year. I claim the right to 
 injure the minds of men, so as to send twelve thousand 
 raving maniacs to the lunatic asylum, and twelve thou- 
 sand more to the asylum for idiots. I claim the right to 
 so madden the people with ungovernable frenzy, as to 
 make, six Imndred kill themselves, but, before they die, 
 to kill, with heartless ferocity, four hundred victims, and 
 make six hundred more perish with fierce and wild de- 
 luium. I claim the right, during these ten years these 
 people are drinking themselves to death, to send one 
 hundred thousand of them to the hospitals with disease, 
 to make them squander their money and their property, 
 and the money and property of their families, and waste 
 their time and shorten their lives, amounting to three 
 million years of life and industry. I claim the right, 
 during the same ten years, to cause the people to commit 
 a vast number of heinous crimes and offences, so as to 
 keep twenty thousand in the state prisons of the land, 
 and to cause two hundred thousand petty crimes and 
 misdemeanors against the peace and good order of society, 
 and make them harsh and cruel to their once loved wives 
 and helpless babes. I claim the right to make five hun- 
 dred thousand paiqjers and beggars, so as to crush out 
 their dignity and self-respect, and blight their hopes for- 
 ever. I claim the right to destroy with midnight flames 
 a vast amount of property, by land and by sea. I claim 
 the right to tax the honest and temperate people of the 
 country, without their consent, to pay for all these woes 
 and calamities, to the amount of two hundred million 
 
170 
 
 INTEMPEE ANCE, 
 
 dollars a year. I claim the right to refuse to pay more 
 than one twentieth of the taxes which the laws of the 
 land have assessed as my share, and the right to force 
 honest people to pay them for me. I claim to be above 
 the law and beyond the law. I claim the right to dwarf 
 the intellect and corrupt the morals of the people, and 
 corrupt the hearts of the lawgivers, and corrupt those 
 whom the people elect to enforce the laws. And I not 
 only claim these rights, hut in the name <of wickedness, 
 my birthright, and depravity, my acquired knowledge, 
 and passion, my strength, and covetousness, the grand 
 aim of my life, I will exercise these rights, law or no 
 law, for I have usurped the authority to rule and ruin 
 the earth.” 
 
 Would that these extravagant claims were hut a fic- 
 tion of the imagination — the over-heated fancies of 
 loud and enthusiastic declaimers ; but society appends 
 ample testimony to their rigid enforcement. On 
 every page of its history the .sad truth is confirmed. 
 Statistics declare, in startling tones, that it is all true ; 
 and what is more, it is written everywhere, in legible 
 characters, upon the broad surface of suffering humanity. 
 Society is what homes and hearts make it. Its general 
 tone and character are according to the condition of 
 these. If the streams which issue from thence he limpid 
 and clear, in corresponding degree will society mirror 
 forth the same hkeness. On the contrary, it shadows 
 the darker picture, and reproduces all the tints in ever- 
 widening effect. 
 
 Society is cursed by the poverty which the love of 
 strong drink engenders. Aside from the more strongly 
 marked forms of this evil, there is another aspect, which 
 involves a vast amount of suffering ; and that is found in 
 the well-to-do famihes, who in every respect would be 
 favorably situated but for harboring the demon of in- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 171 
 
 temperance. The Hon. Edward Everett once said, 
 “ A wealthy drunkard may have self-coiitrol enough to 
 manage his property,- and honesty enough to keep out 
 of jail. He may fill what is called a genteel position in 
 society, and yet he may be the very tyrant of his house- 
 hold; never pleased, never soothed, never gratified, when 
 the utmost has been done by everybody to gratify him ; 
 often turbulent and outrageous, sometimes cruel ; the 
 terror of those he is bound to protect, the shame of those 
 who would love him if they could. A creature of this 
 sort does not take refuge in a poorhouse, or drive his 
 family to it ; but the coarsest and hardest crust broken 
 within its walls is a dainty, compared with the luxuries 
 of his cheerless table.” 
 
 There may be an honest dread of being ranked with the 
 inmates of the poorhouse ; but the poverty outside these 
 institutions that come by the way of intemperate habits 
 is greater, in the amount of suffering which it occasions, 
 than that Avhich is seen in those. “ To the victims of 
 drunkenness, whom it has conducted to this sad refuge, 
 one bitter ingredient in the cup is spared. The sense of 
 honest shame, and the struggle of a commendable pride, 
 are at length over. They can sink no lower, mid may 
 possibly become reconciled to their hard lot.” But in 
 these other cases it is different. They conceal their 
 woes, their self-denials, from the world as long as may 
 be, and too often broken hearts end the sad scenes. 
 There is the seen and the unseen — the public and the 
 private. The want and the woe that begin in the bosom 
 of the family flow out over the whole social area. How 
 much richer would society be to-day but for the treasure 
 that drink has robbed it of ! The money that is used by 
 the accursed passion of the inebriate, and the tipplings 
 of the moderate drinker, togetherwith the amount neces- 
 sary to check the natural outgrowth of all this, would 
 
172 
 
 INTEilPEEANCE, 
 
 cover society with a richer mantle than it ever yet has 
 known, if it could be used for its adornment. We have 
 seen how the lovers of drink will spend the last cent of 
 their earnings for the gratification of their ruling passion, 
 regardless of the piteous cries and pleas of those nearest 
 to' them ; and of course such as these utterly ignore the 
 claims of society upon them, and so the many sutler 
 privation through them. Says a ■ gentleman lecturer, 
 “We were addressing a Band of Hope in Boston on one 
 of the coldest evenings of last winter. During the 
 progress of the meeting, a drunkard entered the hall and 
 took a seat near the door. He was a young man, about 
 thirty-two years of age, and he listened with deep at- 
 tention to the remarks. At the close of the exercises, 
 when the congregation had passed out, so that he could 
 approach the desk, he advanced and grasped the speaker’s 
 hand, while the tears rolled down his cheeks, and his 
 whole frame shook with convulsive sobs, saying, in a 
 sepxdchral tone that was truly startling, ‘ I am a drun- 
 kard beyond recovery' Observing his high, intellectual 
 forehead, that indicated marked native intelligence and 
 manhood, we answered, ‘ You look as if you might be 
 saved, and as if you were worth saving.’ He replied only, 
 in a tone that was still more affecting, ‘ I am a drunkard 
 beyond recoveiy.’ And to prove that his reformation 
 was impossible, on account of the terrific power of his 
 appetite, he flung open the ragged coat that was but- 
 toned around him, disclosing that lie had neither shirt nor 
 vest. ‘ I sold my shirt for rum to-day,’ said he. Then 
 lifting up his right foot, to show that he was destitute of 
 stockings, he added, ‘ I sold my stockings for rum to- 
 day ; and this is the way I have obtained my rum,’ he 
 continued, ‘ ever since last August, when I returned 
 from the army. I beg a coat of one kind man, and then 
 pawn it for rum ; then a vest, and then a shu t, go in 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 17-3 
 
 the same way, their places being soon supphed by beg; 
 ging other garments.’ ” 
 
 And this is but a specimen item in that poverty-stricken 
 list, which are worse than so many dead weights upon so- 
 ciety. Nor is this material loss the only feature of the 
 case. There is a moral indigence that is worse than even 
 this. To have all that heart and - intellect can give, in 
 their unfettered, unclouded state, is to make society rich 
 in itself. It is the mainspring in the machinery which 
 turns out wealth ; and to be deprived of all this by an 
 unnatural process is to reverse the whole order, and give 
 poverty full license to desolate and waste at its will. 
 
 The poverty of this higher realm is worse than all 
 others, and the blight upon society induced by it is 
 tenfold more to be dreaded than the withdrawal of that 
 which pecuniary possessions involve. True, they are 
 more or less blended, for the cultivation and develop- 
 ment of the moral and intellectual resources which tend 
 to the elevation and enrichment of society are due, in a 
 good degree, to the pecuniary forces of application. The 
 failure of both creates one vast system of pauperism. 
 
 It is estimated that in the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain, one in twenty of the entire population are pau- 
 pers, and that intemperance is the direct or indirect cause • 
 of nine tenths of the whole. Our own country furnishes 
 facts of equal significance. The report of the secretary 
 of state to the legislature of New York in 1863 showed 
 the whole number of paupers to be two hundred and 
 sixty-one thousand two hundred and fifty-two, or one 
 in fifteen of all the inhabitants of the state ; and seven 
 eighths of these were reduced to their beggarly condition 
 through the influence of intoxicating drink. Similar re- 
 ports from nearly all our states show corresponding cal- 
 culations at the present time. Two hundred thousand 
 children, it is said, are annually sent to the poorhouse, 
 
174 
 
 INTEJIPEEAXCE, 
 
 and two millions of cliildren in the United States are not 
 in attendance upon any school, chiefly because of the 
 wasting blight of this, system. Their parents have been 
 lodged with or before them, and society is compelled to 
 bear the burden of their support, although it has ceased 
 to care for them, only as gospel benevolence prompts to 
 their rescue. 
 
 Vice and crime, too, find their instigator in the same 
 dreadful practice. Social self-interest enters its protest 
 against the continuance of a system which is at w.ar with 
 every true interest of the state. It is for the interest of 
 society that sobriety should prevail ; that there should 
 be no vice or crime, no pauperism, no lunacy, or avoida- 
 ble disease ; that there shall be domestic comfort and 
 general education ; that the rates and taxes, and the 
 demands on private charity, should be reduced to the 
 minimum consistent with the contingencies of life ; and 
 against the whole and every part of this enhghtened in- 
 terest the hquor traffic wages incessant war. But for 
 this, the so-called Social Uvil would never multiply 
 itself so fearfully as it is now doing in every part of our 
 land, prostituting all the nobility of woman’s nature to 
 the basest shrines on earth. ' From whence cometh all 
 this ? Associated, it may be, with those who degrade 
 themselves with drink, they lose their moral sense, and 
 become insensible to ' the charms of virtue. One who 
 has observed these things says of them, “ The social 
 glass blunts tlieir own moral perceptions, and throAvs 
 them off their guard, and thus they become an eas}”- prey to 
 the wiles of the seducer. . Thousands of them come from 
 their sweet country households, in all their health and 
 beauty, blooming as the heather iipon their native hills, 
 or the roses that adorn the walls of their cottage homes. 
 Led astray through the terrible agency of strong drink, 
 they flock to our large toAvns, and there_ commence their 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 175 
 
 'sad career. To drown the pangs of conscience, the 
 bitterness of remorse, and the deep sense of shame, they 
 fly to strong drink, and thus become confirmed in vice. 
 In a very short time, a few months in some, a few years 
 in others, their bloom and beauty fade, and they become 
 either bloated and blaspheming monsters, Avith every . 
 womanly attribute eradicted, or poor, emaciated, and dis- 
 • eased outcasts, homeless and hopeless.” No sadder sight 
 can meet the gaze of man or angel than is seen in this 
 part of the picture. 
 
 Almost all the murders that are committed in the land 
 are executed under the demoniac influence of rum, and 
 hence the efforts on the part of so many criminals and 
 their friends to rid themselves of the penalty of the law, 
 because they knew not what they were doing, as if the 
 , putting themselves in .that position did not merit the 
 righteous condemnation of some stern law also. There 
 are few who are so reckless and hard-hearted by nature 
 as to nerve themselves to the deliberate performance of 
 an act that would knowingly sever the thread of life, and 
 send a soul out of the world, while they forever after 
 were to be haunted by the conviction that they were to 
 be confronted with a trial in the future with such a wit- 
 ness against them. No ; take the cup of alcoholic mix- 
 tures from the hands of men, and the three hundred 
 murders that stain our annual records would be sub- 
 stituted by an untarnished blank, or left to the recital of 
 something else far less painful in its character. The 
 cells of our prisons and jails echo to the moans of cap- 
 tives who would never have been found there, had they 
 been in the sane condition they might have been. -An 
 eminent judge of New York, who lived to be upwards of 
 eighty years old, declared in a public assembly, that 
 “ the greater portion of the trials for murder, for as- 
 saults and batteries, that were brought into court since 
 
176 
 
 INTEMPEKAifCE, 
 
 his entrance on the practice of law, originated in drunk- 
 enness.” Another one also declared, in addressing a 
 jury, “ If it were not for this diinking, you and I would 
 have nothing to do.” 
 
 In a document, published by the legislature of the 
 above-named state, there is seen the following para- 
 graph : — 
 
 “ There can be no doubt that, of all the proximate . 
 sources of crime, the use of intoxicating liquors is the 
 most prolific and the most deadly. Of other causes it 
 may be said that they slay their thousands ; of this it may 
 be acknowledged that it slays its tens of thousands.” 
 
 According to the computation of those interested in 
 making the observations, there are four hundred who 
 put an end to their own life every year, by reason of 
 this same thing ; so many who terminate their earthly 
 career, and rush unbidden into the presence of their 
 Creator, with no account to render but that they were 
 weary of the existence their own course had embittered. 
 At best, intemperance is but the prime minister of 
 death. To it is to be attributed a large amount of the 
 yearly mortality. The pestilential diseases that sweep 
 across the country at certain seasons are a thousaird times 
 worse for it. The sj^stem that is poisoned by drink 
 cannot and does not resist disease. Of these it may be 
 said, “ They do not live out half their days.” Multitrtdes 
 of these drop out of the social ranks, and are buried out 
 of sight, when otherwise their lives would be prolonged, 
 and they might be a blessing to the world. Our lunatic 
 asylums are crowded with those rvho rave in the dark- 
 ness of everlasting night, because the burning fluid has 
 quenched the light of reason, and thrown them upon 
 society — helpless imbeciles. Were the j)unishment to 
 cease with the first transgressor, there might be- some 
 consolation in that ; but the stare of thousands of idiotic 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 177 
 
 cliildren declares it to be visited upon the generation to 
 come. The avenues to the souls of such have been 
 wantonly closed, and they, too, make their silent appeal 
 to benevolent humanity for protection, instruction, and 
 support. 
 
 Dr. Story, of Chicago, in writing upon “ alcohol and 
 its effects,” estimates the annual cost of the idiocy of 
 drunkenness — counting the loss that comes through a 
 want of intelligence and industry — at forty-two mil- 
 lions of dollars. However much may be done to amelio- 
 rate the condition of these, they must remain, in great 
 measure, an incubus upon society as long as they live. 
 
 Then a home must be provided for the inebriate him- 
 self, and the public must- be taxed, or Charity must bring 
 her offerings by thousands, that a restraint might be put 
 upon those who have no power to restrain themselves,, 
 and 5re therefore dangerous to the well-being of society ; 
 and so there is hardly an end to the capital which is 
 called into requisition because of intemperance. Besides, 
 it damages every good institution seriously. The Sab- 
 bath is not what it would be but for this. The order 
 and quiet which should prevail upon this day are often 
 broken in upon by the noisy revelries of those who are 
 given to the cup, and have no regard for anything, human 
 or divine. No law of earth or heaven intimidates them. 
 Even isolated country places, where Nature invites to 
 reflection, are not exempt from the shoutings and rude- 
 conduct of the drunken loafer ; and, worse than this, the 
 evil has crept into the very bosom of the church, and 
 some are sheltered in its embrace whose example does a 
 ruinous work for those outside, to say nothing of the un- 
 happy influence upon them, and those with whom they 
 are so sacredly connected. Temperance is one of the 
 cardinal virtues of the gospel, and if there is a place 
 upon earth where it should shine with untarnished lustre, 
 11 
 
178 
 
 INTEMPEEANC’E, 
 
 where it should he preserved in all its Heaven-appointed 
 purity, that place is the church. That should be the 
 beacon-light on the hill, to allure and guide the steps of 
 every wanderer on the wilds, and within its sacred en- 
 closure there should be nothing to cast a shadow. The 
 church is plan.ted for the elevation of society, and what- 
 ever is true and ennobling within it, is due largely to the 
 workings of this mighty instrumentality ; but it has to 
 cope with a giant evil. 
 
 An English writer, in speaking of the religious ad- 
 vancement of his people, in connection with this subject, 
 says, “We stud our land with churches and chapels ; we 
 employ thousands of clergymen to preach to the people, 
 and hundreds of missionaries to visit them at their homes ; 
 thousands of Bibles and tracts are distributed to them 
 gratuitously every year, and thousands of Sunday schools 
 are established for the religious education of the young; 
 yet, notwithstanding all these appliances, licentiousness 
 and ungodliness abound in our midst, and the noblest 
 aspirations of humanity receive some mysterious check, 
 and instead of finding expression in a pure and godlike 
 life, they are kept under, and vice and drunkenness are 
 pursued. Now, how are we to account for this sad state 
 of things ? It is because the ministers of morality and 
 religion are opposed by the ministers of vice and immo- 
 rality, and buildings dedicated to the worship of God are 
 opposed, and vastly outnumbered, by temples set apart 
 to the worship of Bacchus.” 
 
 There is no fitness or inclination to appreciate sacred 
 things when reason and conscience are altogether per- 
 verted from their legitimate use ; when everything be- 
 fore the mind is only impure and unholy, and they have 
 resigned themselves, soul and body, to the dominion of 
 an evil spirit, to be controlled by it. Hence the fearful 
 amount of profanity in society. If one has any reverence 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 179 
 
 for the name of the Most High, he cannot walk through 
 the streets of a city, or scarcely a lane in the country, 
 without having his moral sensibilities shocked beyond 
 measure, because of the oaths and imprecations that 
 come to his ears ; and he is constrained to say within 
 himself, Verily intemperance is blighting our fair heri- 
 tage. And who are these ? They are not always among 
 the low. A large proportion of these are young men, 
 “the bone and sinew of the republic, the hope of the 
 church and the state, and many .of them connected with 
 the best families in the land. Many of these have been 
 taken from the bar, the medical profession, the pulpit, 
 from mercantile and mechanical walks, where they might 
 have been eminently useful;” and they have turned 
 their backs upon all the interesting relations of life, and 
 all the sacred connections of society, with a determined 
 bent, as it seems, to defeat the end of their creation. To 
 see how the wasting influence spreads, we have but to 
 observe the testimony of those who have gone out to 
 foreign lands, professedly to carry light to those who 
 have it not, and see how their work is made tenfold 
 harder, because men will manufacture and circulate 
 everywhere the wretched poison. Says the English au- 
 thor already cited, in speaking of the counteracting 
 influence that intemperance opposes at home, — 
 
 “ The drink system is no less obstructive to mission- 
 ary operations abroad. Missionary societies are the 
 glory of the age in which we live, and one of its most 
 striking characteristics; and we cannot also but greatly 
 admire those noble, self-denying men, who, spurning 
 fatigue and hardship, and fearless of danger, forsake 
 home, country, and kindred, in order to carry into re- 
 mote and barbarous climes the blessings of civilization 
 and Christianity. But, alas ! here we find cause for sad 
 reflection and tears. The ship which carries the mis- 
 
180 
 
 IKTEMPERANCB, 
 
 sionary to his field of toil and danger also, alas ! carries 
 with it an agent that shall prove more deadly, destruc- 
 tive, and debasing to the- savage than even their sense- 
 less idolatry. That agent is ' fire-water. Thus do we 
 more than undo all that the missionary accomplishes. 
 We carry to the heathen the gospel in the right hand, 
 and the whiskey bottle in the left ; and to every convert 
 made to the former, a thousand are made to the latter. 
 When we mark how Europeans have contaminated the 
 natives of the Pacific islands, of the American wilds, 
 and even of India, with the abominable vices and loath- 
 some diseases of Britain, we may surmise that, had we 
 never touched their shores, but left them entirely to 
 their ignorance and their idols, they would not have 
 been in a worse condition than thej^ are now. Indeed, 
 how can we expect them to receive readily the gospel at 
 our hands, when they know that day by day we are in- 
 flicting upon them disease and misery? ” 
 
 While we fully believe that Christianity is a power 
 that is destined to triumph, and that it is slowly but 
 surely working its way among , the children of supersti- 
 tion and sin, we cannot hide ourselves from the fact that 
 it is not what it might be, were there no untoward ob- 
 stacles ill the way. A missionary of Upper Canada, at 
 Owen Sound, says, — 
 
 “ Indians — men that I love and value as brethren --- 
 have told me, wfith low and melancholy voices, of the 
 devastation of this thing. A friend, a few weeks ago, 
 told me of an effort, he once made to induce a chief of a 
 tribe of the Mohawk nation to allow a friend of his, a 
 missionary, to come and dwell among them. 
 
 “ ‘ What you preach ? Preach Christ ? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Yes.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Don’t want Christ — no Christ ! ’ 
 
 “ My friend persevered. At length the chief got 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 181 . 
 
 warm, and, towering to his full height, with a volcanic 
 fire in his eje, broke out, — 
 
 “ ‘ Once we were powerful ; we were a great nation ; 
 our young men were many ; our lodges were full of 
 children ; our enemies feared us ; but Christ came, and 
 brought the fire-water. Now we are very poor ; we are 
 weak; nobody fears us; our lodges are empty; our 
 hunting-grounds are deserted ; our council-fires are gone 
 out. We don’t want Christ. Go ! ’ ” 
 
 From India, Persia, and the islands of the sea, it is all 
 the same. They bear universal testimony to the cor- 
 rupting power of the unhallowed stimulant. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Ellis, of the Sandwich Islands, writes, — 
 
 “ Since the introduction of Christianity to these isl-' 
 ands by the missionaries, there is no means which the 
 enemies of morals and religion have employed more ex- 
 tensively and perseveringly, for the purpose of counter- 
 acting the influence of Christian instruction and cor- 
 rupting and degrading the people, than the importation 
 of spirituous liquors ; and no means of evil have been 
 employed with more injurious effects.” 
 
 In connection with this thought is coupled the asser- 
 tion and the appeal, which should not be without its 
 effect, — 
 
 “ Had the Christian church, in all its different denom- 
 inations, waged war from the commencement ; had she, 
 at the origin of the movement, made it a great religious 
 question ; had she then put forth all her power, and 
 used all her appliances, in this direction, — we should 
 not now have been weeping over the wholesale destruc- 
 tion and debasement of our people ; nor would that 
 church herself have had to deplore her empty fanes 
 and desolate altars, and the increasing indifference of 
 the people to receive instruction at the hands of her ap- 
 pointed ministers. But ‘ it is never too late to mend.’ 
 
182 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 Let the church of Christ, in all her different depart- 
 ments, take up this great question, and identify herself 
 with it, nailing under the banner of the cross the banner 
 of teetotalism, and, with both waving above her, she 
 will march onward to certain victory over licentiousness, 
 inebriety, and ‘ the legions of Sin.’ ” 
 
 No one can look at even this outline sketch, and not 
 see how the social system is suffering from the deadly 
 incubus of drink. No pestilence that has ever swept 
 through the country is to be compared to it. That is 
 but temporary. The winds of heaven, the heats of 
 summer, or the frosts of winter, may modify the pro- 
 curing cause of these things ; but none of them touch 
 those blighting agencies of Avhich we speak. Its devas- 
 tations are worse than those of war. Its contests may 
 be long and bloody, and we may turn from the immense 
 sacrifice of human life with horror ; but there comes a 
 time when the sword is sheathed, and Peace proclaims a 
 jubilee. But Intemperance is always marshalling her 
 ranks, and filling up her armies — always slaughtering 
 her thousands, and keeping up the din and roar of her 
 battling legions. Society is bleeding, groaning, suffer- 
 ing, because of it. To stay this moral blight is the ques- 
 tion of the day. No grander movement could claim the 
 attention of men, and earth and heaven wait the result. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 183 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 National Loss. 
 
 THEORY OF SOUND. — WHAT CONSTITUTES NATIONAL LIFE. — “BANK 
 FOR LOSINGS.” — PRODUCTIVE LABOR OF THE NATION LESSENED BY 
 A DRINKING HABIT. “MOTIVES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. — THE GRAIN- 
 DESTROYING CURSE. — OBSTRUCTS TRADE AND COMMERCE. ” IMPAIRS 
 THE ARMY AND NAVY. “ CURTAILS THE POWER OF LITERARY INSTI- 
 TUTIONS. — AN IMAGINARY PICTURE. 
 
 There is a theory among men that anything once 
 started never ceases its action ; that sound, once wak- 
 ened, goes on and on in endless vibration, as if it were 
 a chain, whose ever-added links went on to infinity. If 
 this he true in the natural world, something quite like 
 unto it is true in the moral world. There are circles of 
 influence that are ever widening, ever deepening, until 
 they reach the farther shore of man’s being and nature, 
 and are lost in the larger ocean of aggregated existence, 
 hut still go on agitating and affecting things and condi- 
 tions to their remotest hounds. The little thing that 
 we saw nursed in the bosom of the family has become 
 a threatening giant in our midst. We have followed it 
 from the individual through family and social life, and 
 now we come to the outer circle of visible results as 
 the American people' — the nation. 
 
 But what is the nation ? 
 
 It is " the union of many homes, the people of which 
 possess the same general characteristics, and have many 
 interests in common, the whole being united under one 
 
184 
 
 INTEMPEBANCB, 
 
 government. It has also its laws, its great national in- 
 stitutions, its literature, its commercial relations with 
 other lands, and a history of its own, pregnant with in- 
 struction. A nation, as an individual, should have noble 
 purposes to accomplish, and a destiny to fulfil. This 
 includes the protection of the people, the development 
 of their resources, and, through the union in council of 
 their greatest intellects, the blessings of education, and 
 of all the loftier forms of civilized life. A nation, in 
 fact, ought to be a blending and union of all the noblest 
 traits that adorn our species. There is an ideal of a 
 perfect nation, as well as of a perfect individual, and 
 the world is struggling to attain it. The revolutions 
 and changes going on among the nations are so manj- 
 steps in this direction, and all, for the most part, so 
 many expressions of those longings for that perfection 
 of society of which, ever and anon, we have inspuing 
 glimpses. 
 
 Now, it is the prevailing opinion — an opinion based' 
 upon stern, grim facts, educed by careful inquiry, and 
 confirmed by extensive observation — that intemperance 
 is the great curse of this country, in comparison with 
 which all other evils combined are as nothing ; so that, 
 were this one vice eradicated, we should attain to a state 
 of unprecedented prosperity and greatness. It is ac- 
 knowledged, even by our statesmen, that intemperance 
 is the incubus which oppresses the national life, and that 
 to roll this away would be to set the nation free in a 
 glorious path of progress.” 
 
 What hope can we have for the vigor and prosperity 
 of the national life, if the streams which feed it have 
 corrupt and deadly elements ? Every individual is a 
 part of this great organism, and is responsible, to a cer- 
 tain extent, for what it is. Down through these and 
 the family, the social and state relations, there is coming 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 185 
 
 that which will add to, or detract from, national glory 
 and interest. It is in these several departments that the 
 material is furnished that is to mould the character and 
 destiny of the higher life; and in proportion to the 
 strength and efficiency manifested here will be the de- 
 velopment and application of the national resources 
 which are to contribute to its wealth. We have seen 
 how extensively the drinking system prevails in all the 
 lower grades of life and action, and it requires no long- 
 drawn conclusion to forecast the stamp of the higher. 
 “ The child is father to the man,” said a would-be phi- 
 losopher ; so the blending and inter-blending of these 
 public relations write the character of the former upon 
 the latter. The nation cannot, will not, be what it 
 ought, and what it might be, if all that ministers to its 
 growth is withheld, or feebly supported. 
 
 In this connection, we are reminded of what Theodore 
 Cuyler calls the “ National Brandy Bank for Losings.” 
 It furnishes a key to the solution of many problems that 
 are written with reference to our financial condition. It 
 shoAvs what becomes of the money that ought to go for 
 the building up of the nation. Writing from the place 
 ‘where he resides, he says, — 
 
 “ On the chief thoroughfare of this city, I often pass 
 a stately savings bank, built of freestone, and I see 
 groups of working people going in to deposit their hard- 
 earned money. Some are mechanics ; some are Irish 
 domestics ; some are poor widows laying by a few dollars 
 for their fatherless children. But on the same street the 
 Tempter has opened more than one Bank for Losings. 
 In some parts of the city there is one nearly on every 
 corner. In almost every rural hamlet, too, there is a 
 similar institution. New York contains six thousand of 
 them. In each of these Banks for Losings is a counter, 
 on which old men and young, and even some wretched 
 
186 
 
 INTEMPEKAiTCE, 
 
 women, lay down their deposits in either paper or coin. 
 The only interest that is paid on the deposits is in red- 
 ness of eyes, foulness of breath, and remorse of con- 
 science. Every one who makes a deposit gains a loss. 
 One man goes into the bank with a full pocket, and 
 comes out empty. Another goes in with a good charac- 
 ter, and comes out with the word drunk written on his 
 bloated face. I have even seen a mechanic enter in a 
 bran new coat, and coming away again as if the mice had 
 been nibbling at his elbows. I have known a young 
 clerk to leave his situation behind him in one of these 
 Banks of Losings. Several prosperous tradesmen have 
 lost all their business there. Church members have been 
 known to reel out from these seductive haunts, tr5’ing 
 to walk straight, but backsliding at every step. If the 
 cashiers of these institutions were honest, they would 
 post on their doors some such notice as this : — 
 
 “Bank foe Losraas. 
 
 “ Open at all hours. Nothing taken in but good 
 money. Nothing paid out but disgrace, and disease, 
 and degradation, and death. An extra dividend of 
 delirium tremens will be given to old depositors. A free 
 pass to Perdition given to those who pay well at the 
 counter. Also, tickets to Greenwood and other ceme- 
 teries, entitling the holder to a Drunkard's Grave! All 
 the children of depositors sent, without charge, to the 
 orphan asylum, or the almshouse.” 
 
 It is because these banking institutions cost the na- 
 tional government so much, that we are impoverished, 
 and come short of those rightful accumulated gains 
 which should make us richer and better. These “ divi- 
 dends” and “deposits” are all in the wrong wa}' — 
 misnomers all. The destructive and obstructive influ- 
 ences occasioned thereby are almost beyond conception. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 187 
 
 A whole nation is sometimes afflicted with famine, and 
 this dispensation of Providence excites the sympathies of, 
 people, and stirs their benevolence in a most wonderful 
 manner ; but this, at its worst, can only touch the body, 
 while this other ruins the soul, and is therefore more to 
 be dreaded than any mere physical want, however great 
 that may be. To think that men are voluntarily at 
 Avork diminishing the strength of the national life, and 
 dwarfing its very existence, is a most serious considera- 
 tion. Let us look at some of the carefully prepared 
 statistics that show how this is being done. 
 
 In the first place, it diminishes the productive labor 
 of the nation. It is well known that those addicted to 
 intemperance are not fitted for the discharge of their 
 ordinary duties in any direction. Large numbers of 
 them are given to perpetual idleness, never accomplishing 
 anything. They are the most abject kind of hangers- 
 on — leeches that draw out the life-blood of the nation 
 continually. It is estimated that one seventh of all the 
 people in the whole republic are actually within the 
 ranks of the intemperate ; that there are three hundred 
 and thirty thousand men who are directly engaged in 
 •making and vending the destructive beverage, whose 
 industry is thrown into the same channel, and who 
 furnish this paradox to the world — the more industri- 
 ous they are, the less remuneration does the nation re- 
 ceive at their hands. Calling the whole thing a waste, 
 as we must, we see how great a proportion of industry 
 is perverted from the nation’s use, and made to subserve 
 only its detriment. Add to this the capital invested in 
 buildings, and the loss to industry from drunkards, crim- 
 inals, and paupers ; and the expense of police, of courts 
 of justice, of prisons and poorhouses ; and the wholesale 
 and all unlicensed dealers, numbering over tAventy-one 
 thousand, — and we have the loss of the labor of five hun- 
 
188 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 hundred thousand persons, which, at five hundred dol- 
 lars a year, as an average, amounts to two hundred and 
 fifty millions of dollars. This does not include the loss 
 of time of the seven hundred and fifty thousand drunk- 
 ards. Half the time of these, at the rate of two dollars 
 a day, amounts to two hundred and twenty-five millions 
 a year. Nor does this take into account the imbecile 
 thousands who are supported at the public expense 
 besides. 
 
 The quantity of liquors made annually now, in their 
 various departments, is estimated to be about five hun- 
 dred and forty million gallons, — “enough,” it is said, 
 “ to float a respectable navy.” Many of those who are en- 
 gaged in this traffic, directly or indirectly, become rich ; 
 and is not the nation benefited through them ? How 
 is it ? Dr. Story asserts that “ it takes about ten 
 years, on an average, to make a fortune in the liquor 
 business ; and if they are so destructive to human health 
 as to destroy, annually, one hundred thousand lives, as 
 has been demonstrated, and since those who fall victims 
 to drunkenness die twenty years before their time, it 
 follows that every time one hundred thousand fortunes 
 are made, twenty million years of human life are wasted, 
 which is equal to sacrificing two hundred years of human 
 life and industry, in order that one man shall amass a 
 fortune. 
 
 Only one hundred thousand men make fortunes out 
 of the business, while thirty-one million nine hundred 
 thousand lose by the traffic, as they have to pay more 
 for the necessaries and comforts of life than the}’' would 
 if it were suppressed. Thus we see that three hundred 
 and twenty men lose, in order that one man may make. 
 Is that fair ? Is that economy ? But supposing all who 
 engaged in the liquor traffic, directly and indirectly, made 
 more money than they could in any other way, to the full 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 189 
 
 number of one million men, while all the rest of the 
 people were losers, — is that fair ? Is it right to tax thirty- 
 one people in order to enrich one person, and that one no 
 better than the rest ? Would it be fair to tax four per- 
 sons to enrich us ? What has become of the good old 
 democratic maxim, ‘ the greatest good of the greatest 
 number?’ ” 
 
 . The total result he sums up as follows : “ Suppose 
 that a day’s labor is worth one dollar and board, and that 
 there are three hundred working days iu a year ; then 
 the one million people engaged in the liquor business 
 would be worth three hundred million dollars a year. 
 And the two million years of life and health (and there- 
 fore industry) that are annually destroyed would be 
 worth six hundred million dollars, or a total of nine 
 hundred million dollars. So that the whole thing is at 
 variance with the first principles of political economy. 
 It detracts so much from the truest and best interests 
 of the nation. A gentleman of Massachusetts, in speak- 
 ing upon this point, says, ‘ The capitals, materials, and 
 labor, converted into ardent spirit, becomes a total loss 
 to the worlds and the community is taxed to make up the 
 loss. Though the producer obtains his exchange, the 
 manufacturer his reward, and the retailer his profit, the 
 consumer loses the whole. Place the mind on this point, 
 with all the intenseness of minute discovery, and show 
 me the benefit which the consumer has derived from his 
 purchase. If some benefit is not and cannot be derived, 
 then it must be a total loss, involving all the capital, 
 labor, and profit which the purchase costs. It is loss to 
 the world, and doubly so to the consumer ; for with this 
 loss his physical and mental powers are impaired — the 
 very capital he had invested for future use. Had the 
 devouring element consumed the purchase, and spared the 
 purchaser, his loss would have been comparatively small. 
 
190 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 When labor and the resources of the country are applied 
 in advancing the great objects for which man was cre- 
 ated, and civil and political communities formed, and 
 mature, and elevate, and purify the mind of man, and 
 perfect all his powers, they become beneficial instruments 
 for the public good. The more deeply this principle be- 
 comes fixed in the minds of men, the greater will be the 
 demand upon these investments for carrying on the great 
 purposes of improving the world, till man arrives at the 
 highest elevation of which he is susceptible, in his pres- 
 ent state of existence. The argument for the manufac- 
 ture and sale of ardent spirits, derived from the fact that 
 these employments afford occupation for multitudes, 
 when viewed in its bearings on political econom}^, are 
 unsound. What one gains another loses. Even if the 
 government derive a revenue from the manufacture or 
 sale, it changes not the ease ; the consumer loses the 
 whole. The government can never be benefited by a 
 traffic the result of which is a total loss to every one of 
 the entire amount of the article which is the object of 
 the traffic.’ ” 
 
 Some idea of the extent of the business is to be gained 
 from tbe fact, that during the last fiscal year the amount 
 of tax collected by the United States government on 
 liquors was over fifty-two million dollars. Is the nation 
 so much the richer ? Poverty rises in the background, and 
 utters an emphatic No ! What a bartering of the more 
 precious things are involved ! What a story of mental, 
 and moral, and pecuniary waste is back of it all ! 
 
 Think, too, how the -fruits and grains of the earth, 
 that were meant for the actual sustenance and comfort 
 of man, are appropriated. Englishmen complain bitterly 
 of this. There was a time in the history of Ireland 
 when the rage for drink was such, “ that the inhabitants 
 of that country converted their grain into spirit to such 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 191 
 
 an extent as not to leave themselves sufficient for food 
 to sustain life. Famine and privation were the result ; 
 and to prevent a recurrence of this state of things, the 
 legislature passed an act to check the practice of free 
 distillation. When famine again desolated that ill-fated 
 land, in 1847 and 1848, and the greatest distress and pri- 
 vation were experienced by the poor, it was distinctly 
 proved that there was an ample supply of grain to meet 
 the necessities of the people ; but, instead of being 
 brought into the market to be disposed of for food, it was 
 locked up in the granaries of breweries and distilleries, 
 to be wantonly destroyed in the manufacture of intoxi- 
 cating liquor. As a terrible result, half a million of 
 people perished from starvation.” If it be not true in 
 its extreme renderings, as applied to our own countiy, 
 it is, nevertheless, an almost incredible appropriation. 
 Without staggering the mind 'with overwhelming to- 
 talities, take a single instance of a single branch, and 
 that beer. There are three thousand breweries in the 
 United States, that consume annually twenty-three mil- 
 lion bushels of barley. Of course, this is multiplied, again 
 and again, in other departments, so that a vast amount of 
 the productions of the earth goes to swell the tide of human 
 misery, instead of allowing it to accomplish its original 
 design. That which should minister to the process of 
 nutrition, in a natural wajq is converted into that which 
 poisons and blasts ; reducing where it should strengthen, 
 and tearing down where it should build up. All the 
 great industries of the nation are related to each other, 
 and are more or less dependent on one another. Trade 
 and commerce are not what they would be were they 
 unobstructed by this gigantic power. In various ways 
 it is brought to bear upon the multiform schemes which 
 tend to establish the laws that have it for their end to 
 place these things upon a permanent and reliable basis. 
 
192 
 
 INTEIVIPEEANCE, 
 
 A sober judgment, a cool and calm comprehension, and 
 a broad and clear understanding, are all requisite to 
 appreciate and carry out these things successfully. W e 
 have said it too many times to need the repetition of the 
 truth here, that all this is lost in the condition of the 
 intemperate man. 
 
 , There are, then, the loss and disaster occasioned by the 
 direct mismanagement and inefficiency of those upon 
 whom devolves the care of that upon which the issue de- 
 pends. How many valuable cargoes have been lost, and 
 how many vessels with their entire crews have been buried 
 beneath the waves of the ocean, simply because intem- 
 perance was at the helm ! The army and navy have 
 been sadly demoralized by reason of it. It was declared 
 ^ the greatest possible hinderauce to the discipline of sol- 
 diers, by all the most thoughtful and sober-minded 
 generals. Concerted plans of action, which demanded 
 prompt and decisive measures, were often overthrown 
 and rendered useless for this one reason, and when soci- 
 ety looked for the , return of her disbanded soldiery 
 its solicitude spent itself mainly iipon this one feature. 
 “ Drunkenness is the vice of the army,” it hath been 
 said. Away from all the gentle and restraining influ- 
 ences of home, and its watchful guardians, the tendency 
 is to rioting and excess ; and the natural indulgence of 
 those feelings seems to be in one direction — that of drink 
 and its consequent vices ; and in this way, what is pro- 
 vided for the salvation of the country goes to further its 
 ruin. Our educational institutions are the pride and 
 glory of our land, and yet they do not occupy that posi- 
 tion, or exert so wide and all-controlling an influence as 
 they might, if their standard of temperance was as high 
 as it ought to be. We look upon them as strong and 
 mighty bulwarks, as moral safeguards, as so many step- 
 ping-stones up the ladder of national greatness ; and so 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 193 
 
 they, are, in a very good degree ; but who does not know 
 that the perfection of all these would be greatly en- 
 hanced by certain conditions — conditions which involve 
 the uplifting and training of a mass of now degraded 
 minds ? We know of many who have fallen out of these 
 institutions by the way, and the. consequences of their 
 fall cannot be 'measured except by those ever-widening 
 circles that we have seen to touch a reinote boundary. 
 
 Bribery and corruption have not escaped the highest 
 political action of states, and there are many stories of 
 disgrace and defeat that are whispered about in private 
 circles, or, perhaps, are chronicled amo*ng the historical 
 literature of the day, that show with painful certainty 
 the fact, that there is no stream left uncontaminated 
 by this all-pervading taint. 
 
 But where are the words to follow up and trace oxit 
 all these windings ? We are proud of our nation. The 
 heathen Homans never despaired of a man who was 
 proud of their republic. We hesitate not to acknowledge 
 a pride in ours, and with that emotipn there is mingled- 
 a profound regard for its honor ; but who or what 
 threaten to assail it with fiercer haVe and more dis- 
 astrous consequences than this same demon of intem- 
 perance ?■ Facts are appalling, statistics overwhelming. 
 
 “ President Everett computes that the use of alcoholic 
 beverages has cost the United States, directly, in ten 
 years twelve hundred million dollars ; has burned, of 
 utterly destroyed, five million dollars more of property ; 
 has destroyed three hundred thousand lives; sent 
 one hundred and fifty thousand to our prisons, and 
 one hundred thousand children to the poorhouses ; 
 caused fifteen- hundred murders, two thousand suicides, 
 and has bequeathed to the country one million of orphan 
 •children. . . . It is plain enough that this tremendous 
 drain upon the nation’s increase and substance, and the 
 12 
 
194 
 
 INTEJIPEIIANCE, 
 
 deepening degradation, year by year, of our industrial 
 strength, cannot long continue without fatally under- 
 mining prosperity, the public credit, and pohtical free- 
 dom. Measurably, the government is* already passing 
 under the control of two .hundred thousand liquor 
 dealers’ besotted customers. Numbers of chief cities have 
 been, and still are,, held in what is little better than a 
 state of siegg by the rum power. State and city elec- 
 tions, not a few, are conspiracies against the republic, 
 made possible by strong drink. Different departments 
 of national and^ municipal authority have become foul 
 with dishonor through intemperate and debauched offi- 
 cials. Not unlike the ancient fabled Laocoon, our coun- 
 try is in the constricting coils of the mighty serpent of 
 the still, and we must bruise its head, or it will kill us 
 and our children.” 
 
 Imagine, now, what, it would be to have all this re- 
 versed ; to have these coils loosened, these fetters broken, 
 and all the links sundered that bind us to the huge 
 monster ; to have all the vast enginery of individual, 
 social, political, aijd national being move on with all the 
 beauty and harmony that clear-headed reason could de- 
 vise ; to have all the moral and intellectual machinery of 
 the land work ori without any great disturbing friction ; to 
 have all the spiritual efforts for the renovation of the race 
 pass on to full fruition by an unimpeded power ; in short, 
 to have everything free from the slimj^ trail of the foe. 
 Who can picture what the American nation would be 
 under such an administration ? Is -there no remedy ? 
 Are there no glimmerings of hope that this will ever be ? 
 It cometh not but by a mighty work; and whoso shall 
 aid in perpetuating it will do something in ushering in 
 the good time that all the good are hoping for. 
 
ITS ASPECT ANT) ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 What is the Remedy? 
 
 NO “happy valley” BHT in fancy. — MORAL SUASION. — SIGNING 
 THE PLEDGE. — SELF-RESPECT NEVER REGAINED. — GODGH’S CON- 
 FESSION. — TOTAL ABSTINENCE THE ONLY TRUE REMEDY. — THE 
 COURT CLERK. — TESTIMONY OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. — ANEC- 
 DOTE OF FARRAGUT. — BIBLE PRINCIPLES. — HpMES FOR INEBRI- 
 ATES. — VIEWS OF MR. POMEROY. — FROM THE PATIENT’S STAND- 
 POINT. — chaplain’s statement. — law interference. 
 
 It is pleasant to stand and gaze at a beautiful picture, 
 when every figure and every scqne upon the canvas 
 make silent but eloquent appeal to the senses, in a 
 way that ministers to the gratificat’^on of the whole being. 
 It might be pleasing to our exacting desires for happi- 
 nSfes, if we .could always dwell amid \beautiful sights, and 
 be regaled with delightful sounds ; but earth, in its best 
 conditions now, affords no such “happy valley” to in- 
 vite the children of men to a calm repose. Such places 
 exist only in the regions of fancy, and there is no basis 
 for any such hopeful anticipation, except as the mind 
 soars aloft into the realm of the spiritual, and finds in 
 the everlasting beyond a fulfilment of the promise that 
 this ideal beauty and perfection are to be realized at some 
 time and somewhere, in certain cases and under certain 
 conditions. This side the immortal boundary the pictures 
 of life are darkly shaded. In the shifting kaleidoscope 
 with which we have to do, they are ever assuming new 
 forms, and awakening new sensations. We would gladly 
 escape from the view of many of them ; but as we cannot, 
 
196 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 the question is, How shall we touch and retouch, so as 
 to make the colors brighter and the forms fairer? 
 
 The picture of human life upon which we have been 
 dwelling is sad and forbidding indeed. To see the cre- 
 ations of the divine Artist disfigured and discolored in 
 such reckless manner as scarcely to leave a trace of the 
 original beauty and workmanship, is a sorry sight indeed. 
 The piteous, fallen . spectacles of humanity that have 
 passed before us in one long, melancholy procession, 
 have served to confirm the idea that total depravity is 
 written upon the hearts and ways of men. It almost in- 
 spires a feeling akin to that which impelled the monks 
 and hermits of old to retire into the caves and deserts, 
 that in these mountain fastnesses and retired places they 
 might escape the contamination of the world, and a 
 knowledge of what passed within it. This, however, 
 betrays weakness, inasmuch as it implies a want of moral 
 inertia, and an indisposition to grapple with the tempta- 
 tions of life, and be cue of the laboring host to aid in 
 the reformation of those who have gone astray. This 
 Avork, in connection, Avith the subject before us, is vaet, 
 urgent, and complicated. What can be done to save 
 this host of drinking men? What arguments can be 
 brought to bear upon them ? 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed that the inAmutive genius 
 of man can bring forward anything new, though he be 
 urged by the strongest and highest mothms of philan- 
 thropy. The hope lies in the persistent use of the same 
 means and the same incentives that good people have 
 been using for a long time. Some think that moral 
 suasion ought to be sufficient to reclaim the drunkard ; 
 that if he is reasoned with rightly on the duty of abstain- 
 ing from his self-indulgent habits, and Avarned of the 
 inevitable consequences that Avill result therefrom, it 
 wiU do as much good as anything. But, at the begin- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ftS REMEDY. 
 
 197 
 
 ning, does he not know all this just as well as the one 
 who tells him ? Is he not perfectly sensible that it 
 works all that his friend tells him, and more too ? Said 
 the author of the “Temperance Tales,” “ I believe moral 
 suasion alone, as a means of ridding the world of drunk- 
 enness, would prove about as effectual as a bulrush for 
 the stoppage of the Bosphorus. In spite of the expecta- 
 tions of the most sanguine suasionists, unless opposed by 
 some more powerful barriers, this river of rum and ruin 
 will flow on to eternity. 
 
 “ The moral suasionist of modern times,”' he continues, 
 “ though not always inspired, presumes to accomplish, 
 without the aid of law, more than was achieved, in the 
 days of the apostles, by .the power of the law and gospel 
 combined.” -The most eloquent appeals that could pos- 
 sibly be made to bear upon one have been applied to 
 individuals without any effect whatever. If there were 
 any power in words, the pathetic, soul-melting, con- 
 science-softening entreaties that jiave come from loving 
 lips would have saved many a poor fellow from the curse 
 of the drunkard. No ! it is not in words to save one 
 that has yielded himself to the power of this slavish 
 habit. Some regard the “ Pledge ” as a certain means 
 of reformation, and imagine that if you can once induce 
 a man to put his name upon paper, he is on a firm plat- 
 form ever after. At a certain stage, and with certain 
 characters, there is hope that they will feel the force of 
 the obligation, and honor the contract they have bound 
 themselves to fulfil. While we give the “ Temperance 
 Pledge ” honorable mention, and yield to its claims as a 
 reformator}" power in many instances, we yet have com- 
 paratively small faith that it will accomplish much for 
 the salvation of the advanced drinker. The utter de- 
 fiance of all law and order against all their convictions 
 in these cases, the ignoring of all the most sacred pledges 
 
198 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 of love and affection in all their other relations, show 
 what effect it is likely to have. Such a one might sign 
 the pledge in a sober moment, when the pressure of per- 
 suasion is, upon him ; but these momentary resolves are 
 swept away at the first breath of temptation, or the first 
 sight of a boon companion. Does not a man give the 
 most solemn pledge of his life, when he leads the being 
 of his choice to the sacred altar, and declares that he 
 will cherish and protect her as long as he lives, in all 
 the days of good and evil that may come to them ; and 
 yet, what power hath this pledge when the demon of 
 drink hath taken possession of him ? If he will not re- 
 gard this, what reason that he will honor that, when all 
 his feelings, affections, and sensibilities are blunted and 
 deadened, if not destroyed? There are some. happy 
 exceptions, it is true. It has been the first stepping- 
 stone to honor and integrity in a good many instances, 
 and therefore we gladl)^ place it among those agencies 
 that are to help on th,? blessed reform. 
 
 A few years ago, when the. temperance refdrmation 
 assumed a popular form,, and so many reformed drunkards 
 took the stand to plead the cause, the pledge had a promi- 
 nent place. When John Hawkins was making his first 
 speech, and telling the story of his degradation and resto- 
 ration, a man from the gallery cried out in a tremulous 
 voice, “ Can I be saved, too ? ” ‘ YeH ” said the speaker, 
 
 “ come down and sign the pledge ; ’’ and amid the plau- 
 dits of the assembled multitude, he went and enrolled 
 his name with those who promised to break away from 
 an enticing and ruinous habit. Others, stimulated by 
 example, followed on, and many, it is believed, were true 
 to their engagement ; but the best of these reformed 
 ones never feel safe. Gough knew all the different 
 phases of drunkenness and reformation ; but hear what 
 he said years after he had signed the pledge. It was 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 199 
 
 a declaration during^ one of his lectures. “ I am now 
 fifty-three years old ; and as I look back upon the past, 
 as. I mingle with the wise,* the good, the pure, and the 
 true, as I shake hands with such men as have grasped 
 my hands to-night, I feel intense disgust and abhorrence 
 of the days which that man spoke of as being happy. I 
 would give my right hand to-night if I could forget 
 them ; if I could tear out from my memory the remem- 
 brance of the dark, black, damning days of degradation. 
 But some say, ‘You have recovered.’ No ! we can never 
 recover from the effects of such a life. . What a man 
 sows, that shall he reap. Little things show whether 
 such men recover or not. One little thing I may say, 
 personally, if you please. I have tried to bring up some 
 .children, riot my own — and two of them are on the 
 platform to-night. One of the hinderances to my speech 
 is, that they are there, and hear what I say. Last- sum- 
 mer I heard one of those girls say to my wife, ‘ Aunt 
 Mary, is it not strange that uncle John should have got 
 drunk ? ’ I. felt ashamed of my^lf ; and is that not 
 some penalty for a mail to pay all 'the days of his life? 
 I do feel ashamed ; I feel as jf I coiud hide myself in the 
 earth ; I felt to-night, when I took hold of hands that 
 had never been stained with the intoxicating cup, as if 
 I could lie down and let them set their feet upon me. 
 There is not a man so well known to the public so 
 utterly lonesome and isolated as I am. Did 3'ou ever 
 hear of my ever being at a party? Never. I have not 
 attended two for twenty-five years. Did you ever hear 
 of my ever calling upon great men? No! and when L 
 invite them, I do it with so much timidity that I do not 
 much expect them to accept the invitation. I have 
 asked some of the gentlemen here to-night to come and 
 see me, but I do not believe they ever will. If a man 
 invites me to a dinner party, I find an excuse. I never 
 
200 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 go to see people, because I stained the pages of my life’s 
 book. Though I may turn over ten thousand stainless 
 pages, the stains on the other pages will remain.” 
 
 So true is it that the sad effects of intemperance can 
 never be fully wiped out. The most perfect and leliable 
 cures have yet an element of uncertainty about them. 
 We have become more and more convinced, with the 
 turning of every leaf in this tragic history, that there is 
 no safety, and no remedy, but in one thing, and that is 
 total abstinence. If young men would take this as their 
 motto, when they go out into the world, write it upon 
 every finger of their hands, and live up to it in all their 
 ways, it would do more to ' inaugurate a glorious refor- 
 mation than all the brilliant theories of the moralizer, 
 backed up by the most remarkable gifts of persuasion. 
 If they would never begin to taste, and sip, and dally 
 with the accursed thing, they would be all right, and 
 never need to be hedged about with the thousand de- 
 vices of temperance nurseries, that seek to keep them 
 within proper bounds^. We have yet to confront the 
 manufacturer on his own ground ; but while the thing 
 exists, and is likely to, while it is made and sold every- 
 where, and so many are tempted by it, we shall have to 
 dwell upon ways and means to check and avoid its in- 
 fluence as far as possible. Whatever other methods may 
 be presented, however varied may be the advantages 
 of any other system, there is but one rule of universal 
 application — but one thing that meets the necessities 
 of every condition, from the moderate tippler to the 
 confirmed inebriate ; and that is the last consideration 
 we have named — the entire abstinence from everything 
 that intoxicates. There is nothing but the entne re- 
 moval of it from all sight and smell that will answer, in 
 a majority of cases. We have seen how the habit grows 
 upon one, how the thirst becomes so insatiable in its 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 201 
 
 cravings as ’to brook no control, and in wbat way it 
 bears the victim downward as by a swift and irresistible 
 current. We believe there are thousands who are ad- 
 dicted to the use of the cup, who would lift up their heads 
 and rejoice could they know that another drop of the 
 deadly stimulant would never again pass before them; 
 and yet they have not the moral courage to resist it. 
 
 At one time, the prohibitory law was up for consider- 
 ation in a certain court. The clerk was a man given to 
 drinking, and all the time through the debate he sat in 
 fearful suspense lest the restraints which he deemed 
 necessary would not be imposed. On the morning of the 
 decision he entreated one of the judges to spare the law. 
 Said he, “ Sir, you know I am addicted to drinking ; but 
 you do not know — no living person can know — how 
 I have struggled to break off this habit. Sometimes I 
 have succeeded, and then these accursed liquor bars, 
 like so many man-traps, have effected my fall. For this 
 reason I have labored for the prohibitory law. Your 
 decision is, with ms, a matter of liSe and death.” When 
 the decision was handed him to record, he felt it to be 
 like signing his own death-warrant. Hope failed him, 
 despair seized him ; amid the horrors of delirium tremens, 
 when four men could -not hold him, he sank away ; and 
 in less than four days was no more. Is there anything but 
 abstinence that can save such as these? and how shall 
 that be realized, unless the thing is put altogether be- 
 yond their reach, where there is no possibility of their lay- 
 ing hands upon it ? It is urged that this is an extreme 
 measure — and so it may be; but extreme cases demand 
 extreme measures, and •nothing short will meet the emer- 
 gency. Ho half-way work will do here. Is there hope 
 of a drinking man, when he says he will leave off grad- 
 ually— that he will take only a little as he needs it? 
 Do not his “ needs ” extravagantly multiply in his own 
 
202 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 estiination, until it takes an almost incredible supply to 
 meet them ? 
 
 There are a great many weak natures that are alto- 
 gether incapable of bringing themselves up to any very 
 strong powers of resistance ; neither can they be brought 
 so as to be kept up by any external influence, while with- 
 in range of the peculiar temptation. They are good- 
 hearted and generous, and in all respects would be a 
 desirable acquisition to society but for this one thing. 
 There is hope that such might be restored to their posi- 
 tion and their privilege, if once abstinence was placed 
 upon the throne, and they were made to feel its power. 
 There are some among good people who seem to think 
 this condition too rigid; that it costs too. much; and that, 
 perhaps, after all, a man is not any better off for so 
 much severity. Not long since an English gentleman — 
 member of Parliament — testified, before one hundred 
 and fifty medical gentlemen at a public breakfast, that 
 there was nothing like this total abstinence to promote 
 his health and efiicieijcy. “ I myself,” he says, “ a long 
 time ago, for the ?ake of influencing some men, who, 
 I saw, were rapidly going down hill to destruction, de- 
 termined to put myself in the position to give them un- 
 suspected advice. I said, I will abstain for a month, and 
 see how it answers with me ; and finding it did -answer, I 
 went on for another month, and then for another. At 
 the expiration of fifteen j-ears subsequently, I thought it 
 my duty to testify that, during the whole of that period 
 I had enjoyed the best health, good spirits, and a great 
 capacity for work ; and now, seventeen years later, and 
 after thirty-two years of abstinence from intoxicating 
 drink, I confirm the same to you all. I testify before all 
 this company, that scarcely any man can have had more 
 uniform vigorous health than I have had ; and for which 
 I am deeply thankful, during the whole of the period I 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 203 
 
 have named ; and I have been a tolerably hard worker 
 too ; and I verily believe that I have been able to do more 
 than I should have been able to do, if I had hot been a 
 total abstainer.” The folly of those who believe it a 
 special preparation for a special work, is a thousand 
 times demonstrated by actual trial. 
 
 Secretarj'- Seward used to tell the following story : — 
 
 “Everybody admired Farragut’s heroism in clinging 
 to the topmast to direct a battle ; but. there was another 
 particular of that contest that no less forcibly illustrates 
 his heroic character. ‘ Admiral,’ said one of his officers, 
 the night before the battle, ‘ won’t you consent to give 
 Jack a glass of grog in the morning ; not enough to make 
 him drunk, but enough to make him fight cheerfully ? ’ 
 ‘Well,’ replied the admiral, ‘I have. been to sea con- 
 siderably, and have seen a battle or two, but I never 
 found' that I wanted rum to enable me to do my duty. 
 I will order two cups of coffee to each man at two 
 o’clock, and at eight o’clock I will pipe all hands to 
 breakfast in Mobile Bay.’ -And he did give Jack the cof- 
 fee ; and then he went up to the m^t-head and did it.” 
 
 Some argue against total abstinence with the show of 
 being wonderfully devoted to the interest of the country, 
 and so declare that all 'this fanaticism of abstinence, if 
 carried out, would impoverish the nation, by cutting off 
 an immense revenue. 
 
 We fancy this would be more than met by the wealth 
 that would pour in from a thousand other channels, as*a 
 consequence of the more intelligent and efficient system 
 of labor that would prevail. Brain is by far the best 
 propelling force of the country. It matters not what 
 its hidden resources may be, if there be no discriminating 
 power to develop and apply, and any one who has ob- 
 served the deterioration of mental and physical energy 
 under alcoholic sway knows fuU well that there is a 
 
204 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 vast expenditure in the wrong direction ; that there is 
 an almost incalculable waste of the material that would 
 otherwise enrich. We would that it might he put to the 
 test ; that for a term of years the whole range of intox- 
 icating drinks might he swept from the land, and all the 
 department of industry be filled with men who could act 
 out their own natural impulses and energies ; and we 
 would not fear for the results from this stand-point. 
 
 Torn from every other support, there are those who 
 will flee to the Bible, and interpret it so as to favor their 
 prejudices. To them it is of wonderful significance that 
 Timothy was advised to take a “ little wine.’’'’ They jump 
 to the conclusion at once that Paul was not in favor of 
 the '■'■total;” and so they take license for indefinite in- 
 dulgence, and feel very comfortable under the conviction 
 that they have a mighty apostle to uphold them. Now, 
 it is the easiest thing in the world for the unbiassed 
 mind to discover that the spirit and teachings of the 
 sacred Scriptures are all in harmony with this matter of 
 abstinence. 
 
 “ In regard to the assumption,” says one, “ that what- 
 ever is not expressly enjoined in the Bible is opposed to 
 its spirit and aims, we must remember that it is not a 
 book of details. It does not lay down special precepts 
 to guide us in all those multitudinous circumstances 
 under which mankind may be placed. Win-, the world 
 itself would not hold such a book, and to master it we 
 should have to attain to the years of Methuselah. 
 
 “ The Bible, in the main, is a book of broad and grand 
 principles,, easily applied to the circumstances of life. 
 These pjrinciples are but few in niimber, easy to under- 
 stand and remember. And what the sincere Christian 
 should inquire is this : Is the temperance enterprise in 
 harmony with these principles, or opposed to them ? If 
 the former, our duty is plain and unmistakable. If the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EBMEDY. 
 
 205 
 
 latter, our duty is equally plain and unmistakable. 
 When the Parliament of Tahiti consulted the^queen re- 
 specting the admission of intoxicating drinks, she said, 
 ‘Let the principles contained in the New Testament be 
 the foundation of all your proceedings ; ’ and immedi- 
 ately they enacted a law ^against trading with any vessel 
 that brought ardent spirits. It was not so much any 
 isolated text, as the principles of the book, generally, that 
 guided their determination. They saw that love to God 
 and man is the grand principle of the book, and that 
 this love enjoins us to do nothing which would prove the 
 ■means, du’ectly or indirectly, of making a brother stum- 
 ble, offend, or become weak, or fall into sin.’” 
 
 Well would it be if this Christian nation would emu- . 
 late the example of these sea-girt islanders. Whichever 
 way we turn, we cannot hide ourselves from the con- 
 viction that total abstinence is the only safety for man 
 at the beginning, and the only cure for the drunkard. 
 The public have recognized this lati’er fact in providing 
 Homes for Inebriates, the special object . of which is 
 to remove them from all possibility of obtaining their 
 wonted drink. They are regarded and treated as disr 
 eased persons, end probably there is no disease on earth 
 that is so difficult to effect a radical cure as this. These 
 institutions start with the position that alcohol is a 
 poison ; that systems charged with it are desperately 
 poisoned, and in order to be saved, must be subjected to 
 a thoroughly renovating process ; and this is slow or more 
 rapid according to the time the destructive elements 
 have been at work. They also regard the inebriate as 
 under the conditions of a certain kind of insanity, and 
 therefore one part of their treatment lies in the diversion 
 of mind from the one delusion ; and so the same enter- 
 tainments and amusements are provided in the one case • 
 as the other. There are several institutions of this char- 
 
206 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 acter in various parts of the country ; one at Chicago, 
 111., one in Maryland, the “ Washingtonian Home ” of 
 Boston, MasSi, and one in Kings County, N. Y. ; but 
 as the one at Binghamton, N. Y., is the oldest, we con- 
 fine ourselves to that, as a specimen of the characteristic 
 working of the whole. It is said of him who founded 
 it, “ If he had possessed scientific ability and rectitude 
 of purpose equ-al to his energy and persistence, he would 
 have been acknowledged one of the great benefactors of 
 his race, to be ranked with Howard, and Wilberforce, 
 and Clarkson.” 
 
 In order to have a clearer comprehension of the object, 
 system, and results of these peculiar asylums, we quote 
 from a pamphlet published under the direction of the 
 superintendent at this place, by J. N. Pomeroy, Esq. 
 
 “ This asylum was the first of its kind in the world. 
 Others have since been established ; but still there is in 
 the public mind a complete ignorance in respect to its 
 real objects and methods, a most profound misunder- 
 standing as to what^ it professes to do, what it can do, 
 and how it does its work. Doubtless nearly every pa- 
 tient who comes here shares in this ignorance. I have 
 talked with several who pronounced ther whole thing a 
 failure and a delusion, because it does not accomplish 
 what it never professed to perform, and what it would be 
 impossible to perform without the help of Omnipotence. 
 Many persons expect that the curative process is to 
 change human nature ; is to eradicate appetites and pas- 
 sions which were implanted in man by the Creator, and 
 form a part of his -very being ; or to so transform the 
 body that it may in future escape the dire effects of in- 
 dulgence in alcoholic stimulants. Beyond a question, 
 most persons without the institution, and most patients 
 at their arrival, have a vague and confused notion, either 
 that all appetite and desire for stimulants wiU be utterly 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 207 
 
 destroyed, or that their physical systems will, in some 
 manner, be so fortified that the moderate use of intoxi- 
 cating drinks may thereafter be indulged in with impu- 
 nity ; and these patients and their friends are doubtless 
 often disappointed or disgusted because such wonderful 
 results are not accomplished. At the -very opposite pole 
 of opinion, there is another class of individuals who are 
 equally wrong, both in their premises and their conclu- 
 sions. Very many persons,' generally those who are pro- 
 foundly ignorant of mental and physiological phenom- 
 ena, deny that the word cure is at all appropriate to the 
 inebriate. They, assert that, as the alcoholic habit is 
 purely voluntary, it must be abandoned solely by an act 
 of the Avill, and that it may always be thus overcome, 
 no matter how closely it may have bound its willing 
 victim.. 
 
 “ The temperance movement fails to accomplish the 
 reclamation of very few confirmed drunkards, for the 
 simple reason that it ignores all those radical changes, 
 physical and' mental, wrought by the alcoholic habit, 
 and calls upon the drunkard, whose body is disorganized 
 and whose will is weakened and almost destroyed, to 
 achieve unassisted that which needs all the helps of the 
 best medical science, and of the most complete sanitary 
 discipline. As well might societies be formed for the 
 suppression of insanity, which should content themselves 
 with urging upon the insane to disregard and throw off 
 their morbid delusions by the mere unaided efforts of 
 their own will. 
 
 “ What is’meant by an inebriate, and what hy his cure ? 
 Without now stopping to inquire into the effects of al- 
 cohol in all possible cases, — without now troubling our- 
 selves with the vexed question whether it is at all times, 
 under all circumstances, and with all individuals, injuri- 
 O'ls, — it is enough to say that there are persons whose 
 
208 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 original physical constitution and temperament are such 
 that alcohol, once used, becomes to them a necessity ; 
 the brain and nerves, by virtue of some primary ten- 
 dency, Avelcome the intruding force, and require the 
 repeated stimulant, until at last they demand it with a 
 vehemence which admits of no denial. The alcoholic 
 habit is thus fixed, and the whole system must be wound 
 up each day by increased doses of the poison, before 
 either the mind or the body can perform their usual 
 functions. Such persons are inebriates, and’ are none 
 the less so because the 'use of alcohol may neA^er be 
 pushed by them so far as to produce complete intoxi- 
 cation. 
 
 “ If a person once discovers that alcohol, at stated and 
 regular times, has become a necessity to him, — if the 
 leaving off from the accustomed amount, although that 
 may be small, requires a struggle, — he may be abso- 
 lutely certain that the primary constitutional tendency 
 towards complete inebriety or alcoholism exists in liim, 
 and that he is in the most imminent danger. If the 
 habit has once been thus. formed, — if the stimulant has 
 thus become a regular necessity, no matter how small 
 may be the amount used, — it is as certain as death that 
 that amount will be, and must be, steadily increased, 
 until at last it obtains a complete mastery OA^er body, 
 mind, and soul. 
 
 “ I know that we have all heard accounts of some ex- ’ 
 traordinary persons, some aged uncles or grandfathers, 
 or other veterans, Avho, during a long life, took their 
 stated number of glasses each day, never increasing or 
 diminishing the amount consumed, and were none the 
 worse. Such stories may be true, but they are opposed 
 to all the deductions of medical science ; they are op- 
 posed to an almost universal experience ; in fact, they 
 are to be regarded only as those few and solitary excep- 
 
ITS ASPECT ANT) ITS REMEDY. 
 
 209 
 
 tions which bring into a stronger and. clearer relief the 
 terrible uniformity of the rule. I repeat, if the alco- 
 holic habit is once fixed upon a man, the quantity of the 
 stimulant required by him will steadily, -and often with 
 amazing rapidity, increase. Those who have formed 
 this habit — no matter in what stage of its development 
 they may be — are inebriates. There are thousands and 
 tens of thousands who accurately answer to this descrip- 
 tion.- They are not secluded from society; they are 
 found in every profession and business ; they engage in 
 all the activities of our national life. The end of all is 
 not the same. Many fall mortal victims of the poison, 
 and die destroj^ed by alcohol as directly and truly as a 
 soldier does by the bullet. Others linger through a 
 longer life, with health impaired, with families shamed, 
 with friends alienated, with powers weakened, with op- 
 portunities lost, until the end comes, and their career is 
 acknowledged by all to have been a failure. 
 
 “Now, what is the cure ? It is certainly not the total 
 destruction of all appetite for stimulants, nor the eradica- 
 tion of the original constitutional tendency which I have 
 described, for either of these would be simply impossible 
 to all except the Creator himself. Nor is it any such 
 physical change as will enable a person to resist the 
 morbid effects of the poison, and will permit the use of 
 alcohol in future with impunity ; for such a re-organiza- 
 tion of the body is clearly beyond the reach of medical 
 science. There is no Medea’s caldron from which the 
 inebriate may emerge, and enjoy a perpetual youth of 
 self-gratification. The cure consists solely in the de- 
 struction of the habit by absolute cessation, and in pro- 
 ducing once more such a condition of body and mind in 
 the patient that complete abstinence from the stimulant 
 may become possible to him in the future. The very 
 fact that the* habit has once been formed shows that ab- 
 13 
 
210 
 
 INTEMPEEANCB, 
 
 stinence is necessary ; for it demonstrates the existence 
 in the person of that original constitutional tendencji 
 which no appliances can remove, and which, yielded to, 
 becomes as fatal as the plague or the leprosy. We may 
 concede that others can drink from time to time without 
 danger of excess, and with no perceptible injury, be- 
 cause, for some reason or other, their systems, their 
 brains and nerves, do not fully respond to the effects of 
 the poison. But the man in whom the fatal alcoholic 
 tendency exists, and who has once yielded to it, and has 
 become the slave of its terrible tyranny,' cannot expect 
 to be made any stronger to resist its destructive effects 
 than he was at the very outset. If he can be placed 
 back again into his primary condition, into that state of 
 body and mind which existed before the first use of al- 
 cohol, he must be content ; all the cure possible for him 
 has been wrought.” 
 
 After thus speaking of the object of the Asylum and 
 its theory of cure, he says, — 
 
 “ It must be .confessed at once that the results do 
 not come fully up to the lofty conception. We find, in 
 fact, that, of all the persons who resort thither, some 
 are not benefited in the least ; some feceive a partial or 
 temporary good ; while others still are permanently 
 cured. How large a percentage of the whole number 
 the latter class forms, it is of course impossible for me 
 to say; but it is certainly very considerable — at least,' 
 fifty per cent.” 
 
 There are three classes who are found within these 
 institutions — those who have keenly felt the sad effects 
 of the wretched habit, and are really and earnestly de- 
 sirous of being, in some way, freed from its terrible 
 power ; then there are those who enter these folds to be 
 exempt from the immediate physical copsequences of 
 excessive indulgence ; and, lastl}"-, those who have been 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 211 
 
 placed there by their friends, and who have not sufficient 
 desire to reform in themselves to make them willing to 
 yield to the sanitary restraints. - For this latter class, it 
 ■is affirmed, but little can be done. In order to illustrate 
 the power of the social element in the matter, we give 
 an extract frona the remarks of one who had himself 
 graduated from this same institution : — 
 
 “ Since intemperance is thus clearly a social sin, it 
 seems to me that its cure is best sought by social means. 
 It would be found impossible, I am convinced, to take 
 each inebriate separately, and work his cure. The at- 
 tempt, if made, would prove a failure. The patient 
 would only brood over his sin and sufferings, grow mor- 
 bidly conscious that the whole world despised him, fret 
 and despond under restraint, and return to his evil hab- 
 its, in order to seek relief from oppressive thoughts, as 
 soon as the period of his probation or imprisonment was 
 over. For this reason, the old methods of sending a 
 young man on a voyage to China, of rusticating him in 
 a retired farm-house, and other varied contrivances for 
 freeing him from temptation by shutting him up with 
 only his thoughts for companions, have prov.ed to be 
 failures. These plans all lacked the social element, and 
 could not be successful without it. Man is so consti- 
 tuted that he needs companionship in all that he does. 
 It is one of the oldest axioms of revelation that ‘ it is 
 not good for man to be alone.’ As an upright and pure 
 citizen, he needs the support of those who will work 
 with him in things ‘ lov^ely and of good report.’ Much 
 more, as a wavering, weak inebriate, does he need the 
 countenance and sustaining example of those who are 
 endeavoring to accomplish for themselves the task that 
 he has undertaken. To my mind, — and I speak from 
 experience, and not as a theorist, — this is one of the 
 strongest arguments in favor of the establishment and 
 
212 
 
 INTEMPEEAITCE, 
 
 Jbearty support of asylums for the cure of inebriates. I 
 hold society responsible for the fall of most of those who 
 are drunkards, and therefore bound to do all it can for 
 ^ their restoration. Until lately, it has been content to 
 tempt young men to the indulgence or creation of an 
 appetite for intoxicating liquors. When it had suc- 
 ceeded in arousing the thirst for liquor, it turned its 
 back upon the maddened inebriate as an outcast ; throw- 
 ing him into prison when his body became helpless, or 
 burying him in the Potter’s Field when the natural re- 
 sult of ruin and death were accomplished. 
 
 “ Let us be thankful that we have reached a day when 
 the people begin to see the error of their waj’s, and are 
 learning to take part of the drunkard’s sin on their own 
 shoulders. This feeling of responsibility is sufficient to 
 arouse and quicken the public mind in the matter of 
 saving and reforming the inebriate. But when, in addi- 
 tion, it becomes evident that -this reformation has a 
 social side, the best way in which the public can work 
 for this end is made apparent. To be successful, the 
 cure must be sought by means of asylums, where a num- 
 ber of patients are gathered together. Take the subject 
 in its practical bearings. After a long course of indul- 
 gence in drink, a man finds that his will j)Ower is almost 
 destroyed. He has made solemn promises, and broken 
 them ; has signed pledges, and violated them before the 
 ink was scarcely dry ; has tried change of location, and 
 found the experiment unavailing. A fi’iend advises him 
 to go to an inebriate asylum. He hesitates, from natural 
 shame of exhibiting himself in such a character, but at 
 last consents. On his journey he fancies himself scorned 
 and despised when he arrives at his destination, or given 
 over to the companionship of the Avrecks and dregs of 
 humanity. But how is it in fact ? As he enters his 
 new home,, he finds himself greeted by intelligent, re- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEiVIEDY. 
 
 213 
 
 fined, and rpbu'st gentlemen, gathered from all the walks 
 of life. They are swift to make him realize that they all 
 stand on the same footing, and that there is no one in 
 the asylum who has the right to hold him in contempt. 
 One. after another details his experience as they become 
 acquainted, and all tell him of what they are doing for 
 themselves and one another. As soon as he is in a state 
 to realize this fact, he is a new man. His moral sensi- 
 bilities are awakened, and he begins to reahze that there 
 is hope for him in the future. What others are doing 
 and have done he also can do for himself. Here are 
 men, some of them the first in the land, who will never 
 despise him, and he begins to believe that there may be 
 others in the world whose hearts will be as kind. Hence- 
 forward, for him, ‘ there is no such word as/ai7.’ Brood- 
 ing thoughts are exchanged for healthy companionship, 
 and doubts and fears for high resolves. As the result 
 of this social influence, the work of reformation grows 
 easier every day. From one and another he hears the 
 story of those who have gone forth from the institution, 
 and taken their places again in the busy world. They 
 fill high positions in the professions, and places of trust- 
 in the business circles, and are living proofs of what can 
 be done for the inebriate. When his own will has be- 
 come strong enough to be trusted, he goes out into the 
 battle with his eye on those whose story he knows, and 
 who know his story, assured of their support and respect 
 in the struggle that is to follow. This source of strength 
 will always be with him ; and it will grow and spread, 
 until societ}^ at large will become eager to grasp the re- 
 formed inebriate by the hand, and restore him at once to 
 his forfeited place, as having earned it by right of a hard 
 battle crowned with victory. 
 
 “ It will be seen that I am strongly in favor of insti- 
 tutions which have a large numbef of patients. The 
 
214 
 
 INTEIMPEEAITCE, 
 
 social effect is Letter. From a multitude off companions 
 each person can choose those who are best suited to his 
 habits and modes of thought. Besides, the presence of 
 numbers increases self-confidence. It implies a practical 
 belief in reformation, and a determination to shake off 
 the bondage of vice. The presence of a dozen patients 
 would appear merely experimental ; the presence of a 
 hundred has the appearance of settled convictions. 
 Again, I speak from experience, recalling the good 
 effect of the companionship of ninety inebriates, repre- 
 senting all sections and all classes, in my own case. 
 They appealed at once to the social side of my nature, 
 making jne realize that there was yet a place that I 
 might fill, and work for me to do. Their presence 
 strengthened and upheld me in the dark hours of doubt 
 that will come to all who are warring against an enemy 
 witiiin themselves. Without their help, the will would 
 have to war alone against a foe whose wiles are legion.” 
 
 With regard to the time necessary, Samuel W. Bush, 
 the chaplain of the asylum, says, — 
 
 “ It accords with my observation that the longer any 
 one who is in such a condition as to be compelled to 
 come, here remains, the better it is for him. Six months, 
 at least, are reqriired to secure signal 'and permanent 
 benefit. One year would, in many cases, be better. Of 
 course there are many exceptional cases. After a life 
 of wild and reckless dissipation, in which eA'il habits 
 and modes of thought have become ingrained in his A'ery 
 nature, and with a constitution greatly impaired, it is 
 not the work of a day to supersede all this bj* the use 
 of means which will give health to the body, clearness 
 and strength to the mind, and vigor to the moral and 
 religious sensibilities, and the establishment of correct 
 habits of thought and action. These being secured, the 
 patient leaves the asylum, the grace of God accompany- 
 ing him, a truly restored and renovated man. 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS REMEDY. 
 
 215. 
 
 “ The value and necessity of an institution like this is 
 not doubtful. All are benefited, without an exception, 
 while within -its walls ; and more than half, it is be- 
 lieved, on data on winch reliance can be placed, are per- 
 manently reformed. The most eminent of the medical 
 faculty concur in the opinion that intemperance is a dis- 
 ease. However tliis may be, it is certain that it has a 
 vampire hold, on the unfortunate victim, from which 
 to release himself he finds his own efforts powerless, 
 and which is surely and rapidly spreading destruction 
 throughout his whole nature. He therefore needs the 
 aid of a physician, skilled in the maladies of both body 
 and mind ; a place — an asylum — where, free from 
 temptation, and with ample time for reflection, in con- 
 junction with his own efforts, he can allo■^v^the medical, 
 hygienic, and pioral treatment to work out its legitimate 
 results.” 
 
 This institution is not altogether a place to which the 
 rich may flee to hide themselves, — those who are able 
 to pay for all they have, — but it is largely of charitable 
 working. The report for a recent year stands thus : — 
 
 20 per cent, are at the rate of |20.00 per week. 
 
 20 “ “ “ “ 15.00 “ “ 
 
 30 “ “ “ ‘‘ 5.00 to 10.00 per week. 
 
 30 “ are free. 
 
 100 . 
 
 ' While in all this we see how difficult it is to overcome 
 the fearful habit of intemperance, it is not yet quite 
 impossible 
 
 • “ That men mfy rise on stepping-stones 
 
 Of their dead selves to higher things.” 
 
 Considering, however, the extreme risk -that men run in 
 the matter, it were safer and wiser not to bring them- 
 
216 
 
 IKTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 selves to this living death, where they are obliged to 
 take these painful steps backward to regain a lost man- 
 hood. But back of all this individual obhgation there 
 is something more to be done. These remedial measures 
 may do a good work as far as they go, but there needs 
 an axe at the root of the tree. These roots are spread 
 far and wide, and they need somebody to wield the axe 
 long and well to make it effectual. Just as long as the 
 law wiU lend its giant forces towards upholding and sus- 
 taining the spreading branches of .this mighty thing, it 
 will continue to curse the land. Multitudes will gather 
 under and about it, and, lounging in the shadow thereof, 
 they will idle their time away, waste their energies, and 
 cripple the bp^' interests of society and the nation, to 
 say nothing their own personal wreck and ruin. 
 
 If there were anythmg else that was capable of 
 doing so much for mankind as total abstinence can do, 
 the whole land would be wild with deterrnination to 
 procure it at whatever cost. There is nothing that al- 
 lures the individual more strongly with promises of 
 health, wealth, honor, peace, and every kind of happi- 
 ness than this — nothing that prepares him better to 
 become an ornament and support to society, and a bless- 
 ing to . the world generally. Would that the flag of 
 total abstinence was waving over all the land, and all 
 the people were safe within its folds ! Surely that 
 would be one kind of millemiium. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Temperance Workers. 
 
 GREAT PRINCIPLES IMMORTAL- — DR. BACON ON. SLOW IDEAS. — THE 
 FIRST PLEDGE. — THE EARLY AGITATION. — DR. JUSTIN EDWARDS. — 
 THE FEARLESS PREACHER. — HON. THEODORE FRELINGHUTSEN. — DR. 
 JEWETT. — REV. THOMAS P. HUNT. — REV. JOHN PIERPONT. — JUDGE* 
 CROSBY. — “ THE NOTT CONTROVERSY.” — FATHER MATHEW. — FA- 
 THER TAYLOR. — WASHINGTONIANS. — JOHN B: GOUGH. 
 
 We have affirmed our belief in the idea, that great prin- 
 ciples will eventually triumph ; that they will be sure to 
 come out right in the end, although subject to a thousand 
 untoward influences in the progression, and assailed by 
 the malignant hates and envies of men. In this we are 
 met by the taunting voices of many, saying. Where is the 
 promise of this ? Is it better now than it was in earlier 
 times when there was less said or thought about it ? On 
 the contrary, is not intemperance stalking abroad more 
 defiantly through all the land, raising its hydra head 
 more threateningly than ever? In reply, we confess 
 that its form is terrible, and its dominion from one end 
 of the earth to the other ; that in all the high and low 
 places of our country there is great disturbance by 
 reason of it, and yet there is a great difference in the 
 way it is regarded now from what it was in the earlier 
 history of our people. Intoxicating drinks are not so 
 universally tolerated now as thej’- once were. In thou- 
 sands of places where they were once deemed essential, 
 they are now ruled out as unworthy and un-Christian. 
 It argues not against the work of reform that it has 
 
218 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 made no greater progress. Great reformations are al- 
 ways slow. It is .not a quick work to uproot the rank 
 and noxious weeds from the fruitful soil of the human 
 heart. It is very much hke trying to get rid of a crop of 
 Canada thistles. There is no help in this latter case but 
 to eject them, roots and all ; and it takes time to do it. 
 Dr. Leonard Bacon once said, while speaking of the prog- 
 ress of the temperance idea, “The most interesting aspect 
 in which the temperance reformation presents itself to my 
 mind, is 'as’an illustration of the slow, but sure and' certain, 
 progress of one idea — of a simple, hut great and just 
 idea. That idea, when it was first announced, was an- 
 nounced in its legitimate connection with Christianity. 
 It came from the bosom of the church of God ; it came 
 from the head of Christianity. It was argued and proved 
 with texts from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and 
 the Epistles of the apostles. We wondered — those of 
 us who composed it at that early period — wondered that 
 there should be so much resistance to it, and we as- 
 cribed it to the j)ower of selfishness; for we -saw in 
 every dhection great interests, great commercial ambi- 
 tion, and powerful political interests, united against the 
 progress of this idea. And yet, I apprehend, we as- 
 cribed too much of this resistance to the power of self- 
 ishness and interest. We ought to have remembered, 
 more distinctly, perhaps, that great ideas, simple and 
 commanding as they are, make but too slow progress to 
 dominion over the minds of nations and individuals. 
 You may convince an individual of the truth of an idea 
 in conversation with him alone ; but he does not stay 
 convinced. The sj'mpathy between his mind and that 
 of the vast multitude is too strong, and it is with your 
 argument as it fared with Cato when he read Plato on 
 the immortality of the soul ; he was convinced, and 
 believed ; but when he had shut the book, he could not 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 219 
 
 remember the force of reasoning in the argument. It is 
 therefore in this way, On this principle, that truth, sim- 
 ple and commanding as it may be, makes but slow prog- 
 ress towards dominion over communities and nations.” 
 If it be that it is slowly permeating society, that it is 
 
 ■ silently perfecting itself in the convictions of men, there 
 is hope that the day of practical results is coming. There 
 are a host of honorable worthies who have given’ them- 
 selves to this work with untiring energy and zeal. They 
 have lent the full force of their commanding talents to 
 aid in the mighty enterprise, and many of them have 
 gone up to receive the reward of ,their labors in a higher, 
 sphere. We have not space to give to each and all that 
 consideration which their merits respectively demand ; 
 but we propose to give sketches of some of the leading 
 spirits of difPerent periods, and the manner in which 
 they addressed themselves to the existing evil. Heaven 
 never moves the world to a great work but what it 
 supplies agencies to meet the demand. When great 
 occasions call, for superior intellects, they are always 
 forthcoming. They rise up, perchance, from some ob- 
 scure corner, where they have been held in a course of 
 unconscious training for their special work, and surprise 
 all by their peculiar fitness. 
 
 It is often found, in tracing things back to their 
 sources, that great matters have originated in a small 
 way, through acts that have borne no significance to 
 
 ■ their after consequences. It is like throwing the stone 
 into the water, and the narrow circle grows wider and 
 wider still, unto the end. One Micajah Pendleton, of 
 Virginia, is said to have drawn up the first temperance 
 pledge of which we have any knowledge. 'That was in 
 the year 1800, and was designed in a special manner for 
 his .own household, and was on the total abstinence 
 basis. As this came to be known, other families imi- 
 
220 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 tated his example, until it became quite an extensive 
 home institution in the state. Eight years later, the 
 first real temperance organization was effected at Mo- 
 reau, Saratoga Co., N. Y., under the guardianship of 
 Dr. B. J. Clark and Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, and forty- 
 seven male members signed the pledge. One article of 
 their constitution provided that no member should drink 
 “ rum, gin, whiskey, wine, or any distilled' spirits,” and 
 a fine of twenty-five cents was imposed upon every one 
 who should be guilty of violating the pledge. There 
 was no movement of general interest, however, until 
 1811, Avhen Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, came before the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, in ses- 
 sion there at the time, and urged the necessity of inau- 
 gurating some scheme that should have a tendency to 
 awaken the public mind to the wide-spread and increas- 
 ing ravages of intemperance. But these were only the 
 faint streaks of dawn before the day. 
 
 In 1825, the Rev. Dr. Justin Edwards, that mighty 
 and fearless worker in every good cause, took liis stand, 
 in battle array, against the foe, and produced a strong 
 impression on the public mind by his well-directed ef- 
 forts. Possessing a remarkably clear and discriminating 
 mind, having a strong and commanding utterance, there 
 were few men of that day or this who could rivet the 
 attention of a congregation, either in the pulpit or the 
 more public convention, more strongly than he. He 
 seemed to be raised up by Providence to act a special 
 part at this particular stage of the great reform. His 
 denunciatory language and powerful arguments appealed 
 to the hearts and consciences of men, and they heard 
 and trembled. At this period both ministers and people 
 looked upon the infant reformation as something to be 
 kept outside the church. To have it cradled in her 
 bosom was more than they could bear. “ Talk temper- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIMEDY. 
 
 221 
 
 ance as much as you please,” they said, “ in your tem- 
 perance meetings; but bring it not into the pulpit on 
 the Sabbath.” Faithfulness and boldness in. this matter 
 turned many a minister from his place of settlement; 
 and, if it was nothing more, a single sermon might so 
 offend some of the best families, so called, — some 
 wealthy brewer, distiller, or, perhaps, wholesale dealer, 
 — that they would withdraw their patronage and friend- 
 ship, and make it as uncomfortable as possible for the well- 
 meaning brother. But once convinced of his duty. Dr. 
 Edwards was not the man to hesitate or parley. He felt 
 bound to come out and openly remonstrate against the 
 prevalent delusion, and thus he spoke : “ Shall the fires 
 ■ which make this poison, burn on the Sabbath ? Shall 
 Jehovah be insulted by the appearance in the sanctuary 
 of n^en who use it, and yet-the Sabbath not be occupied 
 by light and love to abolish the use ? Shall it cause the 
 word of the Lord, even from the pulpit, to fall as upon 
 a rock, and yet the pulpit be dumb ? or speak only on 
 week days, when those who traffic in it have so much to 
 do in furnishing the poison, that they have no time, and 
 less inclination, to hear ? If Satan can cause this to be 
 believed, and those who manufacture, sell, and use the 
 weapons of his warfare, and multiply the trophies of his 
 victory, not hear of their sins on the Sabbath, when God 
 speaks to the conscience ; or be instructed from the pul- 
 pit, his mercy seat, by the tears and blood of a Saviour, 
 to flee from coming damnation, — the adversary will keep 
 his stronghold; church members will garrison it, and 
 provision it, and- fight for him. From the communion 
 table he -will muster recruits, and find officers in those 
 who distribute the elements to fight his battles, and 
 people, with increasing numbers, his dark domains to 
 the end of time. If we may not, in this warfare, on 
 the Lord’s day, when he himself goes forth to the battle. 
 
222 
 
 LNTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 and commands upon the field; if we may not use his 
 weapons, forged in heaven, and from the high places of 
 his erection pour them down, thick, heavy, and hot, 
 upon the enemy, we may fight until we die, and he will 
 esteem our iron as straw, and our brass as rotten wood ; 
 our darts he will count as stubble, and laugh at the 
 glittering of our spear,” 
 
 Another minister, of unrecorded name, was greatly 
 distressed on the question of duty. There were those 
 among the members of his church whose business it was 
 to sell the vile stufP, and others' who were using it in 
 their families, and all seemed given over to the fell in- 
 fiuence of the soul-destroying curse. He knew it was 
 most hazardous to allude to the evil on the Sabbath. 
 He expected, if he did, some of his best people would 
 leave the house ; but he said, “ Sink or swim, live or die, 
 I cannot go on so. I must do my duty, and leave the 
 event with God.” He did it, and boldly called the sell- 
 ing of ardent spirit as a beverage a crime, and the using 
 of intoxicating drink a sin against the body and against 
 the soul. Men felt that they were in a house on fire, 
 and there was no escape into the open air. Women felt 
 there was no religion -in it, and they would not hear 
 such preaching. The next morning, some wholesale 
 dealers and consumers, heavy tax-payers, met on the 
 sidewalk, and said one to another, “ We will bear this 
 no longer; let us drive him off.” A dry wag, listening 
 to their complaints and threats, said, “ That’s right, 
 brothers ; ” and, alluding to several noted for their infi- 
 delity, profanity, and Sabbath-breaking, “ Go and get 
 those,” he continued, “ and get a vote to drive him out.” 
 They started back, for they were professors of religion, 
 and good men. ' They saw where they were, and where 
 their minister stood, and how he had done his duty. 
 Some gave up their traffic, all were quiet, and never 
 more had that man any difficulty in doing his duty. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 223 
 
 Dr. Lyman Beecher thundered forth his anathemas, 
 and made such language as the following ring in the 
 ears of every one" engaged in the traffic: — 
 
 “ Can we lawfully amass property by a course of trade 
 which .fills the land with beggars, and widows, and 
 orphans, and crimes ; which peoples -the graveyard with 
 premature mortality, and the world of woe with the vic- 
 tims of despair ? Could all the forms of evil produced 
 in the land by intemperance come upon us in one horrid 
 array, it would appall the nation, and put an end to the 
 traffic in ardent spirits. If, in every dwelling built by 
 blood, the stone from the wall should utter all the cries 
 which the bloody traffic extorts, and the beam out of 
 the timber should echo them back, who would build 
 such a house ? What if in every part of the dwelling, 
 from the cellar upward, through all the halls and cham- 
 bers, babblings and conten.tions, and voices and groans, 
 and shrieks and wailings, were heard day and night ? 
 What if the cold blood oozed out, and stood in drops 
 upon the walls, and, by preternatural art, all the ghastly 
 skulls and bones of the victims destroyed by intemper- 
 ance should stand upon the walls, in horrid sculpture, 
 within and without the building ? who would rear such 
 a building 1 What if, at eventide and at midnight, the 
 airy forms of intemperance were dimly seen haunting 
 the distilleries and stores where they received their bane 
 
 — following the track of the ship engaged in the com- 
 merce — walking the waves — flitting athwart the dack 
 
 — sitting upon the rigging, and sending up from the hold 
 within, and from the waves without, groans and loud 
 laments and wailings! Who would attend such stores? 
 Who would labor in such distilleries ? Who would nav- 
 igate such ships ? O I were the sky over our heads one 
 great whispering gallery, bringing down about us all the 
 lamentation and woe which intemperance creates, and 
 
224 
 
 INTEVIPEBAI^CE, 
 
 the firm earth one sonorous medium of sound, bringing 
 up around us from beneath, the wailings of the damned, 
 whom the commerce in ardent spirits had sent thither, 
 — these tremendous realities, assailing our sense, would 
 invigorate our conscience, and give decision to our pur- 
 pose of reformation. But these evils are as real as if 
 the stone did cry out of the wall, and the beam answered 
 it; as real as if, day and night, w'ailings were heard in 
 every part of the dwelling, and blood and skeletons were 
 seen upon every wall ; as real as if the ghostly forms of , 
 departed victims flitted, about the ship as she passed over 
 the billows, and showed themselves nightly about stores 
 and distilleries, and with unearthly voices screamed in 
 our ears their loud lament. They are as real as if the 
 sky over our heads collected and brought down about 
 us all the notes of sorrow in the land ; and the firm earth 
 should open a passage for the wailings of despair to come 
 up from beneath.” 
 
 Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen was another man of 
 resolute Avill and determined purpose, who gave his com- 
 bined efforts to the matter of total abstinence, not allow- 
 ing wim — as some were pleading for in his time, be- 
 cause thej'' felt they were called upon to cut off the “ right 
 hand.” and the “right foot,” also. “The great prin- 
 ciple,” said he, “ contended for, is the moral expediency 
 of this pure standard. Let it be granted that men may 
 lawfully drink wine ; that in Palestine, where grapes 
 hung upon the boughs in the greatest profusion, men 
 did drink wine ; that our Saviour himself drank wine, 
 and sanctioned it by his example ; yet how different are 
 the circumstances in which we find ourselves at this day! 
 Then there was no such tiring as ardent spirits, by which 
 men were brutalized and destroyed, both body and soul ; 
 and it might mot have been necessary then to abstain 
 from that which in oux, day we look upon as a tempta- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 225 
 
 tion and a snare, leading men directly to intemperance. 
 But now the case presents itself to ps in this light. A 
 great moral power, which may bq, exercised to promote 
 the welfare of our fellow-men, is offered to us in this 
 total abstinence principle. In a spirit of benignant feel- 
 ing towards, our race, we adopt it.” 
 
 Dr. Jewett was long a faithful and earnest advocate — 
 a popular lecturer — and by his own personal efforts did 
 much to promote the cause in various parts of the coun- 
 try. ■ In his story of “ Forty Years’ Fight with the. Drink 
 Demon,” he relates the incidents and adventures of this 
 long eonfliet, and also speaks of many of those who were 
 associated with him in the great enterprise. Among these 
 was Eev. Thomas P. Hunt, of Pennsylvania, of whom it 
 is said, he gave the whole subject a more thoughtful and 
 candid consideration than almost any other living man. 
 Those who knew him recollect the deformed figure, and 
 also remember the expression of his keen eye, the pe- 
 culiar tones of his impressive voice, which lent a charm 
 and power to whatever he said. A friend says of him, 
 by the time he had related an incident, “ all eyes were 
 riveted upon that little crooked man, with the large 
 mouth and the lightning eyes, and all ears were open 
 to hear instruction from him.” Such was the effect of 
 the following, with which he commenced his narrative 
 on a certain evening : — 
 
 “Ladies and- Gentlemen : I last evening delivered 
 a discourse at Washington Factory Village, in the town 
 of Coventry. As I was quite at leisure during the 
 afternoon preceding the lecture, I proposed to walk out 
 for a little exercise. A friend suggested that I might 
 do some service to the people of the village, perhaps, by_ 
 calling on Mr. Capwell, the keeper of the hotel, and 
 having a talk with him. He was represented -to me as 
 a very clever sort of a man, good-natured, not at all in- 
 clined to be abusive, and it was thought my words might 
 14 
 
226 
 
 rNTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 be of service to him. I called upon him ; introduced 
 myself as the person who was to speak on temperance 
 in the evening, and found him disposed to listen to me 
 with patience and candor. I told him I had been in- 
 formed that he was the possessor* of considerable real 
 estate in the village, and assured him that whatever 
 should have the effect to lessen the intelligence of the 
 people, and to lower the standard of public morals, as I 
 was quite sure his traffic would do, though he might not 
 intend it,, would most certainly diminish the value of his 
 real estate, as it would render the village a less desirable 
 place of residence. And I suggested to him that, in the 
 long run, he would lose more by this depreciation of 
 property, than he would gain, directly, by his traffic. 
 He was listening to me with evident interest, and I 
 could not but hope I was making a favorable impression 
 on his mind, when, all at once, a side door opened, and 
 a little bit of a woman rushed into the room so swiftly 
 that her cap-border was turned back on her head by the 
 current of air she created, and in a very excited manner, 
 and with a very shrill voice, she exclaimed, ‘ I do wish 
 that people would mind their own business.’ 
 
 “ Taken quite aback for the moment by this startling 
 introduction and speech, I replied, ‘ Well, madam, and so 
 do I ! I agree with you, exactly, madam. That is an 
 excellent sentiment of yours. I approve of it everywhere 
 and always. I am a temperance lecturer, madam, and 
 you see now, that while I am persuading this gentleman, 
 your husband, very likely, madam, to abandon the sale 
 of liquors, which make men drunk, I was laboriiig right 
 along in the line of my business. You see I agree with 
 3^ou entirety. That is an excellent sentiment of y*ours. 
 "One reason why I labor to persuade men to leave off 
 drinking, is because the use of liquor does, notoriousty, 
 lead men to neglect their business. For instance, here 
 is a carpenter. He has a fine shop and good tools. He 
 is himself a good workman, and has not only apprentices 
 to aid him, but also skilled workmen. He ought to do a 
 large business, but he does not. What is the trouble ? 
 The public know that he is a free drinker, and that he 
 has, frequently, in the midst of an important job, gone 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDT. 
 
 227 
 
 off on a spree, and the work. has stopped in consequence. 
 Business men don’t like to intrust to him important jobs 
 on that account. Now, don’t you see, if I could induce 
 that clever carpenter to leave off his drinking, he would 
 thereafter mind his own business. You see I agree with 
 you exactly, madam.’ Just here she turned upon her 
 heel and rushed out of the room, not even stopping to. 
 bid me good afternoon. I felt aggrieved at it. I nat- 
 urally like the ladies, and love to be in agreement with 
 them always when I can. And when, as in this case, I 
 take great pains to prove that I am in accord with them, 
 I like to have the fact appreciated, and to be treated 
 with courtesy.” 
 
 In 1838, at a state convention held in Boston, Mass., 
 it was resolve'd that an effort should be made to secure, 
 from the legislature of the state, at its next session, a 
 law prohibiting the traffic, and Rev. John Pierpont was 
 commissioned to present a petition to that honorable 
 body, in which occurs this emphatic and eloquent para- 
 graph : — 
 
 “If I be willingly accessory to my brother’s death, 
 by a pis’tol or cord, the law holds me guilty ; but guilt- 
 less if I mix his death-drink in a cup. The halter is my 
 reward if I bring him his death in a bowl of hemlock ; 
 if in a glass of spirits, I am rewarded with his purse. 
 Yet who would hot rather die, who would not rather 
 see his child die, by hemlock than rum ? The law raises 
 me a gallows if I set fire to myneighbor’s house, though 
 not a soul perish in the flames. But I may throw a torch 
 into his household — I may lead his children through a 
 fire more consuming than Moloch’s — I may make his 
 whole family a burnt-offering upon the altar of Mammon, 
 and the same law holds its shield between me and harm. 
 
 “ It has installed, me in my office, and it comes in to 
 protect alike the priest, ‘the altar, and the God.’ For 
 the victims it has no sympathies. For them it provides 
 
228 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 neither ransom nor avenger. But there is' an Avenger. 
 While these sacrifices are smoking on their thousand 
 altars, through the length and breadth of our land, the 
 Ruler of the nations is bringing upon us the penalties of 
 his laws, in the consequences of breaking them. Even 
 now. He who renders to every land, as to every man, 
 according to its works, is showing us that He is as strict 
 to visit with suffering those who violate his organic and 
 moral laws, as he is ready to accumulate good upon those 
 who observe them. The fields of our great country, 
 which He has charged with the elements of plenty, — 
 which are, every year, waiting to be bountiful, — which 
 He waters, ‘ that they may bud and bring forth, and give 
 seed to the sower, and bread to the eater,’ are becoming 
 like the field of the slothful riian of old. They are ‘ over- 
 grown with thorns ; nettles are covering the face thereof; 
 and the stone walls thereof are broken down.’ The 
 hand and the mind of the cultivator are struck with the 
 palsy of intemperance. A great portion of the bread- 
 corn, which the . land, grateful for even niggardly cul- 
 ture, pours into the husbandman’s bosom, is snatched 
 from his children’s mouths for the craving maw of the 
 distillery ; and when that which God gave as the sup- 
 porter of life has been converted into its destroyer, the 
 vessels that waft the destruction to the nations on the 
 Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Seas, bring 
 back from those nations, and at their own price, the very 
 bread of which we have first robbed ourselves, in order 
 that we may ruin them'.” 
 
 The law vras enacted, and Judge Crosby,- agent of 
 the Massachusetts Temperance Union, sent out a circular, 
 which embodied an urgent appeal to the friends of tem- 
 perance everywhere to sustain the majesty of law, and 
 work for the general good of the cause. After suggest- 
 ing some- methods, he concludes by saying, Remember 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 229 
 
 that deliverance from the evils of the rum traffic and use 
 is too great a hiessing to he obtained without great labor. 
 Would you have angels’ joy? Do angels’ work: visit 
 the sick — feed the hungry — clothe the naked — hind 
 up the broken heart — and wipe away the tear of the 
 drunkard’s wife ; and will not the laborer have his hire ? ” 
 In 1'846 occurred what was called the “ Nott contro- 
 versy.” Dr. Nott, President of U nion College , entered 
 the field as' a temperance lecturer, and by the power of 
 his commanding eloquence and distinguished scholarship^ 
 he drew large and appreciative audiences, and exerted a 
 wide influence.^ But, notwithstanding his finished pro- 
 ductions, many took exception to the whole thing, be- 
 cause of an inclination which was manifest to favor the 
 use of wines^ as largely exempt from alcoholic influence. 
 Total abstinence had come to be a thing of meaning 
 among the people, and it was feared that such authority 
 would be so perverted as to produce bad practical re- 
 sults. Eminent men took issue against him, and the 
 contest was warm ; but it was finally settled by the bold 
 statement of the venerable president, which left-no doubt 
 as to where he stood: “I hold to the utter abandon- 
 ment of the use, as a beverage, of distilled or fermented 
 liquors of every sort, especially of wines, whether good 
 or bad, having much or little alcohol in them ; ” and this 
 is the language with which he addressed the venders : — 
 
 “ Brethren, inn-keepers, grocers ; whose business it 
 has been to sell to drinkers the drunkard’s drink, has it 
 never occurred to your minds that the liquors dispensed 
 were destined, though unseen by you, to blanch some * 
 glow of health, to wither some blossom of hope, to dis- 
 turb some asylum of peace, to pollute some sanctuary 
 of innocence, or plant gratuitous, perhaps enduring mis- 
 ery in some bosom of joy ? Have you never in imagina- 
 tion followed the wretched inebriate, whose glass you 
 
230 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 have poured out, or whose jug or bottle you have filled, 
 — have you never, in imagination, followed him to his 
 unblessed and comfortless abode ? Have you never 
 mentally witnessed the faded cheek and tearful eye of 
 his broken-hearted wife — never -witnessed the wistful 
 look and stified cry of his terror-stricken children, wait- 
 ing at nightfall his dreaded return, and marked the 
 thrill of horror which the approaching sound of his foot- 
 steps sent across their bosoms ? Have you never, in 
 thought, marked his rude entrance, his ferocious look, 
 his savage yell, and that demoniacal frenzy under the 
 influence of which — father, husband, as he was — he 
 drove both wife and children forth, exposed to the win- 
 try blast and the peltings of the pitiless storm, or, deny- 
 ing them even this refuge, how he has smitten them 
 both to the earth beneath his murderous arm ? • 
 
 “ And ye, men of fortune, manufacturers, importers, 
 w'holesale dealers, will you not, for the sake of the 
 young and the old, the rich, the poor, the happy, the 
 miserable, — in one word, for the sake of our common 
 humanity, in all the states and forms in which it is pre- 
 sented, — will you not shut up your distilleries, counter- 
 mand your orders, and announce the Heaven-approved 
 resolution never hereafter to do aught to swell the issue 
 of these waters of woe and death with which this young 
 republic is already flooded ? Have you never thought, 
 as you rolled out and delivered to the purchaser his 
 cask, how many m(jthers must mourn, how many wives 
 must suffer, how many children must supplicate, how 
 many men of virtue must be corrupted, men of honor 
 debased, and of intelligence demented, by partaking of 
 that fatal poison ? These are evils which God registers 
 in his book of remembrance, and which the day of judg- 
 ment will bring to light ; for at home and abroad, in the 
 city and the country, in the solitude and by the wayside. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 231 
 
 it is not blessings, but curses, that the venders of intoxi- 
 cating liquors dispense to their customers.” 
 
 The reformation received a new impetus in 1849 by 
 the arrival of Father Mathew from Ireland. He had 
 been a zealous laborer among his own countrymen, in- 
 ducing thousands to sign the pledge, and encouraging 
 them in every way to hold on in the good way. His 
 fame had spread to these shores, and much was hoped 
 for, especially among those of his own nationality, by 
 his peculiar force and tact. They flocked about him, 
 and listened to him as they would not listen to any other 
 on the blessings of temperance, and the importance of 
 taking a decided stand for it. On one occasion, an old 
 man kept drawing nearer to his side, until within reach 
 of his hand, when Father Mathew placed it upon his 
 head in blessing. The astonished subject looked up and ' 
 stammered forth, — 
 
 “And here ye are a blessing a hot-headed Orange- 
 man ! ” alluding to a political distinction of his own 
 country. 
 
 “ I don’t care if jmu are a Ze?72bn-man,” said the fervid 
 apostle, “if you will sign the pledge and keep it.” 
 
 He went through the country, awakening an interest 
 in the grand work wherever he journeyed. At all points 
 the people did him honor as the champion of a good 
 cause. At Washington he was invited to a seat within 
 the bar of the House, and several handsome tributes 
 were paid to his worth by some of the first men in the 
 country. General Cass said, — 
 
 “This is but a complimentary notice to a distinguished 
 man just arrived among us, and well does he merit it. 
 He is a stranger to us personally, but he has won a 
 world-wide renown. He comes among us upon ,a mis- 
 sion of benevolence, not unlike Howard, whose name 
 and deeds rank high in the annals of philanthropj^, and 
 
232 
 
 ZNTEjVIPERANCE, 
 
 who sought to cany hope and comfort into the darkest 
 cells, and to alleviate the moral and physical condition 
 of their unhappy tenants. He comes to break the bonds 
 of the captive, and to set the prisoner free ; to redeem 
 the lost ; to confirm the wavering ; and to aid in saving 
 air from the dangers and temptations of int emperance. 
 It is a noble mission, and nobly is he fulfiUing it.” 
 
 Societies sprang into existence that were made to bear 
 his name, and multitudes ascribed their salvation, from a 
 temporal foe at least, to his efforts. 
 
 L. ]\I. Sargent was a young man of collegiate educa- 
 tion, who prepared himself for the legal profession, but, 
 inheriting sufficient pecuniary resources to enable him to 
 rise independent of that, and having decided literary 
 taste, he took the pen in defence of the popular cause, 
 and by his books and tracts he disseminated widely the 
 spirit of resistance against the nation’s enemy. 
 
 “Father Taylor” was another warrior in the ranks. 
 Dr. Jewett says of him, — 
 
 “ I have a very distinct recollection of his speech at 
 a temperance soiree, got up by the ladies of Charles- 
 town, ■ Mass. All matters connected with it had been 
 happily arranged, and “ Father Taylor ” was in one of 
 his best moods. After presenting to the assembled 
 throng some startling views of the terrible system on 
 which the ladies were then waging a pretty vigorous 
 war, he closed by one of those bursts of eloquence which 
 it would seem impossible to forget. Scores, perhaps 
 hundreds, now living in sight of the granite shaft, will 
 remember the occasion, and, if they shall peruse these 
 pages, will bear witness to the accuracy of the report I 
 am about to make of his words, after the lapse of almost 
 thirty- years : — 
 
 “‘And here it is yet, the accursed system, to plague 
 ,and torture us, although we have exposed its villanies 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 233 
 
 until it would seem that Satan himself ought to be 
 ashamed to have any connection with it., I am not sure 
 but he is, but some of his servants have more brass and 
 less shame than their master. Yes, here it is yet ; and 
 over there, too, in the great city, — the Athens of 
 America, where the church spires, as they point ifp- 
 Avard, are almost as thick as the masts of the shipping 
 along the wharves, — all the machinery of the drunkard- 
 making, soul-destroying business is in perfect running 
 order, from the 'low grog holes on the dock — kept open 
 to ruin my poor sailor boys — to the great black estab- 
 lishments in Still House Square, which are ipouring out 
 the elements of death, even on God’s holy day, and send- 
 ing up a smoke as from the pit forever and ever ! • And 
 your wives and daughters, even as they walk to their 
 churches on Sunda}^, brush. the very skirts of their silk 
 dresses against the mouths of open grog shops that gape 
 by the way. And your poorhouses are full, and your 
 courts and prisons are filled with the victims of this in- 
 fernal rum traffic ; and your homes are full of sorroAV, 
 and the hearts of your wives and mothers ; and yet the 
 system is tolerated. Yes, and when we ask some men 
 what is to be done about it, they tell you you can’t stop 
 it! No, you can’t stop it! And yet’ (darting across the 
 platform, and pointing in the direction of the monu- 
 ment, he exclaimed, in a voice that pierced one’s ears 
 like the blare of a trumpet), ‘ there’s Bunker Hill, and 
 you say 5mu can’t stop it ! And up yonder are Lexington 
 and Concord, Avhere your fathers fought for the right, 
 and bled and died. And you look on .those monuments 
 and boast of the heroism of your fathers, and then tell 
 us we must submit to be taxed and tortured by. this rum 
 business, and we can’t stop it ! No! And yet’ (draw- 
 ing himself up to his full height, and expanding his nat- 
 urally broad chest as though the Avords he would utter 
 
234 
 
 INTEMPBEANCE, 
 
 had blocked up the usual avenues of speech, and were 
 about to force their way out by an explosion, he ex- 
 claimed, in a sort of whispered scream), ‘ your fathers 
 — your patriotic fathers — could make a cup of tea for 
 his Britannic majesty out of a . whole cargo, and you 
 can’t cork up a gin-jug! Hal’ ” 
 
 Such was “ Father Taylor,” the sailor preacher. “His 
 name and fame had reached distant states and cities, and 
 distinguished scholars and statesmen wo.uld, when in 
 Boston on the Sabbath, find their way to the Mariners’ 
 chapel, to listen to the man of the sea, who got his di- 
 ploma before the mast, whose theology was about as 
 variable as the wind and the weather, and yet whose 
 earnestness and native eloquence had power to capti- 
 vate and hold in rapt attention, often for a full hour, the 
 most gifted and highly cultivated in the land, while 
 bringing tears to the eyes of bronzed and hard men, as 
 he cheered the desjDonding, startled the thoughtless and 
 indifferent, and awakened in the breasts of many of the 
 charmed circle before him aspirations for a higher and 
 better life.” 
 
 In what was called the Washingtonian movement 
 there came a new and novel feature to the work. 
 Drunkards from the lowest depths of degradation lifted 
 themselves up, and went on to the stage with their 
 thrilling narratives of how they fell and rose again, and 
 it created a sensation almost without a parallel. Under 
 the influence of that movement, thousands signed the 
 pledge, and were saved to themselves, their families, 
 and their country. All along down through the path- 
 way of the years, there have not been wanting faithful 
 workers in this part of the vineyard. They are a noble 
 host, and their names would make a long list. They 
 live in the memories and hearts of men, and whatever 
 they have done for the good of their race will meet its 
 appropriate reward. 
 
THE WASHINGTONIANS 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 235 
 
 There is one more name, without which our galaxy 
 would not he complete — John B. Gough. He still 
 lives, and the world knows him, and what he has done. 
 The power of his resistless eloquence to touch the 
 heart and sway the multitude is seen and felt by all 
 who have heard him. Words cannot describe it, but, 
 as a specimen of his early efforts, we give the following 
 paragraph in closing : — 
 
 “ What fills the almshouses and jails ? What brings 
 yon trembling wretch upon the gallows ? It is drink. 
 And we might call upon those in the tomb to break 
 forth. Ye mouldering victims ! wipe the grave dust 
 crumbling from your brow ; stalk forth, in your tattered 
 shrouds and bony whiteness, to testify against the drink ! 
 Come, come forth from the gallows, you spirit-maddened 
 man-slayer ! give up your bloody knife, and stalk forth 
 to testify against it ! Crawl from the slimy ooze, ye 
 drowned drunkards, and with suffocation’s blue and 
 livid lips speak out against the drink ! Unroll the rec- 
 ord of the past, and let -the recording angel read out 
 the murder indictments written in God’s book of re- 
 membrance ! Ay, let the past be unfolded, and the 
 shrieks of victims wailing be borne down upon the night 
 blast ! Snap your burning chains, ye denizens of the 
 pit, and come up sheeted in the fire, dripping with the' 
 flames of hell, and with your trumpet tongues testify* 
 against the damnation of the drink ! ” 
 
 Of those who began this work, some are living to-day, 
 and I should like to stand now and see the mighty en- 
 terprise as it rises before them. They worked hard ; 
 they lifted the first turf, prepared the way in which to 
 lay the corner-stone ; they laid it amid persecution and 
 storms. They worked under the surface, and men al- 
 most forgot that there were busy hands laying the solid 
 foundation far down beneath. By and by they got the 
 
236 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 foundation above tbe surface, and then commenced an- 
 other storm of persecution. Now we see the superstruc- 
 ture, pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after 
 column, with the capitals emblazoned, “ Love, truth, 
 sympathy, and good-will to aU men.” Old meii gaze 
 upon it as it grows up before them. They will not live 
 to see it completed, but they see in faith the crowning 
 cope-stone set upon it. Meek-eyed women weep as it 
 grows in beauty ; children strew the pathway of work- 
 men with flowers. W e do not see its beauty yet ; we 
 do not see the magnificence of the superstructure ' yet, 
 because it is in process of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, 
 ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar the 
 beauty of the building ; bat by and by, when the hosts 
 who have labored shall come up oTer a thousand battle- 
 fields, waving Avith bright grain, never again to be 
 crushed in the distillery ; through vineyards under trel- 
 lised vines, with grapes hanging with all their purple 
 glory, never again to be pr&ssed into that which can 
 debase and degrade mankind ; when they shall come 
 through orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, 
 pulpy fruit, never to be turned into that which can in- 
 jure and debase ; when they shall come up to the last 
 distillery, and destroy it ; to the last stream of liquid 
 death, and dry it up ; to the last weeping wife, and 
 wipe her tears gently away ; to the last little child, and 
 lift him up to stand where God wills that mankind 
 should stand ; to the last drunkard, and nerA’e him to 
 burst the -burning fetters, and make a glorious accom- 
 paniment to the song of freedom by the clanking of his 
 broken chain — then, ah, then ! will the cope-stone be 
 set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and 
 the building will start in its wondrous_ beauty before an 
 astonished Avorld. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 237 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Tempeeancb Societies. 
 
 UNITED ACTION, EIEST NATIONAL TEMPEHANCE CONVENTION. — VIEW 
 
 OE DR. HITCHCOCK., MEETING AT FANEDIL HALL. — REV. JOHN 
 
 MARSH. world’s TEMPERANCE CONVENTION AT LONDON. TEM- ' 
 
 PERANCE AND LIFE INSURANCE. — SONS OF TEMPERANCE. — GOOD 
 TEMPLARS. — THEIR ORIGIN. — FATHER BRISTOL. — • TEMPLARS OF 
 HONOR AND TEMPERANCE. — EXTRACT FROM TEMPLARS’ MANUAL. — 
 RECHABITES. — GOOD SAMARITANS. — IS TEMPERANCE A FAILURE ? 
 
 “ Union is strength.” A general cannot fight his 
 battles without an army of disciplined soldiers. They 
 must be organized, equipped, and labor with some con- 
 certed plan of action, or failure will be written upon 
 every attempt. So these able and efficient workers in 
 the temperance movement thought, and they went to 
 work to marshal their forces and decide upon some def- 
 inite plan of action, some systematic method of pro- 
 cedure. A high purpose urged them onward. Their 
 eyes were fixed upon a grand consummation — upon the 
 time when victory should perch on their banners, and 
 the world should be free from the dominion of intem- 
 perance. It nerved them to mighty efforts. Such re- 
 sults were worthy of united and persistent action, and by 
 such only could they be obtained. It was no sectional 
 consideration. The whole land was suffering, and the 
 plan must embrace the uttermost border. Most of those 
 who were deeply interested were men engaged in 
 preaching the everlasting gospel, and their hearts were 
 absorbed in the work ; but how could the Heaven- 
 
238 
 
 INTEMPEEAl^CE, 
 
 appointed truths with which they had to do, have any 
 power over the hearts and consciences of men while 
 they were hardened and seared under the stupefying 
 potions of an ever-active poison ? A way must be paved 
 whereon truth must do its legitimate work, or their 
 labors were fruitless. Thus they reasoned, and .upon 
 this they acted. From the commencement of the agita- 
 tion there had been a steady progression of the ideas and 
 principles, of reform. The opinions and efforts of these 
 men had been like leaven, silently working its way into 
 society, and showing its influence everywhere. The ra- 
 pidity of action may be seen in the fact, that in six years 
 from the first inauguration of effort, it was estimated 
 there were, in different parts of our country, over four 
 thousand temperance societies, with over half a million 
 of members ; fifteen hundred distilleries had ceased their 
 operations, and four thousand merchants had ceased to 
 continue their unholy traffic in the unwholesome bever- 
 age. It was also supposed that a million and a half of 
 persons had abstained from the use of ardent spirits, and 
 that twenty thousand families were in ease and comfort 
 who otherwise would have been cursed with poverty and 
 wretchedness. This greatly cheered and encouraged 
 those who were interested in the matter, and agencies 
 were multiplied, new conditions of working added ; so 
 that the 3"ear following that which made the above cal- 
 culations, the statistics had nearly doubled, and the in- 
 terest had extended not onl}^ through the land, but also 
 to our ships on the ocean ; and those who v/ere wont to 
 set sail with this in their cargo, now knew it no more. 
 
 It would swell the present volume far bet’ond our in- 
 tention, to follow out, minutely, the different societies, 
 with their varied forms, that have been springing up, 
 here and there, all along down the pathway’ of years. 
 Their name is Legion. While we give our attention to 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 239 
 
 a few of the more prominent, and seek to trace out the 
 advance of the public mind in these, we yet commend the 
 many for their works of mercy and labors of love, all of 
 which shall be counted in the summing up of those things 
 which are to redeem, as we hope, our fair heritage 
 from the curse that has so long been upon it. The first 
 National Temperance Convention was held at Philadel- 
 phia, on the 24th of May, 1833, in the Hall of Indepen- 
 dence. There were present at that meeting four hundred 
 delegates, from twenty-one states. It was pronounced 
 the largest assembly that ever convened together for 
 any moral purpose, in this or any other country. The 
 presiding officers were strong men. Their “ object was, 
 by the diffusion of information, and the exertion of a 
 kind moral influence, to extend the principles and bless- 
 ings of temperance throughout the world.” To us, who 
 occupy the present high plane of temperance reform, it 
 seems strange to observe the action on this occasion ; but 
 it is to be remembered that the stalwart conditions of 
 manhood are not to be looked for in infancy. It was a 
 promising little thing, but it was not- grown up. They 
 had a long and animating discussion upon “ a resolution 
 which expressed the sentiment that the traffic in ardent 
 spirits, to be used as a beverage, is mo7-dlly wrong, and 
 ought to be universally abandoned.” It was finally 
 passed; and says a writer of the time, “Had the conven- 
 tion done nothing else but, after examination, expressed 
 their opinion on this point, they had done a deed which 
 would have marked them as benefactors to their country.” 
 
 Such they were, and as such are, they regarded to this 
 day. Their ideas became the basis of reform ; but grad- 
 ually the lines were drawn closer, and the conditions 
 maile more rigid, until in 1836, when the American 
 Temperance Union was formed on the principle of total 
 abstinence,, and was -destined to become the leading 
 
240 
 
 ■ ixte:mpeea2^ce, 
 
 organization, of the land. The pledge of the Union -u-as 
 as follows : “ We, the undersigned, do agree that we will 
 not use intoxicating hquors as a beverage, nor trafi&c in 
 them ; that we will not provide them as an article of en- 
 tertainment, or for persons in our employment, and that 
 in all suitable ways we will discountenance their use 
 throughout the community.” The sweeping nature of 
 this created much opposition. Some doubted the propri- 
 ety .of having anything to do with the exclusion of fer- 
 mented drinks ; some believed that wme and beer were 
 essential to a certain class ; especially was the latter useful 
 to our foreign population ; and others dreaded the agita- 
 tion and conflict in various ways. About this time. Dr. 
 Hitchcock, of Amherst College, came out with a declara- 
 tion that was of no uncertain sound. “ I have watched,” 
 he says-, “ the reformation of some dozens of inebriates, 
 and have been compelled to witness the relapse of many 
 who had run well for a time ; and I say, without any fear 
 of contradiction, that the greatest obstacle to the refor- 
 mation of drunkards is the habitual use of wine, beer, 
 cider, and corditds by the respectable members of the com- 
 munity ; as in very many, I believe in most, cases, in- 
 temperate habits are formed, the love of alcohoUc drinks 
 induced, by the habitual use of these lighter beverages. 
 I rejoice to say, that a very great majority of the several 
 hundreds of clergymen of my acquaintance are decided 
 friends of the temperance cause, and, both by preaching 
 and practice, inculcate total abstinence from all that can 
 intoxicate, as a beverage.” 
 
 In this way, and under such patronage, did the idea 
 gain strength, and obtain practical lodgment in the 
 minds of the people ; and from theq^arent societies there 
 went forth innumerable local branches that contributed 
 to the vigor and development of the whole. In 1840, 
 the famous Washingtonian Society .came into existence, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 241 
 
 having for its prime movers a few from the lowest ranks 
 of intemperance. These banded together, and bound 
 themselves to the work of reform. They told their de- 
 termination to others, and it went, like an electric cur- 
 rent, into the very heart of society. Everywhere 
 drunkards began to think of the possibility of doing 
 likewise. Immense meetings were called and addressed 
 by these reclaimed ones. We have before spoken of 
 John Hawkins, and of his wonderful restoration. A 
 large meeting was held at Faneuil Hall, Boston — so 
 large that the ancient building was not capable of their 
 accommodation ; and there he made a speech which con- 
 tained these words : “ When I compare the past with 
 the present, my days of intemperance with my present 
 peace and sobriety, my past degradation with my present 
 position in this hall — the Cradle of Liberty — I am over- 
 whelmed. It seems to be holy ground. I never ex- 
 pected to see this hall. I had heard of it in boyhood. 
 It was here that Otis and the elder Adams argued the 
 principles of independence ; and we how meet here to 
 declare ourselves free and independent ; to make a second 
 declaration, not quite so lengthy as the old one, but it 
 promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our 
 forefathers pledged their lives, and fortunes, and sacred 
 honors. We, too, will pledge our honor, and our life, 
 but our fortunes have gone for rum. Poor though we 
 drunkards are, and miserable, even in the gutter, we will 
 pledge our lives to maintain sobriety.” Numbers flocked 
 to sign the pledge, and a City Society was at once 
 formed, which, at the latter part of the year, had sent out 
 two hundred and seventeen delegates, to one hundred 
 and sixty towns, in five different states, on errands of 
 love. Baltimore was the centre from whence these in- 
 fluences radiated. The Rev. John Marsh, who was for 
 thirty years corresponding secretary of the Americam 
 15 
 
242 
 
 rNTBMPBEANCB, 
 
 Temperance tJnion, thus writes with reference, to this 
 period : “ I was induced to go to Baltimore to attend the 
 first anniversary of the Washington Temperance Society, 
 and there saw one thousand men stand in a line as re- 
 formed men, and moved in procession with thousands more 
 about the city. It was a most interesting spectacle, as 
 their wives and children stood on the sidewalks, many of 
 them weeping for joy as they beheld , their husbands and 
 fathers marching onward in sobriety and moral dignity! 
 In proof of the genuineness of the work, it was ascertained 
 that the whiskey inspections for the city were reduced, in 
 six months, forty thousand five hundred and eighty-two 
 gallons, — a decrease of twenty-five per cent., — and that 
 great peace and quietness everywhere prevailed. These 
 extraordinary movements at Baltimore and elsewhere, 
 among our drunken population, filled all hearts- with joy 
 at our sixth anniversary, and at the third National Con- 
 vention at Saratoga Springs. In the annual report which 
 I presented in May, I condensed, as far as possible, the 
 wonderful events which had transpired, and which Avill 
 be contemplated, when these generations have passed 
 awajq as almost incredible ; but never to be surrendered 
 as wild enthusiasm and profitless hallucination. Never, 
 probably, was there a large body of men, «f high intel- 
 gence and business character, so melted into gratitude, 
 joy, and love, as were the attendants on that National 
 Convention at Saratoga Springs, in the month of August, 
 at the relation of their experience by several of the 
 reformed, and the relation of numerous most affecting 
 incidents by others. As cliairman of the business com- 
 mittee, I found no difficulty in framing suitable resolu- 
 tions for the occasion ; and where there was such a 
 prevalence of love and gratitude, the presiding officer 
 had no occasion for force to control the meeting. It was 
 a sort of millennium to thousands who had hoped and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 243 
 
 prayed tliat sin and sorrow from intoxicating drinks 
 might be done away. “ Never before,” said a. venera- 
 ble member, “ did five hundred and sixty men assemble, 
 and -continue days as a deliberative body, without one 
 unkind look or action.” It is thought that, under these 
 reformatory influences, one hundred and fifty thousand 
 decidedly intemperate men took the pledge, and aban- 
 doned then’ cups. 
 
 Dr. Beard, one of our noted countrymen, — a scholar 
 and a philanthropist, — was travelling about this time in 
 foreign countries. He had previously caught the spirit 
 of the new crusade, and he carried it with him, and was 
 instrumental in kindling the flame of feeling against in- 
 temperance wherever he went. This, in conjunction with 
 American interest, culminated in the idea of a World’s 
 Temperance Cdlivention, where, from all quarters of the 
 globe, the advocates of the cause might gather together, 
 and by united wisdom and consultation speed on the 
 work so gloriously begun. It was decided that London 
 should be the theatre of action in the important matter. 
 A voyage to Europe was not so common a thing as now, 
 and only thirty-one among all our states were found 
 ready to go; but these were a 'host in themselves — 
 strong, vigorous, and ready for the work. The single 
 state of New York furnished eight pf these, and Massa- 
 chusetts the same number. “ In England there were 
 high-raised expectations from this gathering of the friends 
 of reform.” “ As a mere matter of curiosity,” said the 
 Teetotal Times, a temperance organ of tha't place, “ there 
 will be much to interest. Who does not wish to see the 
 founders of great systems, the originators of wise plans, 
 the first apostles of important truths? We pray that 
 the spirit of wisdom and charity may shed its • choicest 
 influences on the assembly, and 'that its deliberations 
 may prove instrumental, through the divine blessing, in 
 accomplishing a vast amount of good.” 
 
244 
 
 IXTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 “ The convention sat five days, listening to able papers 
 which were prepared for the occasion ; to discussions of 
 important resolutions ; to reports of different countries, 
 and to projects of reform, and greater extension of the 
 temperance cause. Says the indefatigable secretary al- 
 ready quoted, “ While in England, I spent not a little 
 time and strength in kindling up a civil war. I saw 
 there the beer-and-brandy-god wringing out the life- 
 blood from thousands and tens of thousands of her sons. 
 And yet it was England’s greatest benefactor ! Every- 
 where the god was praised, as bringing vast revenues to 
 the crown ; as the life of the army and of the nav}’- ; as the 
 source and spring of all mental energy and social happi- 
 ness. The licensed victuallers of London alone paid the 
 government eleven millions annually. So I proposed, in 
 my speech at Exeter Hall, that, as Loixlon was full of 
 statues to distinguished benefactors, a statue should be 
 erected in Hyde Park to England’s greatest friend, the 
 beer-and-brandy-god, higher than any statue ever con- 
 ceived ; and, to carry it out as it should be, I would have, 
 on one side, carved by the most eminent sculptors, groups 
 of miserable drunkards, raving in delirium tremens, tear- 
 ing the hair of their wives, beating their children ; and 
 on another side I would have paupers, lunatics, and 
 criminals, in chains and on the gallows through strong 
 drink ; on another, parents pressing into the horrid 
 temple, and leading their children up to their god, to 
 drink early of his cup. But not ridicule, it was found, 
 could move England in her self-complacency. There 
 must be war — exterminating war. ‘Down with the 
 tyrant ! ’ I cried ; so we found it in America ; and as I 
 said this, I was received with shouts and applause. The 
 public press responded, and said, ‘ These Americans have 
 put some new thoughts into our minds. We confess we 
 are converts to their views ; and we are greatly mis- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 245 
 
 taken in the signs of the times, if the late interviews 
 which the teetotalers have had with the Americans 
 have not produced similar results in the minds of others. 
 Hence a crusade against the traffic has already com- 
 menced.’ ” 
 
 Thus were things made to act and react in the great 
 work. Men clasped hands from across the sea, and 
 pledged themselves to labor for the redemption of a 
 sin-cursed people. In 1850 there arose an agitation of 
 the subject in connection with life insurance companies. 
 The attention of the American mind was enlisted by the 
 statement of an English fact, to the effect that “ the 
 number of deaths in the Temperance Insurance Company 
 were less than half of that insured in all other companies 
 of the kingdom ; while they suffered no losses from in- 
 temperance.” It therefore took upon itself this form : 
 “ Should a temperance man join in a company with a 
 hard-drinking man, or even a moderate drinker, much 
 more an intemperate man, his money might for years be 
 going to' the families of such, while his family, through 
 his long continuance in life from temperance, would have 
 no benefit.” The more the subject was contemplated, 
 the more were all impressed with the importance of a 
 company on the abstinence principle. The very existence 
 of such an institution, it was thought, would be a pow- 
 erful auxiliary to the cause of temperance in general, 
 besides operating as a restraint upon the individuals im- 
 mediately concerned. Strong men indorsed the scheme, 
 and, after much deliberMion, it was decided to make the 
 attempt. A constitution was adopted, and a capital of 
 one hundred thousand dollars fixed upon, in one thou- 
 sand shares of one hundred dollars each, on which ten 
 dollars were to be paid at the beginning. Officers were 
 chosen, and all things bade fair for a successful opening ; 
 but, alas ! public sentiment was not sufficiently advanced 
 
246 
 
 INTEilPEEANGE, 
 
 to afford the requisite basis. One who was interested in 
 it says, “ Other cities wished for the location ; moneyed 
 men in New York were already stockholders in institu- 
 tions which might be injured by this ; a spirit of rivalry 
 and jealousy sprang up temperance men might be good 
 moral reformers, but no managers of moneyed institu- 
 tions.; and so, from a failure to get the stock taken, it 
 died out, when, it is even now believed, it might have 
 become one of our greatest insurance companies, and 
 have been of incalculable importance to the cause of 
 temperance.” 
 
 The subject is again revived, and efforts are being 
 made at the present time to secure the achievement of 
 this important result. In addition to the various tem- 
 perance societies that have sprung up in almost every 
 town and state in the Union, there are various orders of 
 equally wide dominion, having for their ostensible object 
 the suppression of the evils of intemperance in every 
 prevaihng form. Some of- these are secret organizations, 
 and, consequently, the working of the internal machinery 
 is concealed from public view. The tree is known .by 
 its fruits, is an inspired statement ; and every one has 
 this principle before Irim to determine his judgment upon 
 their action. 
 
 The “ Sons of Temperance ” was one of the first in- 
 stitutions of the kind, and was organized in 1842, and 
 noAv numbers thirty-seven grand and about two thou- 
 sand subordinate divisions, located in the different states 
 and territories, and extending over the borders into" other 
 dominions. This order has secret pass-words for admit- 
 tance to theii’ meetings, and the members are required 
 to make weekly payments, which constitute a fund to- 
 wards the relief of their suffering brethren, or whatever 
 the general interest of the association may demand. At 
 their twenty-eighth annual session, which was held in 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 247 
 
 Chicago last year, the committee on the state of the order 
 thus spoke : “In relation to political action, its neces- 
 sity and duty should be' impressed . on every member 
 of our order. We are bound to vote temperance as 
 strongly as we are bound to practise it. Burt of the 
 mode of doing it, every member must be left free to decide 
 for himself. It must be wholly left to each man’s judg- 
 ment and conscience. The state of our Order, and its 
 success in the future, depend not so much on what is 
 done within us, as upon what is done outside divisions. 
 We shall be, and ought to be, judged by our work. Many 
 things are to be done ; the inebriate is to be reclaimed, 
 the pledge is to be circulated, the press is to be sustained, 
 the lecture ■field to be supplied, the' young are to be 
 trained to temperance in the cadet section and the Sun- 
 day, school, the ballot is to be invoked, prohibitory legis- 
 lation is to be secured and sustained, not only in our 
 states and provinces, but by national action, where that 
 is requisite ; to do all this, that agency must be used 
 that does its work the best. The future of our order is, 
 therefore, in our own hands, and dependent upon our- 
 selves.” There are “Sons,” and “Daughters,” and 
 “ Cadets ” of Temperance ; the latter being a youthful 
 band, who, after the requisite training, are to be received 
 to the fostering care of the parent society. Their under- 
 lying principle is total abstinence. 
 
 Another strong organization is the “ Good Templars,” 
 which originated in 1851, and now numbers forty-five 
 grand and about six thousand subordinate lodges. It 
 has become a mighty power. in the United States, reach- 
 ing in some way almost every town, village, and county 
 in the land. The total membership of the last report 
 was nearly four hundred thousand. This, too, is a secret 
 agency. An effort has been made to trace it to its origin, 
 but without any satisfactory result. A history of the 
 
248 
 
 INTEilPKRANCE, 
 
 order has been issued by J. Newton Pierce, of Pennsyl- 
 vania, a prominent official of the ranks, and whatever 
 we give we state upon his authority. “No record,” he 
 says, “ is now to be found in the printed literature of 
 our country that gives any account of its origin.” It has 
 seemed as if tradition and memory were to be the only 
 sources from which we could possibly derive any infor- 
 mation relative to the inception of the Order and the 
 first meeting held. “The following paragraph,” he saj’s, 
 “ lately going the rounds of the temperance papers, adds 
 but little certain knowledge upon the subject ; nor is it 
 correct in point of fact, as it is number twenty-two (I) 
 on the record and on its charter ; ” but it shows “ the 
 early struggles to popularize a temperance order that has 
 since spread itself so rapidly and widely over our fair 
 land, that its name is in ever}^ hamlet, its light in nearly 
 every borough, and a Grand Lodge in almost every state. 
 
 “ Probably the oldest Good Templars’ Lodge in the 
 world is the Senaca Chief, in New York. One after 
 another, it saw its sisters sink in despair and die ; but 
 the old veteran Chief had no thought of dying, and to- 
 day, erect and vigorous, it gives a kindly smile and 
 encouraging word to the great army that has sprung up 
 around it. Its history is one of extensive notice. The 
 members, each for himself and herseK, made a solemn 
 resolve, and wrote it on the innermost tablet of the 
 heart, that, while life should last, the lodge-room should 
 be lighted every week, the fire burning, and the door 
 open to the inebriate. Week after week, a few devoted 
 members met in that room. There was but little busi- 
 ness to be done, save to put their hands into their pock- 
 ets, and pay the rent ; but little encouragement in the 
 future. But never wearying, never despairing, that 
 little band kept vigilant guard over the precious princi- 
 ples and secrets that to-day are implanted in the breasts 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 249 
 
 of over half a million Good Templars.” This last esti- 
 mate, it will be seen, is. a little higher than the official 
 report ; but there is no question but that the numerical 
 strength of the order is rapidly increasing. Mr. Pierce 
 thus relates his interview with Dr. R. C. Dunham, of 
 Seneca Falls, one of those earliest interested in the pro- 
 ject. He was seeking to trace out things to their source, 
 and called upon him far information. “We found this 
 veteran in the temperance cause at home. He accom- 
 panied us to the hall of their lodge, and there, upon one 
 of its walls, we saw the original charter of ‘ Seneca Chief 
 Lodge, No. 22, I. O. of G. T,’ granted by Garry Cham- 
 bers, G. W. C. T., January 6, 1853. And there he 
 recounted how, night after night, they met in that room, 
 during those trying years from 1855 to 1864, when the 
 lodges aU around them, and all over the state, were 
 going down. When their Grand Lodge ceased to exist, 
 for several years they made up their own pass-word ; for 
 they knew not to whom to send to obtain it. And yet, 
 during all that' time, they never had a thought of giving 
 up. That time-worn a,nd yet beautiful silh banner, the 
 early pride of their lodge, was never allowed to trail in 
 the dust, or to become a by-word and a mockery. That 
 beautiful figure upon it, extending charity to fallen man, 
 is yet bright 'and vivid, and, as ever, emblematic of the 
 motto above it, of ‘ Faiith, Hope, and Charity.’ The 
 name of Nathaniel Curtis, a reformed Washingtonian, is 
 associated with the early history of the society. ‘ To 
 have conceived this order, as it now exists,’ says their 
 faithful historian, ‘ would have 'required a mind of no 
 ordinary calibre. It might not be necessary to have the 
 most scientific training, or the highest literary culture ; 
 it might not be essential to have the most refined poeti- 
 cal taste, or mathematical acumen ; but it must be a 
 mind pre-eminently practical, capable of grasping the 
 
250 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 realities of life, and moulding them in siich form as to 
 niake them practical for good. Our Order was not like 
 a ship which starts not on her voyage until every part is 
 fully perfected, and all needed supplies fully stored 
 away. It was first started by a spirit of injured pride 
 and dissatisfaction, by a young mind that had no com- 
 prehension of the magnitude of the work, nor of the 
 moral machinery necessary for its success. Not until it 
 passed from his hands, and was conducted by an older 
 and wiser head, did it grow. Then was it found neces- 
 sary to modify, amend, aud add to its proportions, to 
 make it effective and self-sustaining.’ 
 
 “ The ‘ Ritual ’ was afterwards put into the hands of 
 Rev. Dr. Bristol, and, fhrough his influence and work- 
 ing, the Order assumed a permanency and character 
 before unknown. His faith was- strong in the founda- 
 tion of Good Templar principles, and that they must 
 succeed in the overthrow of the rum power, and the 
 establishment of prohibition. He deplored the disposi- 
 tion of some dissatisfied spirits, who will ever waste 
 time in picking at the ritual and private work, instead 
 of working for temperance with the best means at hand. 
 ‘ It were much better,’ says he, ‘ to put up with the few 
 errors we have, than to rush into others we know not of, 
 and work diligently and earnestly for the cause with the 
 means placed in* our hands. Man is not perfect, and 
 never can make so perfect a ritual but that some fine- 
 grained literary casuist may pick at what he may thiuk 
 be can prove to be an error or defect here or there.’ 
 He further says that the ritual and the degrees ‘ were 
 ■ designed to furnish temperance work, temperance litera- 
 ture, and temperance instruction, for the evening, for 
 all lodges, uniformly, everywhere. It was to be the 
 work of the evening, and thus would become the bind- 
 ing chain that would unite them in one grand army.’ 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 251 
 
 “ ‘ Templars of Honor and Temperance ’ is an organi- 
 zation that was established in 1845, and now embraces 
 twenty Grand Temples, with subordinates in nearly 
 every state in the Union. It was intended as a higher 
 temperance and fraternal organization, with advance- 
 ment by degrees, as the members should be proved 
 worthy. From their own ‘ Manual ’ we transcribe words 
 which shall introduce the reader to their inner sanctum, 
 and disclose the pillars on which their structure rests. 
 The badge of a Templar ‘ is not only a symbol of inno- 
 cence and purity, but of obedience to a vow. Long years 
 ago, when truth and error were in close conflict,. and the 
 light of Christian principle was dawning upon the dark 
 mountains of Europe, a small but chosen band of Knights 
 Templars won the admiration of Christendom by their 
 valiant deeds of noble daring. They were bound to- 
 gether as brothers by vows of obedience, puritj'', and 
 charity, and consecrated to the defence of the Holy 
 Temple and the devout pilgrims who pursued their way 
 thither, or knelt at its sacred shrine. Above them, in 
 the bloody conflict, had waved the banner of the cross ; 
 and when the contest was won, and it floated in triumph 
 from the walls and towers of Jerusalem, they ceased not 
 their duties, but became the protectors of the oppressed 
 and the scourge of the oppressor. They were few in 
 number, but dauntless in heart ; for they knew that 
 “Truth is mighty, and must prevail.” We are Tem- 
 plars of Honor and Temperance. Our vow is one of 
 abstinence and fraternity, our enemy is alcoliol, our war 
 one of extermination. To be successful, we must be ■ 
 united. Each one must add his strength to that of his 
 brethren. We must not despise that which the feeblest 
 can do. Each snow-flake .is a constituent part of that 
 mantle with which winter enshrouds the regions of the 
 poles ; each rain-drop quickens the mighty pulse of be- 
 
252 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 ing. You must each labor for the other and the cause 
 in honor and in truth ; you must labor for humanity. 
 Crime stalks without, linked with poverty and bloated 
 with disease. Time, health, and money are squandered ; 
 bread is turned to poison, homes are laid waste, an^’ 
 every sacred thing is dishonored. 
 
 “ ‘ Fidelity to your vow will make you a true and 
 loving, pure and faithful, knight-errant to the human 
 race. Your Templar’s vow is registered in heaven. 
 None but brave men dare take such vows. The open 
 enemy and stealthy foe await you. You have a shield 
 and spear, and a God above. Stand forth, therefore, 
 the champion of eternal principles, and you shall be- 
 come pillars in our beautiful temple. You have ap- 
 proved our creed, and been admitted to our temple. 
 You know how dark is the world, and how miserable 
 the condition of those who tarry long at the wine, and 
 mingle strong drink. You have seen the darkness dis- 
 appear at the approach of light. Read our emblems. 
 The five-pointed star symbols to us the first temperance 
 movement. Its light struggled with the dark clpuds of 
 ignorance. Its raja's are dim, for it symbols a feeble 
 effort. It may have been brilliant to those who first 
 beheld it ; but its light penetrated not the deep caverns 
 where the demon held his revels, and forged chains for 
 his first victims. It served only to show the degrada- 
 tion to which the drunkard had fallen, and discover the 
 infamy he had drawn around himself and those who 
 should have looked to him for counsel, example, and 
 support. It showed the road to the drunkard’s doom ; 
 but it illumined no path that would lead him back to 
 the quiet bowers of domestic bhss, and the fair fields of 
 social confidence. The star of brighter rays,, with its 
 six points, reminds us of the Washingtonians. Their 
 efforts were noble, and deserve the admiration and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 253 
 
 homage of every heart. Raised by the hand of God 
 from the lowest deep of drunkenness, they proved 
 that their manhood was not gone ; that even the drunk- 
 ard was a man, an immortal man ; that he had the same 
 aspirations, the same feelings, the same hopes and fears, 
 as other men, down deep in his heart ; that in his soul 
 were the same longings for happiness and purity ; that 
 with him, in all his degradation, his better nature at 
 times, would assert his birthright, tell him of his immor- 
 tality, and plead with angel eloquence for his redemp- 
 tion. He was saved. This was a new era in this god- 
 like reform ; it was a stand-point, brilliant with the light 
 of hope, upon which the Christian philanthropist could 
 place himself, and, by faith, view the redemption of 
 every inebriate from the thraldom of intemperance. 
 The star enclosed in the typical triangle is the emblem 
 of the Sons of Temperance, that noble band of brothers, 
 who rallied to continue what the Washingtonians had 
 begun. An organized band, it sought to win the ine- 
 briate from his cups to a higher life. Its divisions mul- 
 tiplied all over the land ; its tri-colored triangle was 
 borne aloft in every state. Its plan was simple ; its aim 
 was noble. Its’ heart desired to accomplish all ; but its 
 arm was too feeble for the task. Th'fe temple, brilliant 
 with the light of its nine-pointed, star, is a symbol of our 
 noble order. It brought the experience of the past and 
 the wisdom of the present to perfect its organization. 
 It is the result of consolidated mind, warmed by the fire 
 of glowing hearts. By its ritual, embodying eternal 
 truths ; its ceremonies, as beautiful and chaste as ma- 
 tured imaginations can conceive ; its signs, and grips, and 
 secret tokens, — it lays hold of the strongest elements of 
 success and perpetuity, and gathers around its altar 
 hearts that never quail, and hands that never falter in 
 its ■ hfe-long crusade against intemperance and wrong. 
 
254 
 
 INTEIilPEKAi^CE, ■ 
 
 Gaze upon that altar. It has deep significance to hirh 
 who can read the lessons it imparts. It rests on the 
 rock of Temperance, out of which gush crystal streams. 
 Its sides are emblazoned with the emblems of truth, 
 love, purity, and fidelity. On its top jmu see the Holy 
 Bible, the blest book of God. From its pages come our 
 principles and our duties. From Slount Sinai to the 
 Mount of Beatitudes, it is resplendent with the truths 
 our Order inculcates ; and from Ohvet to the holy city 
 measured by John, gleams the light -of hope to us. 
 Here, too, is the triangle, enclosing the triple triangle, 
 the emblem of our Order. Love, purity, and fidelity 
 gleam upon its outer bars. The bars of the inner tri- 
 angle are bright with our duties to God, to our brothers, 
 and ourselves. Obedience to Him who hath created us 
 with powers to enjoy the bliss of living, and with minds 
 that can contemplate the magnificent grandeur of the 
 universe, and apprehend the melody of its sublime and 
 harmonious movements ; love to Him whose daily- care 
 preserves us from death, and crowns us with immortality ; 
 worship to Him whose holiness is perfect, whose wisdom 
 is infinite, whose power is omnipotent, whose love is 
 boundless, whose purity is spotless, and whose fidelity 
 is unchanging ; justice to our fellows, for it is their 
 right; forgiveness, for we do err; fraternity, for they 
 are our brethren ; sustenance to ourselves, for Xature 
 demands fit ; protection, for our. weakness requues it ; 
 education, for our immortahty desires it. Above these 
 stands a lamp. Its ever-burning light is an emblem 
 of the warmth of that divine love which illumines 
 our path with the liglit of truth. The group with 
 clasped hands, open brows, and honest hearts rep- 
 resent fraternity, honor, and sincerity. Oiu’ union is 
 complete. Each one is bound to all, and all are pledged 
 to each one. Our brotherhood is perpetual. Oirr tern- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 255 
 
 pies rise upon its solid basis in beautiful proportions. 
 Each upright pillar supports its dome. May it remain 
 firm as the pillars of the globe, and beautiful as the arch 
 of heaven ! ’ ^ 
 
 “ Order strikes at the root of the great upas tree. It 
 contends that the only remedy for the evils of intemper- 
 ance is prohibition of the manufacture of and traffic in 
 alcoholic beverages, sustained and upheld by correct 
 public sentiment. To accomplish this consummation so 
 devoutly to be wished for, may require your life-long 
 assistance. We ask for none to enter here who do not 
 heartily agree to co-operate with us — not for a season 
 only, but for life ! Death is the only release from the 
 vow jmu here must take. It is no idle purpose in which 
 you must engage. No empty titles or honors will be 
 conferred upon you. Devotion to temperance, morality, 
 and truth must win the meed of praise. Suffering hu- 
 manity demands your constant labor. Self must no 
 longer control the will, and be the leading purpose of 
 life. Time, talent, and money must be sacrificed for the 
 good of your fellow-men. In a world of perishing mor- 
 tals you must stand forth as undaunted and firm as those 
 heroes who have fought and conquered for the right ; you 
 must endure, unmoved and unwearied, the trial of affiic- 
 tion and persecution, and trust in God for ultimate 
 success.” 
 
 The “ Independent Order of Rechabites ” w^’e intro- 
 duced into this country from England in 1842, and spread 
 rapidly through the United States, numbering at one 
 time over one hundred thousand ; but they afterwards 
 declined, and became nearly extinct. A few years since 
 they re-organized, and they are again- in active opera- 
 tion, and have quite a large membership. “ Good Sa- 
 maritans ” are still another order. They were organized 
 in the city of New York, in 1847. It is a benefit society, 
 
256 
 
 USTTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 and they have their working forces distributed in nearly 
 every state of the Union. It is their object to reach the 
 lower stratum of the drinking population of the cities, 
 to go out into the narrow lanes and by-ways, and take 
 up the wounded and fallen Avhen others have passed^ 
 them by. The true Samaritan spirit is shown forth in 
 this enterprise, and much good has been accomplished. 
 
 From these centres there are yet other radiating points 
 that unite in the one grand concentration of clearing the 
 world from the vile impurities of intemperance. Chil- 
 dren have their “ Cold Water Armies,” and their “Bands 
 of Hope,” and it would seem that the world’s regenera- 
 tion in this matter ought to be close at hand, With all 
 these apphances brought to bear upon the people, their 
 conversion to the principles and practice of temperance 
 should be sure and decided ; and still the streams of 
 alcohol are permitted to flow, and men fill then- glasses 
 and drink until they are no longer manly, and keep 
 falling when they ought to rise and assert the dignity of 
 their God-given nature.’ Are all these noble, philan- 
 thropic efforts, then, to be called a failure ? Have all 
 these good men preached and labored in vain — this 
 host of worthies wrought to no purpose ? At the fif- 
 teenth anniversary gf the American Temperance Socie- 
 ty, in 1851, Dr. Cleveland, speaking of progress, said, — 
 
 “ When two trains meet, travelling at the rate of 
 twenty-five miles an hour, we seem to be going fifty 
 when we are going but twenty-five. The croakers say 
 we are now going backwards. The question is, whether 
 the croakers are right, who say we have done nothing, 
 or the temperance workers, who think we have done 
 much for which to be thankful. I think we have mowed 
 a pretty handsome swath. I am willing to admit, there 
 is as much rum drunk now as there was twenty-five years 
 ago ; yet it must be remembered, that twenty-five years 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 257 
 
 ago 'there were but twelve millions of people in the 
 land, whereas now there are twenty-five. If we have 
 reformed no one, we may have kept our twelve millions 
 from, falling into the sin and ruin of drunkenness.” Says 
 another, “ To speak positively, a mighty work has been 
 accomplished, and few are the men who will not ac- 
 knowledge it. If we had only gained the liberty of 
 drinking or not drinking, as we pleased ; of having or 
 not having the drink on our tables, as we pleased ; of 
 giving workmen drink or not giving, as we pleased, — we 
 should have accomplished a great work. But we have 
 gained a vast and. most important knowledge of the 
 subject of Intemperance ; the nature, cause, and cure of 
 drunkenness ; the nature of the alcoholic poisons, and 
 subject of adulteration. We have firmly established the 
 great principles of temperance ; we have driven liquor 
 from our farms, our manufactories, our firesides, our 
 sideboards, our shipping, our navy ; from our Christian 
 and ministerial families, our pulpits and Christian 
 churches, and all missionary stations, and from among 
 those who would evangelize the world. Here, under 
 God, are the triumphs of temperance.” 
 
 It would be cheering to record far grander results, but 
 if all that has been done is only in the line of prepara- 
 tion, who does not see that victory is more certain in 
 the coming battle, because of the vast forces in training, 
 and the burnishing of these mighty weapons ? The ma- 
 chinery of the universe is silent and unseen at many points 
 of its working, and sometimes tlrere are apparent dis-har- 
 mony and confusion, that fill the mind of short-sighted 
 mortals with dismay and alarm, lest the world get out of 
 tune altogether, and there be no more good in it ; but 
 time always straightens out the seeming crookedness, 
 and men and nature smile again. So it will doubtless be 
 with this moral aspect. It may be dark for a time, but 
 it shall have a glorious triumph in the end. 
 
 16 . 
 
258 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Adulteeation of Liquoes. 
 
 FASHION AND PURITY. — THE COLORADO SALOON KEEPER. — FOURCROT, 
 THE FRENCH CHEMIST. — PROFESSOR LEE’S STATEMENT, — ASSER- 
 TION OF DR. STORY. — STRYCHNINE. — STRAMONIUM. — THE DEAD 
 FISHERMEN. — THE IRISH TOPERS. — COCCULUS. — CONFISCATION AT 
 BOSTON. — ANALYTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF DR. COX. — PURCHASE OF 
 NEW YORK PHYSICIANS, — “ GUIDE** RECEIPTS. — THE DRUGGIST’S 
 BRANDY. — RUai. — GIN, — BEER. 
 
 When Fashion popularized the drinking of spirituous 
 liquors, in the times of our forefathers, it was compara- 
 tively a pure beverage — pure of its kind. Drunken- 
 ness may not have had that peculiarly aggravating char- 
 acter that it bears at the present day. It is true that 
 alcohol, in its best condition, is nothing less than a’ poison 
 to the human system ; and we have seen how deleterioirs 
 are its influences through its physiological action upon 
 mind and body ; but there are poisons more rapid and 
 destructive than even this, and the avariciousness of 
 men has freel}'^ mingled them in the cup which they have 
 given their brother man to taste. As if it were not 
 enough that it would bring misery and death of itself, 
 they have gone to work to intensify it, so as to make the 
 effect more disastrous and the result more sure. In what 
 other department of trade would corresponding iniquity 
 be tolerated? It may be there are scales upon the eyes 
 of the world, and they see not, neither do they know, the 
 tricks and frauds that are practised in secret places, that 
 shams may take the place of realities. Villany hkes 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 269 
 
 concealment, and so it works in by-places, down, back, 
 and away, where honesty and integrity would not think 
 of going; and there, with barred doors and guarded 
 entrances, with hushed voices and stealthy tread, they 
 carry on their nefarious doings. In some way or other 
 sin will always be found out, and so it has come to be 
 known what these deliberate schemes for man-poisoning 
 are, and how and by whom they are accomplished. A 
 man may be driven in his desperation to -counterfeit 
 money, that he may be relieved of his distress and per- 
 plexity, and close confinement and hard labor in prison 
 are considered none too good for him. Public opinion 
 frowns, and law executes its stern threats ; but he may 
 follow a more infamous trade, and counterfeit that which 
 has to do with the most precious of all human interests, 
 and still he goes On, while men wonder and the law is 
 dumb. In the first case, the man may have been under 
 the power of stern necessity, that goaded him on to the 
 performance of an action that his be^-ter nature revolted 
 against but in the latter, it is more often a calculating 
 policy that would make the piles of wealth accumulate 
 higher and faster. It is an effort to obtain money without 
 returning an. equivalent ; to grow rich without having 
 it cost little or nothing. They know that men will have 
 a drink that has some stimulating quality ; that it is this 
 element which the drinking man demands, and brings 
 the effect he seeks, and therefore anything whatever 
 that will tend to produce the requisite condition is used. 
 If the temporary excitement is gained, no matter how it 
 is done, or what the after consequences, he glories iii the 
 success of his mixture. 
 
 A Colorado saloon keeper said of a rough crowd, “ I 
 couldn’t get their whiskey strong enough to suit them ; 
 so, after trying every way, I at last made a mixture of 
 oak poison and butternut. I called it the .‘ sheep-herder’s 
 
260 
 
 IN^EIMPEEANCE, 
 
 delight,’ and it became a popular drink. The first Pike 
 to whom 1 gave it became frantic with delight ; the next 
 took two drinks, and turned a double somerset in front 
 of the house ; and the third was a peddler, who, after con- 
 siderable indulgence, stole his own pack and hid it in 
 the woods.” In the low phraseology of a certain class, 
 anything to get the “ drunk.” 
 
 It is the intoxicating constituent in strong drinks that 
 is specially objectionable on the ground of temperance, 
 and this is extracted from substances through evapora- 
 tion and condensation ; it is a product of fermentation. 
 The great French chemist, Fourcroy, says, “ The forma- 
 tion of alcohol takes place at the expense of the destruc- 
 tion of a vegetable principle ; thus spirituous fermentation' 
 is a commencement of the destruction of principles 
 formed by vegetation. The acid, or acetous fermenta- 
 tion is the second natural movement which contributes 
 to reduce vegetable compounds to more simple states of 
 composition. Wine, in firming sour, absorbs air ; so 
 that a certain portion of the oxygen of the atmosphere 
 appears to be necessary to the formation of the acetous 
 acid. Finally, after vegetable liquors, or their solid parts 
 moistened, have passed to the acid state., their decompo- 
 sition continuing, under favorable circumstances (viz., 
 &, warm temperature, exposure to the air, and the con- 
 tact of water), leads them into putrefaction, which ter- 
 minates in volatilizing most of the principles under the 
 form of gas. Water, carbonic acid, carbonated, and even 
 sulphurated hydrogen gas, volatile oil in vapor, and some- 
 times even azotic gas and ammonia, are evolved ; and 
 after this there remains nothing but a brown or black 
 residuum', known by the name of mould. Though all the 
 circumstances of putrefaction are not' yet described, or 
 even known, we have discovered that the}’- are confined 
 to the conversion of complex substances into substances 
 
ITS ASPECT Aim ITS REMEDY. 
 
 261 
 
 less ^compound ; that Nature restores to new combina- 
 tions the materials which she had but lent, as it were, 
 to vegetables and animals ; and that she thus accom- 
 plishes the perpetual circle of compositions and decom- 
 positions, which attests her power and demonstrates her 
 fecundity, while it announces equal grandeur and sim- 
 plicity in the course of her operations.” 
 
 Thus, b}'^ a process through which man has made the 
 fruits and grains of the earth to pass, has that been, dis- 
 tilled which has deepened the curse upon man more than 
 any one thing in the world. “ Nature never forms spir- 
 ituous liquors ; she rots the grape upon the branch, but 
 it is art which converts the juice into (alcoholic) wine.” 
 Chemical combinations, in her hands, are safe and' health- 
 ful. Man alone perverts, and wrests from the natural 
 conditions the distillation of death. The proportion is 
 seen in the declared fact that “ there is more food in 
 one bushel of barley than there is in twelve thousand 
 gallons of the best beer.” ^ 
 
 But, notwithstanding all that can be said of these 
 things, — that there is no nutrition, nothing whatever 
 that is desirable, in these liquid combinations, — men 
 will go on imbibing them extravagantly; and as they 
 will indulge, men will minister to their indulgence ; and 
 if the most natural materials are not sufficient, they will 
 manufacture others, and it is all right if the people are 
 deceived and satisfied. A thoughtful person will very 
 readily see there are not fruits and grains enough to 
 meet the vast demand for spirits in our country, if they 
 were all poured into the distilling granaries for that pur- 
 pose. It is computed there are not less than three hun- 
 dred firms engaged in the debasing traffic of poison- 
 mixing, which they palm off for the choicest brands of 
 the genuine article. From four of these manufactories, 
 nearly two million gallons are sent out annually on their 
 
262 ENTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 death-dealing mission, having this only r^ommendation 
 — it enriches promptlj^, and kills swiftly. 
 
 . Professor Lee, of New York, says, — 
 
 “ A cheap Madeira is made here by extracting the oils, 
 from common whiskey, and by passing it through car- 
 bon. There are immense establishments in this city 
 where the whiskey is thus turned into wine-. In some 
 of those devoted to this branch of business, the whiskey 
 is rolled in in the evening, but the wine goes out in the 
 broad daylight, ready to defy the closest inspection. A 
 grocer, after he had abandoned the nefarious trafSc, as- 
 sured me that he had often purchased whiskey one day 
 of a country merchant, and before he had left town the 
 same whiskey was sent back to him turned into wine, at 
 a profit of from four hundred to five hundred per 
 cent.” 
 
 It becomes a matter of interest, to those who are thus 
 imposed upon, to know the extent of the imposition, and 
 its peculiar characteristics — to know something of the 
 ingredients of that' with which they grace their tables, 
 and treat their friends. What, then, are the materials 
 so widely used in the adulteration of liquors ? With 
 Dr. Story as authority, we say, — 
 
 “ There is one set of ingredients used to adulterate 
 the alcohol itself, another set used to give it the color, 
 and others to give age and bead, and all to deceive. If 
 you wanted,” he continues, “to convert one gallon of 
 new corn whiskey into four gallons of old peach brandy, 
 you would use one set of ingredients ; into old Jamaica 
 rum, another set ; into best Holland gin, another set ; 
 and if you wanted to convert it into ten gallons of old 
 Port wine, you would use still another set of ingredients, 
 though. the one used in the place of alcohol might be the 
 same in all cases. The coloring and flavoring would be 
 different, though the intoxicating ingredient would be 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY, 
 
 263 
 
 the same. Among the things used, strychnine is one of 
 the most prominent. It is said that one drug store in 
 London sold more of this article to one liquor manufac- 
 ^turing establishment last year than was required by all 
 the medical men in their profession. It is so very strong 
 that it takes but little, added to a bushel of corn, to 
 make an extra gallon of whiskey, and therefore it is ex- 
 tensively used. Three cents’ worth of this commodity, 
 with a gallon of water, adds to the distiller’s fortune 
 with great rapidity. In 1857, the legislature of Ohio 
 passed a law forbidding the use of this and other poisons, 
 under a penalty of imprisonment in the penitentiary, at 
 hard labor, not more than five or less than one year ; 
 but men are shrewd in their attempts to evade the law, 
 and the work went on secretly, as it had done before. 
 The love of gain is stronger than all other considera- 
 tions, and therefore the conclusion of men is, We will 
 try it a little longer and see.” 
 
 Stramonium is another popular po’-^on. It is extracted 
 from a poisonous weed, sometimes '■called jimson-weed, 
 and is very common in country places, and, on account 
 of its cheapness, is extensively used by those who manu- 
 facture and retail what they call spirits. Such a one 
 buys whiskey, one fourth of which is already composed 
 of strychnine, and proceeds to form a new composition 
 by adding this latter ingredient ; but, as this is likely to 
 create unpleasant sensations in the stomach, he adds a 
 little opium to counteract the effect, and a little potash 
 to modify the taste and smell, all of which can he done 
 at the cost of a few cents. It is said, “ Two fishermen, 
 in a little town on the Ohio River, bought a pint of 
 whiskey, and went up the river to fish. That afternoon 
 they were both found, on the hank of the river, dead. 
 The bottle was empty. When the retailer heard they 
 were dead, he immediately emptied that keg of whiskey 
 
264 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 into the ditch. As the proof was destroyed, of course 
 he was not found guilty. In all probability he, through 
 mistake, put more stramonium into the strychnine whis- 
 key than he intended, or perhaps forgot to add the 
 requisite amount of water. The fishermen are dead, 
 and who is to blame ? ” After having passed through 
 these two processes, a third retailer takes it, and by the 
 addition of another powerful poison — belladonna — he 
 increases the quantity of liquid that is to enrich him by 
 a large percentage, and injure his customers correspond- 
 ingly. 
 
 Every one knows of the deadly nightshade, and how 
 it grows in great profusion in shady places, around the 
 corners of fences, and by the side of walls, with berries 
 of purplish hue and s^yeetish taste, and children are 
 warned against touching it in. any way, as leaf, stem, 
 berries, root, and all are full of poison. It is this same 
 thing that enters into the retailer’s compound. “About 
 two cents’ worth will make a gallon of liquor, which 
 sells in the market, at wholesale, for a dollar and a 
 half.” One gallon of whiskey, by the time it has passed 
 through this third stage, becomes four times as much, 
 yielding a retail profit of six or seven dollars to the gal- 
 lon, which of course is a brilliant temptation. 
 
 Dr. Cox, a distinguished chemist in Ohio, was directed 
 by the legislature of that state to analyze and examine 
 the liquors of their market. For two years and more, 
 he gave his attention to the matter ; but ojiposing influ- 
 ences were made to bear so strongly that his report was 
 never made public. But many facts have come to light 
 through his personal statements. As the result of liis 
 inspections, he declares that “ over ninety per cent.” of 
 all that he examined — and his examinations were quite 
 extensive — “ were adulterated with the most pernicious 
 and poisonous ingredients. I called -at a grocery store 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 265 
 
 one day,” he says, “ where liquor was being sold. A 
 couple of Irishmen came in while I was there, and called 
 for some whiskey. The first one drank, and the moment 
 he drank the tears flowed freely, while he, at the same 
 time, caught . his breath, like one suffocating or stran- 
 gling. When he could speak, he said to his companion, 
 
 ‘ Och, Michael, by the powers, but this is warming to 
 the stomach, sure ! ^ Michael drank, and went through 
 like contortions, with the remark, ‘ Troth, an’ wouldn’t 
 it be foil! on a cowld frosty mornin’, Timothy ? ’ After 
 they’ had drank, I asked the proprietor to pour me out a 
 little in a tumbler. I went to my office, got my instru- 
 ments, and examined it. I found it seventeen per cent, 
 alcoholic spirits, when it should have been fifty ; and 
 the difference in percentage was made up by sulphuric 
 acid, red pepper, pellitory, caustic potash, brucine, and 
 one of the salts of nux vomica. One pint of such liquor, 
 at one time, would kill the strongest man. I had the 
 manufacturer indicted ; bufe by such villany he had be- 
 come wealthy, and I never have, owing to some defect in 
 the law, been able to bring that case to a final issue.” 
 
 Cocculus is another thing that is used, more especially 
 in beer, as a substitute for malt or hops. It is an East 
 Indian plant, and in its native country the people use it 
 as a stupefying potion, throwing it into the water when 
 they would catch fish, so as to make them their easy 
 prey. When given to dogs, it has been known to pro- 
 duce convulsions and deatli, in the quantity of five or 
 ten grains. It is used extensively in Europe and Amer- 
 ica, although at the former place it is forbidden by law, 
 under heavy penalties. A kind of tobacco, knoAvn as 
 “ dog-leg,” is also used in large quantities. This is very ~ 
 cheap, and consequently it is used very freely. Its ten- 
 dency is to produce nausea, and hence this condition is 
 neutralized by adding a little opium or stramonium. 
 
266 
 
 rNTEMPKRANCK, 
 
 During the war, one of our regiments took possession 
 of a whiskey saloon. Several of the soldiers became 
 drunk over one cask ; and when it was drained, one of 
 their number smashed the head of it, and found about 
 fifteen or twenty pounds of this kind of tobacco, well 
 soaked, that looked as if it might have been there a 
 twelvemonth or more. These two last ingredients are 
 more extensively used in the adulteration of colored 
 liquors. In other cases, it is subject to chemical decom- 
 position, so as to extract the coloring matter, the same 
 as strychnine. 
 
 There recently appeared in the Boston Journal the 
 following account of the quality of the liquors seized 
 and confiscated, as offered for sale in violation of law : — 
 
 “ Since June, 1872, whenever the strong arm of the 
 law has descended uj^on the stocks of dealers in liquors 
 in this commonwealth, the caj^tured material has been 
 first carried to the nearest storehouse of the state police, 
 where it has remained for several weeks, until it is either 
 returned to the owners or confiscated by order of the 
 courts. If confiscated, it is then delivered to the state 
 commissioner, who has all the liquors from a great many 
 seizures assembled together for examination and analj’- 
 sis, in Boston, preparatory to disposing of them. These 
 collections of trash are quite remarkable, representing, 
 as they do, the alcoholic beverages of all kinds, taken 
 just as they are sold in every part of the state. Pack- 
 ages of almost every conceivable kind may be seen 
 among them, as the seizures include hogsheads, barrels, 
 kegs, demijohns, jugs, bottles, decanters, tin cans, tubs, 
 measures and pails of wood and metal, kitchen utensils, 
 pitchers, crockery vessels, &c., in great numbers. And 
 the marks on these packages are also various and ingen- 
 ious. Whiskey is sometimes labelled as “ Extract of 
 Lemon,” “Vanilla Syrup,” or “Tincture of Energy,” 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 267 
 
 and it may t)e designated by a single letter or number. 
 Occasionally, some proprietor comes out boldly, and 
 marks a favorite drink with such refreshing naanes as 
 “ Green Mountain Tonic,” or “ Sandy’s very best.” 
 
 The liquors themselves are generally very bad. They 
 are most commonly extended with “French spirit,” wa- 
 ter, sweetening and coloring matters ; but a very consider- 
 able proportion of them is made from spirits flavored with 
 dangerous “ oils ” and extracts, in imitation of brandy 
 and other liquors. Many curious cases might be cited 
 in confirmation of this ; but the occasional seizures, by 
 the ofiicers, of the pure “ oils” in two-quart jugs, with 
 written and printed directions for making them into 
 brandy, Avhiskey, gin, and so forth, or of the mixtures in 
 process of manufacture, are certainly an unmistakable in- 
 dication of the increasing activity in this miserable 
 business of making liquors for immediate use. The fol- 
 lowing extracts from a circular recently taken, with some 
 of the “ oils,” from a small dealer in one of the neigh- 
 boring towns, are copied by way of^ illustration. This 
 circular is headed “Hints to Liquor Dealers;” and, 
 among other items, we find that “ full' instructions ac- 
 company each package;” so you can make the liquors 
 in a few minutes. 
 
 French brandy oil, sufficient to make forty gal- 
 lons brandy, $5 00 
 
 Otard brandy oil, very fine^ sufficient to make 
 
 twenty gallons brandy, 5 00 
 
 Bourbon whiskey oil, sufficient to make forty gal- 
 lons Bourbon whiskey, 5 00 
 
 Holland gin oil, sufficient to make forty gallons 
 
 Holland gin, 5 00 
 
 Goods sent, securely packed, free from obse'rvation. 
 
 A sample case, containing three oils of above list, 
 a copy of “ Secrets Liquor Trade and Bar Tend- 
 er’s Guide,” sent for . . 12 00 
 
268 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 Another good illustration is found in a small card 
 of directions, printed in French. This is entirely a 
 different thing from the circular quoted above, and it is 
 headed “ Extract Fine Liqueur de Paris, manufactur<?e 
 
 par la Soci^td Philanthropique Francaise, W , Mass.” 
 
 Then follow directions for making an excellent family 
 beverage, that will not cost more than one dollar per 
 gallon, and which surpasses any other liquor, costing at 
 least four dollars a gallon, in purity and flavor. Some of 
 the confiscated liquors are not very skilfully compounded, 
 and the common spices of the kitchen, with raisins, fruits, 
 onions, and tobacco, are found in them. Occasionally, a 
 whole barrel of unmixed “French spirit” (alcohol and 
 water, without flavor), is seized from some retail dealer, 
 who never has occasion to sell anjdhing of this kind un- 
 flavored. Pure brandies and wines are very seldom 
 seized, and they are generally so much changed that the 
 original wholesale dealers would not recognize them. 
 
 It is asserted that the greatest profit arises from the 
 adulteration of wine, and that probably the greatest 
 amount of injury is done in this connection. “ Give me 
 six hours’ notice’ of what wines you like,” said a French 
 merchant, “ and you shall have it out of those two bar- 
 rels.” “ To brighten, color, clear, and make astringent 
 wines, alum, Brazil wood, gj'psum, oak sawdust, husks 
 of filbert, and lead are emplo3md ; and for the purpose of 
 communicating particular flavor to insipid wines, bitter 
 almond, cherry, laurel water. In the Isle of Shepp}^ 
 many persons are employed in picking up cojyperas stones 
 from the sea-beach, wdiich, being taken to a raanufactoiy, 
 copperas is extracted, and then shipped to Oporto, to be 
 sold to the wine-dresser and wine merchant, and b^'them 
 is mixed with the port wine to give it a peculiar astrin- 
 gent quality. One writer, who knew whereof he af- 
 firmed, said, “ We know very well that the Spaniard 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 269 
 
 would not touch the wine he manufactures for us, and 
 the Portuguese would spit out our port like so much 
 poison.” Dr. Cox, the chemist already ‘quoted, makes 
 this statement as more or less true of all the port wine 
 that came under his analytical observation during the 
 special period his attention was given to the subject: 
 “ As a basis, either water, cider, vinegar, or a mixture 
 of water and sulphuric acid, with the juice of elder- 
 berries, privet berries, beet-root juice, and logwood, with 
 alum, technically called sulphate of alumina, and potassa, 
 sugar to cover the pernicious mixture, and sometimes I 
 found one or two per cent, of Jamaica rum, or neutral 
 spirits, added.” 
 
 Of sherry, madeira, muscadel, &c., he says they are 
 all, or at least all that he has inspected, either -mixed, or 
 have, as a basis, water, cider, wort made of pale malt, of 
 a mixture of sulphuric acid and water to the acidity of 
 weak vinegar, with brown sugar, honey, orris-root, and 
 neutral spirits to give it alcoholic peroentage ; and this, 
 he adds, was the character of two samples of wine — port 
 and sherry — that he inspected, v^hich were sent from a 
 store, the proprietors of which are honorable and high- 
 minded gentlemen, who had paid a high price for their 
 liquors, got them out of a custom-house in an Eastern 
 city, with an assurance that they were genuine and im- 
 ported, and yet there was not one drop or symptona of 
 wine in either of them, the one haying its warming, 
 stimulating influence from sulphuric acid, and one per 
 cent. Jamaica rum ; and the sherry having six per cent, 
 alcoholic spiritg imparted to. it by neutral spirits, with 
 sulphuric acid, bitter almonds, brown sugar, and honey. 
 These mixtures are all flavored with various oils, mixed 
 to suit the flavors of the different wines. One of these is 
 a poison so intense in its nature, that one fourth of a 
 drop has been known to kill a rabbit, and one drop a dog. 
 
270 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 A New York physician bought a bottle of what was 
 called genuine champagne', of the importers, and on sub- 
 jecting it to chemical tests, it was found to contain a 
 quarter of an ounce of sugar of lead. On the arrival of 
 a cargo of wines in New York, it is at once purchased, 
 and perhaps poured •into vats, where these various sub- 
 stances are mingled with it, and it is again sent forth 
 not only doubled and quadrupled in quantity, but its 
 whole character completely changed. Europe and our 
 own country are alike engaged in the same baneful traf- 
 fic. The Edinburgh Medical Journal gives the following 
 incident : “ The family of a baronet in Roxburgshire, 
 together with several visitors, were taken seriously ill 
 during dinner, or soon after it.. The symptoms in all 
 were sickness, vomiting, and diarrhoea. In the course of 
 the night all were affected with a sense of heat in the 
 stomach, throat, and mouth ; and in the morning the lips 
 became in crusted, and the skin cracked and peeled off. 
 On analyzing some of the matter thrown off, the two 
 hundred and fiftieth part of a grain of arsenic was dis- 
 covered, and in the remains of a bottle of champagne 
 two ounces of wine gave one grain and a quarter of sul- 
 phate of arsenic.” It is evident that these things can- 
 not be imbibed with safety. They are poisons, and act 
 as such upon the human system. 
 
 Passing from wine to the stronger liquids, we find the 
 “ Vintner’s Guide ” affording the following receipt for 
 improving the flavors of brandy : “A quarter of an ounce 
 of English saffron, and half an ounce of mace, steeped in 
 a pint of brandy for ten days, shaking once or twice 
 a day ; then strain it through linen cloth, and add one 
 ounce of terra japonica, finely pounded, and three ounces 
 of spirits of nitre ; put it into ten gallons of brandy, add- 
 ing, at the same time, ten pounds of prunes, bruised.” 
 Then, to give it all the qualities of the old, that it may 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDX- 
 
 271 
 
 have the popular recommendation of age, “ add thirty- 
 drops of aqua ammcfnia to one gallon of new brandy, 
 shaking it well, that it may combine with the acid, on 
 which the taste and other qualities of the new liquor de- 
 pend.” With reference to brandy. Dr. Cox says, “I 
 have inspected brands, of various kinds and qualities, 
 fresh from the custom-house, with the inspector’s certfi- 
 cate, which accompanied them, and was assured that 
 they were freshly imported, and yet the chemical tests 
 gave me corn whiskey, with abundance of fusel oil, or 
 the oil of corn, as a basis, with sulphuric acid, nitric 
 ether, prussic acid, copper, chloroform, quinia, . pepper, 
 tannin or tannic acid, with sometimes a very small per- 
 centage of brandy, and frequently not a drop.” 
 
 A gentleman of veracity, in Cincinnati, too, a druggist, 
 that he might have a pture liquor as a medical article, and 
 that kind of purity that he could recommend to, his cus- 
 tomers, went to New York and purchased two half pipes 
 of splendid Leignette brandy — one pjile, the other dark. 
 When passing, one day, he called me in to see his beau- 
 tiful pure brandy, just from New York. I stopped, 
 looked at it, smelled it ; but, before tasting it, happening 
 to have some blue litmus paper in my pocket, I intro- 
 duced a small piece ; it caine out as red as scarlet. I 
 then called for a polished spatula, put it into a tumbler 
 containing, perhaps, half a gill, and waited on it, perhaps, 
 fifteen minutes,- at the expiration of which the liquor was 
 black as ink. The spatula corroded, and when dried, a 
 thick coating of rust, which, when wiped off, left a cop- 
 per coat almost as thick as if it had been plated. I 
 charged him on the spot, under the penalty of the law, 
 not to sell a drop of it ; took samples of it to my office, 
 and the following is the result of my analysis : First 
 sample — dark, 55 per cent, alcoholic spirits by volume, 
 and 41 per cent, by weight.; specific gravity, 0.945. The 
 
272 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 tests indicate sulphuric acid, nitric acid, nitric ether, prus- 
 sic acid, quinia, pepper, and an aburidance of fusel oil, 
 base common whiskey — not a drop of brandy. Second 
 sample — pale, 54 per cent, alcoholic spirits by volume, 
 40 per cent, by weight ; specific gravity, 0.955. 
 
 They were purchased on four months’ time. The 
 purchaser immediately notified the New York merchant 
 of the character and quality of the goods, and directed 
 him to send for them ; but instead of doing that, he 
 wmited until the notes became due, and brought the suit 
 into the Court of Common Pleas at Cincinnati. The 
 chemist analyzed the liquors in the presence of the 
 court and jury, showed them satisfactorily that they were 
 the pernicious, poisonous, and villanous liquors that he 
 had represented them to be, and the defendant gained 
 his case triumphantly, and the merchant vanished before 
 a state warrant could be got out, otherwise he would 
 have had ample time to learn an honest trade in one of 
 the institutions of Ohio. 
 
 It may be that rum is not quite so extensively adul- 
 terated as some of the other spirits. It is supposed to 
 be originally a simple distillation of the sugar-cane ; but 
 a very inferior article is often purchased, and by the ad- 
 dition of ale, “ porter, shrub, Extract of orris-root, cherry, 
 laurel-water, extract of grains of paradise or capsicum,” 
 it is made to put on the airs of fine old Jamaica, and 
 sold correspondingly. 
 
 Gin is more fearfully complicated. In this may be 
 found “ oil of vitriol, oil of cassia, oil of turpentine, oil of 
 caraway, oil of juniper, oil of almond, sulphuric ether, ex- 
 tract of capsicum, extract of grains of paradise, extract of 
 orris-root,- extract of angelica-root, water, sugar,” to say 
 nothing of the inti;oduction of lead, that often finds its way 
 in with the host of other things. The poisoning process 
 goes on through all the malt liquors, with perhaps a more 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 273 
 
 complicated list of wretched ingredients. No less than 
 twenty-eight or thirty different articles are specified that 
 go to make up beer, and some of them are the rankest 
 poisons, and mixed in a way that shows such an accumu- 
 lation of filth as would shock the man of lowest taste, 
 could he see it, much more the fastidious. 
 
 It is related that some dissipated men and women were 
 drinking ale and porter in a dram shop, in Hull, Eng- 
 land, not long ago. “The landlord had occasion to 
 leave the shop, when one of the women, seeing on the 
 counter a pitcher full of what she supposed to be porter, 
 drank a good draught, replacing .the pitcher. In a very 
 short time she was seized with nausea and griping pains, 
 and fell down on the floor in a state of hopeless stupor 
 and intoxication. In this state she was conveyed to the 
 hospital, when, the contents of the stomach being evacu- 
 ated, she was rescued from being poisoned, although it 
 was several days before she was able to be removed. 
 The matter ejected was found to be a strong solution of 
 cocculus indicus. The man acknowledged that the drug 
 had been used by him to bring up his ales to a strength 
 to suit his custonjers. This was a noted house for genuine 
 ales and litter leer." 
 
 It is not necessary to multiply these instances. Enough 
 has been said to show any one that it is scarcely pos- 
 sible to indulge in any of the alcoholid drinks of the 
 present day without taking mto his system the rankest 
 poisons the world can furnish. It is sufficient to make 
 the most inveterate drunkard, pause, and consider what 
 he is doing. It certainly should make the moderate 
 drinker stop, and ask himself the question, if he can de- 
 liberately consent to poison the fountain of his being in 
 this way. Surely, he who begins just to sip a little, or 
 take an occasional glass for the sake of a jolly time with 
 his friends, should ponder long and well if he can afford 
 to do it. 17 
 
2T4 
 
 INTEMPEEAl^CE, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 1. 
 
 License and Pkohibition. 
 
 GOOD AND EVIL AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER. — THE TWO LEADING PRIN- 
 CIPLES. — EOR WHAT DO WE GRANT LICENSE. — MINER BEFORE THE 
 MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. — A HUNDRED DIFFERENT LAWS. — 
 DECLARATION OF DR. HUMPHREY. — CONSTABLE’S REPORT. — STATE 
 BOARD OF CHARITIES. — WHAT ALBERT BARNES SAYS. — PROHIBITION 
 THE ONLY THING. — PROTECTIVE POWER. — ENGLAND’S POSITION. — 
 NEAL DOW FATHER OF PKOHIBITION. — TESTIMONY AS TO RESULTS. — 
 CALL TO ACTION. 
 
 The powers of good and evil in the world are always 
 antagonistic. Those who- are arrayed upon the one 
 side are always in opposition to those on the other. 
 They who would see the cause of right prosper, and man- 
 kind take their true position in the scale of being, are 
 always seeking by every condition of law and order to 
 bring it about. The less careful ones are more intent 
 upon procuring measures that shall sanction self-indul- 
 gence, and throw no restraint upon their liberty, which 
 they declare to he their special gift from Heaven to do 
 with as they “please. In this manner are arrayed the 
 friends and the enemies of temperance. The former are 
 bringing all their influence to bear upon the suppression 
 of that which all history and experience proves to he the 
 greatest evil that can possibly exist in anj- land. They 
 labor themselves, and multiply agencies of every descrip- 
 tion and character, to hasten a co^nsummation they so 
 devoutly wish would come. They look abroad upon the 
 wide-spread misery and woe, and every glance confirms 
 them in their determination to wage war upon that which 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 275 
 
 inflicts so much of sorrow upon the human race. They 
 plead — they petition the authorities of state and nation 
 to send forth their commanding tones, and put the final 
 touch to what they have begun. On the contrary, the 
 enemies of the cause are incessantly at work to defeat 
 the whole. The millennium has not yet come, and evil 
 is strong in the land, and there are times when appar- 
 ently it’ is in the ascendency, and wicked men exult that 
 their 'schemes override all others. The true man says. 
 Banish the infernal drink that is devastating society, and 
 drowning myriads as if with an overflowing flood ; shut 
 up the places that are as so many schools of vice, and 
 let those who sustain them he evermore forbidden by the 
 stern mandate. of law, and those who work at the foun- 
 tain be made to stay their unrighteous proceedings by a 
 similar omnipotent decree. The other class say. Away 
 with your sanctimonious folly, and let us have a little 
 cheer for this humdrum life ; let us eat, drink, and be 
 merry, and once in a while forget the^ cares and sorrows 
 of our pathway ; and so it is acting and counteracting 
 all the while, and the time and manner of its ending is 
 yet an unsolved problem. The two great leading prin- ‘ 
 ciples of action with the friends and foes of temperance 
 are license and prohibition. The cursoiy glance We give 
 these will not admit of minute and specific details of 
 their origin and working, but only some of the advan- 
 tages and objections urged, and their general character.. 
 There are thousands engaged in the miserable traffic,, 
 who nevertheless pronounce the business in itself an un-' 
 mitigated evil. It is profitable, and therefore they quiet 
 heir -consciences by saying, that as long as others are 
 permitted to do it freely, they might just as well. The 
 consequences will be no worse to individuals or society 
 for our selling, for it will be had, and it might just as 
 well be had of us as any one. These and those who. 
 
276 
 
 ESTTEMPERAKCE, 
 
 patronize them say, It is an evil, we know, but let it be 
 regulated and shielded by a license law. They like to 
 sit under the shadow of some such institution, for it 
 has a wonderfully cooling effect upon their overheated 
 and panting natures. They can sit down and deal out 
 the contents of the whiskey keg or the beer barrel with 
 the utmost complacency, for the state has given them 
 authority to do it, and not every one has been thought 
 worthy of the signal honor ; for this is one of the pleas 
 of the license men, that it makes it respectable — as if 
 anything could write respectability upon that which has 
 evident woe in it from the very beginning- to the end 
 thereof. At least, it so far comforts its votaries, that it 
 makes them feel they are doing a legitirnate and honor- 
 able work. There may be restraints and regulations to 
 keep them in check ; but what care they for these, while 
 the law upholds them in their main object. They are 
 the ones singled out from among the people, as being 
 peculiar!}^ fitted to engage in that occupation. So far 
 from considering it a mark of honor and respect to be 
 thus delegated, it is a wonder that such a one does not 
 stop short in his career, and shudder at his prospect. 
 Let him ask himself the question,' For what am I granted 
 license ? and then listen to the reply : — 
 
 “ We grant license the taxes twofold to increase, 
 
 To destroy or defame the whole neighborhood’s peace ; 
 
 To fan up the flame in the inebriate’s breast ; 
 
 To deprive him of reason, and rob him of rest; 
 
 To wound and degrade him on honor’s bright roll ; 
 
 To ruin and kill him, both bodj- and soul ; 
 
 To freeze and to star\-e his affectionate wife ; 
 
 To afflict her, and ruin her whole prospect in life ; 
 
 To beggar his children, and leave them forlorn 
 
 To receive from the cold world but pity or scorn ; 
 
 To affect courts of justice, and nile their decision ; 
 
 To degrade, and pollute, and keep them in derision; 
 
 To rule or to ruin the affairs of the city ; 
 
 To pour rum broadcast without mercy or pity ; 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 277 
 
 To bribe legislators ; to min the state ; 
 
 To increase state prisoners, and leave them to fate ; 
 
 To soil the legislative department of the nation ; 
 
 To befoul and pervert each condition or station ; 
 
 To fasten on government a stain and a blot ; 
 
 To give credence to rumor — Our ruler’s a sot; 
 
 To ruin church members, in life and in death, 
 
 To deprive them of reason, religion, and breath ; 
 
 To leave them to the fates in eternity given. 
 
 To the law — No drunkard shall enter God’s heaven.” 
 
 Is it an honor to be commissioned to do all this ? Can 
 conscience take a “license,” and go deliberately forward 
 in this work ? It is said, it regidates an evil. But why 
 not come up to the full measure of the standard of right, 
 and seek to banish that which is acknowledged an evil, 
 instead of retaining it, and trying to curb and prune it, 
 to make it more respectable and tolerable. Plainly, if it 
 is licensed, an evil is fostered, and if one evil, then a host- 
 of kindred e^s also might claim protection ; and where 
 is there a limit to this high carnival of iniquity ? There 
 is no fairness in allowing a few men to do all this mighty 
 work. ' 
 
 Bather . spread it, lest the terrible reward be as a 
 crushing millstone grinding the few to powder. In an 
 argument before the Massachusetts legislature in 1867, 
 on this question, by A. A. Miner, he says, “ The busi- 
 ness itself is not one that will invite men of high char- 
 acter to . enter into it. Whatever your course may be 
 on this subject, the liquor sellers of Massachusetts, <60 
 long as you cherish the character which the state now 
 enjoys, will be men of moderate moral attainments. 
 Why, gentlem’en, though an eminent representative of 
 the traffic, standing here the other day, admitted that he 
 wanted a law to make his business respectable, I allege 
 that the thing is impossible. Massachusetts cannot en- 
 act a law that will make the selling of liquors, as bever- 
 ages, respectable. If the angel Gabriel should come 
 
278 
 
 INTEMPEKAilCE, 
 
 down to earth, and sell liquors as beverages, he would 
 not lift the business up to heaven, but the business 
 would drag the angel down to hell. If ‘I were to define 
 a license law, stringent or otherwise, I should say it was 
 a legal means of making drunkards.” 
 
 To those who say,* I have a license, and therefore I 
 can arid will sell, the Rev. .John Pierpont replies, in a 
 most sarcastic manner, “ You have a license — and that 
 is your plea ; I adjure you to keep it ; lock it among your 
 choicest jewels ; guard it as the apple of your eye ; and 
 when you die, and are laid in your coffin, be sure that 
 the precious document is placed between your cold and 
 clammy fingers, so that when you are called upon to con- 
 front your victims before God, you may be ready to filp 
 in your plea of justification, and boldly to lay down your 
 license on the bar of the Judge. Yes, my friend, keep 
 it ; you will then want your license signed hj the county 
 commissioners, and indorsed by the selectmen.” 
 
 The very conditions of the license law show its 
 weakness. One of these forbids selling to a man already 
 intoxicated. A man may drink until he ceases to be 
 himself, and then he has only to refrain until he reaches 
 a certain commendable stage of soberness, before he can 
 begin and act the same over again. Is that making the 
 probability of his becoming a drunkard any the less ? 
 “ A minor may not drink without the consent of his 
 fatlier.” Has not a father who would give such consent 
 forfeited all right to dictate to a child what he shall or 
 shall not do ? What power can give him. a moral right 
 to allow that he knows will be his certain destruction ? 
 “ It must not be sold to intemperate men, when forbid- 
 den by their wives.” Did the law-makers stop to think, 
 how much better it would be for those wives if they had 
 gone fai'ther back, and laid their restrictions where they 
 belonged, instead of leaving them to bear the torrents 
 
ITS .ASPECT AOT) ITS REMEDY, 279 
 
 of abuse which such action would pour upon them ? “ It 
 shall not be sold to be drank upon the premises.” This 
 protects the rum seller, and shields him from all the sad 
 consequences of his doings, and carries them all into the 
 sanctuary of home, to torture and afflict innocent fam- 
 ilies that are ever mourning the fruits of license. Some 
 who found it hard to give up their pet institution, 
 thought they were bringing things up to a higher plane 
 when they suggested that large sums be demanded for 
 license, so that the rich only would come into the trade, 
 and all the “ low groggeries ” be closed ; as if the matter 
 was to be greatly dignified by letting wealth and stand- 
 • ing take the best people and make them respectable 
 drunkards. O the folly of men when their own wishes 
 and interests are at stake ! 
 
 “ The life of a nation is too short,” says one, “ for the 
 art of suppressing the liquor traffic by license. For over 
 two hundred years our fathers tried to perfect a ‘ strin- 
 gent license law,’ and died without the sight. Their 
 despair may well be crowned whem they behold the 
 bungling workmanship of the wise men of to-day.” 
 During all these years, more than a hundred different 
 laws were passed with reference to licensing and regu- 
 lating this branch of trade ; and says this same person, 
 “ An attentive perusal of them would constitute a com- 
 plete demonstration of the inherent weakness of all such 
 legislation.” Dr. Humphrey, of Amherst College, said, 
 in 1833, — 
 
 “ It is plain to me, as the sun in a clear summer sky, 
 that the license laws of our country constitute one of 
 the main pillars on which the stupendous fabric of in- 
 temperance now rests.” In the same year Frelinghuysen 
 declared, “ If men will engage in- this destructive traffic, 
 — if they will stoop to degrade their reason,, and reap the 
 wages of iniquity, — ^^let them no longer have the law-hook 
 
280 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 as a pillow, nor quiet conscience by tbe opiate of a court 
 license” 
 
 For some years previous to 1865, a prohibitory law 
 had been in force in Massachusetts ; but at this date there 
 was a determined effort among its enemies to abolish it 
 in favor of the license system. The Secretary of the 
 Temperance Alliance for that year says, “Strange as 
 it may appear, a minister of the gospel volunteered to 
 carry a license law through the legislature, thus render- 
 ing the services of rum sellers themselves unnecessary, 
 so far as this favorite law of theirs is concerned. With a 
 champion from the church and pulpit, whose sacerdotal 
 robes would contribute to the dignity of ,his singular 
 mission, the liquor dealers of Massachusetts could ask 
 no more.” The effort was a long and strong one, but it 
 failed, at thfe time ; but owing to certain conditions of 
 party policy, .it triumphed, and in November, 1867, the 
 law was declared, not to take effect until the spring of 
 the following year, however. A few months’ expeiience 
 under the new administration was convincing proof to 
 all that a great mistake had been made ; that license 
 was miserable in principle, and a failure in action. The 
 practical fact that it was of regulative tendency was no- 
 where apparent. The commitments to prison for the 
 same length of time were more than doubled. “ It may 
 well be doubted,'” says one, “ whether intemperance 
 would have increased with more rapid strides, if no 
 legislative regulation of the sale of intoxicating liquors 
 had ever been made.” The law opened and legalized 
 about twenty-five hundred open bars in the various cities 
 and -towns, besides over a thousand other places where 
 it was supposed they would not sell by the glass. In 
 January, 1869, the constalfie of the commonwealth re- 
 ported to the legislature thus : “ The rapid increase of 
 
 crime and violence during the past year over former 
 
ITS ASPECT AND*[TS REMEDY. 281 
 
 years is without precedent in the history of criminal 
 experience. The state prison and houses of correction 
 never held within their limits such numbers as at the 
 present time ; while the wheels of justice are almost 
 clogged with, the trial of constantly accumulating crim- 
 inal business, and the district attorneys of Suffolk find 
 it almost impossible to clear their criminal docket from 
 month to month, notwithstanding the courts in this 
 county are in almost perpetual session. Is it unfair to 
 suggest that the open bar and inviting sale of intoxicat- 
 ing liquors, licensed and unlicensed, in every street, is, 
 to a considerable extent, chargeable and responsible for 
 this state of things ? ” The Board of State Charities for 
 the same period says, also, — 
 
 “ While in our cities there is an undeniable increase 
 in intoxication, and consequent crime, the change is more 
 noticeable in the smaller towns, and the effect in general 
 is so palpable that public opinion seems already frowning 
 upon t-he unseemly order of things, and demanding a re- 
 turn to the safer regime of prohibition, with reasonable 
 penalties, and a faithful attempt to execute the law. 
 Poverty and vice are what the poor man buys with his 
 poisoned liquor ; sickness, beastliness,, laziness, and pollu- 
 tion are what the state gives in exchange for the license 
 money which the dram seller filches from the lean jjurse 
 of the day-laborer and the half-grown lad, and hands 
 over, sullied with shame, to the high-salaried official 
 who receives it. But the treasury reaps little from this 
 revolting tribute ; for along with the licensed shops and 
 bars twice as mhny that are unlicensed ply their trade, 
 and debauch the poor without enriching anybody but 
 the dram seller. These are the practical results of a 
 license system in Massachusetts. The increase of intem- 
 perance, which the reaction of last year, against the strict- 
 ness of prohibition has greatl}^ promoted, interferes at 
 
282 
 
 INTESHPEEANCE, 
 
 once with, our industrial interests, fosters pauperism and 
 disease, and swells the list of criminals. That intemper- 
 ance has increased will appear from the prison statistics, 
 soon to he submitted ; that crime and vice have also in- 
 creased, will be shown by the same impartial test, as 
 well as confirmed by the observation of all who have 
 attended to that subject, and noticed what has been 
 going on in the past year. If it is desired to secure in 
 the best manner the repression of crime and pauperism, 
 the increase of production, the decrease of taxation, and 
 a general prosperity of the community, so far as this 
 question of intemperance is concerned, it is clearly best 
 that INIassachusetts should return to the policy which 
 prohibits the sale of intoxicating drinks, except for me- 
 chanical or medical purposes.” Some idea of the traffic 
 may be obtained from the fact that the dhect rum tax 
 for 1868 was three million dollars. 
 
 “ An evil always becomes worse by being sustained 
 by the laws of the land,” says Albert Barnes. “ It is 
 much to have the sanction of law, and the moral force 
 of law, in favor of any course of human conduct. In the 
 estimation of man}'' persons, to make a thing legal is to 
 make it morally right; and an employment which is 
 legal is pursued by them with few rebukes of conscience, 
 and with little disturbance from any reference to a higher 
 than human authority. More£)ver, this fact does much 
 to deter others from opposing the evd, and from endeav- 
 oring to turn the public indignation against it. It is an 
 unwelcome thing for a good man ever to set himself 
 against the laws of the land, aixl to denounce that as 
 lorong which they affirm to be right. It is a virtue to be 
 law-loving and law-abiding ; and it is a principle which 
 every good citizen cherishes, to do what he can to give 
 additional force to the authority of law, and not to lend 
 the sanction of his name to that which would weaken its 
 moral power. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 283 
 
 “ Hence snch men are often slow and reluctant in at- 
 tacking that which is an undoubted evil, for the attack 
 seems to be made upon the legal fabric as such, and to 
 do just so much to Aveaken the authority of law. The 
 good are deterred from opposing it, for they do not wish 
 to seem to be arrayed against the laws. • The bad are 
 confirmed in their course, for they -feel that they are sus- 
 tained by the laws of the land ; and for ' them that is 
 enough. They can claim, too, some popular sympathy 
 when they are denounced for doing that which is legal. 
 They can pursue their course iii spite of all that others 
 can do. Thus the evil grows in strength by all the bold- 
 ness given to them by the sanction of the laws, and by 
 all the reluctance of the friends of reform to denounce 
 that as wrong Avhich the law affirms to be right.” The 
 same principle holds true in the attempt to regulate it, 
 and therefore there seems no alternative but to prohibit 
 it. It' may be said that prohibition will not accomplish 
 the desired result ; that laAV itself cannot restrain the 
 appetites and passions of men, and (that somehow, in 
 some way, they will find the means for their personal 
 indulgence. Doubtless they will; but if a man is to take 
 a journey, he cannot reach the end as quickly by going 
 long distances round, climbing over hedges, and dodging 
 various obstacles, as though he went straight forward in 
 an unobstructed patliAvay. Neither can a man go to his 
 own destruction as fast under prohibition as under li- 
 cense. This has been fully demonstrated. The people 
 of Massachusetts were glad to return to' the former, after 
 the reign of the latter for a twelvemonth. 
 
 Of course there are always individual exceptions to 
 every rule. There will always be those who will violate 
 any law, however wise and necessary that law may be 
 but this argues nothing against the wisdom, justness, 
 and efficiency of the law. If it be found to be advan- 
 
284 
 
 ESTTEMPERAITCE. 
 
 tageous to the public good generally, that it ministers 
 to the comfort, peace, and prosperity of people, it is suf- 
 ficient to secure its maintenance. There are those who 
 scoff at legal prohibition as an invasion of their just rights 
 and liberties. They affirm ihey have been in the busi- 
 ness when the protecting arm of the law was about them, 
 and the, people have no right to rise up and withdraw it, 
 saying unto them, Thou shalt not ! But where would 
 society be, if universal sufferance were given to all the 
 desires and imaginations of men. It is bad enough with 
 all the checks and restraints that can be brought to bear 
 upon it ; but remove all these, and the inhabitants of 
 earth would be rij)e for another deluge. Manifestly, in- 
 temperance is a great moral and social evil, and unless 
 some effectual barrier is placed in its way, there will be 
 no limit to its spread. What but coercion will answer ? 
 Certainly men will never put it away of themselves. 
 The rigid enforcement of a prohibitory law will doubt- 
 less do more than anything else to stay the rushing tide. 
 If this could be made to thunder in the ears of the man- 
 ufacturer until he should close his doors and cease to 
 convert into poison the good things of earth, there would 
 be hope for the rest. 
 
 But these men deny the right of society even to whis- 
 per of such a thing. Have they not a right to choose their 
 own business, and to conduct it in whatever form they 
 please ? No ! not if it is plainly detrimental to the pub- 
 lic good. “ It is the main prerogative of a civil govern- 
 ment to prohibit just such things as this. Protection is 
 its end and business — the protection of the possessions, 
 the rights, the industry, and the virtue of a community 
 from the invasions of the lawless and the mischievous. 
 Hence the main function of a government is prohibition. 
 Its office is to supervise the complicated and often clash- 
 ing operations of self-love among the associated thou- 
 sands of whom societ}- is composed, and restrain its inju- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMBDY. 285 
 
 rious workings. We need a civil government, simply 
 because in the social state we are exposed to injury from 
 the evil-minded. Its end is protection ; and its power 
 to protect lies in this very power to prohibit whatever 
 conflicts with social order' and private rights. Turn, 
 now, to our statute law, and you will find this the real 
 meaning of each enactment. More or less obviously, 
 each statute is a protective prohibition. It pre-supposes 
 some lawful interest endangered, some laudable pursuit 
 molested, some social or individual right invaded; and 
 the statute is the arm of the social body stretched forth 
 to protect the violated right by prohibiting the invasion.” 
 
 Strong drink has always been considered a great* and 
 sore evil. Those who sell it and those who drink it 
 are unanimous in the one verdict when they speak out 
 the honest co.nvictions of their hearts. Because these con- 
 victions have no weight in their practical life, it is pretty 
 good reason there is needed some kind of enforcement 
 from outside to operate as a compelling power. The pub- 
 lic good far transcends private interest and convenience. 
 The law is for the greatest good of the greatest number, 
 and therefore it is for the individual to yield when his 
 plans would subvert the broader foundations. Every- 
 where the good are looking to this one principle as their 
 only hope. One of England’s philanthropists speaks thus 
 at the present time : “ As electors and citizens, we are 
 always willing to aid any measure that really proposes to 
 restrict the present ruinous system ; but it is not for us to 
 take the initiative, seeing that this would be to compro- 
 mise with the enemy, and to divert us from the great 
 end before us, viz., ‘ The total prohibition of the liquor 
 traffic.’ All amendment schemes we leave to others ; 
 our object is not to amend, but to annihilate. All that 
 tends in this direction in amendment schemes we will 
 accept as instalments only. Our ultimatum is the de- 
 struction of*the liquor traffic, root and branch.'’’ Nothing 
 
286 
 
 INTEMPEEAITCE, 
 
 short of this should satisfy the American people. As 
 long as they parley with the enemy it will remain wkhin 
 their borders, the same formidable, ever-threa,tening 
 giant. They need to throw the stone straight into’ its 
 forehead, if they would behold its prostrate form-, with^ 
 its bold, defiant air, forever laid low. If it could be 
 banished from our land, it would be the greatest victory 
 that was ever achieved for man upon the earth. There 
 might then be proclaimed a “year of jxibilee,” and it 
 would be an occasion at which the angels themselves 
 might like to minister. It were idle to waste words 
 upon the glory, of such a time. Imagination paints it, 
 and*the conceptions of mind revel in all that is bright 
 and fair ; but it is the heart especially that exults in the 
 transcendent blessing, for it would be like bathing in a 
 clear stream, Avhen theToulest of waters have long been 
 pouring over one. 
 
 There are men who call everything Vi failure that does 
 not suit their ideas ; so there are many who declaim 
 loudly against the working of the prohibition principle. 
 They -see no great difference - — men sell, and men drink, 
 and where is the good ? The eyes of these men, and 
 their ears too, need to be subjected to some kind of op- 
 eration that shall enable them to .discern a little more 
 clearly of the signs of the times. Prohibition was born, 
 cradled, nurtured, and has grown up in Maine, and Xeal 
 Dow, the father of the child, thinks it is anj'thing but a 
 failure. He looks upon it as about the fairest creation that 
 was ever presented to mankind, and he makes no hesita-^ 
 tion in saying, wherever he goes, that it corresponds 
 more nearly with his ideal than anything he has ever 
 known. Its iDractical influence is in every way desirable. 
 In 1872 the governor of the state said, “ In some places 
 liquor is sold secretly in violation of the law, as many 
 other offences are committed against the statutes, and tlie 
 peace and good order of society ; but in large districts 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 287 
 
 of the state the liquor traffic is nearly or quite unknown, 
 where formerly it was carried on like any other trade.” 
 The Hon. W. P. Frye, member of Congress from the 
 Lewiston district, and ex-attorney-general of the state, 
 also says, “ I can, and do, from my own personal obser- 
 vation, unhesitatingly affirm that the consumption of 
 intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day one fourth as 
 great as it was twenty years ago ; that in the country 
 portions of the state the sale and use have almost . en- 
 tirely ceased ; that the law itself, under, a vigorous en- 
 forcement of its provisions, has created a temperance 
 sentiment which is marvellous, and to which opposition 
 is powerless. In my opinion, our remarkable temperance 
 reform of to-day is the legitimate child of the law.” ' Any 
 amount of similar testimony might be adduced, were it 
 necessary. Everywhere- in the land, where it has been 
 tested, it is with the same result. Certain 'localities may 
 perhaps give it distinct phases and coloring, but there is 
 one united voice in its favor among ijhose who appre- 
 ciate the good order of society, and are interested in the 
 lifting up and advancement of the race. The figures 
 which show the diminution of crime, the decrease of tax- 
 ation, and all those things, are an eloquent appeal for its 
 universal adoption. They stand an unanswerable argu- 
 ment in its favor. Then — 
 
 ■ “ Up for the conflict ! let your battle peal 
 
 Bing in the air, as rings the clash of steel 
 When, rank to rank, contending armies meet, 
 
 Trampling, the dead beneath their bloody feet. 
 
 Up ! you are bidden to a nobler strife — 
 
 Not to destroy, but rescue human life; 
 
 No added drop in misery’s cup to press. 
 
 But minister relief to wretchedness ; 
 
 To give the long-lost father to his boy ; 
 
 To cause the widow’s heart to sing for joy ; 
 
 Bid Plenty laugh where hungry Famine scowls, 
 
 And pour the sunlight o’er the tempest’s howls; 
 
 Bring to the soul that to despair is given, 
 
 A new-found joy — a holy hope of heaven. 
 
288 
 
 INTEJIPBEAKCE, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Legislative Acnoisr. 
 
 TREE OF LIBERTY. — ANCIENT EMPIRES. — SUPPRESSION. — ORIGIN OF 
 THE MAINE LAW." — MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATION. — CONNECTICUT 
 AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. — NEW YORK. — SPEECH OF HENRY WARD 
 BEECHER. — OPPOSITION AT TAMMANY HALL. — LOCAL OPTION. — 
 CIVIL DAMAGE. — MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS. — THE PLEADER’S WORDS. 
 — THE GREAT TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 
 
 Ameeicans have long boasted of their overshadow- 
 ing tree of liberty, and have pointed with pride to the 
 unexampled growth and prosperity of the people em- 
 braced within its encircling branches. It is fair and 
 goodly ; but the goodliest thing will not retain its good- 
 ness without care ; it will not preserve its vigor and 
 freshness without it is watched, cherished, and culti- 
 vated. There is no question but that intemperance is a 
 worm at the root of this tree, threatening its vitality, 
 and, through this, its very existenc’e. Say not it is too 
 firmly established, that it has defied the storm’s of too 
 many winters, and braved the blasts of too many tem- 
 pests, to be easily uprooted. We grant that it is strong ; 
 but we know, too, that the influences at work are 
 mighty also, and that, unless they are stayed, there . is 
 danger. The great empires of antiquity rose t.o splendid 
 heights, and they fell. Why ? Because the destructive 
 agencies within themselves were allowed to have full 
 sway. It may be we have a broader basis of intelh- 
 
289 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMBDY. 
 
 gence, and that our free institutions are a sort of safety- 
 valve for the nation ; but how long would these remain 
 jinimpaired, the intemperate habits of the people were 
 permitted to go on unchecked and unrestrained ? The 
 safety of our nation actually demands consideration on 
 this subject, and not only this, there is imperative need 
 fdr prompt and decisive action. , 
 
 The most dangerous foes to any government are those 
 within its own borders. If the people are loyal and 
 true, and determined to presef^^e the honor and integrity 
 of their nation at whatever cost, they will present a • 
 united front to whatever foreign ally that may oppose 
 them, with hope of success ; but let them become de- 
 moralized among themselves, lose their discipline and 
 valor, and there is danger that the subjects of such a 
 government will not be true to her best interests in the 
 time of its necessity. What a proud empire was Greece, 
 and how much she had to be proud of! Her days of . 
 classical story were brilliant. Were the trophies of 
 genius ever piled higher than then;e ? Did mind ever 
 sparkle and shine with greater lustre than among her 
 philosophers and sages? Was not Athens world-re- 
 nowned for the perfection of the arts and sciences and 
 the graces and accomplishments of her people ? But all 
 this did not save it. It fell, not so much, by the force 
 of the Roman arms, as by her own effeminate indul- 
 gence. The pageantry and pomp of the seven-hilled 
 city was once a wonder to the world ; but the tumult 
 of the Tnultitude has long since died away, and its 
 mighty ruins alone remain to tell the story of its former 
 greatness and magnificence to the passing traveller. It 
 is true, the Goths and the Vandals came down upon her 
 plains, and set fire to her cities ; but a reckless ruler, 
 and a careless and besotted people, wantonly fed the 
 flames that consumed their glory, instead of rising to 
 
 . IS 
 
2^0 
 
 INTEIVIPEEANCE, 
 
 repel the invading foe. Wine and extravagance had 
 taken the heart out of the nation, and unnerved the 
 otherwise powerful arm, and its doom was sealed. Proud 
 Babylon was another ancient city, flourishing and fa- 
 mous, and history tells how drunkenness and revelry 
 made it easy for the Medes and Persians to become its 
 cojjquerors, and appropriate its vast possessions. “ Had 
 it not been for the debauchery of her king and princes, 
 and the general effeminacy of her people, she might 
 long have reared her lofty Ifrow among the nations, with 
 her hanging gardens and fair palaces, the admiration and 
 delight of all beholders.” And so it has been, and so it 
 will be. A worm at the root may destroy the loftiest 
 proportions, and lay that low which seems as the cedars 
 of Lebanon in strength. 
 
 It is not impossible that our own fair land may come 
 under the withering stroke at some future day, unless 
 tJie destructive ravages of the foe be stayed in their 
 course. If intemperance be allowed to grow unchecked, 
 we are not exempt from the fate of other nations. Its 
 own legitimate results are the same everj’where. But 
 we believe the American people will not abandon their 
 heritage to such a doom. If they take not jyarning 
 from the example of other nations, their own inherent 
 energy in the cause of truth and right will impel them 
 to the use of means for their country’s salvation. AU. 
 through our wide dominions there is a voice that is an 
 increasing volume of sound against the inroads of this 
 mighty evil. S^ippression is the cry, -and the best meas- 
 ure for its accomplishment is the question. It is hope- 
 ful. It is a gigantic enterprise, and it requires a vast 
 deal of machinery to keep it moving. Then let none 
 despair, though it move slowly. The people are being 
 educated up to the work, and in due time we may hope 
 for glorious results. 
 
ITS ASPECT AlfD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 291 
 
 There has been a great deal of legislation upon it in 
 the different states, and various forms and measures 
 resorted to, with the hope that some cure might be 
 found for the teyrihle mala'dy that is upon so many of 
 our people. As every one knows, Maine was the first 
 to wake up to the consciousness that something decisive 
 must- |)e done in the work of reform, and Hon. Neal 
 Dow was the man to instigate and help forward the 
 mighty enterprise? He was a man eminently fitted for 
 th-e position. Already a public man, and enjoying the 
 confidence and esteem of the people, it was not difficult 
 to rally them when he lifted up the banner of temper- 
 ance, and called them to his side. Of course, those 
 who love to drink and those who like to sell will always 
 wage unrelenting war with those who seek to take from 
 them what they consider their own peculiar right and 
 privilege. So it was there. But the strong man gained 
 his cause. The prohibitor}^ form in its beginning was 
 less stringent than now. The agitation commenced in 
 1846 ; but it was not until 1851 the law took such shape 
 as really to affect the evil. Under the management of 
 the practical and efficient leader, the bars and shops 
 were closed that before had been inviting every one to 
 enter and take as they pleased ; and the change which 
 was soon apparent in the community not only awakened 
 joy in the immediate vicinity, but operated as a grand 
 inspiration to the men of other states, who went and did 
 likewise. The results far surpassed the most sanguine 
 expectations of its friends. Mr. Dow was mayor of Port- 
 land, and there he brought all liis personal and political 
 infiuence to bear upon the cause, and for a time all went 
 well. Blit underneath the surface there was a volcanic 
 element at work, until finally it burst upon society, 
 and did its scorching work. Every possible pretext 
 was resorted to by a certain class as an exc^Ts'e for 
 
292 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 disturbance. At length they handed together at a mid- 
 night hour, and made a raid upon a quantity of liquor 
 in possession of the municipal authorities, and in the 
 excitement which followed, one of the n\en lost his life. 
 From this time there was fearful disorder among these 
 disaffected ones, and it continued to increase until the 
 following election, when there was a contest of almost 
 unparalleled fierceness between those who wanted the 
 law and its non-supporters. The temperance vote was 
 really stronger than before ; but owing to unusual and 
 peculiar combinations, they were lost, and the legislature 
 and governor were after the pattern of the rum-loving 
 people. Five years the law had been giving out its bless- 
 ings ; but now the thing was reversed. License took 
 the place of prohibition, and in every city, town, and 
 village there was the open bar, the gay saloon, and the 
 less inviting shop. Liquor was flowing everywhere in 
 the state, and so alarming were the consequences, “ the 
 philanthropist, patriot, and Christian sprang to the res- 
 cue ; ” nor did they cease their labors until the law again 
 triumphed for the right, and they were planted more 
 immovably than ever on the prohibitory platform. From 
 this time they became an abiding power in the land. 
 
 Other states tried the same with varying results. 
 Some have been found strong enough to enact the law, 
 and yet have been wanting in moral force to insure its 
 application, and consequently have failed to reap the 
 good of it. Massachusetts took it 'to herself in 1852. 
 Alternate success, and defeat have been its history ever 
 since ; but, in the main, the friends of temperance have 
 held the ground. “ What is right never fails,” says one, 
 “though the ignorant and sordid may reject it for a 
 time. Wrong always has failed,' and in. spife of the 
 ‘ archangel ruined,’ it always will.” This thought 
 animated the host of temperance workers, and nerved 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 293:. 
 
 them for action in every hour of seeming repulse. As a 
 specimen of the efficiency of the law, the United States 
 revenue tax on sales of liquor was reduced in one 
 district in Boston, by the vigilance of the state con- 
 stable, acting in obedience to the prohibitory statute, 
 from twenty-four thousand dollars a month to six thou- 
 sand dollars for the same time. Under the temporary 
 victory of the liquor sellers, it wa,s raised almost imme- 
 diately to nearly the original sum — a very evident fact 
 in favor of the laAv of prohibition. In two years it closed 
 hundreds of dram shops, and shut up more than twenty- 
 five hundred bars in the city of Boston alone ; and in 
 less than a year paid almost two hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars into the treasury of the state, realized 
 from fines, and value of liquors seized and sold. 
 
 The people of New England continued to knock at the 
 doors of their respective legislative halls, %nd one after 
 another of the representatives of the different states 
 were commissioned to petition for .this beneficent larw. 
 
 It went into operation in Connelcticut in 1854, under 
 the administration of Governor Dutton, a wise and emi- 
 nent statesman, who held it — to' use his own words — 
 “ as a rod over the heads of those who would otherwise 
 cause intemperance to spread.” New Hampshire came 
 under its dominion a year later, and the estimation, in 
 which it is held there is seen in the statement of one of 
 her leading men. Judge Upton, who says of it, “ It has 
 been matured by the ablest jurists in the state and not 
 a man known in the political history of the same ever 
 recorded his name against it. It has stood the test of 
 judicial investigation, and has proved its power. Its 
 effectiveness will disarm its opponents and perpetuate 
 its existence.” 
 
 When the bill came up for discussion in New York, that 
 state became the theatre of great excitement. On its 
 
■ 294 
 
 INTEMPEEAKCE, 
 
 presentation to the legislature, every possible thing in 
 the line of opposition was brought in its way ; and in 
 the Senate, also, every availaljle obstruction was placed 
 in its path ; but still it passed, and received the signature 
 of the governor ; and when it was known, a burst of 
 gladness was heard from every side. The news spread 
 rapidly, and never was a law more gladly heralded than 
 that among an anxious and waiting people. A congrat- 
 ulatory meeting was held in the city of New York, and 
 the vast assembly seemed determined never again to 
 submit to alcoholic dominion. Spirited speeches were 
 made, and general enthusiasm prevailed. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, in speaking of it, said, “ This was the most 
 important meeting that had been gathered in New York 
 for many a day. The whole state would be looking 
 towards it. They would ask, What does the city of New 
 York think ^bout that Maine Law ? What is the pulse 
 there ? and what do they intend to do about it ? We 
 had, at last, procured common and statutory law to this 
 effect, that making and selling intoxicating drinks, for 
 purposes of diet, was now declared, by the voite of the 
 people (what he regarded as common law), and b}^the 
 voice of their representatives (which was statutory law), 
 to be a crime. We might be baffled and balked a great 
 while before we could make all the teeth of this law 
 meet, with a good subject between them ; we might have 
 to deal with men who could come, and disappear-, as 
 spirits do but there was one thing they could not re- 
 verse j after years of discussion, the people in this Em- 
 pire State had declared, that the making and selling of 
 intoxicating drinks, for such purposes, was a crime. 
 The principle was born ; and there was nothing born 
 on the face of this earth that carried such j.oj as the birth 
 of a moral principle. They could never get that back 
 again they might 'as well try to crowd the last year’s 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 295 
 
 chicken into the shell. Till now, we had been working 
 zigzag before this Sebastopol ; but we could not be long 
 taking it. Efforts would be made to. destroy the law in 
 the courts ; but what the courts decided to be wrong 
 could be rectified ; we were in for the battle, and would 
 have perseveranc.e and ingenuity until the law succeeded. 
 The voice which the state sent up to the city was, 
 “ Will you abide by the prohibitory law ? ” The response 
 he would send back was this : “We are watching and 
 waiting ; we are like the men at Waterloo, lying' close 
 to the ground, until they should hear the old hero cry, 
 ‘ Up, Guards, and at them.’ ” 
 
 • This meeting was followed by another of a different 
 character at Tammany Hall, where the liquor dealers 
 and their sympathizers assembled, and in violent language 
 denounced the law as unconstitutional and fanatical. 
 For a time, the mayor of the city — Mr. Wood — seemed 
 disposed to recognize the dignity of law, and give his 
 authority to its enforcement ; but he was finally over- 
 ruled by injudicious advisers, and the law was practically 
 a dead letter. Npt so was it in every place. There 
 were those who stood boldly up, and said, “ The law is a 
 law now,” and wherevei- it was violated it was the duty 
 of officials to recognize the violation, and act accordingly. 
 Shortly after, however, the matter was brought before 
 the Court of Appeals, and the whole declared unconsti- 
 tutional. An effort was made to introduce a prohibitory 
 bill, but it was rejected, and the legislature adjourned, 
 leaving the state without any law that would touch the 
 nefarious traffic. Thus was enthusiasm speedily turned 
 into mourning. After a while the license system was 
 adopted, though with restrictions that made it a little 
 more hopeful for those who were waiting for the redemp- 
 tion of the people from the bondage of rum. Those who 
 drank and those who sold found quite a margin for their 
 
296 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 comfort in it, for, in good measure, the thing was le- 
 galized and protected by the state. Notwithstanding all 
 the effort that was put forth, — and it was by no means 
 small, — the “ Excise Law ” remained on the statute- 
 books of the state. Remonstrance was useless. The 
 “ Local Option ” • bill was adopted, but the veto of the 
 governor put an end to that. In 1873, another effort 
 was made to secure the passage of a prohibitory bill ; but 
 this, too, proved abortive in the end, and the problem 
 is yet before the people. 
 
 Several states have adopted the “ Civil Damage ” sys- 
 tem — a law which had its origin in Massachusetts, and 
 makes rum sellers responsible for damages. It is consid- 
 ered “ a wise and righteous provision to attach to a law 
 of prohibition ; but attached to a license law, as in Illi- 
 nois, it is simply a provision to license men to sell rum, 
 if they will put themselves under three thousand dollar 
 bonds to pay all damages ; which is just as wrong as it 
 would be to license men to do any other evil, if they will 
 pay damages.” Michigan and Iowa have been able to 
 secure legislative action in favor of prohibition, but most 
 of the states are still struggling towards this goal of their 
 ambition. Pennsylvania is under “ Local Option,” and 
 Delaware, West Virginia, and Illinois have the “ Civil 
 Damage” features ; all of which do something to check 
 a bad cause, but fail to realize the ideal of what the 
 true friends of temperance wish to see, and hope, 
 eventually, to accomplish. In all the Western States, 
 and far on to the Pacific coast, the public sentiment 
 is thoroughly aroused. All the various temperance 
 societies are working to secrre legislative interference in 
 such way as shall effectually suppress the growing evil. 
 But state legislation is not enough in the matter. A 
 national evil requires national consideration, and there- 
 fore the wise and thoughtful among the friends of tern- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 297 
 
 perance resolved that something he done to make it a 
 national as well as a local issue. Looking at it in con- 
 nection with the public economy and welfare, it assumed 
 an importance second to none other, and therefore the 
 following “Memorial” was presented to -the United 
 States Senate and House of Representatives. This was 
 done through the action of the National Temperance 
 Society, the last year, and was approved and indorsed by 
 the various organizations and societies that were enlisted 
 in the cause of temperance. 
 
 “ Your memorialists, citizens of the United States, re- 
 spectfully represent, that the use of intoxicating liquors 
 as a beverage is a prolific source of pauperism and crime, 
 resulting, directly or indirectly, in the destruction of the 
 happiness of many thousands of your constituents ; that 
 the manufacture, importation, and sale of such liquors, 
 to be used as a beverage, is inimical to the public wel- 
 fare ; that, in the pecuniary aspect, the amount of reve- 
 nue derived to the government from intoxicating liquors 
 is much more than counterbalanced by the taxation which 
 their use as a beverage occasions, together with the loss 
 of wealth-producing capacity on the part of those who 
 use them ; that it is the proper function of government, 
 after the divine model, not to legaliz^e iniquity for the 
 sake of gain, but to restrain and prohibit that which 
 tends to the demoralization of the people, and to promote 
 the general welfare. W e therefore respectfully ask you to 
 authorize the appointment by the President, by and with 
 the advice and consent of the Senate, of a Commission of 
 Inquiry of five or more competent persons, to serve without 
 salary for one year, more or less, whose duty it shall be 
 to investigate : First. The subject of prohibitory legisla- 
 tion, and its effects upon intemperance during the period 
 (over twenty years) covered by such legislation, in 
 
298 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 Maine, Massachusetts, and other states of the .Union ; 
 Second. To inquire and take testimony as to the re- 
 sults of the legalized liquor traffic, in states wherein it 
 prevails, upon the general condition, the moral, social, 
 intellectual, and material well-being, of the people ; and. 
 Third. To recommend what additional legislation, if an}’-, 
 Avould be beneficial, on the part of Congress, to prevent, 
 in the sphere of national authority, the traffic in intoxi- 
 cating liquors as a beverage. We ask tlrafi the Commis- 
 sioners be appointed solely with reference to personal 
 fitness for the duties with which they will be intrusted, 
 irrespective of political or partisan consideration ; and 
 that they be authorized to employ a clerk, with reasona- 
 ble compensation, and to have such expenses as are inci- 
 dental to their investigations defrayed. We are well 
 assured that the full and impartial investigation for 
 which we ask, with your official authority and co-opera- 
 tion, concerning this vital subject, will be most welcome 
 at the present time to a large, influential, and intelligent 
 portion of citizens in all parts of the country. 
 
 “WiLLiAJvr E. Dodge, President. 
 
 “J. M. Stearns, Corresponding Secretary." 
 
 • 
 
 This was done with the hope that a more comprehen- 
 sive and reliable statistical information would be brought 
 before the people generally, which should be to them as 
 accurate and convincing proof of the alarming extent of 
 the evil, and also of the wisdom and efficiency of the 
 measures already in existence and in process of opera- 
 tion. Said he who stood up to plead in its behalf, “ I 
 believe the hour is at hand when we must take a forward 
 step in dealing with this problem; when, if we would 
 not go backward, we must wisely take a step forward. 
 Look about in the different states of this Union, and you 
 will find, in almost all of them, this question has tlirust 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 299 
 
 itself forward. It cannot be, it will not be, it ought not 
 to be put down ; and we bring it here because here are 
 the headquarters ; here, too, is the responsibility just as 
 direct on your shoulders as representatives of the nation, 
 as in your respective states the responsibility is direct as 
 citizens thereof.” The matter was fully discussed on the 
 floor of Congress, and what shall be the result remains 
 for the future to disclose. When the American people 
 as a nation shall rise in their strength, and proclaim pro- 
 hibition through the length and breadth of the land, and 
 moral principle shall be sufficiently strong to prove a 
 propelling force in its application, there will, dawn a 
 brighter day than has yet been known in all their history. 
 Nothing that can be done would so elevate and ennoble 
 the mass of the people as this. Nothing but “ total 
 abstinence for the individual and prohibition for the 
 state,” can save us from the withering blight of intemper- 
 ance. The contest is open, and the war is being waged ; 
 and who will enlist? It is a better and more hopeful 
 work than animated the crusaders of old, and made them 
 willing to peril their lives by a long and doubtful pilgrim- 
 age. As a partial and forcible reply to the question we 
 have asked, we subjoin the following from the pen of 
 Dr. Holland on 
 
 THE GREAT TEIVIPERANCE MOVEMENT. 
 
 For years and years, and weary, suffering years, mul- 
 tiplied into decades, have the women of America waited 
 to see that traffic destro3^ed which annually sends sixty 
 thousand of their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands 
 into the drunkard’s grave. They have been impover- 
 ished, disgraced, tortured in mind and body, beaten, 
 murdered. Under the impulse of maddening liquors the 
 hands that were pledged before Heaven to provide for 
 aJid protect them have withdrawn from them the means 
 
300 
 
 INTEMPEKANCB, 
 
 of life, or smitten them in the dust. Sons whom they 
 have nursed upon their ^bosoms with tenderest love and 
 countless prayers, have grown into beasts, of whom they 
 are afraid, or have sunk into helpless and pitiful slavery. 
 They have been compelled to cover their eyes with shame 
 in the presence of fathers whom it would have been bliss 
 for them to hold in honor. They have been compelled 
 to bear children to men whose habits had unfitted them 
 for parentage — children not only tainted by disease, but 
 endowed with debased appetites. They have seen them- 
 selves and their precious families thrust into social degra- 
 dation, and cut off forever from all desirable life by the 
 vice of the men they loved. What the women of this 
 ■ countr}^ have suffered from drunkenness, no mind, how- 
 ever sympathetic, can measure, and no pen, however 
 graphic, can describe. It has been the unfathomable 
 black gulf into which infatuated multitudes of men have 
 thrown their fortunes, their health, and their industry, 
 and oirt of which have come orily — in fire and stench — 
 dishonor, disease, crime, misery, despair, and death. It 
 is the abomination of abominations, the curse of curses, 
 the hell of hells ! 
 
 For weary, despairing years, they have waited to see 
 the reform that should protect them from fuither harm. 
 They have listened to lectures, they have signed pledges, 
 they have encouraged temperance societies, they have 
 asked for and secured legislation, and all to no practical 
 good end. The politicians have played them false ; the 
 officers of the law are unfaithful ; the government reve- * 
 nue thrives on the thriftiness of their curse ; multitudes 
 of the clergy are not only apathetic in their pulpits, but 
 self-indulgent in their social halfits ; newspapers do not 
 help, but rather hinder them ; the liquor interest, armed 
 with the money that should have bought them prosperity, 
 organizes against them ; fashion opposes them ; a million 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 301 
 
 fierce appetites are arrayed against them, and, losing all 
 faith in men, what can they do ? There is but one thing 
 for them to do. There is bnt one direction in which 
 they can look, and that upward ! The wometi’s temper- 
 ance movement, begun and carried on by prayer, is as 
 natural in its bhth and growth as the oak that springs 
 from the acorn. If God and the godlike element in 
 women cannot help, there is no help. If the pulpit, the 
 press, the politicians, the reformers, the law, cannot bring 
 reform, who is there left to do it but God and the wo- 
 men ? We bow to this movement with reverence. We 
 do not stop to question methods ; we do not ' pause to 
 query about permanent results. We simply say to the 
 glorious women engaged in this marvellous crusade, 
 “ May God help and prosper you, and give you the 
 desire of your hearts in the fruit of your labors.” 
 
 It becomes men to be either humbly helpful or dumb. 
 We who have dallied with this question; we who have 
 dispassionately drawn the line between temperance and 
 total abstinence ; we who have deplored drunkenness, 
 with wine-glasses in our- hands ; we who have consented 
 to involve a great moral reform with politics ; we who 
 have been politically afraid of the power of the brutal 
 etement associated with the liquor traffic ; we who have 
 split hairs in our discussions of public policy; we -who 
 have given social sanction to habits that in the great 
 cities have made drunkards -of even the women them- 
 selves, and led their sons and ours into a dissolute life ; 
 we who have shown either onr unwillingness or our im-’ 
 potence to save the country from the gulf that yawns 
 before it,— -can only step aside with shamefaced humility 
 while the great crusade goes on, or heartily give to it our 
 approval and our aid. 
 
 This is' not a crusade of professional agitators, clamor- 
 ing for an abstract right, but an enterprise of suffering. 
 
302 
 
 INTEMPEKAMCE. 
 
 pure and devoted womep, laboring for tbe overthrow of 
 a concrete wrong. It is no pleasant, holiday business in 
 which these women are engaged, but one of self-denying 
 hardship, pr^nant in every part with a sense of duty. 
 
 Is is the offspring of a grand religious impulse which 
 gives ta our time its one superb touch of heroism, and 
 redeems it from its political debasement and the degra- 
 dation of its materialism. It is a shame to manhood 
 that it is necessary ; it is a glory to womanhood that 
 it is possible. 
 
 If the experience of the last century has demonstrated 
 anything, it is that total abstinence is the only ground 
 on which any well-wisher of society can stand. The 
 liquor traffic has been bolstered up for years, and is strong 
 to-day, simply through influence which is deemed re-' 
 spectable. It must be made infamous by the combination 
 of all the respectable elements of society against it. It 
 must cease to be respectable to drink at all. It must 
 cease to be respectable to rent a building in which liquors 
 are sold. There is no practicable middle ground. So 
 long as men drink temperately, men Avill drink intemper- 
 ately, whether it ought to be otherwise or not ; and it is 
 with reference to the development of a healthy public 
 opinion on this subject that we particularly rejoice in the * 
 woman’s crusade. Our own vision is so blinded and per- 
 verted that we can only see the deformity of the monster 
 which oppresses us through woman’s eyes, iqilifted in 
 prayer, tearful in shame and suffering, or bright in 
 triumph, as the strongholds of her life-long enemy fall 
 before her. 
 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 Here and there in the history of the past, we are led 
 to see tlie workings of some great reform, and as the 
 historian leads us on tiirough all the intricate windings 
 that must needs he compassed before the grand result 
 can be reached, we are convinced that nothing worthy, — 
 nothing far-reaching and substantial can be wrought out* 
 except through much toil and pains-taking. Tlie most 
 valuable things of earth can be had only by delving for 
 them. The richest veins of metals lie where man must 
 dig long and patiently, if he would make them available 
 for practical use. Glistening pearls lie embedded in 
 the ocean sands, and the diver must subject himself to 
 peculiar danger and hardship, if he would make their 
 rare brilliancy minister to human gratification ; and the 
 gold and the pearl, after they are brought to light, must 
 needs go through a process of one kind and another before 
 they are fitted to meet the demands of those wlio require 
 them. It seems to be a universal law — one that heaven 
 has instituted — that labor and toil shall be tlie price of 
 every thing good. The thoughtful mind will perceive the 
 wisdom of the plan, and see how it tends to the highest 
 good of men, and the development of the truest and most 
 efficient character. This same principle that holds good 
 in the natural world is also true in the moral. Almost all 
 the revolutionary movements that have affected the moral 
 condition of mankind, have been characterized by slow 
 
804 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 and laBorious -working, that at times have made their 
 strongest supporters gro-w faint lest they fail of the ulti- 
 mate good they had in vie-w. Truth and error have always 
 been at war with each other, and the good is only evoked 
 through conflict. That mighty reformation of Luther’s time 
 cost a great deal. There were prisons, and judgments of 
 various kinds, before those who were bent upon realizing 
 the lofty ideal that a heaven-directed imagination had 
 given them to see. Nothing could intimidate those heroic 
 souls, that were bound to do and dare for the sublime 
 purpose of freeing human souls from the shackles of 
 priestly superstition, and- opening the door through which 
 all might pass to the land of religious freedom. That, 
 like a beautiful Canaan, was'ever beckoning them onward. 
 The promise of what might be enjoyed there was always 
 an incentive to vigorous action, and thus allured, they 
 counted not their lives dear to them, if so be the goal 
 could be woii. The victory was gained, and it sent a wave 
 of blessing through all the earth, vivifying, by a thousand 
 crystal streamlets, the moral vineyard every where. We 
 exult to-day in what was wrought out so painfully. We are 
 higher in the scale of being now, for every weary step of 
 those determined, earnest workers. 
 
 Let us not fail to understand and appreciate the way in 
 which the most and the bbst of life’s blessings come to 
 us. They are associated with toil and sacrifice. Some- 
 body must work long and hard to make tliem available 
 in practical life. There must be delving and digging 
 somewhere to bring out and beautify the gems that are 
 encrusted "with much of crude material that make the 
 process slow and discouraging at times. Thoughts like 
 these take possession of the mind, as we stand and look 
 out upon the present agitation which is s-n^ying the friends 
 of temperance, and mo-ving them to a work of reform. 
 
ITS ASPECTS AND ITS REMEDY. 305 
 
 It may, and doubtless will be, a long and stern conflict ; 
 and*those who go forth to do battle need to be well pano- 
 plied, and to gird themselves for resolute action, and be 
 prepared for all sorts of patient endurance. The Crusaders 
 of old faltered not in their march, though upon every 
 print of' the foot they left their life-blood as a mark. Be- 
 fore them was a holy shrine, and that shrine was in the 
 hands of profane men, as they thought, and at all hazards 
 it must be rescued and preserved. A far more sacred 
 object is before the Temperance Crusaders of to-day. 
 There are thousands of shrines in human hearts that are 
 polluted and endangered, and the question is. Can they 
 be savfed ? Let the small host who have risen up to start 
 on the mighty enterprise, be made still stronger. Without 
 distinction of rank or sex, the ranks should be increased, 
 for the end sought is of universal interest, and any one 
 who enlists in the service can work with the confident 
 assurance that every thing done in this direction is a part 
 of that blessed reformation which the world greatly needs, 
 and which, could it be obtained, would be ttke bathing us 
 all in sunshine. The magnitude of the work should by 
 no means appall. It will cost a great de&l, but it is worth 
 the cost. If the veterans fall before the goal is won, let 
 others take their places and march on to the front. If 
 the standard-bearers grow feeble and faint, let the more 
 youthful and stronger ones seize the banner and carry it 
 forward to victory, amid the shouts and rejoicings of a 
 grateful people. 
 
 19 
 
m 
 
. A 
 
 FULL DESCRIPTION 
 
 OP THE. 
 
 OEIGIN ARD PROGRESS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 New Plan of Labor by the Women 
 
 UP TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 By T. A. H. BROWN, 
 
 REPORTER POR THE ONaNNATI GAZETTE, WHO WAS CONSTANTLY IN THE FIELD. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY BIO LEWIS 
 
 EARLY IMPRESSED WITH THE POWER OF PRATER. — THREE HUNDRED 
 AND FORTY LECTURES ON THE SUBJECT. — THE FIRST INSTANCES 
 WHERE THIS POWER WAS TRIED UPON GROG SHOPS. — DIXON,* ILL., 
 AND BATTLE CREEK, MICH., DRIVE OUT THE DRAM SELLERS. — 
 HOW THe MOVEMENT W^AS SMOTHERED IN MANCHESTER, N, H. — 
 THE MOVEMENT ANALYZED. — A PRAYER MEETING FR03I BEGINNING 
 TO END, — DIFFERENCE IN PRATERS. — THE PLAN WHICH LARGE 
 CITIES SHOULD ADOPT. 
 
 The present wide-spread interest in the Woman’s 
 Temperance Movement has suggested the preparation 
 of the following facts in its history. 
 
 When I was a boy, my father’s habitual intemperance 
 kept our humble home in a deep shadow. My mother 
 was obliged to earn with her own hands the food for 
 her five children, and then to cook it ; she was obhged 
 to earn the material for our clothing, and then to cut 
 and make it ; she was general provider, cook, house- 
 keeper, nurse, — in brief, she was everything to her 
 family. In addition to all this, she was not unfre- 
 quently the victim of abuse and personal violence. But, 
 a high-spirited woman, she refused to entertain the idea 
 of separation, and bore all her sorrows with Christian 
 fortitude. But sometimes the trouble was more than 
 she could bear, when she would burst into tears, and, 
 leaving us, would climb up into the garret of our house 
 

 
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ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 3^1 
 
 to pray. We youngsters used to listen and hear her cry 
 out in anguish, “ O - Lord, how long, how long, how 
 long ! O God, help me, help me, help me ! ” Then she 
 would be still for a while ; and when she came down to 
 us again, we noticed that although her eyes were red, 
 her face shone like an angel’s. The day was never so 
 dark at our house that my precious mother could , not 
 go up into the attic, open the cloud, and let in the light 
 of heaven. 
 
 I grew up with an exalted conception of the power 
 of a woman's prayer. Even now, at the distance of 
 more than forty years from those dark days, I never 
 think of any great evil or criminal, that my mind does 
 not immediately busy itself with the thought, that, 
 through woman’s prayer, all this might be cured. 
 
 About twenty years ago, I prepared with great inter- 
 est an Address upon the Power of Woman’s Prayer in 
 Grog Shops. During these twenty years I have deliv- 
 ered that Address more than three hundred and forty 
 times, and have constantly cherished a firm confidence 
 that the time would come when through woman’s prayer 
 the dram shops of our country would be closed. 
 
 About nineteen years ago the plan was tried in a small 
 village in New York, with good results. About fifteen 
 years ago, while lecturing in the west, on the subject of ■ 
 Physical Education, I proposed, at Dixon, 111., to the 
 Rev. Mr. Harsha and other clergymen in Dixon, to de- 
 liver my Address on the subject of the Pow-er of Woman’s 
 Prayer in Grog Shops, if, on a certain Sunday evening, 
 they would all forego their regular exercises, and attend 
 in the large hall. They expressed some doubt about the 
 propriety of temperance lectures on the Sabbath day ; 
 but when I explained the general spirit and drift of my 
 address, they consented. The hall was crowded, and at 
 the close of the meeting a committee of three women was 
 
312 
 
 INTEMPEE AKCE, 
 
 elected to prepare an appeal from the v/omen of Dixon 
 to the dealers in intoxicating drinks there, and a com- 
 mittee of fifty women to circulate that appeal among 
 the dram sellers. The next morning the visiting com- 
 mittee held a meeting, heard the appeal read, liked it, 
 adopted it, and immediately started out with it and sev- 
 eral pledges which had been prepared meantime. They 
 went from saloon to saloon, pleading, singing, praying. 
 In one week their task was finished ; thirty-nine dram 
 shops were closed, and the papers announced that not 
 even a glass of lager beer could be purchased in town. 
 
 I left Dixon soon after, and went on my way, dis- 
 cussing and urging the cause of physical training for the 
 young of our country, in which I was then, and, indeed, 
 have ever since been, deeply interested. It is not im- 
 probable, if this movement had been pushed, and town 
 after town enlisted in the good work, that the great 
 revolution now going forward in the country might have 
 been developed at that time ; but I was then so deeply 
 impressed with the vital importance of the educational 
 work I had undertaken, that I thought even the temper- 
 ance reform one of secondary importance. However, a 
 few months later, the Woman’s Temperance Movement 
 was inaugurated at Battle Creek, IMich. The Rev. 
 Charles Jones, Congi’egational minister of that city, now 
 residing at Saxonville, Mass., and, indeed, all the cler- 
 gymen of that city, including the Episcopal, responded 
 to my suggestion for a union Sabbath evening temper- 
 ance meeting in the large hall, dismissing the regular 
 religious exercises in the churches, and bringing their 
 congregations with them to the hall. 
 
 The same steps were taken ; a committee of five 
 women to draft an appeal, and a committee of a hundred 
 women to circulate it, with the prepared pledges, were 
 elected at the close of the meeting ; and before noon of 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 313 
 
 the following clay, the committee of visitation, marching 
 two by two, and extending more than two blocks, halted 
 in front of the hotel where I was stopping, to show me 
 a large sign with the word “ Saloon,” which four of 
 them were carrying, the first trophy. Within two weeks 
 the fifty dram shops in town had been closed, with the 
 exception of one, a large drinking, billiard, and gambling 
 institution, which held out for three weeks longer. 
 
 But even this marvellous success did not induce me 
 to turn aside from the cause of physical education, and 
 engage in the Woman’s Temperance Movement. 
 
 Soon after that time, I went to Boston to establish 
 the Normal Institute of Physical Education, to train 
 teachers of the new gymnastics. For years I continued, 
 body and soul, in that work ; and then came that part 
 of my histoiy devoted to the establishment of the edu- 
 cational institution at Lexington, where I hoped to illus- 
 trate the possibilities in the physical training of young 
 women during the period of their school life. 
 
 During the four years given to the .Lexington work, 
 and up to the time that -those magnificent buildings 
 were destroyed by fire, I scarcely thought of anything 
 outside. 
 
 I removed again to Boston, six years ago, with the 
 intention of devoting the residue of my life to writing 
 and lecturing upon the subject of education. In one of 
 my books published shortly after, through the Harpers 
 under the title of “ Our Girls,” I recurred to the 
 Woman’s Temperance Movement, and published in that 
 work the details of the attempts made years before to 
 close dram shops through the pleading, songs, and pray- 
 ers of women. I then seriously resolved to attempt the 
 inauguration of a Woman’s Temperance Movement in 
 New England, and selected Manchester, N. H., for the 
 first trial. I spent a week in that city in preparation. 
 
314 
 
 ESTTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 Nearly all of the clergymen were interested, and rhany 
 leading citizens promised to occupy seats on the plat- 
 form. Mr. Clark, United States senator, presided. The 
 meeting was held in Smythe’s Hall, was immense in num- 
 bers, and not only was conducted in accordance with 
 the programme, but w‘as altogether one of the most mag- 
 nificent meetings I have ever attended. At the close 
 of the meeting we attempted to organize the regular 
 committees ; but the crowd was so gveat that it was 
 thoiight better to adjourn, to meet the next morning at 
 ten o’clock, to complete the business arrangements. 
 The meeting next morning was full and enthusiastic ; 
 the committees were appointed, and everything looked 
 most auspicious. I had thus far been so conspicuous in 
 the work, and was so anxious withal that it should be a 
 Woman’s Movement, that I thought it wise to leave 
 IManchester and our good cause in the hands of the com- 
 mittee of two hundred women. I -returned to Boston, 
 and waited for reports from Manchester. The women 
 had a large meeting the next morning ; were advised b}*^ 
 the men not to go at once to the dram shops Avith the 
 appeal and pledges which had been prepared, but to cir- 
 culate petitions through the city, and gather the names 
 of all the women and girls over fifteen years of age, 
 which should be published and circulated among the 
 ‘dram shops before the visits of the women began. This 
 task occupied two weeks ; the names Avere published, 
 making quite a large pamphlet. These pamphlets AA'ere 
 circulated among the dram sellers, and in four weeks 
 the women called a meeting with the intention of start- 
 ing out in the regular work of visiting the dram shops, 
 but the meeting Avas a small one, and lacked enthusiasm ; 
 great variety of opinion was expressed in reference to 
 the propriety and wisdom of this and that, and the 
 Woman’s Temperance Movement in Manchester Avas 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 315 
 
 abandoned, though all cherished the ’belief that much 
 good had’ been done by way of elevating public senti- 
 ment. 
 
 At Nashua, N. H., Natick, Mass., and at other points 
 in New England, I made attempts to establish the work, 
 but was everywhere more or less disappointed with a 
 lack of unanimity and enthusiasm among clergymen. 
 Since that time I have continued, as the public knows, 
 to lecture on the subject of education, and have pub- 
 lished several volumes on the , subject, which have had a 
 wide circulation. 
 
 Last December, while lecturing in Southern Ohio be- 
 fore the Lyceums upon the Higher Education of Our 
 Girls, I devoted some spare evenings to the discussion 
 of the Woman’s Temperance Movement. The first 
 meeting was held in Hillsboro’, the second in Washing- 
 ton, Fayette Co. ; the whole world knows the rest of 
 the story. 
 
 I cannot give the story of the Woman’s Temperance 
 Movement without giving my own relations with it. 
 Omitting this, it would seem to have been a series of 
 accidents, of inexplicable happenings. I trust the read- 
 er will excuse so much that is merely personal. 
 
 The Woman’s Temperance Movement is’ one of the 
 most profoundly religious revolutions the world has ever 
 seen. It is very simple ; a prayer-meeting from begin- 
 ning to end. What seems a series of stages in the work 
 is nothing but a change of place for the prayer meeting. 
 First it is in the closet, then in the vestry of the church, 
 then in the saloon ; but it is nothing more nor less than a 
 prayer meeting from beginning to end. And I notice 
 that many clergymen and religious papers speak of it as 
 illustrating the power of prayer, and as a triumphant 
 response to Professor Tyndall’s proposition. I am happy 
 and grateful in the belief that this view is just ; but I 
 
316 
 
 INTEI.IPERA^"CE, 
 
 must take pains to say that I have not observed that 
 prayer has served in this cause, unless it is of one pe- 
 culiar kind. I have heard men pray, during the last few 
 months, for the suppression of dram shops. I do not 
 believe that their j)rayers have added to the success of 
 the Woman’s Temperance Movement. Their prayers 
 have been mostly from the base of their brains. Let me 
 illustrate. Not long since, in Ohio, I heard a man j^ray 
 in a gathering about a saloon. I recall distinctly certain 
 sentences in his prayer, but I shall not be able to give 
 you his manner , I can only say that his fists were closed, 
 and he shook his head while he was praying. He cried 
 in a loud voice, “ And now. Almighty God, wilt thou 
 soften his hard, heart ; wilt thou, with thy own right 
 arm, break his obdurate will,” &c. Of course that 
 prayer was not meant for God’s ear ; it was designed for 
 the chap inside of the saloon ; but an eternity of such 
 prayers, uttered by all the men oh the globe, would not 
 close one dram shop. 
 
 Shortly after the man’s prayer was finished, an igno- 
 rant girl prayed, and her prayer was. the sort which has 
 accomplished this great temperance revolution. I recall 
 some of the sentences which were uttered in a voice 
 sweet and tender beyond my power of description. She 
 said, “ Father, we thank thee that we can do this ; 
 and if thou dost not give us the answers we ask, we are 
 thankful all just the same. Dear Father, we thank thee 
 that we are permitted -to do this work of love; 'we feel 
 ourselves coming nearer and nearer to thee. Dear 
 Father, we thank thee for this sweet privilege with all 
 our hearts. Dear Father, the distance between thee 
 and the best of us is so great, and the distance between 
 the best of us and the worst of us so small, that if 
 thou canst be patient, loving, and forgiving towards the 
 best of us, we shall find it easy ^o be patient, loving, and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY, 
 
 317 
 
 forgiving tovfards the worst of our fellows. Dear Father, 
 fill our hearts with love ; in all our thoughts, in all our 
 words, may we breathe only the spirit of Jesus.” 
 
 Thus, when it is claimed by Christians that the suc- 
 cess of the Woman’s Temj)erance Movement is in answer 
 to prayer, it must never be forgotten that the kind of 
 prayer which has been followed by the great blessing is 
 that uttered by this Ohio girl. This gives the key-note 
 of the great campaign. 
 
 That the Woman’s Temperance Movement is success- 
 ful in villages and small towns no one doubts ; but there 
 is very considerable doubt about its success in large 
 cities. For myself, I have not a shadow of doubt that 
 it will prove successful in the large cities, under the fol- 
 lowing management : — 
 
 First. Let each church organize a daily prayer meet- 
 ing. From this prayer meeting let committees of two 
 or three women be sent out at once, and constantly to 
 visit the owners of real estate where drams are sold, and 
 the private homes of those who keep the saloons. They 
 will plead with these persons to sign the pledge that 
 they will do so no more. These small committees will 
 report every day at the prayer meetings, and within a 
 week ten or fifteen of these small committees will have 
 visited as many persons as they can undertake to labor 
 with. 
 
 Second. After on^ or two weeks, these church prayer 
 meetings will send out committees of five women, to visit 
 the dram sellers at their places of business, to quietly 
 plead with them, and before they leave, kneel in a cor- 
 ner of the bar-room for a few moments of silent prayer. 
 
 Third. After one or two weeks of this labor, the 
 ‘women will generally conclude to send out larger parties, 
 say of thirty to fifty, to hold religious exercises in some 
 of the larger drinking places, with a distinct. understand- 
 
318 
 
 IKTEMPEEAInCB, 
 
 ing that when a disturbance is threatened, they imme- 
 diately resolve themselves into the smaller committees 
 of the second method, and do not gather again in large 
 companies perhaps for that day, certainly not until they 
 see an opportunity to work more effectively in large 
 bodies. 
 
 God is in the cities quite as much as in the country ; 
 the women of the. cities are as intelligent and as sor- 
 rowful over the curse of dram shops as their sisters in 
 the country ; and if they manage in the way I have sug- 
 gested, will as certainly succeed as thn women of small 
 towns. 
 
 Very respectfully^ 
 
 DIO LEWIS. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 
 
 319 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT. — THE NEW LAW FOR THE SUP- 
 PRESSION OP INTEMPERANCE. — DIO LEWIS’S PLAN AT HILLSBORO’. — 
 WASHINGTON COURT-HOUSE THE NEXT PLACE. — HOW SLATER WAS 
 SQUELCHED. — THE FIRST TABERNACLE. — SIEGE OF CHARLIE BECK, 
 ETC. 
 
 Seven cities of ancient Greece contended for the 
 honor of being Homer’s birthplace, and so there are sev- 
 eral places that claim to have given to the world the 
 “Woman’s Temperance Movement.” The controversy, 
 however, narrows down to two small towns in South- 
 ern Ohio, the names of which have already become 
 familiar to the whole country. Before the remarkable 
 scenes which closed the year 1873, Hillsboro’ and Wash- 
 ington Court-House were obscure hamlets, content with 
 being the honored seats of their respective counties ^ 
 Highland and Fayette. The movement was begun first 
 in Hillsboro’, but attained the most strength in Wash- 
 ington, from which it came to be known as the “ Wash- 
 ington Court-House plan.” 
 
 Hillsboro’ is one of those old aristocratic and some- 
 what conservative towns which are sometimes found in 
 the middle southern states, like a relic of a past genera- 
 tion, and a standing reproof against the push and hurry 
 of the average western city. It has about three thou- 
 sand five hundred inhabitants, many of whom are de- 
 scended from the old Virginia stock, and inherit the 
 bibulous customs of the old-style gentleman. So many 
 of the men were accustomed to their daily stimulant. 
 
320 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 that the public mind was anything but sensitive on the 
 temperance question, and saloon keepers were wont to 
 ply their calling unmolested by law. Where liquor 
 drinking was looked upon with some allowance, liquor 
 selling was not deemed a disgrace. It seemed, there- 
 fore, one of the most improbable things in .the range of 
 possibilities that Hillsboro’ should lead off in as radical a 
 movement for temperance reform as the world has ever 
 seen. But it was destined so to be. 
 
 On the evening of December 22, 1873, Dio Lewis, 
 a Boston physician and lyceum lecturer, delivered in 
 Music Hall a lecture on “ Our Girls.” He had been 
 engaged during the autumn previous, by the Lecture 
 Association, to fill one place in the winter course of lec- 
 tures, ffierely for the entertainment of the people. At 
 the close of his address, he S,nnouneed that he would 
 sj)eak to as many as chose to come and hear him, on the 
 following night, on the subject of temperance. He gave 
 some hints of a plan which he proposed for a campaign 
 in the interest of society. The audience, by a rising 
 vote, requested him to remain and speak. 
 
 . On the following night a large and enthusiastic audi- 
 ence assembled in the same place, to hear the proposed 
 plan elaborated. Dr. Lewis delivered a stirring address 
 on the general subject of temperance, after which he 
 told, at some length, how a band of women in a New 
 England manufacturing village had driven rum Lorn 
 their midst by a crusade of prayer and song. It was 
 one of those dull, dead places, where the boys worked 
 in the mills, and the men got drunk for a business. 
 There were six saloons in the town, and one night a 
 company of these boys were enticed into one of them, 
 and made drunk. When the}^ were taken home their 
 mothers and sisters were horrified. They saw that 
 unless something was done, their brothers and sons 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 321 
 
 would soon be as worthless as their husbands. One of 
 these women was the speaker’s mother, the wife of a 
 drunken husband. Next day she collected a band of 
 the mothers, wives, and sisters of the place, and they 
 went to the church. There they poured out their 
 ■hearts in prayer, and, kneeling about the altar in a 
 circle, joined hands, and solemnly promised God and 
 each other never to give up until every dram shop in' 
 town was closed. 
 
 Next day they went in a band to the saloon of the man 
 who had made the boys drunk, and praj^ed and pleaded 
 with him until lie pledged himself never to sell intoxi- 
 cating liquor again. Then they went to the other places, 
 and after a while all but one promised they would quit if 
 the rest would. The obstinate liquor seller for a time 
 treated them with sarcastic politeness, thinking it was a 
 feminine freak that would soon wear out. He ordered 
 his “ Boston rocker,” and pillows for his head and feet, 
 and, there being no other chairs in the room, urged the 
 ladies to take seats, go on with their praying, and make 
 themselves at home, while he took a nap. His business 
 kept him up late at night, and made him sleepy. Then 
 . while they prayed and sang he snored ; but they knew 
 all the time that he was awfully wide awake. At 
 length there was a rustling of paper. The saloonist 
 opened one eye a little, and the ladies were taking out 
 lunches ! When it came night, and they went home, 
 “ Charlie ” urged them to come again. He was always 
 glad to see his friends, especially the ladies. They came 
 again, and day after day, until Charlie’s urbanity had 
 subsided, into sullen silence. At length, one day he 
 broke in upon their devotions with, — 
 
 “ Hold on a minute. I want to know how long this 
 devilish business is going to last ! ” 
 
 “ Just so long,” was the quiet reply, “ as you persist 
 in selling whiskey to our husbands and sons.” 
 
322 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 A few more days, and Charlie yielded, and all the 
 saloons were closed. That was nineteen years ago, and 
 never from that day to this has there been a place in 
 that village where a glass of intoxicating liquor could be 
 bought. 
 
 This was the doctor’s plan for driving out saloons. 
 The people of Hillsboro’ could do it, if the women only 
 had the energy, persistency, and true Christian spirit. 
 So forcibly .was the thing presented, that a motion was 
 made to put the new idea into execution at once. It was 
 carried by a rising vote. Secretaries were appointed, 
 and seventy-five ladies enlisted on tlie spot to under- 
 take the task. Addre'sses were made by the pastors of 
 churches present, and _ by Colonel W. H. Trimble, all 
 indorsing the mpvement, and pledging it their support. 
 Mrs. J. H. Thompson, Mrs. P. J. Jeans, and Miss E. L. 
 Grand-Girard were appointed a committee to write an 
 appeal to be read to the liquor sellers by the committee 
 of visitation. After voting to meet next morning, at 
 ten o’clock, in the Presbyterian church, the meeting 
 adjourned. It ought also to be stated that seventy-five 
 men, in this meeting, put their names down as moral 
 and pecuniary “backers ” of the undertaking. 
 
 At the morning meeting the ladies put their signa- 
 tures to the following solemn compact : — 
 
 “ We, the ladies whose names are hereto appended, 
 agree and resolve that, with God’s help, we will stand 
 by each other in this work, and persevere therein until 
 it is accomplished, and see to it, as far as our influence 
 goes, that the traffic shall never be revived.” 
 
 On Christmas morning, at nine o’clock, all prelimina- 
 ries being arranged, one hundred and fifteen women 
 filed out of the church, formed a procession, and marched 
 to the drug stores. They went with trembhng limbs and 
 anxious hearts. It was to them a strange experiment, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 323 
 
 a new idea. It seemed subversive of all the recognized 
 rules of womanly conduct. The thought of going into 
 a low part of the town, and entering one of those vile 
 dens, which respectable people abhorred at a distance ; 
 of kneeling in sawdust and filth to plead with bloated 
 and beery saloon keepers, was all overwhelming to their 
 finer sensibilities, and shocking to their modesty. They 
 shrank from the task, half in doubt and half in fear. 
 But again they, thought of the drunkards that were 
 reeling home from those saloons every night, : — perhaps 
 into their families, — and of the temptations that were 
 lying in wait for their children in the future. Their 
 misgivings left them, and personal considerations no 
 longer had- any weight. 
 
 The drug stores were the first to receive attention. It 
 was known that at one of these places, at least, the 
 pestle and mortar at the door, and the rows of polished 
 jars on the shelves, were but a disguise, under which 
 was carried on an extensive retail liquor trade. A 
 pledge was prepared to meet the case of all druggists, 
 and on the morning of their first visit it was signed by 
 two of the four drug stores — J. J. Brown and Seybert 
 & Isamenn. Dr. W. R. Smith, the. third druggist, who 
 was alsq an elder in the Presbyterian church, would 
 only sign with the proviso that he, as a physician, had a 
 right to prescribe liquor, and sell on his own prescrip- 
 tion. Of the fourth druggist, W. H. H. Dunn, more 
 hereafter. 
 
 On Friday, December 26, the saloons were visited. 
 There were eleven of them, and they presented a defi- 
 ant front. Mrs. J. H. Thompson, daughter of the late 
 Governor Allen Trimble, made the first prayer in a 
 liquor saloon during the movement. They secured no 
 signatures that day. Uhrig was stubborn ; Ward said 
 he was in a bad business, and meant to stop as soon as 
 
 • 20 . 
 
824 
 
 rNTESIPEKAlsCE, 
 
 he felt able to do so ; Bales ■was flippant and hard ; the 
 hotels couldn’t do a profitable business ■without selling 
 liquor ; and so the ladies separated to their homes, on 
 the evening of the first day, ■with no victories to boast, 
 but with new strength and determination in their 
 hearts. 
 
 The next morning the ladies received a communica- 
 tion from Dunn, in reply to the appeal of the committee 
 of visitation. It was as folio 'ws : — 
 
 “Ladies: In compliance with my agreement, I give 
 you this promise, — that I will carry on my business in 
 the future as I have in the past ; that is to say, that in 
 the sale of intoxicating liquors I will comply with the 
 law ; nor will I sell to any person whose father, mother, 
 wife, or daughter, sends me a written request not to 
 make such sale.” 
 
 This was the first defiant blast from the notorious 
 Dunn, who was destined to give more trouble to the 
 “ crusaders,” — as they came to be called, — than any 
 other man during the whole course of the movement. 
 Dunn is represented as a man of frank, open disposition, 
 and a high sense of honor, which rendered the people 
 unprepared for the violent opposition which he mani- 
 fested. He was moved by no prayers, and would listen 
 to no entreaties. For a while he made no objection to 
 the ladies coming into his store, and canying on their 
 devotions ; but at length, one Friday morning, they 
 found the door' locked upon them, and were thereafter 
 inexorably excluded. But this neither detracted from 
 their ardor nor diminished their numbers. Prayer meet- 
 ings were held on the walk in front of his door, while 
 hundreds of sj'mpathizing listeners stood about. 
 
 It was a sight calculated to melt the stoutest heart. 
 However -bitter the cold, or piercing the wind, these 
 women could be seen, at almost any hour of the day. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIMEDY. 
 
 325 
 
 kneeling on tlie cold flag-stones before this store. In tire 
 midst, Avith voice raised in earnest prayer, is tire danglr-. 
 ter of a former governor of Ohio. Surrounding her are 
 the wives and daughters of statesmen, lawyers, bankers, 
 physicians, arrd business irren — represerrtatives frorrr 
 nearly all the househoids of the place. The prayer 
 ended, the rvomen rise from their knees, and begin, in a 
 low voice, some sweet and familiar hymn, that brings 
 back to the heart of the looker-on the loirg-forgotten 
 influences of childhood. Tears may be seen in the eyes 
 of red-rrosed and hard-hearted rnerr, supposed to be loirg 
 since past feeling. Passers-by lift their hats and step 
 softly. Conversation is in subdued tones, and a sympa- 
 thetic interest is depicted on every face. Then folloAv 
 another subdued prayer and a song, at the close of which 
 a fresh relay of women comes up, and the first ones 
 retire to the residence of an honored citizen, close at 
 hand, where a lunch is sjiread for their refreshment. 
 Soon it is their turn to resume their pra3dng and sing- 
 ing ; and so the siege is kept up, from morning till night, 
 and day after day^ with little variation in method or 
 incidents. 
 
 Meanwhile the saloons had not been neglected. There 
 was one kept by Joseph Lance, and known as the “Lava 
 Bed ” ^ doubtless a reminiscence of the Modoc war. 
 This was the first to yield ; but as Joe had been arrested 
 for the illegal sale of liquor, and tivo formidable indict- 
 ments were hanging over him- like a nightmare, his sur- 
 render was not considered as a clear victory. But the 
 establishment was closed forever, and the late proprie- 
 tor embarked on. a more respectable career as a fish- 
 dealer. His fish v/ere known as “ cold-water fish,” and 
 found read}" sale. 
 
 Schwartz and Koch capitulated after a siege of two 
 weeks, and shipped their liquors back to Cincinnati. 
 
326 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 Anxious to earn- an honest penny, they made an auction 
 of the various articles which comprised the • outfit of 
 their saloons, and thus afforded the temperance ladies 
 an opportunity of expressing their professed friendship 
 in dollars and cents. It was an amusing sight to see 
 the crowd of pious sisters at tMe sale, running up old 
 decanters, beer mugs, tumblers, and bottles, to fabulous 
 prices, and then lugging home the troiDhies with an air 
 of joyful pride ! They would not pay the saloon keep- 
 ers for their stock of hquors, or loss of business, but 
 when the whole was voluntarily abandoned, they were 
 eager to help the men who suddenly found themselves 
 without an occupation. 
 
 Koch .was formerlj’- a shoemaker by trade, and no 
 sooner had he resumed his old occupation than his fair 
 customers fairly overwhelmed him with orders for shoes. 
 Old dealers, who found their trade thereby so much 
 diminished, almost wished they had been saloon keepers 
 too, so they might have passed through the profitable 
 experience of surrendering. Schwartz bought a stock 
 of groceries, and found a good run of patronage from 
 the start. He now measures out molasses and vinegar 
 in the place of brandy and gin, and has neither the fear 
 of the Adair law nor of praying women before his 
 eyes. 
 
 The war upon the saloons made slow but certain 
 progress. By the 30th of January five saloons and three 
 drug stores had jdelded, and about the same number of 
 saloons and one drug store remained. The following 
 amusing “ inside view ” of one of these saloon visits 
 appeared in a Cincinnati paper. It was given b}' a 
 young blood who was there. “ He and half a dozen 
 others, who had been out of town, and did not know 
 what was going on, had ranged themselves in the fa- 
 miliar semicircle before the bar and had their di'inks 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EBJMEDY. 327 
 
 ready and cigars prepared for the match, when the 
 rustle of women’s wear attracted their attention, and 
 looking up they saw what they thought a crowd of a 
 thousand ladies entering. One youth saw among them 
 liis mother and sister, another had two cousins in the 
 invading host, and a still more unfortunate I'ecognized 
 his intended mother-in-law ! Had the invisible prince 
 of the pantomime touched them with - his magic wand, 
 converting all to statues, the tableau could not have 
 been more impressive. For one full minute they stood 
 as if turned to stone ; then a slight motion was evident, 
 and lager beer and brandy smash descended slowl}'' to 
 the counter, while cigars drojoped nnlighted from nerve- 
 less fingers. Happily, at this juncture the ladies struck 
 up — 
 
 “ 0, do not be discouraged, 
 
 For Jesus is your friend.” 
 
 It made a diversion, and the party escaped to the 
 street, “ scared out of a year’s growth.” 
 
 Leaving the ladies praying with the remaining saloons 
 and the invincible Dunn, we must follow, the movement 
 to Washington Court House, Avhere it had been raging 
 all this time with even more force, and with much great- 
 er success. The work was inaugurated in Hillsboro’ on 
 the day before Christmas. From there Dio Lewis went 
 to Washington, the county seat of Fayette County, where 
 he delivered his lecture on “ Our Girls” the same even- 
 ing. During the course of his lecture he told his 
 hearers he would like to see them all, Christmas morn- 
 ing, and talk to them a little on the subject of temper- 
 ance. Quite an audience was on hand at the appointed 
 time, and after some general arguments, the doctor 
 startled them with his prayer plan, substantially as be- 
 fore stated. 
 
 The plan was taken hold of by the ladies, as if it was 
 
328 
 
 INTEMPBEANCE, 
 
 the very thing they had so long been waiting for. No 
 time was lost. An organization was formed, petitions 
 and pledges prepared, and the very next day the ladies, 
 to the number of sixty, marched. They had ten saloons 
 and three drug stores to deal with, but before they 
 rested, the whole circuit had been made. Tliey were 
 treated by the astonished saloon keepers with some 
 show of respect, until they came to the concern con- 
 ducted by Peter Scheirman and bis devoted spouse. 
 They were very much enraged with the interference 
 with their rights as American citizens under the consti- 
 tution, declaration of independence, and star-spangled 
 banner, and in broken and excited Enghsh threatened 
 the most terrible things if the women came again. But 
 they went again and again, without suffering any serious 
 consequences, until at last Peter and Iris frau saw the 
 matter in a different light. The band increased daily 
 in numbers and zeal. Bad weather and ill treatment 
 had no effect but to inspire them with new energy. In 
 a week the procession had more than doubled in size. 
 Composed as it was of the best Christian women of the 
 town, it began to Inive a moral power which the liquor 
 sellers, sneer or argue as they might, could not stand 
 up against. From the first the ladies exhibited that 
 rare discrimination and judgment in their movements 
 which have characterized the whole campaign. Under 
 no circumstances did they allow themselves to lose their 
 temper. Generally they avoided all argument with 
 stubborn saloon keepers, and asked permission before 
 they began a prayer meeting upon the premises. It was 
 the usual programme to enter a saloon, explain to the 
 proprietor briefly their mission, present him with the 
 dealer’s pledge, and if he refused to sign it, some one 
 led in prayer, a hymn was sung, and he was personally 
 entreated to abandon his business. If all failed, these 
 
ITS ASPECT AiO) ITS EEjtfEDT. 
 
 329 
 
 visits were renewed from day to day. Entreaties were 
 persistently pressed upon him. His customers dwindled 
 down to a few of the most wretched description. Per- 
 haps a few indictments were secured against him, in case, 
 any persuasion of that kind should he needed. The 
 saloon keeper, finding himself cut off. from respectable . 
 society in the village, with an unprofitable business 
 on his hands, and conscious that he was liable at any 
 moment to be prosecuted for violation of the law, gener- 
 ally concluded, after a few days of resistance, that the 
 easiest way out of the whole difficulty was to quit, and 
 promise never to sell another drop. 
 
 So great was the success of the Washington ladies 
 that, at the end of the first week, half the dram shops 
 in the place had been closed up. The men that still 
 held out shut their doors in the face of the ladies, and 
 tried to escape the influence of the prajmrs and hymns. 
 Offers were made to compromise or sell out. One of the 
 so-called druggists, Avho had begun in trade eight years 
 before, with a keg of sour beer and a gallon of whiskey 
 bought on credit, and who had built up a profitable busi- 
 ness belnnd jars labelled drugs, offered to give up his 
 whole stock to the women for two thousand dollars ; 
 but his proposition was not entertained for a moment. 
 They kept steadily on, and in four days more every 
 saloon keeper in the corporate limits of Washington had 
 quit the business, and every druggist signed the pledge 
 to sell no liquor for a beverage. The siege had lasted 
 eleA^en days, and in that time eleven saloons and three 
 drug stores had capitulated. It was a remarkable vic- 
 tory, and none were more surprised at it than the tem- 
 perance workers themselves. They were not expecting 
 such speedy results. Old topers and gay gentlemen of 
 leisure had suddenly found themselves without their’ 
 customary stimulants or places of resort, and a'howl of 
 
330 
 
 ESTTElIPEEAIjfCB, 
 
 anguish went up from them that the -good people had 
 waited long to hear. 
 
 “Why,” one old, gray -haired guzzler was overheard 
 to say, — “ why, man, you’ll ruin your town with your 
 nonsense about temperance, shutting up saloons, and all 
 that sort of stuff. Look here,” he continued, lajung the 
 dirty forefinger of his left hand impressively upon the 
 dirty palm of his right, — “ look here ; half the money 
 that comes to your town comes through the saloons ; half 
 of the people of your town live on that money. Cut off 
 that money, and how are they going to live ? Answer 
 me that ; how are they going to live ? I’ve traded in 
 this town now goin’ on forty year, and- I’m blov.-ed if I 
 don't trade in Wilmington from this time on — from 
 this time on, sir. And there’s plenty more like me.” 
 
 It did not enter into his calculation .that Wilmington, 
 in a few days, was to be as dry as Waslfington. 
 
 But the work of the women was by no means fin- 
 ished. Just outside the village limits two establish- 
 ments were having a monopoly of the trade. Those 
 whose appetite for stimulants could not be subdued, 
 were subjected to the necessity of making regular excur- 
 sions to these places for their daily drinks. It was felt 
 that these must be suppressed, or the work would be 
 incomplete. But before they were ready to make an ad- 
 vance upon Beck and Sullivan, a new enemy faced them 
 in their very midst. One Slater had set up a saloon, and 
 avowed his intention to fight the women as long' as they 
 desired. His lawyer and priest had fortified him with 
 the doctrine that whiskey selling was a legitimate busi- 
 ness under the laws of the state, and he would be pro- 
 tected in it. But no sooner had he opened his door 
 than the women were with him ; and they staid with 
 him. Their prayers and persuasions had no effect 
 whatever, and he grew more violent every day. His 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 331 
 
 wickedness became so notorious, that he was commonly 
 knoAvn as the “ John Allen ” of Washington. One day 
 he bethought himself of the plan of freezing the women 
 out. He allowed his fire to go out, opened the windows 
 and doors, and wet the floor down with water until it 
 stood in j)ools. It was a bitter cold January day, and 
 the atmosphere of the place was almost unendurable. 
 But the marshal of the village kept up a huge fire in 
 the street ; and the inward fires of zeal made them 
 proof against the weather. 
 
 But the ladies ivere as fertile in devices as their wily 
 enemy. Mr. Slater Avas surprised one morning to find 
 before his door a small portable building, hastily con- 
 structed of boards, supplied Avith a stove and seats, and 
 looking as though it had come to stay. The side facing 
 his saloon was open, and yaAvned before him like an 
 immense mortar, ready to be discharged and blow his 
 frail shanty into atoms. But it Avas, probably, the most 
 lAeaceful engine of Avar ever constructed. This peculiar 
 institution came to be knoAvn as the “ Tabernacle,” pos- 
 sibly oAving to its resemblance to the structure Avhich 
 the Israelites carried with them through the wilderness ; 
 and that name has clung to it, Avherever it has appeared, 
 throughout the whole campaign. Comfortably seated 
 in this, the besieging party continued singing and pray- 
 ing during the entire day, and until late at night. But 
 still tlie obstinate saloonist held out. It Avas then dis- 
 covered that the building belonged to another party 
 than the occupant, and the Avomen resolved to buy the 
 building out of his hands. But he threatened to start 
 again Avithin two hours in some other locality. At last, 
 when all efforts at “ moral suasion ” had jiroved ineffec- 
 tive, a stronger argument was called into use. A case 
 was made out against him under the Adair law, and he 
 was brought to terms about the middle of January. 
 
332 
 
 INTEMPEEAXCE, 
 
 Again the village proper was free. But there still 
 remained the beer hall of Charlie Beck, about half a 
 mile out, and the wayside saloon of James Sullivan, ’still 
 farther away. To these the women turned their prayer- 
 ful attention. Beck was one of those good-natured, yet 
 stubborn and excitable members of the German race, 
 who look upon beer drinking as an essential element in 
 man’s social and moral nature, and think everybody a 
 Puritan or fanatic who holds different views. His place 
 looked more like a countiy school-house than a saloon. 
 It stood back from the road, and was surrounded by 
 well-arranged grounds. Carriages Avere furnished the 
 ladies,' free of charge, from the temperance lively stable 
 of Collins & Bitzer, and in these the band made daily 
 visits to Beck’s. After a while Beck, v’ho kept a sharp 
 lookout, Avhen he saw the ladies coming, locked his 
 door, and fled to his residence close at hand. It was 
 during one of these intervals that a Cincinnati reporter 
 came reconnoitring about the place. There were no 
 Vvomeu around, but the door Avas locked, and the cau- 
 tious Teuton had fled. After some j)ouudiug at the 
 door, the folloAviug response aa’us elicited from the resi- 
 dence close at hand : — 
 
 “ Hello, mein freund ; Amt you A'ant, eh ? ” 
 
 The man Avith a nose for news explained his errand, 
 whereupon Beck broke out with, — 
 
 “ I got no A’itnesses. Dem Admens dey set up a shob 
 on me. But jmu don’t bin a ’bitual troonkard, eh ? 
 No, you don’t look like him. Yal, goom in, goom in. 
 Yat you vant — beer or Adne ? I dells you dem Admins 
 is shoost aAvful. Py shinks, dey build a house right in 
 de shtreet, und stay mit a man all day singin, und oder 
 foolishness. But dej'' don’t git in here once agin, 
 already.” 
 
 It seems that some one had been trying to entrap the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 333 
 
 cunning beer vender, by coming to buy liquor with the 
 intention of going away to swear to it, and thus make 
 out a case against him under the Adair law. He was 
 naturally, therefore, very suspicious of strangers, and 
 was even led to look with distrust upon some of his old 
 and faithful customers. These were trying times, and 
 his beery brain was racked with anxiety and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 “You bin a reborter ? Veil, I shoust likes to see a 
 goot man here von der Enguirer von Cincinnati. Anod- 
 er man yesterday goom mit dem vimins ; I tells zem 
 all, ‘ You shoust go ouat ; 3^11 got no peesness here.’ 
 And den he puts his hand so, in his pusom, for a peestol, 
 und zay, ‘ You tooch dem vimen, I put 3-011 vare 3mu 
 don’t zell beer an3'' more, already.’ ” 
 
 During this running fire of broken English, he kept 
 moving from one window to the other, expecting every 
 moment that the dreaded invaders would heave in sight. 
 
 “ Dem fellers in town, dey shkinned out and left me 
 alone,” he complained bitterly. “But I’ll never shtop 
 for dem vimin. I sell vine, beer, und cigars, und I 
 don’t got any trunken men in mein house.” 
 
 According!}'-, to show his contempt for the women. 
 Beck called in his faithful adherents, together with his 
 lawyer, and spent most of the night in a drunken pow- 
 Avow which went a little be3mnd any of his former 
 achievements in that line. The shouts of the revellers 
 could be heard during the night iii the distant village, 
 and in the morning a reminiscence of the entertainment 
 was found in the form of a man dead drunk upon a 
 manure pile near the lAery stable. 
 
 This gave fresh energy to the Avomeh, and they were 
 on the war-path early next morning. Seeing them com- 
 ing in larger numbers and Avith more determined mien 
 than before. Beck tore off to the toAvn, whence he soon 
 
334 
 
 rNTEMPEEAJSrCE, 
 
 returned with his “gounsel, to see A^eu he got no more 
 a7iy right to his own property.” 
 
 The scene grew exciting. The lawyer and reporter 
 took up convenient positions on the fence. The ladies 
 filled up the door, and extended away to the right. By- 
 standers stood in knots a few yards away, while rushing 
 wildly about among them all was the excited Beck. 
 Fervent prayers were offered for the blessing of God on 
 the temperance cause generally, on that place in partic- 
 ular, on Beck and his household, — all who loA'ed him, 
 — and on the Avomen engaged in the difficult and deli- 
 cate task before them. Appropriate hymns Avere sung 
 in the intervals, and the Avomen appeared to be getting 
 happy in about the same ratio that Beck was groAving 
 miserable, Avhen at length, at the conclusion of one of 
 the songs, the lawyer slid doAvn from his perch on the 
 fence, advanced towards the ladies, and adtbessed to 
 them the following speech : — 
 
 “Now, ladies, I have a word to say before this per- 
 formance goes any farther. IMr. Beck has employed 
 me as his attorney. He cannot speak good English, and 
 I speak for him here. He is engaged in a legitimate 
 business, and 3-0U are trespassers on his property and 
 rights. If this thing is carried any farther, you Avill be 
 called to account in the court, and I can assure you the 
 court Avill sustain the man. He has talketl Avith you all 
 he desires to. He does not Avant to put you out forci- 
 bly ; that Avould be unmanly, and he does not Avish to 
 act rudely. But he tells you to go. As his attorney 
 I noAv Avarn you to desist from any further annoyance.” 
 
 Again the ladies sang, — 
 
 “My soul, be on thy guard; 
 
 Ten thousand foes arise,” — 
 
 and a fervent prayer was immediately offered for the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 335 
 
 lawyer and liis client. It was decided to retire peacea- 
 bly from the premises ; but a man who owned the adjoin- 
 ing lot was friendly to the cause, and invited them to 
 establish their “ Tabernacle ” there, where it would be 
 almost as effective as before the very door of the saloon. 
 Then the siege of prayer and song was resumed. Strong 
 reflectors were placed so as to illuminate the entrance 
 to the beer garden. Guards Avere constantly on hand, 
 till late at night, and few Avere found bold enough to 
 face the lanterns for a glass of beer. Beck’s business 
 was ruined, and he and his lawyer felt that something 
 had to be done. Application was made for a temporary 
 injunction, and after tAvo Aveeks’ delay it Avas granted. 
 The Tabernacle disappeared, the daily visits were 
 stopped, and peace once more reigned in the neighbor- 
 hood of Charlie Beck’s beer garden. 
 
 But the law proved a double-edged SAVord. Hitherto 
 the temperance Avorkers had carefully refrained from 
 any ajipeal to legal force ; but Avhen they found it 
 employed against them they no longer hesitated. The 
 Adair law had been- violated by both Beck and Sullivan 
 scores' of times every Aveek, and it did not take long to 
 make out strong cases against them. Sullivan yielded 
 at once, and soon after Beck ran up the Avhite flag, and 
 surrendered. 
 
 At last Washington Court House was free ! Not a 
 drop of spirituous or malt liquor could be bought for 
 miles about. It was the first, great victory of the cam- 
 paign, — the first demonstration of the poAver of Avomen 
 to do what men, Avith fifty years of legislation, had 
 failed to accomplish. The bells of the toAvn rang out 
 with joy. Great excitement prevailed, and the chief 
 business for a few days Avas the interchange of congrat- 
 ulations. 
 
 But the ladies realized that their work was not done. 
 
336 
 
 LN'TEMPEKAISrCE, 
 
 The nail so well driven must be clinched. Their cam- 
 paign would be but a' poor success if the results were 
 not made permanent. Accordingly they devoted their 
 energies to the circulation of the different kind of 
 pledges, and by continuing the daily mass meetings and 
 prayer meetings, endeavored to mould the excited pub- 
 lic sentiment into definite and permanent shape. The 
 personal pledge rvas pushed with special industry, and 
 nearly the whole population of the place added to the 
 roll of names. 
 
 The following are the forms of the various pledges, 
 which are substantially the same as those used hi other 
 towns, throughout the whole movement : — 
 
 “ We, the undersigned, druggists of , hereby 
 
 pledge ourselves, upon our honor as business men, that 
 from this date we will under no circumstances sell or 
 give away, or allow to be sold or given away by any of 
 our agents or employes, any alcoholic or intoxicating 
 liquors, wine, beer, or ale, except upon satisfactory evi- 
 dence that the liquors are to be used for medicinal or 
 mechanical purposes.” 
 
 “ We, the undersigned, property holders in , 
 
 pledge ourselves, upon our honor, not to let or lease oin- 
 preinises (or premises for which we are agents) in this 
 city, or pennit them to be used or occupied, for the sale 
 or dispensing in any way of spirituous liquors, vine, 
 beer, or ale, to be used as a beverage.” 
 
 “ We hereby pledge ourselves, upon efur honor, not to 
 sell, furnish,- dr give away, or allow to be sold or given 
 awaj'' by any agent or employe of ours, either bj retail 
 or wholesale, any spirituous liquors, wine, beer, or ale, 
 except for medicinal or mechanical purposes. 
 
 .“We, the undersigned, physicians of , npon^ 
 
 our honor as professional men, promise hereby not to 
 prescribe the use of spirituous liquors, \vine, beer, or ale, 
 only in case of absolute necessity.’ 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 837 
 
 “ We, the imdersignecl, do solemnly promise that we 
 will neither make, buy, sell, nor use as a beverage, any 
 spirituous or malt liquors, wine, or fermented cider ; and 
 that, in all honorable ways, we will discountenance the 
 use of the same by others.” 
 
 The following is the appeal presented by the ladies to 
 the liquor seller : — 
 
 “ Knowing, as you do, the fearful effects of intoxicat- 
 ing drinks, we, the women of Washington, after earnest 
 prayer and deliberation, have decided to appeal to you 
 to desist from this ruinous traffic, that our husbands, 
 brothers, and especially our sons, be no longer exposed 
 to this terrible temptation, and that we may no longer 
 see them led into those paths which go down to sin, and 
 bring both soul and body to destruction. We appeal to 
 the better instincts of your hearts, in the name of deso- 
 lated homes, blasted hopes, ruined lives, Avidowed hearts, 
 for the honor of our community, for our ' prosperity, for 
 our happiness, for our good nam.e as a town, in the name 
 of God, who will judge you as well as ourselves, for the 
 sake of your souls, which are to be saved or lost, we 
 beg, we implore you, to cleanse yourselves from this 
 heinous sin, and place yourselves in the ranks of those 
 AAdio are striving to elevate and ennoble themselves and 
 their fellow-men ; and to this we ask you to pledge 
 yourselves.” • 
 
 The . following resolution, adopted by the Hillsboro’ 
 ladies, will show what they thought of liquor on their 
 OAvn sideboards, or in their mince-pies and puddings : — 
 
 “ Whereas .it is written, ‘ Be ye .clean that bear the 
 vessels *of the Lord,’ therefore 
 
 “ Resolved, That any woman connected with this Vis- 
 iting Committee who has Avine or brandy, or other alco- 
 holic drinks, in her house, to be used for culinary pur- 
 poses, be requested to dispose of the same immediately, 
 and hereafter to discontinue and discourage such use.” 
 
338 
 
 INTEISrPBEAXCE, 
 
 Washington was destined to have one more hout with 
 whiskey before it was finally and effectually squelched. 
 Some of the old soakers, Avho began to grow exceedingly 
 dry, opened communication with one Charles Passmore, 
 of Cincinnati. , They represented to him that there was 
 a fine opening there for a young man with a few kegs 
 of beer and casks of liquor. He would have no record 
 by which they could proceed against him under the 
 Adair law, and could enjoy an enthe monopoly of the 
 trade. Viewed from the Cincinnati stand-point, it 
 looked absurd that a few pfaj'ing women could afford 
 any serious obstacle to a man xvith any backbone ; and 
 Mr. Passmore came on with his kegs. A room was se- 
 cured, and the hopeful saloonist was about tapping his 
 first barrel, when he was surprised by a call from a hun- 
 dred ladies or more. The alarm-bells had been sounded, 
 and the women were ready to march on the instant. 
 After a few prayers and songs, the astonished Cincinna- 
 tian ventured to inquire how long they proposed to 
 stay. 
 
 “ That depends entirely upon yourself, was the 
 reply. “We have come to stay- with you till you 
 promise never to sell another glass of liquor in this 
 place.” 
 
 “ That puts a different face on the matter,” thought 
 Mr. P., and the next day the kegs were re-shipped to 
 Cincinnati, never having been opened, klr. Passmore 
 followed them, and from that time Washington has en- 
 joyed perfect immunity from saloon-keepers, and lived 
 on the vii’tuous principle of total abstinence. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEJMEDY. 
 
 839 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MARVELLOUS SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT. — SUDDEN REDEMPTION OP 
 WILMINGTON. — THE EPIDEMIC IN GREENFIELD. — THE FAMOUS SIEGE 
 OF VAN PELT AT NEW VIENNA. — HIS WICKEDNESS AND HIS SURREN- 
 DER. — THE GLOOMY HISTORY OP MORROW A GOOD TEMPERANCE 
 TRACT. — ABOUT SELLING CORN TO DISTILLERS. — A WAYNESVILLB 
 PRAYER MEETING REPRODUCED. — A FORTY-NINE DAYS’ SIEGE AT 
 CORWIN. 
 
 Some idea of the marvellous rapidity with which this 
 movement began to spread may be had from the fact 
 that, within two weeks from the day it was first inaugu- 
 rated at Hillsboro’, three or four of the leading counties 
 in Southern Ohio were taken by storm. As fast as the 
 news could be carried to neighboring towns, they caught 
 the spirit, and began the crusade of prayer and song. 
 The whole section of country seemed ripe for the move- 
 ment. Dio Lewis said it was the first soil he had found 
 where his temperance plant would grow. The public 
 press, which had hitherto contained but meagre reports 
 of the movement, said that it was destined to be the 
 sensation of the day; special correspondents were de- 
 spatched to the scene, and the daily reports crept up 
 from paragraphs into columns, and from columns to 
 pages. The outside world began to grow interested. 
 Those who had regarded the movement as the fleeting 
 excitement of an hour now began to see in it a bright 
 promise of hope. And as the lovers of temperance and 
 order grew interested, the liquor men, from distiller 
 down to the lowest whiskey seller, grew alarmed. A 
 
 21 
 
340 
 
 EJ TEINIPEE, AlfCE, 
 
 contemptuous sneer was all the attention paid to the 
 matter for a time ; but as the work went on, and its 
 strength became more apparent, the liquor dealers com- 
 menced to organize for a desperate resistance. 
 
 Wilmington is the thriving county seat of Clinton 
 County, adjoining Fayette. On the 4th of January, ten 
 saloons and four drug stores were driving a brisk trade 
 in drinks that intoxicate. On the. 5th, the respectable 
 people of the town came together to talk the matter 
 over. They had heard of the wonderful things going on 
 in the adjoining county, and decided on the spot to 
 adopt the same plan. Two hundred women, the most 
 esteemed in the city, fell into the ranks, and among 
 them were a number whose remarkable talent and en- 
 ergy soOn gave them a reputation beyond the limits of 
 their own town. Mrs. Runyan, Mrs. Hadley, and others 
 will long be remembered for their faithful service at 
 home, and missionary labors abroad. The same plan 
 was pursued as at Washington; and so vigorously was 
 it carried on that within four days all the di-uggists had 
 signed, and at the end of ten days the news was tele- 
 graphed abroad that every saloon had surrendered, and 
 that no liquor could be bought in the town. 
 
 The Saturday which closed the first week was a day 
 which the people of Wilmington wiU. not soon forget. 
 Crowds from the country had heard of the excitement, 
 tmd flocked in to see what was going on. The streets 
 Avere filled. At ten o’clock the bells announced that the 
 ladies had begun their march. They went in eight par- 
 ties, numbering from twenty to thirty each. These 
 squads relieved each other at the tap of a bell, and thus 
 there was a band at every saloon in town during the 
 whole day. The solemn regularity and clock-hke pre- 
 cision which characterized their movements would have 
 done credit to a well-drilled military brigade. The air 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 341 
 
 was cold and raw, and the streets were filled with slush ; 
 but the women seemed perfectly oblivious to such trifles. 
 Their zeal was rewarded. At night two more of the 
 saloon kee'pers signed the pledge, and shipped their 
 liquors back to Cincinnati, and on Monday and Tuesday 
 the remainder followed their example. The same car 
 which bore the liquors back was fllled with similar 
 freight from Washington Court House. 
 
 Ten days of hard fighting, and Wilmington was re- 
 deemed from whiskey. And from that day to the pres- 
 ent time, there has not been even a keg of beer on tap 
 in the city. Some confirmed soakers have, at a great 
 outlay of time and money, gone to distant towns, and 
 stealthily, lugged home long black bottles of “ tonics ” 
 and “blood purifiers,” but whiskey selling as a business 
 has ceased. A few amusing attempts have been made 
 to smuggle into town, under cover of the darkness, a 
 solitary half barrel of Cincinnati beer ; but the attempts 
 proved wretched failures. In one instance, the keg was 
 dropped from the train half a mile out of town, and sur- 
 reptitiously hustled off to a haystack. But the temper- 
 ance folks got on the scent, and the unfortunate keg was 
 hunted down as if it had been so many gallons of pesti- 
 lence. Like the ark of the covenant, now it fell into 
 the hands of the Philistines, and again adorned the Is- 
 raelite camp. Its thirsty guardians had a weary strug- 
 gle, and were not rewarded by a single drink. 
 
 Greenfield, in Highland County, was the next point 
 struck by the epidemic. A temperance league was 
 formed, on the following platform : — 
 
 “ First, That intemperance is the great evil of the 
 times. 
 
 “ Second, That it is especially a great evil in Green- 
 field; and 
 
 “ Third,- That it can be eradicated by this method, if 
 persistently adhered to.” 
 
342 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 One hundred and ten ladies and nearly as many men 
 joined the first night. As in the other towns, the league 
 was composed of the best people in the place. The first 
 thing done was to invite all the hquor sellers to meet a 
 committee, and thus give them an opportunity to yield 
 gracefully in advance. Out of the fifteen dealers but 
 one came, and he was a druggist. Next day, ninety-one 
 women formed a solemn phalanx, and marched to the 
 saloons. Coming at the end of a series of rehgious meet- 
 ings, the movement in Greenfield took, from the first, a 
 deeply religious' cast. The most solemn earnestness per- 
 vaded the mass meetings at the churches, and seemed 
 stamped upon the countenances of the women on the 
 street. They were generally older than those engaged 
 in the work in Washhigton and Wfimington, and, from 
 the pathetic words and sad, care-worn faces of many of 
 them, it was evident that the terrible bhght of intem- 
 perance had rested heavily upon their own homes. It 
 was early determined not to promise any patronage or 
 threaten any prosecution for compliance or refusal, but 
 simply to appeal to the better nature of the saloon 
 keeper, and trust to the power of prayer to move him. 
 
 On the 22d of January, it was reported that one thii-d 
 of the liquor dealers had signed the pledge. Rev. A. C. 
 Hirst, fresh from the battle at Washington, came down 
 to exhort and encourage. Crowded mass meetings were 
 held every evening in the churches, and rej)orts of the 
 day’s proceedings were read. These reports of the sec- 
 retary, Miss Kate Dwyer, so well reflect the sphit of 
 love and deep devotion vdth which the work was carried 
 on, that we append the following extract : — 
 
 ■ “ The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; 
 the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the sim- 
 ple. Knowing that aU. our wisdom would indeed be of 
 God, and that the souls of all men are in his hands, we 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 343 
 
 took up our work this morning again. It seemed that 
 the very presence of the Lord could be felt as we walked 
 softly towards the house of Mr. B. Devout prayers 
 were offered, and songs were sung, then the pledge pre- 
 sented, but still the prayers and entreaties of God’s peo- 
 ple in his behalf were unsuccessful. As slowly and sol- 
 emnly the procession proceeded from there to Mr. H.’s. 
 He, too, heeded not the appeal. Again finding Mr. P.’s 
 door locked, we made known the requests of our hearts 
 to God in prayer and song from the sidewalk. From 
 there we directed our steps to the saloon of Mr. K. He 
 professes to sell liquor while the laws of the land give 
 the license. God’s will and laws are higher than those 
 of man, and he can enforce them. The next place vis- 
 ited was Mr. C.’s drug store. He professed to be un- 
 moved, either temporally or spiritually. The Lord look- 
 eth from heaven. He beholdeth all the sons of men ; he 
 fashioneth their hearts alike ; he considereth all their 
 works. Our prayer is, that God may touch tfiat heart 
 with the finger of his love, and cause it to melt like wax 
 before the fire. 
 
 “ In the afternoon we visited Mr. S.’s establishment. 
 He being absent, we presented our pledge to his clerk, 
 and held devotional exercises ; pledge unsigned. After 
 that we went to both the saloons of Mr. C. He is also 
 absent from town, but those in his employ refused the 
 pledge. From there we returned to the church, trusting 
 in God for the fruit of our day’s labor. On entering we 
 found glad tidings awaiting us — a druggist’s pledge, 
 with the signature of N. Squier. O, how great is thy 
 goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, 
 which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee ! 
 B'e of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, 
 all ye that hope in the Lord.” 
 
 On the 6th of February, after nearly a month of un- 
 
344 
 
 INTEMPEKAKCE, 
 
 ceasing work, the ladies resolved to celebrate their vic- 
 tories in a grand thanksgiving jubilee. H. Thane Miller 
 and W. H. Doane, of Cincinnati, and all other sympa- 
 thizers, were invited to be present. Business was sus- 
 pended, and the schools dismissed. The cause for the 
 rejoicing was summed up in the following brief report, 
 made at the opening of the meeting : — 
 
 Three drug stores signed the druggists’ pledge. 
 
 Five saloons signed the dealers’ pledge. 
 
 Two thousand one hundred and ninety-eight persons 
 signed the personal pledge. 
 
 One of the unsubdued, a druggist named C. K. Clin- 
 ton, found himself getting a notoriety almost equal to 
 that of Slater or Dunn. His drug store was nothing 
 more thaii a saloon in disguise. He received the ladies 
 with uniform urbanity, but never showed the least dis- 
 position to relent. It was his custom to go down to his 
 “ den of iniquity ” (as he proudly called it) in the morn- 
 ing, sweep out, build a good fire, arrange the chairs in 
 order, and sit down with his paper till the “ women 
 came.” That ceremony over, he was ready to go about 
 his accustomed business in the old way. Although he 
 never allowed himself to appear disturbed, the words 
 of the kind-hearted and soft-spoken ladies sometimes 
 reached a tender spot. 
 
 “ I thought I had sand enough in my craw,” he con- 
 fessed to a friend, “ to stand anything ; but I’ll be con- 
 founded if the prayers of these women don’t somehow 
 take hold of a fellow. It’s enough to sink a wooden 
 man.” 
 
 The “ sand in his craw ” was not sufficient to enable 
 him to withstand those earnest prayers much longer. 
 He held out until his -companions dropped off one by 
 one ; and when he found himself at last alone, the focus 
 
FIRST CALL, OB LAYIN’G SIBGE TO VAN PELT'S SALOON. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 347 
 
 of the prayers and entreaties of the whole female com- 
 munitj’-, and the sole object of daily mass meetings, he 
 ceased his stubborn resistance, and Greenfield was added 
 to the shining list of the emancipated. But while these 
 things were going on at Greenfield, the ejes of the 
 whole country began to be turned on New Vienna, a 
 small railroad town a few miles west. The story of New 
 Vienna is the story of Van Pelt, who was destined to 
 play so important a part in the history of the movement 
 in Ohio. John Calvin Van Pelt, the wickedest nian in 
 Ohio, soon became a familiar character to the public. 
 Near the depot was a forbidding-looking one-story struc- 
 ture, appropriately known as the “ Dead Fall,” and pre- 
 sided over by Van Pelt, a tall, solidly built man, with a 
 red nose and the head of a prize-fighter. He had for- 
 merly served the public in the capacity of an oyster 
 dealer on Sixth Street, Cincinnati, at which time he be- 
 came identified with the interests of the cockpit, and 
 won considerable notoriety for his bull-dog pluck and 
 strength of will in any undertaking in which he em- 
 barked. He possessed a sort of humor and sociability 
 which made him -a popular leader among his companions 
 at New Vienna. , 
 
 The league was formed in the usual way, and, after 
 visiting the drug stores, the ladies directed th'eir steps 
 toward the “Dead Fall.” Van Pelt seemed infuriated. 
 He threatened, if they came to his saloon again, to hang, 
 draw, and quarter them. The next day, one of his win- 
 dows was decorated with flasks filled with whiskey. 
 Across the other one was an axe, covered with blood. 
 Over the door were suspended empty flasks, and near 
 them a large jug, branded “ Brady’s Family Bitters.” 
 Over all floated a black flag. As if this array was not 
 sufficiently dramatic, he could be seen within, brandish- 
 ing a club, and defying the temperance band, at the risk 
 of their lives, to enter. 
 
348 
 
 INTEMPER AJJTCE, 
 
 But even these bloodthirsty demonstrations had no 
 effect upon the ladies. Next day they went, about fifty 
 in number, entered his saloon, and began their usual de- 
 votions. About two hundred men were outside, expect- 
 ing some attempt at violence. A lady began in prayer, 
 and was just about praying that the heart of the saloon 
 keeper might be baptized with the Holy Ghost, when 
 Van Pelt seized a bucket of dirty water. 
 
 “ G — d d — n you,” said he, “ I’ll baptize you ! ” And 
 with this he threw the contents against the ceiling 
 overhead, from which it came pouring down upon the 
 kneeling ladies. They stood, however, heroically to 
 their post, and it was not until drenched with dirty 
 slops and beer that they retreated to the ontside. 
 
 The crowd surrounding the place were enraged, and 
 were only prevented by the intercession of the ladies 
 from mobbing the ruffian. Inhuman as he was, the 
 women had faith to believe they could conquer him 
 without violence, or even law. But the fathers and 
 husbands of those insulted Avere not so tender in their 
 sentiments, and Van Pelt was arrested and sent to jail. 
 There he languished for several days, unable to find 
 bad. His brother, also a desperate character, did the 
 honors at the saloon, and for a day or two allowed the 
 women to enter, and carry on their deA^otional exercises. 
 On the third day, however, he shut them out, and they 
 again patiently went on with their prayers on the walk 
 outside. 
 
 Meanwhile Van Pelt found bail, and was released 
 from the calaboose. His week’s imprisonment seemed 
 only to have made liim the more bitter and determined. 
 He had- the boldness to attend the meetiusrs of the ladies 
 
 O 
 
 in the Friends’ church, and argue the case with them 
 publicly. 
 
 “ Why did the Lord put the stimulant in the corn and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDT. 
 
 349 
 
 grape, if it was not for the use of man ? What would 
 the farmer get for his grain, if whiskey was not made 
 and sold ? ” These and like arguments, which he had 
 carefully studied up, he hurled at the heads of the tem- 
 perance people, and, with his quick wit, proved quite a 
 formidable disputant for the logicians of the other party 
 to encounter. At length he gave evidence of a growing 
 weakness in the knees by repeated propositions to sell 
 out. His first price was five hundred dollars ; then he 
 fell to three hundred, and at last to ninety-five, that 
 being the amount expended by him in lawyers’ fees, &c. 
 On payment of this sum, he was to quit the town for- 
 ever. It was a tempting inducement, and many were 
 for taking him up. A meeting was called to consider 
 the matter. The debate natiually ran back to the beer 
 slops indignity. 
 
 “ He may be glad he got off with his life. In any 
 other town he would mighty quick go to try the realities 
 of another world ; but we are a peaceable people, and 
 only ask him to go while he can go safe. We don’t owe 
 him anything,” &c. This was the argument of Mr. 
 Amberg. 
 
 “ I was the one who got ihe most of it,” said one of 
 the ladies ; “ but I have forgiven him, and continue to 
 pray that I may have no hard feelings against him ; and 
 though I maintain we don’t owe him a cent, yet I am 
 willing to make him a small present just for good will.” 
 
 These two arguments illustrate very weU. the different 
 spirit entertained by the men and by the women on the 
 same subject. 
 
 On the 26th, Van Pelt proved his indisputable claim 
 to the title of the wickedest man in Ohio. He put a 
 cap on the- climax of his wickedness. When the ladies 
 called at his saloon, as usual, he met them at the door, 
 and told them they might come in and pray on one con- 
 
350 
 
 INTEMPBKANCE, 
 
 dition. That was, that they allow him to make every 
 other prayer. In amazement the women said -yes, and 
 the farce began. After some lady had concluded the 
 first prayer, Van Pelt began a long and blasphemous 
 harangue in the form of a.prayer. It is to be regretted 
 that no reporter was on the spot to preserve the curi- 
 osity to the world. He asked the Lord to have mercy 
 on the women, whom he classed with the brutes, and 
 to teach them wisdom and understanding. Woman,' he 
 said, first caused man to sin,_ and there was great need 
 for prayer in their behalf. He said the Lord operated 
 the first distillerj'- ; or, at least, made the first wine, and 
 he (Van Pelt) was but following the Lord’s example, 
 &c., &c. 
 
 Before the services were ended he had made three 
 long prayers of this description. The women were al- 
 most speechless with astonishment, half expecting that 
 the hardened wretch would be struck dumb on the spot. 
 But this was only the darkness before day. One week 
 from that time Van Pelt had surrendered, and, like Saul 
 of Tarsus, took up the cause he had. fought so long, and 
 became one of its most shining apostles. 
 
 The day before the surrender w'as dark and drizzling. 
 All day long the women stood guard before the door, 
 changing at intervals. In the evening meeting the sec- 
 retary read out the names of all who had entered Yan 
 Pelt’s place during the . day. A determination was 
 evinced to fight it out on the line already begun. Next 
 morning the ladies met promptly at eight o’clock, and 
 proceeded to the “ Dead Fall.” Van Pelt met them at 
 the door, and told them if they would go away and come 
 again at two o’clock he would give them his final de- 
 cision. It was noised abroad that Van Pelt was going 
 to sm'render. At noon the bells were set to ringing, and 
 boys went through the streets with hand-bells, crying. 
 
VAN pelt’s surrender. 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 353 
 
 “ Everybody meet at Van Pelt’s saloon at two o’clock, 
 and hear his decision ! ” People closed up their places 
 of business, and rushed from all parts of the town 
 towards the depot. An immense crowd of men and 
 women assembled before the scene of so many prayers 
 and songs. Each looked at the other, and- wondered 
 what was going to come next. 
 
 After singing and prayer by the ladies. Van Pelt 
 came to the door, and in a few remarks full of feeling, 
 made a complete surrender of his stock and fixtures to 
 the cause. He said he yielded not to law or force, but 
 to the labors of love of the women. He then requested 
 all the men, except the ministers, to retire beyond the 
 railroad track, and called upon Rev. D. Hill and Rev. 
 H. H. Whitter to roll out the barrels. There was one 
 barrel of whiskey, another of cider, and a keg of beer. 
 
 Van Pelt then seized an axe, and stepping forward, 
 held it up, crying, — 
 
 “ This is the same weapon I used to terrify the ladies-. 
 I now use it to sacrifice that which I fear has ruined 
 many souls.” So saying, he stove in the heads of the 
 barrels, and the liquors gurgled out into the gutters. 
 
 Prayer was offered, a hymn sung, and Van Pelt made 
 a few more remarks, saying, — 
 
 “ Ladies, I now promise you to never sell or drink 
 another drop of whiskey as long as I live, and also prom- 
 ise to Avork with you in the cause with as much zeal as 
 I have worked against you.” He also remarked that he 
 hoped the Avomen of the United States would never 
 cease until every drop of whiskey was emptied upon 
 the ground, as his Avas. 
 
 Just then the train frorn Cincinnati arrived. The 
 crowd set up a deafening cheer ; a photographist caught 
 the scene, and preserved it to posterity ; the women 
 gathered around Van Pelt, shaking his hands and con- 
 
354 
 
 INTESIPEEA^TCE, 
 
 gratulating him, and the glad news spread through the 
 town, creating great excitement. 
 
 In the evening a thanksgiving meeting was held in 
 the Christian church, and Van Pelt spoke. He was 
 humble in his manner, and made a good impression on 
 the audience. He had felt, he said, for some days, 
 deep convictions that he was doing a mean business, 
 but had used every argument he could to sustain him- 
 self — had tried to argue with the ladies, and get the 
 best of the argument ; it was not arguments, but their 
 prayers and suffering that had touched his heart. No 
 man' or set of men would suffer and endure what the 
 ladies had endured in this work. .He referred to his 
 saloon as a low doggery, saying, “ Yes, I’ll caU it a low 
 doggery, for no man can keep a high one.” He had 
 often taken the last ten cents from a man for whiskey 
 when he knew the money had been ’ earned by his wife 
 or child. Every man who sells whiskey does this. Little 
 faces thus robbed had often appealed to his heart with 
 greater force than any words of man. He w-as now de- 
 termined to quit this business forever, and throw his 
 strength on the other side of the question. He thought 
 places of innocent amusement and resort ought to be 
 established, to entertain those who seek company at 
 saloons. He beheved this emphatically a ladies’ work. 
 He believed God had led them into this work. He 
 wanted to encourage them to go on till the country is 
 freed from the greatest curse of the land. He had been 
 thinking for several days that perhaps the great God 
 who overrules all had allowed liim to go into that low 
 business, that he might see the great iniquity, and be 
 better able to influence others to quit the terrible busi- 
 ness. 
 
 In another week Van Pelt was in the field as a tem- 
 perance lecturer ! 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSTD ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 355 
 
 One of the most hopeless places, to all appearances, 
 in Ohio, was Morrow, a small railroad town about forty 
 miles from Cincinnati, on the Little Miami road. The 
 wickedness of Morrow had passed into a proverb. The 
 place seemed whiskey-ridden, and the cause of its deso- 
 lation was visible at almost every turn. The correspond- 
 ent of a Cincinnati paper, who visited the place soon after 
 the temperance, excitement had broken out, summed up 
 the situation graphically as follows : — 
 
 “ Population, eleven hundred ; drinking places, fif- 
 teen ; increase of population in ten years, two hundred 
 persons ; increase of municipal taxation, one hundred 
 and thirty per cent. ; decline in business reported at 
 twenty-five per cent. ; manufactures nothing, and no 
 increase in the value of property ; eighteen vacant dwell- 
 ing-houses, and numbers of the best citizens removed. 
 Such are the facts given me by the ‘ old and reliable.’ 
 Verily it was time for the law or the gospel to do some- 
 thing. The place has -a beautiful and romantic site. 
 They have three railroads, and expect connection soon 
 with a trunk line to the east. On one side is the river, 
 and on the other the beautiful hill, with hundreds of 
 sites for palatial residences. In the neighborhood is 
 good fishing and hunting, and all around is scenery un- 
 surpassed in the State of Ohio. Apparently this is just 
 the place for a favorite summer resort. 
 
 “ Twenty-five years ago Morrow had aspirations. 
 There were, and are, unsurpassed facilities for manufac- 
 turing — still unimproved. Three large hotels at that 
 time were filled most of the summer with families and 
 visitors from Cincinnati. The society was good ; church, 
 school, and lyceum were thoroughly organized ; and, 
 besides the manufacturing interests which were being- 
 established, the place expected to b.ecome a city of ele- 
 gant retired country seats. Somehow the saloons got 
 
356 
 
 INTEJIPEEANCE, 
 
 the start, the manufactiuers took the alarni, the ex- 
 pected good families did not come, and many that were 
 here moved away. If the place has improved in twenty 
 years, that fact is not apparent to the naked eye. Still 
 there are many good families in Morrow. They have 
 borne the demoralization and tyranny of the whiskey 
 power until it has become a question of hfe and death 
 with them ; and they have , entered on this struggle in 
 the spirit in which patriots fight for their homes, feeling 
 that unless they conquer, they must. emigrate-. It is not 
 a question of philanthropy alone, and other people’s 
 good, here, as in some places ; they must conquer or 
 die.” 
 
 The immediate source of the contagion was Wilming- 
 ton. Mrs. Runyan, the wife of the Methodist minister 
 at Wilmington, and Mrs. Hadley, a soft-spoken but de- 
 termined Quaker lady, came over from that place, told 
 the ladies of Morrow how a few days of energetic work 
 had cleared all the saloons Out of Wilmington, and 
 offered their services. They were gratefully accepted. 
 Over fifty women of Morrow rallied around them, and 
 the campaign began in earnest. This resolute baud 
 met at ten o’clock in the morning in the Methodist 
 church, and started out on their mission of love, while 
 the men remained behind to pray and consult. Lewis 
 Fairchild, an aged warrior in the temperance cause, who 
 had withstood the rebuffs and rotten eggs of two or 
 three generations of rum sellers, was chairman of the 
 league, and was always on hand with encouragement 
 and advice. 
 
 There were some hard cases to treat among the sa- 
 loonists. Looskin Avas going to shoot the first woman 
 who crossed his threshold. Opes and Goepper posted 
 up conspicuous notices, “ No singing and praying women 
 allowed here.” Weingartner Avould sell out if they 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEjVIEDY. 
 
 357 
 
 would pay him six hundred dollars for a few old chairs, 
 tables, and empty bottles. Mrs. Krumpf, a German 
 woman across the river, could “ sprech kein English.” 
 Martin Fath, when he saw the women coming, tempo- 
 farily turned his saloon into a tailor’s shop, and worked 
 away at his sewing machine for dear life. Goepper, 
 Briesah, and Kebbel locked them out. There was httle 
 to encourage the ladies in their first two or three 
 rounds. 
 
 One of the most discouraging cases to deal with was 
 Henry Scheide. He was a young German of good dis- 
 position and friendly manners. He had received a good 
 education in the Cincinnati schools, having been de- 
 signed, it is said, for the ministry. Then he was a clerk 
 in a dry goods store in the city. But the saloon busi- 
 ness promised greater profits, and he removed to Mor- 
 row, where he established the “respectable saloon” of 
 the place. He allowed no drunkards about him, and 
 conducted his establishment with such skill that it 
 became the popular resort for the young men of the 
 town and surrounding country. Therefore it was that 
 Scheide’s was considered by the women the flowery 
 path that led to the bad place. 
 
 The following rambling talk which Scheide confided 
 to the bosom of a Cincinnati reporter will serve to illus- 
 trate the views of his class quite generally : — 
 
 “We’ll worry ’em some, though I’m the only one 
 that lets the ladies in. It don’t bother me much ; they 
 only sing and pray, and stay about half an hour. I’ll 
 open every time they come, shutting ^oors on nobody. 
 There’s no rowdies come into this place. , Those ladies 
 don’t understand it. They have a foolish prejudice 
 about this business. Now I can run this establishment 
 just as nice as a dry goods store, and I do. . . . ‘ O, if 
 they’d stay all day, I’d soon stop that. This is my busi- 
 
858 
 
 LN TEMPERANCE, 
 
 ness, and I won’t let anybody interfere with it. There’s 
 a state law against selling by tbe drink, but nobody 
 pays any attention to it. We run that risk. No man 
 but a low sneak, who has a spite against you, will drink 
 in your house, and then go and make complaint against 
 you. The Council won’t make any order here. They’re 
 men of too much sense. I tell you a town must have 
 a decent saloon, or it won’t prosper. All the farmers 
 nearly in the country, when they go to sell their grain 
 or buy goods, are going where they can get a dram. . 
 They will have their beer or ale. Stop the sale here, 
 and two thirds of our travel leaves us. hlaybe, though, 
 if no town had saloons, it might make it even ; but the 
 others will have them. 
 
 “ . •. . Women get along in all these towns because ' 
 they have no opposition. Mayor and officers and law- 
 yers were all with them, because it was a new thing. 
 But here we’ve got some rights. Our lawyers are with 
 us. It’s politics that’s really at the bottom of this thing. 
 It’s been tried here. The Methodists and temperance 
 men are trying to get up a ticket of their own, and can’t 
 make it win.” 
 
 The ladies from the first acted on the rigid principle 
 of no compromise. They would pay no man for his 
 liquors. The basis of negotiations must be unconditional 
 surrender, except in cases where families were in indi- 
 gent circumstances. Then, if the saloon keeper made 
 a complete sacrifice, they would make every effort to 
 relieve him from want, and start him in some more 
 honest calHng. 
 
 The corn question was sprung upon the morning 
 meeting one day quite suddenly, and proved a perplex- 
 ing subject to Avrestle with. The saloon keepers sent a 
 committee to say that Mr. Ludlum, an active worker in 
 the temperance cause, was then loading a car with corn 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 359 
 
 for a distillery. If the women allowed that thing to be 
 done, they need expect no more concessions from the 
 liquor dealers. It was like a bofnb in the camp at first j 
 but presently it was explained that Mr. Ludlum did not 
 sell his corn to a distillery, but to commission men, over 
 whom he had no control. If it eventually found its 
 way into whiskey, the fault could not be laid at his 
 door. However, if this seemed an inconsistent course, 
 he Avas ready to give up the whole business of dealing 
 in corn. Then the farmer would have to give up rais- 
 ing, and so on through all branches of trade. The mat- 
 ter was dropped as a side issue, and a ruse of the enemy 
 to set the temperance folks by the ears. 
 
 And so the campaign went on. The women were 
 out evBry day, hr constantly increasing numbers. En- 
 thusiastic mass meetings were held every night. . Almost 
 every man, woman, and child in the vicinity, not engaged 
 in the liquor business, signed the total abstinence. pledge. 
 One after another the saloon keepers gathered their 
 traps about them and silently stole away, until the num- 
 ber was reduced to three or four. 
 
 One of these was Max Goepper, a brother of the 
 wealthy Cincinnati brewer, rvho kept a low place close 
 by the depot. To this the women devoted their atten- 
 tion, and passengers on the Little Miami trains might 
 see them at almost any hour, from six in the. morning 
 until ten at night, kneeling on the steps before the 
 door Avith their piteous faces upturned, and pleading 
 with the Almighty to have mercy upon that saloon 
 keeper, and change his heart. Just Avithin the door 
 stood Goepper, with a cigar in his moutlA and a sar- 
 donic grin on his face, winking at the train men, or at 
 some old customer Avhom he saAV in the crowd. In the 
 window hung a caricature of a dead man being carried 
 off on a bier, and underneath the inscription, “ This 
 
 22 
 
360 . 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 man was prayed to death.” It was a sight that brought 
 tears to the eyes of many a traveller, at the same time 
 that it provoked a smile. 
 
 , At last, on a morning early in March, the ladies came 
 as usual, and found only the em2:)ty shell of the old 
 shanty. Goepper and his etfects had disappeared. 
 Scheide, who had some time before obtained an injunc- 
 tion* against one hundred and sixteen of the women, 
 together with Dio Lewis and Van Pelt, forbidding them 
 to pray near his premises, had also fled, and only two 
 insignificant doggeries were left. The bells were rung 
 loud and long, Jind the patient and persistent workers 
 Avept for joy. It Avas one of the most signal Auctories of 
 the campaign. 
 
 A few miles farther up the Little TMiami PiA'er lies 
 Waynesville, a quiet, comfortable village of strong Qua- 
 ker proclivities. Across the stream is a collection of 
 houses* grouped about the railroad station, and named 
 CorAvin, after the illustrious gOA’ernor and departed 
 •statesman of Ohio. This Avas the scene of perhaps the 
 most protracted siege of the whole campaign. "Waynes- 
 A'ille is the centre of a group of Aullages in 'Warren 
 County that dot the country round about Avithin a radius, 
 of ten miles ; and for generations it has been the cus- 
 tom of the inhabitants of those places, and of the sur- 
 rounding farmers, to bring in their jugs periodically and 
 haA^e them replenished. On this trade, and the little 
 used for home consumption, two saloons in '\Va3’nesA'ille 
 * and one in CorAvin were making a A'ery good thing of it 
 when the temperance crusade came along. The first 
 intimation X)f the coming storm Avas a petition largely 
 signed by citizens, and sent in to the A'illage Council for 
 an ale and beer and tippling-house ordinance. The 
 
 * The history of this and other injunction cases is detailed at length in a 
 succeeding chapter. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEilEDy. ' 361 
 
 ordinance passed, but the ladies had heard of the moral 
 achievements in neighboring tovrns, and proposed to 
 close up the saloons without the aid of the law. At 
 this juncture there was printed and circulated about 
 toAvn the following literary gem : — 
 
 Notice. As it has come to my hearing that there is 
 a rumor in circulation that some of the ladies in and 
 about Waynesville, O., are about to visit my grocery 
 on Saturday, the 17th inst., for the purpose of holding* 
 a prajmr meeting,. I advise all the ladies 'concerned in 
 the movement to keep clear of my grocery, and to keep 
 within _ the bounds of the law, as my grocery is not a 
 place of worship. 
 
 Timothy Liddy. 
 
 ■Watnesville, O., Jan. 16, 1874. 
 
 The challenge was accepted, and within a day or two 
 the women were praying in k'lr. Liddy’s “grocer3^” 
 The other saloon, kept by William F. Roper, also re- 
 ceived a full share of attention. The band went daily. 
 Sometimes they were admitted, and as often locked out, 
 when they held their devotions on the pavement in 
 front. But after this plan had been operating a while, 
 with no visible result's, another was adopted. The 
 women were divided into small squads, who went in 
 succession to the saloons, thus keeping up a constant 
 guard. But the enemy made a flank movement, and 
 shut out one and all. Then things began to get warm. 
 The women stuck by their erring brethren outside of 
 the door, and when the weather was inclement, a cov- 
 ered carriage was drawn up in front for their use. It 
 happened that the two saloons were on diagonally oppo- 
 site -corners, while on a third corner was a vacant room, 
 which was turned over to the use of the ladies. It was 
 
.362 
 
 ETTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 temporarily fitted up -with a stove and chairs, and the 
 ladies came by detachments day after day, as to an ad- 
 vance picket post, and watched the two saloons. A 
 book was kept in which was registered the name of every 
 man entering either place. The result was a sudden 
 and remarkable falling off in the patronage of those here- 
 tofore prosperous establishments. One of the pickets on 
 duty was asked how long they intended to keep up the 
 watch. 
 
 • “ Until the saloons are closed up for good,” was her 
 
 decided reply. 
 
 “ But, then, won’t they open again as soon as you 
 quit ? ” 
 
 “ If they do, we will commence the watch again. We 
 will keep the war up till we see the end of whiskey 
 here.” 
 
 The praying visits, however, were not wholly sus- 
 pended. The following report of one of these meetings, 
 taken on the spot, will serve to show the spirit in which 
 such exercises were almost everywhere conducted. The 
 band Avas composed largely of Quakeresses — Hicksite 
 and Orthodox promiscuously mingled. The scene is 
 Roper’s saloon. The band having solemnly entered the 
 room, a hand is extended to Roper, and a kindly voice 
 inquires, “ Hoav’s thee to-day, brother ? ” Then all 
 kneel, and after a few moments’ silence an earnest, 
 pleading A’oice is raised in prayer. 
 
 “ Almighty God, thou knowest the barrier in the case 
 of this man. Thou alone knowest the key that may 
 unlock his heart. For his OAvn sake, for Christ’s sake, 
 Avilt thou not turn him from his present course ? Thou 
 hast all things to give ; he has nothing to lose. . . . Lord, 
 shoAV mercy to our fathers, our husbands, our brothers, 
 our sons, who may be in danger of the bhght of intern- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIVIEDY. 
 
 363 
 
 perance. Bless the homes and the hearts that are 
 already desolated by its effects. Take thou the control 
 of these weak efforts of ours, and direct us to glorious 
 success.” 
 
 Then in a low voice was sung ; 
 
 “ Watclimaii, tell us of the night, 
 
 What its signs of promise are.” 
 
 And after another prayer, the hymn — 
 
 “ My faith looks up to Thee, 
 
 Thou Lamb of Calvary.” 
 
 Then from the 25th and 26th chapters of Isaiah were 
 read the words — 
 
 “ And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God ; 
 we have waited for him, and he will save us. . . . 
 
 “ And he shall bring down their pride, together with 
 the spoils of their hands. 
 
 “ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
 stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye 
 in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlast- 
 ing strength.” 
 
 The protracted siege, already referred to, was at the 
 grocery saloon oi Tom Franey, at Corwin. Franey was 
 noted for his politeness, and when the ladies came over 
 from Waynesville, to plead and pray with him, he sev- 
 eral times ordered his team hitched to an omnibus to 
 take them, back. At last his suavity began to give place 
 to coldness,- and he commenced making a careful calcu- 
 lation of the damage done to his valuable business, with 
 the announced intention of suing the society, or the 
 husbands of the ladies, for the amount. But a little 
 legal advice probably discouraged him from that under- 
 taking, and he thereafter shut his fair visitors out. But 
 
364 
 
 INTiaiPEEAJ^CE, 
 
 the women never left him. Day after day, iov forty-nine 
 consecutive’ days, the siege was kept up, and they were 
 finally rewarded with an unconditional surrender. 
 
 No longer the rural jugs and bottles, came .in to 
 Waynesville for replenishment. No more drunken men 
 and bo3'^s stagger through the streets. Quakers sing 
 hymns ; all denominations mingle freely, and the era of 
 good fellowship prevails. 
 
ITS ASPECT AI^D ITS EEJVIEDY. 
 
 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 EEVIEW OP THE LEGAL CASES. — WERE THE WOMEN TRESPASSERS ON 
 PRIVATE EIGHTS ? — THE CELEBRATED DUNN- SUIT. — THE WARNING, 
 THE TABERNACLE, AND THE INJUNCTION. — OTHER FUTILE EFFORTS 
 . TO ENJOIN THE WOMEN. — THE SCHEIDE INJUNCTION, AND HOW IT 
 
 WAS DISSOLVED. LEGAL PROSECUTIONS AT LEBANON.— A COMPARI- 
 
 • SON OF THE LAW AND GOSPEL METHODS. 
 
 Thk reader cannot have failed to observe how wholly 
 the success of the women was due to love. They con- 
 ducted, the warfare on the gospel method of moral per- 
 suasion, instead of force. It was whiskey selling they 
 were fighting against, and not the whiskey seller. Many 
 a hardened saloon keeper, with tearful eyes, has con- 
 fessed that if was about the first time he ever thought 
 anybody cared for him, when the best Christian women 
 of the town took him kindly by the hand, and talked 
 to him as to a brother. If men had come about his 
 premises, and in their bungling way attempted to drive 
 him out of his business, he would have had his coat off 
 for a fight in an instant. If the law had been used to 
 suppress him, he would have united all the money and 
 stubbornness of the liquor interests in resistance. But 
 when a band of weak women, whom he knew as the wives 
 and mothers of the best citizens, came, with tender words 
 and earnest prayers, it was an enemy he hardly knew how 
 to fight. In these trying circumstances, it was very rare 
 that one of the band ever lost her temper ; and it was 
 this very principle of meekness and good nature that 
 
366 ■ 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 disarmied. opposition and gave the women their extraor- 
 dinary power. 
 
 “ I tell you, my young friend,” said a Hillsboro’ mer- 
 chant to a reporter, “ the women have more power in 
 favor of temperance, ten times over, than the men. 
 They are free from political entanglements. They don’t 
 have to vote for anybody for office, and they ask nobody 
 to vote for them. So they can exert their moral power 
 without hinderance. We are hampered in business and 
 politics ; they work for the pure love of humanity. A 
 hundred women can do more good for a moral reform 
 than ten thousand voters. We can only make laws, but 
 they can touch the heart. It must be a hard-hearted man 
 who can stand in his saloon and resist the pleadings of a 
 good old mother whose son has been ruined by liquor, 
 when she comes with tears in her eyes and prayer on her 
 lips. Yes, sir, if the women in each totvn would take 
 hold as they have done here, Ohio could be made a tem- 
 perance state in six months.” 
 
 Wherever this movement was begun and carried for- 
 ward to any success, it was the avowed wish of the cru- 
 saders to avoid, as far as possible, any resort to law. A 
 lady in Greenfield summed up this idea in the following 
 words : — 
 
 “We intend to cure this disease by a better treatment, 
 that shall not. leave a drug disease in the system. Ex- 
 tirpation by law would leave hatreds and jealousies in 
 the community ; but prayer and good words leave no 
 •sting behind.. We don’t intend to try legal remedies 
 till prayer and good words are exhausted, and love has 
 lost its power* ; and we don’t intend that shall be until 
 the whole work is accomplished.” 
 
 There were extraordinary cases, however, where legal 
 persuasion was found a very convenient and effective 
 means of bringing incorrigible persons to terms. Again, 
 
ITS ASPECT AlfD ITS REMEDY. 367 
 
 the law was invoked, in some instances, by the wlhskey 
 sellers, and the peace-loving ladies were compelled to 
 meet their opponents with the same weapons. Some of 
 these cases were of such interest, and had so important 
 a hearing on the subsequent progress of the movement, 
 that we devote this chapter to a review of the principal 
 ones. 
 
 If early became a question how far these women were 
 invading the private rights of property. Saloon keepers 
 claimed that theirs was a legitimate business, recognized 
 the laws of the state and of the nation, and that the 
 praying women were violating the law of trespass, and 
 la5dng themselves liable to damages. On the other 
 hand, it was a well-known fact that the law was violated 
 daily in almost every saloon, and there were few whiskey 
 dealers who felt themselves legally clean enough to throw 
 the first stone. 
 
 Dunn, the notorious Hillsboro’ druggist, was one of 
 these. In a preceding chapter we left the ladies pray- 
 ing on the steps before his door. Within, he and his 
 clerk were sitting about the stove, waiting for the few 
 whiskey customers still left him — a remnant of his once 
 flourishing business. The front door was locked to shut 
 ■ out the ladies, and the back entrance was carefully 
 watched lest he might sometimes entertain spies una- 
 wares. 
 
 At length, on the morning of the 31st of January, the 
 following “ Notice to the Ladies of Hillsboro’ ” was 
 found distributed about town, and posted up in con- 
 spicuous places : — 
 
 “ Whereas many of you, among whom are Mes- 
 dames Wm. Scott, Wm. Trimble, Sams, W. O. Collins, 
 J. M. Boyd, A. Evans, Reece Griffith, Jonah Langley, 
 Wm. Hoyt, Caroline Miller, Wash. Doggett, W. P. 
 Bernard, Misses IMarian Stewart, Rachel Conrad, Sallie 
 
368 
 
 INTE2iIPEEA2fCE, 
 
 Stevenson, Maggie Bowles, Clara Rhodes, Annie Wilson, 
 Grace Gardner, Jennie Harris, Emma Grand-Girard, 
 Mollie Van Winkle, Emily Grand-Girard, Libbey Kirby, 
 Ella Dill, Laura Rockhold, Eddy, Alice SpCese, Kate 
 Trimble, Alice Boardman and sister [fifty more names 
 follow], who are aided by the following named gentle- 
 men : Messrs. E. L. Ferris, H. S. Fullerton,’ Samuel 
 Amen, Asa Haynes, J. J. Brown, J. S. Black, W. C. 
 Barry, E. Carson, Joseph Glascock, Wm. Scott, Thonias 
 Barry, S. E. Hibben & Son, T.’C. Lytle, R. S. Evans, L. 
 McKibben, R. Griffiths, J. L. Boardman, John Cowgill, 
 Lewis Ambrose, H. Scarborough, Wm. Ambrose, Wash. 
 Doggett, H. Swearingen, Rev. E. Grand-Girard, and 
 many others ; • ' 
 
 “ And who, although not directly participating in 5 *our 
 daily proceedings, are, nevertheless, counselling and ad- 
 vising you in your unlawful proceedings by subscriptions 
 of money, and encouragement in the commission of daily 
 trespasses ipron my property since the 24th day of De- 
 cember last, b}'' reason of which my legitimate business 
 has been obstructed, my feelings outraged, and my pro- 
 fession and occupation sought to be rendered odious, by 
 reason of which I have suffered great pecuniary damage 
 arrd injury. Therefore, you and each of yorr, together 
 with your husbands (or sirclr as nray^ have thenr), and 
 the persons who are thus aiding you with their moneys, 
 encoiuagerrrent, and advice in your unlawful proceed- 
 ings, are hereby rrotified that I cannot, nor will not, 
 longer submit to ymur daily trespasses on my^ property, 
 and iirjury’" to rrry^ birsiiress. 
 
 “While. I am willing to excrrse your actioir in tire 
 past, 1 cannot subirrit to such outrages in the" futiu-e. 
 Cherishing iro unkind hostility towards any" one, but en- 
 tertaining the highest reg'ard for the ladies of Hillsboro’, 
 distinguished heretofore, as they have been, for their 
 courtesy, refinerrrent, arrd Christian virtues, I feci ex- 
 tremely reluctant to have to appeal to the law for pro- 
 tection agaiirst their riotous arrd rrnlawfirl acts. 
 
 “You are therefore hereby further notified that if 
 such action arrd trespasses are repeated, I shall apply" to 
 the laws of the state for redress and damages for the 
 
ITS ASrECTS AND ITS REMEDY. 369 
 
 injuries occasioned by reason of tbe practices of which I 
 complain. 
 
 “ All others aiding or encouraging you, by means of 
 money or otherwise, are also notified that I shall hold 
 them responsible for such advice and encouragement. 
 
 “ Yours, respectfully, • 
 
 “ W. H.. H. Dunn.” 
 
 This produced a great sensation. • Some ' thought he 
 would prosecute ; others were sure that he would not. 
 When Mr. Dunn reached his own store that morning, he 
 found the wives of the mayor and Methodist minister — 
 Mrs. Doggett and Mrs. Conden — already there to talk 
 the matter over. They argued and pleaded with him 
 for nearly an. hour; but all the satisfaction they got was 
 the following : — 
 
 “ I am doing a legitimate business, according to the 
 laws of Ohio and all well-recognized rules of morality. 
 I am not a Heathen Chinee, that you need to come and 
 jDray with me. I tell you again and again, in tha pres- 
 ence of these gentlemen, that I don’t want you to pray 
 in my house, or come into it except on business. I have 
 treated you as well as I know how, until my patience is 
 worn out. I now tell you again to leave, and I will 
 prosecute all who interfere with my business,” &.C. 
 
 At nine o’clock on the same morning, a large number 
 of temperance people came together at the church, and 
 by exchanging views found that they were not scared so 
 badty, after ail, by the proclamation. It was resolved 
 to go on with the work ; and in' order to facilitate mat- 
 ters, it was decided’to erect a “tabernacle,” on the Yfash- 
 ington Court House plan, already described. The con- 
 sent of the mayor was obtained, and in less than an 
 hour a score of willing hands were hammering away at 
 the structure. When 'it was completed, eighty-three 
 
370 
 
 IXTEjVIPEEAJsTCE, 
 
 ladies at once took possession, and went on with their 
 praying and singing as though there had been no inter- 
 ruption. This was more than the resolute Dunn could 
 stand. The lawyer who had so zealously - defended 
 Charlie Beck against the women at Washington Court 
 House, was called in. There was then sitting on the 
 bench of the Probate Couii one Judge Safford, a man 
 whose term had nearly expired, and whose sympathies 
 Avere anjnvhere but with the ladies. To him Dunn and 
 lus lawyer applied lor a temporary injunction dissoh'ing 
 the tabernacle and the temperance party. Their success 
 may be seen in the following order of the court: — 
 
 “ You are hereb}^ notified and warned that David 
 Johnson and W. H. H. Dunn, plaintiffs, have this day 
 obtained an order of temporary injunction, and a re- 
 straining order, in an action pending in the Court of 
 Common Pleas, for the said county of Highland, wherein 
 they are plaintiffs, and you, the above-namod persons, 
 are defendants, and have given an undertaking according 
 to law. This is, therefore, to command you, the said 
 aboAm-named defendants, each and all of you, from using 
 for prayer, singing, exhorting, or any other purpose, a 
 certain plank and canvas structure or shard}’, erected on 
 High Street, in Hillsboro’, Ohio, in front of the drug 
 store of said W. H. H. Dunn ; and it is further ordered that 
 you, said defendants, are ordered to remove the said 
 structure or shanty fortliAvith, and each and every part 
 of the same, whether plank or cauAms, and you are each 
 and all hereby restrained and enjoined from re-erecting 
 or replacing the said structure, or any similar structure, 
 in said locality or upon said street, to the annoyance of 
 the said W. H. H. Dunn ; and it is further ordered that 
 you, the said defendants, each and all of you, are hereby 
 enjoined and restrained from singing, praying, exhorting, 
 or making a noise and disturbance in front of said dimg 
 store of said W. H. H. Dunn, or on the sidewalk, or on 
 the steps thereof, or in the vicinity thereof, to his an- 
 noyance, or from trespassing in or upon his said premises, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 371 
 
 or in any manner interrupting liis said business, and this 
 you will in no wise omit under the penalty of the law. 
 
 “ Witness my hand and the seal of said Court of Hills- 
 boro’, the 31st day of January, 1874. . 
 
 [seal] “J. K. Pickering, Clerk. 
 
 “A true copy: C. P. Pape, Sheriff:' ! 
 
 There was no resistance to this injunction. In the 
 dead of night the Tabernacle was quietly taken down, 
 and next morning not a trace of it was visible. 
 
 Then came on the trial of the case. High legal talent 
 was employed on both sides. The defendants retained 
 Judge Matthews and J. H. Thompson, Esq., of Hills- 
 boro’, and M. J. Williams, of Washington Court. House ; 
 and the plaintiffs, Messrs. D.unn, Beeson, Collins, and 
 Parker. There was a long and weary contest in the 
 Court of Common Pleas, beginning on the 17th of Feb- 
 ruary, Judges S. F. Steel and T. M. Gray upon the bench. 
 Judge Safford' now appeared as an attorney to defend his 
 action as a judge. 
 
 Dunn, through his counsel, summed up his grie'^ances 
 in the following petition for a permanent injunction : — 
 
 “ The plaintiff, Dunn, claims that he is the lessee of a 
 certain piece of property on High Street, of Hillsboro’, 
 which is owned by the other plaintiff, David Johnson ; 
 
 that he has for years past been engaged in a ‘ drug 
 
 business ’ therein, and that he has kept an orderly and 
 quiet house, &c. ; that on or about the 24th day of De- 
 cember, 1873, certain defendants joined and agreed to- 
 gether to break up and-destro}'' his lawful business ; that 
 the}’’ held ‘temperance prayer meetings ’ in his house from 
 day to day thereafter, against his will and protests, and 
 that he was compelled to lock his door and keep it 
 locked ; that they met on the steps and sidewalk, before 
 his door, and held prayer meetings ‘ all day,’ from day to 
 day, and kept customers away from his place of busi- 
 ness ; Sind that they made a ‘ noise and disturbance by 
 
872 
 
 INTEIVIPEEAITCE, 
 
 singing, praying, and exhorting,’ to the annoyance of said 
 Dunn, and to the depriving him of his rest and comfort; 
 that he warned them repeatedly to desist ; and that on 
 the night of January 30, 1874, he caused handbills to be 
 struck and circulated, warning those so engaged, that if 
 they did not desist he would appeal to the law^s of the* 
 state for protection ; that on the afternoon (January 31) 
 these men and women, avowedly for the i^urpose of 
 breaking up his lawful business, erected a plank and 
 canvas structure, or ‘shanty,’ on the street, before his 
 store, about seventeen feet in front thereof, and five feet 
 fi'orn the curbstone, open in front, and closed on three 
 sides, &c., &c., which shanty prevented his customers 
 from reaching the hitching-posts before his door, and 
 obstructed the highway ; that said ‘defendants occuj)ied 
 said structure, and threatened to occupy it day and 
 night, and to persecute and anno}' him until they forced 
 him to yield to their unlawful demands ; that said 
 shanty is a nuisance, decreasing the value of the prop- 
 erty and obstructing tlie highway, and that the singing 
 and praying are annoying to them and to the neighbor- 
 hood, and therefore they. (Johnson and Dimn) ask for an 
 abatement and perpetual injunction.” 
 
 The defendants asked for a dissolution of the injunc- 
 tion on the following grounds : — 
 
 1. Because the undertaking (bond) of the plaintiff 
 was insufficient. 
 
 2. Because of the misjoinder of plaintiffs and defend- 
 ants, and of actions. 
 
 3. Because of the misjoinder of nuisances, the plain- 
 tiff claiming that the shanty and the singing and praying 
 disturbed his mind. 
 
 4. Because of the omission of W. H. H. Dunn’s Chris- 
 tian name in the petition and injunction.' 
 
 6. Because that the affidavit was made only by Dunn, 
 and not by Johnson. 
 
 6. Because there was not sufficient damage shown to 
 have occurred to call for an injunctive interference. 
 
 7. Because the cause of action in favor of the plaintiffs 
 was not a joint but a several cause. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIMEDY. 87*3 
 
 8. Because the order was granted without- sufficient 
 notice, &c. 
 
 • 9. Because the order is vague, uncertain, and void on 
 its face, and without authority of law. 
 
 The case was argued with great skill and pertinacity 
 on both sides. It was held by the defendants that it 
 must be more than a fanciful annoyance to entitle one 
 to an injunction. Could singing one of the soft old 
 hymns, “ Come, humble sinner,” or, Bring forth the 
 royal demijohn, and let us sell it all,” have destroyed 
 Dunn’s actual ease and comfort ? And as for Johnson, 
 he had been too deaf to hear thunder for thirty years. 
 
 The plaintilfs, in turn, told how an ambassador in an 
 Oriental land was annoyed by a howling dervish, who 
 mad^ demands upon him, and when they were not ac- 
 ceded to, remained continually before the house, keeping 
 up his religious exercises. The ambassador applied to 
 'the authorities for relief, but was told that because of the 
 man’s “ sanctity ” he must not be made amenable to 
 law. “ Our dervishes are Christians in good standing, 
 but the law gives good and bad their rights alike.” 
 
 Judge Safford’s argument in defence of his own in- 
 junction was a failure. Three fourths of his 'speech 
 was an attempt to vindicate himself before the people -of 
 Hillsboro’. Neither his defence of his injunction, nor 
 that of himself, Avas deemed a success. 
 
 At last, after four days of argument, during which 
 the most eager interest Avas shown by the people, the 
 case was concluded, and Judge .Steel gave his decision. 
 The temporary injunction was dissolved, but onlj^ on a 
 technicality, and not on the merits of the case. The de- ' 
 cision was, that the action could not. go on because the 
 petition made no case in favqr of Johnson, the owner of 
 the property. The result was a disappointment to both 
 parties, and to the elements which they represented 
 
£74 
 
 EsTEMPEEAXCE, 
 
 throughout the state. The plaintiffs appealed the case 
 to the District Court, where, at this writing, it is still 
 pending. 
 
 After Dunn had succeeded in getting a temporary in- 
 junction on the women, efforts were made in scores of 
 towns, where the movement was now in progress, to 
 check their operations in the same way. But the courts 
 were generally in sympathy with the ladies. Judge after 
 judge was applied to in vain. It was only in IMorrow 
 that any further serious hinderance was experienced by 
 the temperance people in the way of restraining orders 
 of courts. This case, and the decision in it, are of such 
 interest, that we give at length the main features. 
 
 On the 17th of February, Henry Scheide (he who 
 kept the “respectable saloon ” at Morrow), weirt before 
 Judge Gilmore, of Eaton, with the following petition : — 
 
 “ The said Henry Scheide, plaintiff, prays that each 
 and every one of the said defendants, individually, 
 joiutlj^, and collectively, be restrained, prohibited, and 
 enjoined from molesting, disturbing, or hindering the 
 said Henry Scheide hr the prosecuting and conduct- 
 ing his said business, upon any pretence or pretext 
 whatever, and invading, or meeting in or about his 
 premises, to obstruct his said business ; and also prays 
 judgment against all of said defendants for the sum of 
 one thousand dollars, and prays for all other proper re- 
 lief in the premises.” 
 
 The said defendants were, — 
 
 Mrs. E. B. Grim, 
 
 Frank Forshnell, 
 Geo. W. Davis, 
 John Hanford, 
 Oscar T. Hanford, 
 B. F. Wilson, 
 
 Mrs. H. J. Coffeen, 
 Josiah Fairchild. 
 Porter Corson, 
 Jas. H. Jeffeiw, 
 W. P. Hanford, 
 J. T. Welch, 
 
 and one hundred and four other ladies and gentlemen, 
 among whom were Dio Lewis and Van Pelt. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 
 
 375 
 
 The trial came off at Lebanon the 28th of February. 
 It was before Judge Smith, of the Circuit Court, and 
 was conducted on the part of the' women by Ex-Lieu- 
 tenant Governor McBurney, Gen. Durbin Ward, Messrs. 
 Brabosee and Van Harlingin, of Lebanon, and Cun- 
 ningham, of Morrow' ; and on the part of the plaintiff by 
 O’Neil, of Lebanon, and Wallace and Mayor . Scantlin, 
 of Morrow. It was a great day in Lebanon. The whole 
 town of Morrow had come over and emptied itself upon 
 the unfortunate village. A public dinner was given by 
 the Lebanon ladies to their persecuted guests. Forty of 
 the defendants marched to the court-house in solemn 
 procession. Every inch of space in the building was 
 packed full, even to. the sacred precincts behind the bar, 
 and on the bench. 
 
 It is not necessary to review the arguments. The de- 
 cision of Judge Smith, however, has a permanent inter- 
 est, and we herewith reproduce the principal points. 
 The ground on which the case was decided, it will be 
 seen, was that the plaintiff had no right to ask legal pro- 
 tection for a manifestly illegal business. 
 
 “ On the 17th day of February a temporary injunction 
 was allowed in this case by Judge Gilmore, restraining 
 the defendants as prayed for in the petition. This court 
 is now asked to dissolve that injunction, for the reasons 
 set. forth in the motions which have been filed, and 
 which, briefly stated, are the following : — 
 
 “ 1. That Judge Gilmore, when’in another county, and 
 while this court was in session, had no legal authority to 
 grant it. 
 
 “ 2. Because the statements of the petition do not 
 warrant a court of equity in granting the relief asked 
 for, as it is apparent therefrom that he has an adequate 
 remedy at law, and that the grievances complained of, 
 or their continuance, have not, and cannot work a great 
 or irreparable injury to the plaintiff. 23 
 
376 
 
 INTEjMPERAKCE, 
 
 “•3. Because the allegations of the petition are untrue. 
 
 “ To support these, a very large number of affidavits 
 have been filed in court here by the defendants, and some 
 (additional to those on which the temporary injunction 
 was allowed) have been produced. by the plaintiff, to 
 maintain the allegations of this petition.” 
 
 After noticing the first two points at length, the judge 
 . decides on the third point of the case as follows : — 
 
 “ But there is another ground, which, in my judg- 
 ment, effectually disposes of this motion. That is the 
 third, viz. : That the allegations of the petition are not 
 true. He alleges that he kept a house where he con- 
 ducted business according to law. From the nature of 
 the case, the character of this business in this respect is 
 directly in issue* and from the proof it . is perfectly clear 
 to my mind that instead of this it was a place where 
 intoxicating liquors were habitually sold, in violation of 
 the laws of the state, and where gambling was constantly 
 being carried on. 
 
 “ Such a place as this our statute expressly declares to 
 be a public nuisance, and which being shown in a proper 
 case would have to be ordered by the court to be shut 
 up. Now, the doctrine is perfectly well settled that a 
 nuisance, either public or private, may be abated even 
 by force, so no breach of the peace is committed. Surely, 
 then, the means used here, with the view of .abatuig tliis 
 nuisance, were not malawful or in derogation of the 
 rights of the plaintiff ; for, as the keeper of such an estab- 
 lishment, the maintainer of a public nuisance, and a 
 gambling-housQ, he can-have no standing in a court of 
 equity, when he asks to be protected in his unlawful and 
 criminal business. The injunction will be dissolved at 
 plaintiff’s costs.” 
 
 Thus the women triumphed in the only injunction 
 case of the crusade that was decided on its merits. 
 
877 
 
 • rrs ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 There was great rejoicing at Morrow. A correspondent, 
 Avriting .from there under the inspiration of the good 
 news, gives .the following graphic description of tlie 
 scene : — . ' 
 
 “ As I write the band is playing and marching through 
 our streets, folloAved by an immense throng of men, 
 women, and children, shouting and rejoicing. Every 
 church bell, school bell, &c., in town is ringing, and two 
 or three locomotives are creating a terrible- noise, 
 Avhistling and ringing their bells. In fact, the entire 
 town is wild with excitement. Hundreds of country 
 people, hearing the noise of the bells and general tumult, 
 are flocking to town from all quarters, many thinking 
 the villtige was in flames. An immense meeting is now 
 in progress at the Presbyterian church, in addition to the 
 immense throng upon our streets. Speeches arelaeing 
 made, and cheer upon cheer is rending the air. Morrow 
 never had such an awakening, everybody being happy 
 except the ’lawyers who defended Scheide, and four or 
 five saloon patrons.” 
 
 It was too much for Scheide. He shut up his estab- 
 lishment, and left the town ; and thus ends the history 
 of the “ only respectable saloon in Morrow.” 
 
 In connection with these legal prosecutions against 
 the women, it may be' interesting to note one of the few 
 instances where the saloonists were made to. suffer by the 
 law. As will be seen by reference to the statutes of the 
 state, published in the following chapter, no saloon 
 could carry on a paying business and comply strictly with 
 the law. But there never has been, in any community, 
 a public sentiment strong enough to enforce these laws, 
 and the result was, saloon keepers, before this temperance 
 revival, had come to look upon them as -a dead letter. 
 
 About the time the “moral suasion” plan of Dio 
 Lewis was put into operation so successfully in Plills- 
 
378 
 
 rNTEMPERANCE, 
 
 boro’, Washington, and Wilmington, Lebanon resolved to 
 suppress the evil by legal force. It is interesting to 
 compare the results of the two methods. Lebanon is 
 one of the staid, virtuous old towns of Ohio, cut off from 
 railroads and their attendant evils, and boasting four 
 thousand inhabitants, nine churches, and (untiH-ecently) 
 three saloons. The temperance fires have been kept 
 burning there from the earliest times, and years ago the 
 village corporation passed ordinances forbidding the sale 
 of ale and beer, and prohibiting the keeping open of 
 tippling-houses. A few cases were tried when the ordi- 
 nances were new, but they gradually fell into disuse and 
 were forgotten. But there came, early in the winter of 
 1873, a deep religious awakening, and, following close 
 npon it, a revival of public sentiment on the subject of 
 temperance. Some one thought of the rusty old ordi- 
 nances, and it was determined to bring them out and see 
 how they would work. 
 
 John Braden, Henry Glady, and Nathan Woods were 
 the three members of tlie liquor selling fraternitju They 
 were shrewd men fo deal with, and though every one 
 knew they were selling daily, in violation of the law, it 
 was not so easy a matter to make a good case against 
 them. Foreseeing difficulties of this kind, the 3 'oung 
 Congregational minister. Rev. E. B. Burrows, who was 
 a leader in the movement, quiet!}" slipped down to Cin- 
 cinnati and employed the services of a' detective. The 
 stranger came to town, seemed a jolly good fellow, loafed 
 round the saloons, taking a daily diink at each place, and 
 when the prosecution came on he was ready to swear 
 that -he had drank for fifteen consecutive days at the 
 defendants’ bars. 
 
 The first cases were against Braden & Glady, who 
 were partners, and John Glady, who run a separate es- 
 tablishment alone. The immediate cause of the suit was 
 
ITS ASPECT AED ITS BEMEDY. ' 
 
 879 
 
 a quarrel between Glady and one of his customers and 
 chronic loafers. The latter, to gratify his personal feel- 
 ings, commenced a prosecution for violation of the vil- 
 lage ordinance. Ferd. Van Harlingin, a recently re- 
 formed drunkard, who had once been a brilliant lawyer, 
 took lip the cause and prosecuted it with all his might. 
 The arrests were made quietly, hut the suits soon began 
 to attract the public attention. The temperance people 
 stepped in, and the opposition arrayed all their forces. 
 When the trial came off in the court-house, the roughs 
 made an attempt to collect in numbers and bully the case 
 through, in the manner such suits were generally dis- 
 posed of. But they were met by a counteracting influ- 
 ence. The wealth, influence, and respectability of the 
 place turned out in such force that the court-room was 
 filled to overflowing. The trials began early in January, 
 and lasted a week. The saloon keepers were beaten, 
 and got the full extent of the law. The firm Braden & 
 Glady were fined ninety dollars, and ten days each in 
 the calaboose, and John Glady two hundred and eighty 
 dollars, and ten days in the calaboose. 
 
 When the bafiied saloonists were languishing in their 
 cells, their views began to moderate. They concluded 
 they would compromise. A proposition was made by 
 Mr. Glady (who. virtually controlled both concerns), to 
 sell his real estate and quit the business and the place 
 providing the fines and remainder of the imprisonment 
 be remitted. The compromise was accepted, and but 
 one saloon was left in Lebanon — that of Nate Woods. 
 A suit was soon brought against him, and he was sen- 
 tenced to one hundred and twenty dollars fine, and seven 
 days in the jug. He served out his term, paid his fines 
 and costs, and returned to his business, but only to sell 
 by the quantity, according to law. 
 
 This system of selling according to law, — i. e., not to be 
 
38D 
 
 IKTEMPERANCE, 
 
 drank on the premises, — which came to he adopted by 
 frightened saloon keepers in many places, during the 
 progress of the movement, is a unique and somewhat 
 amusing one. A shelf full of two-ounce bottles is kept 
 all ready filled, and when a customer wants a single drink 
 one of these bottles is sold him. The thirsty party then 
 retires around a corner, into an alley, or anywhere off 
 the premises, and takes his refreshment. If he has some 
 friends to treat, a number of small bottles are bought 
 and distributed among the party. These bottles are 
 generally thrown away, and it was said that the small 
 boys at Lebanon derived quite a revenue from picking 
 them up and disposing of them at the drug stores. 
 
 It will readily be seen that this excellent law, which 
 has so long lain unobserved on the statute books of the 
 state, would, if enforced, do away Avith the Avhole system 
 of treating, — that absurd and pernicious American 
 pi’actice, — and thereby restrict the amount of drinking 
 by at least one half. It AAmuld clear bar-rooms of those 
 wretched specimens of our race who hang around, ex- 
 pecting an invitation to drink.’ It would suppress that 
 pot-house sociability by which politicians buy their Avay 
 into office. It Avould save thousands of young men from 
 forming an appetite for liquor, by drinking because their 
 companions do, Avhether they Avant it or not. It Avould 
 shut up, Avithin a Aveek, tAvo thirds of all the saloons in 
 Ohio. In short, it Avould confine the whole business of 
 drinking to the bottle-at-home plan. 
 
 But is it possible to enforce this law ? and, if possible, 
 is it expedient ? Before this temperance excitement be- 
 gan, there was scarcely a community in Ohio that con- 
 tained moral force enough to confront the liq ror men 
 with this legal weapon ; now, there are hundreds of 
 places Avhere the law can be carried into speedy execu- 
 tion the moment there is a necessity for it. So much 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 381 
 
 the woman’s movement has accomplished, at least. But 
 it is one of the fundamental principles on which the 
 women are working, that legal arguments shall only be 
 resorted to when all others have failed. The gentle 
 method of love generally does the work much more effec- 
 tually, and leaves behind it no heart-burning and hatred. 
 Yet, when the present excitement has subsided, as it 
 eventually must, this wise provision of a past , genera- 
 tion of legislators will be found very convenient in 
 making permanent the victories of prayer 'and song. 
 
382 
 
 rNTEarPERAircE, 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF TEMPERANCE LAWS. — THE CELEBRATED ADAIR AND 
 
 BAXTER LAWS. OTHER MUNICIPAL AND STATE LEGISLATION. THE 
 
 “ MoCONNELSVILLE ORDINANCE.” — HOW FAR THE LAWS HAVE 
 FAILED IN EXECUTION, AND THE REASONS THEREFOR. — LITIGATION 
 
 UNDER THE ADAIR LAW. DAMAGES SELDOM RECOVERED IN THE 
 
 CITIES, BUT OFTEN IN THE COUNTRY* DISTRICTS. 
 
 Thekb has been no lack of legislation on the subject 
 of temperance for the past twenty years. The statute 
 books of the various states contain laws wisely framed 
 and properly enacted, which they know little, and care 
 still less, about. What the result of this legislation has 
 been, it is not necessary here to discuss. License, pro- 
 hibition, restriction, — every form of law has been tried ; 
 but Intemperance stalks forward, apparently unchecked. 
 No fault can be found with the laws ; the difficulty lies 
 back of them. People are beginning to realize that 
 what is w'anted now is agitation, and not legislation. 
 The machinery of law may be skilfully constructed and 
 then set to work, but unless it have the motive-power of 
 a strong and healthy popular sentiment, it will not grind 
 out a temperance commonwealth, or make the individual 
 more virtuous. 
 
 Allusion has been so frequently made to the statutes 
 of the state on the subject of temperance, that it may 
 be well, before proceeding farther, to give a summary 
 of some of the principal liquor laws now existing. 
 
 In 1857, when the new constitution of Ohio was pre- 
 sented to the people for adoption or rejection, au addi- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 383 
 
 tional section was submitted, for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing an expression of the electors on the subject of license 
 and prohibition, by a separate ballot. This section was 
 in the following w6rds : — 
 
 “ No license to traffic in intoxicating liquors shall here- 
 after be granted in this state ; but the General Assembly 
 may, by law, provide against the evils resulting there- 
 from.” 
 
 The vote of the people on this question resulted as 
 follows: License to sell — No, 113,239 ; yes, 104,255 ; 
 majority for no license, 8,984. It thus became a consti- 
 tutional provision that the legislature was incompetent 
 to license the sale of intoxicating liquors for the next 
 twenty years. Popular sentiment, at that time,- was 
 strong upon the temperance question, and the proposition 
 to license was voted down by this large majority, not- 
 withstanding the recent influx of foreigners. 
 
 The first legislature which assembled under this -new 
 constitution passed a bill (May 1, 1854 — Swan & 
 Critchfield, vol.-ii., p. 1431), which has been the basis 
 of all subsequent legislation in Ohio. The provisions 
 of that statute were briefly as follows : — 
 
 Section 1. Tho sale of intoxicating liquors, to be 
 drank on the premises where sold, or in any adjoining 
 room, or place of resort, connected with such building, 
 was prohibited. 
 
 Sect. 2. It shall be unlawful for any person, by agent 
 or otherwise, to sell intoxicating liquors to minors, unless 
 upon the written order of their parents or guardians, or 
 family physician. 
 
 Sect. 3. This section prohibits the sale of liquors to 
 any person intoxicated, or who is in the habit of becom- 
 ing intoxicated. 
 
 Sect. 4. All places where liquors are sold in violation 
 of this act shall be declared public nuisances, and abated 
 
884 
 
 INTEIVIPEEANCE, 
 
 as such, and the keeper thereof punished as hereinafter 
 provided. 
 
 Sect. 5. Any person who shall, by the sale of liquors, 
 cause the intoxication of any other person, shall be com- 
 pelled to pay a reasonable compensation to- any one -who 
 shall take charge of such intoxicated person, and one 
 dollar per da}" additional for every day he shall be kept; 
 Avhich suins may be recovered by any court having juris- 
 diction. 
 
 Sect. 6. It shall be unlawful for any person to get 
 intoxicated, and every person found in a state of in- 
 toxication shall, on conviction thereof, be fined five 
 dollars. 
 
 Sect. 7. This section provides that any wife, child, 
 parent, guardian, employer, or other person injured in 
 his or her means of support by such intoxication, may 
 bring an action for damages against the person selling 
 the liquor. (The Adair law, hereinafter given, is a sub- 
 stitute for this section of the statute.) 
 
 Sect. 8. Section eight provides penalties for the vio- 
 lation of the first, second, and third sections of this act, 
 and Avas amended in 1859. 
 
 Sect. 9. The giving a\vay of intoxicating liquors, or 
 any other shift or device to evade the provisions of the 
 act, shall be held unlawful selling. 
 
 Sect. 10. This ]U’ovides for the collection of fines, 
 stating who. and Avhat are liable, and Avas repealed by 
 the Adair hiAv, passed in 1870. 
 
 Sect. 11. All prosecutions under this act shall be in 
 the name of the state, and shall be begun upon a Avritten 
 complaint, under oath or affirmation, before any justice 
 of the peace, or mayor of the toAvn, village, or city cor- 
 poration Avithin Avhich the offence Avas committed, or by 
 information or indictment. 
 
 Sect. 12 states the form of complaint in such proceed- 
 ings. 
 
 Sect. 13. In these prosecutions, it shall not be neces- 
 sary to state the kind of liquors sold, or to describe 
 the place where sold ; and for any A'iolation of the fourth 
 section, it shall not be necessary to state to AA'hom sold ; 
 and in all cases the person or persons to whom intoxi- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIVIEDY. 385 
 
 eating liquors shall be sold, in violation of this act, shall 
 be competent as witnesses to prove such fact, or any 
 other tending thereto. 
 
 Sect. 14 repeals all previous statutes on the same sub- 
 ject. 
 
 With the exception of some unimportant amendments, 
 this was the only legislation in reference' to selling and 
 drinking intoxicating liquors in Oliio until April 18, 
 1870: The General Assembly then passed, by a close 
 vote, the bill which has attracted so mirch attention un- 
 der the name of the Adair law. Owing to its important 
 bearings on the present woman’s movement, and frequent 
 reference made to it, we herewith append the full text 
 of the bill : — 
 
 THE ADAIR. LAW. 
 
 Be it enacted., ^c., that sections seven and ten of 
 the above-recited act be so amended as to read as fol- 
 lows : — . . 
 
 Section 7. That every husband, wife, child, parent, 
 guardian, or employer, or other person, who shall be in- 
 jured in person or property, or means of'support, by any 
 intoxicated person, or in consequence of the intoxication, 
 habitual or otherwise, of any person, such wife, child, 
 parent, guardian, emj)loyer, or other person, shall have a 
 right of action in his or her own name, severall}" or 
 jointly, against any person or persons who shall, by 
 selling or giving intoxicating liquors, have caused the 
 intoxication, in whole or in part, of such person or per- 
 sons . 
 
 And the owner of, lessee, or person or persons rent- 
 ing 01 ' leasing any building or premises, having knowl- 
 edge that intoxicating liquors are to be sold therein, in 
 violation of the law ; or, having leased the same for other 
 purposes, shall knowingly permit intoxicating liquors to 
 be sold in such building or premises, that have caused the 
 intoxication, in whole or in part, of any such person or 
 persons, shall he. liable, severally, or jointly with the 
 persons selling or giving the intoxicating liquors afore- 
 
386 
 
 INTEMPERAITCE, 
 
 said, for all damages sustained, as well as exemplary- 
 damages. • 
 
 And a married woman shall have the same right 
 to bring suits, and contest the same, and the amount 
 recovered, as a feme sole ; and all damages recovered 
 by a minor under this act shall be paid either to 
 the minor, or to his or her parent, guardian, or next 
 friend, as . the court may direct ; and. the unlawfid sale 
 or giving away of intoxicatkig liquors shall work a for- ' 
 feiture of all rights of the lessee, or tenant, .under any 
 lease or contract of rent upon any premises where 
 such unlawful sale or giving away shall take place ; and 
 all suits for damages under this act shall be by a civil 
 action in any of the courts of this state having juris- 
 diction thereof. 
 
 Sect. 10. For all fines, costs, and damages assessed 
 against any person or persons in consequence of the sale 
 of intoxicating liquors, as provided in section seven of 
 this act, and the act to which this is amendatory, the 
 real estate or personal property of such person or per- 
 sons, of every kind, without exception or exemijtion, 
 except under the act to amend an act entitled an act to 
 regulate judgments and executions by law. passed !March 
 1, 1831, passed March 9, 1840, took effect March 15, 
 1840, shall be liable for the payment thereof; and such 
 fines, costs, and damages shall be a lien upon such real 
 estate until paid; and in case any person or persons shall 
 rent or lease to another, or others, any building or 
 premises to be used or occupied, in whole or in ]iart, for 
 the sale of intoxicating liquors, or shall permit the same 
 to be so used or occupied, in whole or in part, such 
 building or premises so leased, used, or occupied shall be 
 held liable for, and may be leased to pay all fines, costs, 
 and damages assessed against any person or persons oc- 
 cupying such building or premises. 
 
 And proceedings may be had to subject the same to 
 the payment of any such fine, and costs assessed, or 
 judgment recovered, which remained unpaid, or any 
 part thereof, either before or after execution shall issue 
 against the property of the person or persons against whum 
 such fines and costs or judgment shall -have been ad- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 387 
 
 judged or assessed ; and when execution shall issue 
 against the property so leased or rented, the officer shall 
 proceed to satisfy said execution oiit of the building or 
 premises so leased or occupied, as aforesaid ; and in case 
 such building or premises belong to a minor, insane person, 
 or idiot, the guardian of such minor, insane person, or idiot, 
 who has control of such building or premises, shall be 
 liable to account to his or her ward for all damages on 
 account of such use and occupation of the building or 
 premises, and the liabilities for the fines, costs, and 
 damages aforesaid ; and all eontracts whereby any 
 building or premises shall be rented or leased, and the 
 same shall be used or occupied, in whole or in part, for 
 the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall be void, and the 
 (lessee) person or persons renting or leasing said build- 
 ing or premises shall, on and after the selling of intoxi- 
 cating liquors aforesaid, be considered and held to be in 
 possession of said building or premises. 
 
 This bill, which went into effect July 4, 1870, made 
 the business of keeping a saloon a precarious and un- 
 profitable one, where the law was complied with.- 
 
 SELLING TO MINORS AND DRUNKARDS. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of 
 the State of Ohio, that it shall be uidawful for any 
 person or persons to buy for or furnish to any person 
 who is at the time intoxicated, or in the habit o-f getting- 
 intoxicated, or to buy for or furnish to any minor, to be 
 drank by such minor, any intoxicating liquors whatso- 
 ever, unless given b}^ a physician in the regular line of 
 his practice. 
 
 Sect. 2. That for every violation of the provisions of 
 the first section of this act, every person so offending 
 shall, upon conviction thereof, forfeit and pay a fine of 
 not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, or 
 be imprisoned in the jail of -the county for not less than 
 ten nor more than thirty days, or both of them, at the 
 discretion of the court, and shall pay. the costs of the 
 prosecution. 
 
 [Passed and took effect April 5, 1866.]* 
 
388 
 
 INTEISIPEEANCE, • 
 
 EIOTIITG AND DRUNKENNESS IN TAVERNS. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted by the General A-ssembl}^ of 
 the State of Ohio, that if any tavern keeper shall per- 
 mit or allow any kind of rioting or revelling, intoxication 
 or drunkenness, in his house, or on his premises, every 
 such tavern keeper shall, for every such offence, on con- 
 viction, be fined not less than five nor more than, one 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 [Passed and took effect February 27, 1867.] 
 
 TO BE GIVEN IN ‘CHARGE TO GRAND JURY. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of 
 the State of Ohio, that the act entitled “ An act to pro- 
 vide against the evils resulting from the sale of intoxi- 
 cating liquors in the State of Ohio,” passed May 1, 
 1854, shall be given in special charge to the grand jury by 
 the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of each term 
 thereof. 
 
 [Passed and took effect March 8, 1865.] 
 
 MUNICIPAL CORPORATION ACT. 
 
 Section 199. (As amended April 1 8, 1870.) All cities 
 and incorporated villages shall have the general powers 
 hereinafter mentioned, and may provide b}' ordinance for 
 the exercise of the same. ... ' • 
 
 Paragraph 5. To regulate, restrain, and prohibit ale, 
 beer, and porter houses, and places of notorious or ha- 
 bitual resort for tippling or intemperance. . . . 
 
 [Passed May 7, 1869.] 
 
 Under the authority given in the above act, the incor- 
 porated village of McConnelsville, Ohio, jxissed the fol- 
 lowing 2 :)rohibitory ordinance, which has ‘been declared 
 constitutional by the. Supreme Court of Ohio, and all 
 parties interested may make use of it to the advantage 
 'of their own localities : — 
 
 THE “ McCONNELSVILLE ORDINANCE.” 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted b}’ the Council of the incor- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 389 
 
 porated village of McConnelsville, Ohio, that it shall be 
 unlawful for any person or persons to keep within the 
 said incorporated village of McConnelsville any house, 
 room, shop, booth, arbor, celhir, or. place of habitual re- 
 sort for tippling or intemperance. 
 
 Sect. Be it further ordained, that it shall be un- 
 lawful for any person or persons to keep within the said 
 incorporated village of McConnelsville a house, shop, 
 room, booth, arbor, cellar, or place where ale, porter, or 
 beer is habitually sold or furnished to be drank in, upon, 
 or about the house, shop, room, booth, arbor, cellar, or 
 place where so sold or furnished. 
 
 Sect. 3. And be it further ordained, that for any vio- 
 lation of the first section of this ordinance, the person 
 or persons so offending shall, upon conviction, forfeit and 
 pay a fine of not less than ten dollars, or more than fifty 
 dollars, and shall also be imprisoned in the county jail 
 for a period not exceeding thirty days.. That for every 
 violation of the gecoiid section of this ordinance, the 
 person or persons so offending shall, upon conviction, 
 forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, and be 
 imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding twenty days. 
 
 Sect.A. ■ Be it further ordained, that all prosecutions 
 under this ordinance shall be in the name of the incorpo- 
 rated village of McConnelsville, and shall be commenced 
 under a written complaint, under oath or affirmation, 
 before the mayor of said village ; and, upon the filing 
 of such complaint, the maj’or shall issue a warrant, di- 
 rected to the marshal of said village, for the arrest of 
 the accused. The mai’shal shall forthwith arrest the 
 person thus charged, and bring the accused before the 
 mayor, who shall proceed as provided by law f and the 
 mayor, upon the conviction of any person for the viola- 
 tion of any of the provisions of this ordinance, may 
 make it a part of the sentence that the accused shall 
 stand committed to the jail of the county until the fine 
 and costs assessed against such person shall be paid or 
 secured to be paid, or otherwise discharged, according 
 to law. ■ 
 
 Sect. 5. It shall be the duty of the marshal and as- 
 sistant marshals of said village to make complaint 
 
390 
 
 IN'I£3IPEKA2JCE, 
 
 against all persons found violating any of the provisions 
 of this ordinance. 
 
 Sect. 6. This ordinance shall take elfect on and after 
 its second, publication in the Conservative, a newspaper 
 printed in said village of McConnelsvile,, Ohio. 
 
 Javles WATKms, Mayor. 
 
 John H. Mhebay, Clerh. 
 
 SELLING LIQUOR OR TRADING NEAR CASIP MEETINGS. 
 
 Section 1. (As amended May 1, 1861.) Be it en- 
 acted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, 
 that no person shall sell, or expose for sale, give, barter, 
 or otherwise dispose of in any way, or at any place, 
 any spirituous or other liquors, or any articles of 
 traffic, whatsoever, at or within the distance of four 
 miles from the place, where any religious society and as- 
 semblage of people are collected or collecting together 
 for religious worship in any field or woonlland ; provided, 
 that nothing in this act shall affect tavern keepers exer- 
 cising their calling , nor distillers, manufacturei’S, or 
 others in prosecuting their regular trades at their 
 places of business, or any person disposing of any ordi- 
 nary articles of provisions, excepting spirituous liquors, 
 at their residences ; nor anj'" person having a written 
 permit from the trustees or managers of any such reli- 
 gious society or assemblage to sell provisions for the sup- 
 ply of persons attending such religious worship, their 
 horses or cattle, such persons acting in conformity to the 
 regulations of said religious assembly and to the laws of 
 the state. 
 
 Sect. 2.’ (This provides for the manner of prosecu- 
 tion, &c., under the above act.) 
 
 [Passed and took effect April 12, 1858.] 
 
 SELLING LIQUORS ON ELECTION DAYS. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of 
 the State of Ohio, that it shall be unlawful for any 
 person within this state to sell, barter, or give tt,way, any 
 
891 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 spirituous, vinous, or malt, liquors on the clay of any 
 election- held -within this state, under the constitution 
 or laws thereof ; and it is hereby made the duty of each 
 and all persons who are authorized under or by the laws 
 of tills state, or the municip.al regulations of any city, 
 town, or village of this state, to sell or barter any spir- 
 ituous, vinous, or malt liquors, to close their respective 
 establishments on those days. Any person offending 
 against the provisions of this act shall be fined in any 
 sum not less than five nor more than one hundred dol- 
 lars, and be imprisoned in the county jail for a period 
 not exceeding ten days for each offence so committed ; 
 and it* shall be the duty of all mayors of cities and in- 
 corporated villages within this state, on the da3rs of elec- 
 tion, as aforesaid, to issue a proclamation, warning the 
 inhabitants of such city or village of the provisions of 
 this act, and that all violations of the same -will subject 
 the offender to prompt and speed}'- punishment, and re- 
 quiring marshals and police officers, under their respec- 
 tive jurisdictions, to close all houses found violating the 
 provisions of this act, and to report forthwith all viola- 
 tions thereof to such mayors. 
 
 Sect 2. (This provides for the disposition of fines, 
 &c.) ■ 
 
 [Passed and took effect March 10, 1864.] 
 
 Laws also exist in relation to the adulteration of 
 liquors ; to provide for the appointment of guardians for 
 habitual drunkards ; and others, which . are not deemed 
 of sufficient importance for republication here. The city 
 of Cincinnati has an ordinance making it unlawful to 
 sell liquor on Sunday ; to allow revelling, drunkenness, 
 gaming, or disorderly conduct on the premises of any 
 person ; to sell liquor to minors, or persons intoxicated ; 
 providing a penalty of not less than ten nor more than 
 fifty dollars for every violation of the ordinance, and 
 making it the special duty of the mayor, chief of po- 
 lice, and other proper officers, to enforce such ordinance 
 strictly. 
 
 24 
 
392 
 
 INTEJIPEIIAXCE, 
 
 THE INDIAHA BAXTER LAW. 
 
 The Baxter law of Indiana was passed by the legis- 
 lature on the 20th of February, 1873. It is one of the 
 ' most unique and' interesting pieces of temperance legis- 
 lation ever adopted. It contains the main provisions of 
 the Adair law in Ohio, and several additional features 
 of importance. The effect of this law, if enforced, 
 would be to j)lace ini the hands of every community the 
 power to regulate the liquor traffic in its midst ; and, 
 furthermore, to make the liquor seller liable for dam- 
 ages. 
 
 Section 1 makes it unlawful for any person to sell or 
 give away intoxicating liquors, to be drank on the prem- 
 ises, until such person has obtained a permit from the 
 Board of County Commissioners, as hereinafter pro- 
 vided. 
 
 Sect. '2. Any person desiring a permit to sell intoxi- 
 cating liquors, shall file in the office of the County Au- 
 ditor, not less than twenty days before the session of tlie 
 County Commissioners, a petition in writing, stating his 
 ward or township, street, number, &c., which petition 
 shall be signed by the applicant, and also by a majority 
 of the degal voters of the ward or township where the 
 applicant proposes to sell intoxicating liquors. Such 
 petition shall be examined by the board, and if found to 
 be in proper 'forpi, the Auditor shall cleliver to the appli- 
 cant the permit asked for. 
 
 Sect. 3. Before the granting of a permit by the Board 
 of Commissioners, the applicant shall cause to be exe- 
 cuted and properly acknowledged, a bond, payable to 
 the State of Indiana, in the sum of three thousand dol- 
 lars, Avith good freehold security thereon, of not less 
 than two persons, to be approved by the Board, and con- 
 ditioned for the pajunent of any and aU fines, penalties, 
 and forfeitures for the violation of any of the provisions 
 of this act ; and conditioned further, that the principals 
 and sureties therein named shall be jointly and severally 
 liable for all damages which may be inflicted upon any 
 
ITS ASPECT Aim ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 393 
 
 person or property by reason of such sale of intoxicating 
 liquors. Separate suits may be brought on said bonds 
 by the person or persons injftred, but the aggregate 
 amount recovered shall not exceed the amount of three 
 thousand dollars. In case said bond shall be exhausted 
 by recoveries .thereon, a new bond shall . be filed within 
 ten ‘days, and in default thereof, said permit shall be 
 deemed to be revoked. Such bond may be sued and 
 recovered upon in any court having civil jurisdiction in 
 the county, except Justices’ Courts. 
 
 Sect. 4. The majority of votes cast in the last pre- ' 
 ceding congressional or municipal election, shall be 
 deemed a majority of voters whose signatures are re- 
 quired to such permit ; and any person signing such 
 petition, who is not a legally qualified voter, shall be 
 fined not less than fifty dollars, nor more than one hun- 
 dred dollars. 
 
 Sect. 5. No permit shall be granted for a longer or 
 shorter time than one year. And it is further provided, 
 that a copy of the order of the commissioners must be 
 conspicuously posted up in the room where the liquors 
 are sold, and any failure to comply with this provision 
 shall work a forfeiture of the permit. 
 
 Sect. 6. It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or 
 give liquors to any minor, or to any other person in the 
 habit of getting intoxicated. 
 
 Sect. 7. All places where intoxicating liquors are sold 
 in violation of this ..act shall be closed as public nui- 
 sances. ■ . 
 
 Sect. ^ makes the saloon keeper liable for the cost of 
 caring for an intoxicated person. 
 
 Sect. 9 makes it unlawful for an}'- person to get intox- 
 icated, and provides that . any one convicted of intoxica- 
 tion shall be required to designate the person flom 
 whom he bought the liquors. 
 
 , Sect. 10 prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquors on 
 Sunday, on Election days, on Christmas or Thankgiving 
 day, on the Fourth of July, and on any public holiday. 
 It also prohibits the keeping open of saloons after nine 
 o’clock at night, and before six o’clock in the morning. 
 
 Sect. 11. Bartering or giving away liquors shall be 
 deemed the same as selling. 
 
394 
 
 INTEaiPEPvAifCE, 
 
 Sect. 12 provides that any husband, wife, child, parent, 
 guardian, employer, &c., shall have 'the right of action 
 against the seller of the liquor causing intoxication. 
 (This corresponds to the similar provision in the Adair 
 law of Ohio.) ■ 
 
 Sect. 13; In case the intoxicated person has no -rela- 
 tive or other person to bring action against, the saloon 
 keeper for injuiy, it shall be the duty of the Township 
 Trustee, having in charge the poor, to bring such action, 
 the money thus collected to go to the benefit of the poor 
 in that ward or township. 
 
 Sect. 14 to 16 provide for the fines and penalties under 
 this act, and for the jurisdiction of courts. 
 
 Sect. 17. It shall be unlawful for anj^ person to buy 
 for, or furnish to, any person who is at the time intoxi- 
 cated, or in the habit of getting intoxicated, or to a^y 
 minor, to be drank by such intoxicated person or minor, 
 any intoxicating liquor. Any person violating this sec- 
 tion shall be fined not less than five nor more than fifty 
 dollars. 
 
 Sect. 18. In all prosecutions under this act it shall 
 not* be necessary to state the kind of liquor sold, or to 
 describe the place where sold, and it shall not be neces- 
 sary to state to whom sold ; and in all cases, the person 
 or persons t(i whom intoxicating liquors are sold shall be 
 competent witnesses to prove such facts or any tending 
 thereto. 
 
 The remaining sections of the act indicate the form 
 of complaint, repeal all conflicting laws, and provide 
 that the act shall take effect as soon as passed. 
 
 Such is the substance of the tempeii^nce legislation in 
 the^wo States of Oliio and Indi ana, One would think 
 that with such admirably constructed laws, the traffic in 
 intoxicating liquors must be under perfect control. But, 
 what do we find to be the ease ? Until quite recently, 
 except in isolated cases, there was scarcely a pretence 
 of carrying any of these laws into execution. The bold 
 front of the liquor interest presented too many terrors 
 
ITS ASPECT AND. ITS REMEDY. 895 
 
 for private citizens to undertake prosecutions, and the 
 officers to whom the duty was delegated, in too many 
 instances, owed their election to the very men whom 
 they were expected to prosecute. Moreover, if a public 
 official undertook the execution of the law, it was rarely 
 that he found a public sentiment strong enough to sustain 
 him and keep him in office. ■ * 
 
 The Adair law, at this writing, has been in force 
 nearly four years. It may interest many to know how 
 extensive and successful the litigation under it has been. 
 Upon the occasion of a woman obtaining a verdict of 
 fifteen hundred dollars in Cleveland, recently, a paper 
 in that city made the statement that that was the only 
 instance in a large city where damages had been re- 
 covered under the law. The statement was somewhat 
 startling, and thouglf not strictly true, it showed that 
 the law in the cities is practically ineffective. In Cin- 
 cinnati there have only been two or three instances 
 where the plaintiffs have recovered, and these only in 
 small sums. . Ten times that number . of actions have 
 been brought, but the result has been, almost invariably, 
 a compromise, or a verdict for the defendants. 
 
 In the country, however, the case is quite di^erent. 
 Literally, thousands of suits have been brought by ‘the 
 wives and children of drunkards, and in a good propor- 
 tion of the cases, ‘damages, to a greater or less extent, 
 have been recovered. The cases have been generally 
 contested with great obstinacy, and frequently appealed 
 to higher courts. Five or six have thus found their way 
 to the Supreme Court of the state, which has always 
 declared the Adair law constitutional in every particular. 
 In regard to the last section of the law, which declares 
 a lease to a liquor seller, selling contrary to law, invalid, 
 it has been decided that to set aside such lease a sepa- 
 rate suit must be brought. 
 
396 
 
 INTEMPEEA2nCE, 
 
 In Indiana the experience has been very similar to 
 th^it of Ohio. In the country districts the law has been 
 quite readily and thoroughly enforced ; in the cities it 
 has, so far, proved a total failure. The bold and in- 
 genious methods by which * the saloon keepers have 
 dodged the law will he found in a subsequent chapter 
 Oil the work in Indiana. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 397 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE TRIUMPHAL MARCH OP DIO LEWIS. — THE MAN AND HIS OPINIONS. — 
 THE XENIA MASS MEETING. — INAUGURATION OF THE WORK IN SPRING- 
 FIELD, LEBANON, MOUNT VERNON, ETC. — MOTHER STEWART, THE 
 
 SPRINGFIELD J.EADER. INTERVIEWS WITH SALOON KEEPERS. WHY 
 
 THE MASS MEETING AJ COLUMBUS FAILED. THANKSGIVING JUBILEE 
 
 AT WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE. THE TRANSFORMATION OF XENIA, 
 
 MOUNT VERNON, ETC. — REMARKABLE SURRENDER OF THE SHADES OP 
 DEATH. 
 
 On the last day of January Dio Lewis wrote from 
 Boston to the Cincinnati papers that he conld no longer 
 deny himself a visit to the front. Soon after his lecture 
 at Washington- Court House he had returned east, little 
 expecting that the movement he had inaugurated was 
 destined to reach such stupendous proportions. It was 
 an experiment that he had often tried during the last, 
 nineteen years, but he had never before met the women 
 with the moral courage to carry it through. Southern 
 Ohio was the first soil he had found where his temperance 
 plant would grow ; and its growth had been a marvel 
 alike to him. and to the whole world. After watching 
 the battle for a while at a distance, he determined to 
 enter the field and lend a helping hand “ where the 
 movement had not yet been fairly- inaugurated, or 
 where another soldier might help to turn the fortunes of 
 the day.” 
 
 Let us*take a general survey of the field at this time. 
 The excitement had penetrated every corner of South- 
 ern Ohio, and was spreading rapidly northward, and into 
 
898 
 
 INTEJIPEEAisCE, 
 
 other states. It was the prominent topic of conversa- 
 tion everywhere. People who ridiculed the movement 
 at first, as a species of fanaticism, now saw it growing 
 into a great social revolution. Nowhere had the women 
 been vanquished, thus far, in a fair fight with whiskey. 
 They had achieved the most astonishing victories over 
 stubborn saloon keepers, and b}'- their very success com- 
 pelled the respect of their opponents. Just about this 
 time the Cincinnati Gazette published statistics from 
 about twenty-five towns, showing that one hundred and 
 nine saloons had been closed, and twenty-two drug stores 
 pledged to sell no intoxicating hquor. • 
 
 Such was the general situation on the 9th of February, 
 when Dio Lewis arrived in Cincinnati. Of course he 
 was straightway “interviewed” by reporters of the city 
 press, and appropriately written up. In person he was 
 found to be a fine specimen of the physical man, six feet 
 in height, with a muscular develoiDment and freshness of 
 appearance that was a walking argument in favor of liis 
 great 'theory — temperance. His mental faculties were 
 also about as well developed as his physical. He had 
 decided views about the whole question, and. was never 
 at a loss for words or facts to sustain them. The re- 
 portorial gimlet was first applied in relation to the legal 
 cases, an outline, of which has been given in a previous 
 chapter. The following was the result : — 
 
 “ There never was a day since this movement wa^ in- 
 augurated that presented such a golden opportunity as 
 that now ofPered to the ladies of "Washington and Hills- 
 boro’. For years these saloon men Rave been violating 
 every law of God and man, and the men have treated it 
 hghtly. Now the ladies, in this hohest of causes of mere 
 human interest, have violated some technicality f-the law, 
 the mighty law, is • appealed to at once. Now let the 
 ladies prove equal to the occasion — go two hundred 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 399 
 
 strong, and kneel and pray before Dr. Dunn’s store, and 
 then submit to the law. The blood of the martyr is the 
 seed of the church. Is there a judge in Ohio that would 
 consign them to prison, or a constable that would execute 
 such a decree ? Then should the ladies submit and take 
 imprisonment, for rest assured it will not be long ; then 
 every man in Ohio, who has a spark of manliness in him, 
 would burn with shame, and the free men of this state 
 would rise in their might, and say. This traffic in death 
 shall be crushed out.” 
 
 Subsequent to this Dr. Lewis modified his view in this 
 respect, and counselled obedience to the laws. The doc- 
 tor continued : — 
 
 “It is safe to say that three fourths of the men and 
 nineteen twentieths of the ladies are in favor of strong 
 temperance measures, if they could be got at without 
 entangling side issues. But why is not this sentiment 
 put into action ? A has a business ; his eye is on that. B 
 has a shop ; his eye is there. C and D have farm and mer- 
 chandise ; and they go their ways, saying, ‘ It’s a pity, a 
 great pity that men will debase themselves t but it always 
 has been so, and always will.’ But let them see a band 
 of women praying, singing, pleading with the rum sellers, 
 and all at once this latent sentiment springs into life. 
 The man and the citizen is shamed, and the Christian 
 and patriot alarmed, for their country, an3^ every one is 
 impelled ’to do his best. And that is why I justify this 
 mode' of fighting intemperance. I know it is not nice. 
 It would be much pleasanter for those ladies to sit at 
 home and talk about the evils of intemperance. But must 
 they sit at home while brothers perish ? No they must 
 come out and waken the moral sense of the community. 
 Why, we are not talking to convince' people of the 
 evils of intemperance. That would be a pure waste of 
 time. We want them to act — act on what they already 
 know.” * • • • 
 
400 
 
 lNTEjSIPERA]SrCE, 
 
 Next day the temperance party started on its travels. 
 It consisted, of Dr. Lewis, the noted Van Pelt, who went 
 along in the double capacity of lecturer and “ horrible 
 •example,” and four members of the press, represent- 
 ing the Cincinnati daihes and the New York Tribune. 
 The destination was Xenia, where a rousing mass meet- 
 ing was to be held the same night. JVhen the cars 
 reached Loveland, Dr. Lewis was handed a despatch 
 asking him to step off at Morrow, and give the labor- 
 ers some advice and encouragement. He answered yes, 
 and at three o’clock the whole party alighted. A 
 prayer meeting was then in progress at the door of Max 
 Goepper’s saloon. It was a strange picture to look 
 upon. At o'ne door of the saloon was a woman with 
 hands raised in prayer ; at another, the proprietor was 
 jDlacidly smoking a cigar, and trying to force a smile of 
 contempt and unconcern, while all about w-ere moving 
 trains and'hundreds of bystanders. 
 
 The meeting came to order, and Van Pelt was loudly 
 called for. Thereupon the converted rum seller came, 
 forward, and, .with a preparatory clearing of the throat, 
 launched out upon the first temperance speech of the 
 tour. Barring the unreportable mistakes of grammar, 
 and twisting of the king’s English, he spoke substantially 
 as folloAvs : — 
 
 “ Ladies and Gentlemen : As by request I will give 
 you a little of my experience as a saloon keeper, and 
 then pass on to some arguments to show that the ardent 
 is one of the greatest curses of the land, and that the 
 labors of these women are destined to sweep it out of 
 our midst. As a saloon keeper I could bring up many 
 dreadful acts during my experience. When I look back, 
 
 I can’t ^ee how any man can keep up the business of 
 selling liquor. I will suppose myself in my own saloon. 
 
 I will pass behind the bar with a smile, meeting my cug- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 401 
 
 •tomer with a decanter ; and, as he gulps down the liquid 
 poison, I look at the man ; I see that God has endowed 
 him with all the strength of manhood ; that perhaps he 
 has been raised in good society. Then I look at him 
 after a few years have passed. See his emaciated form 
 and tattered clothes ! Could one believe that he was 
 once the pride of the society of the place ? And this is 
 but a case out of ten thousand. Many have I thus started 
 on the road to ruin, and led on down the broad way. 
 Now, when he thinks of this, is there a man who can 
 stand and deal out these liquors ? It is hard for me to 
 follow my own experience. When 1 look back, it seems 
 as if only a monster could do the things I have done. 
 Yet men are doing this every day. 
 
 “ Now, to our dear' sisters who are laboring in the 
 cause, I will say that they have the greatest reason to’ 
 labor on. Take a mother who has pleaded with her 
 erring son, and then just when she has persuaded him to 
 leave his wickedness, a tempting companion, or a saloon- 
 ist, leads him astray again. How many such cases there 
 are ! Why, then, shouldn’t our sisters and mothers work 
 in the cause ? I don’t believe there is a saloon keeper 
 in the United States bxit that believes he is shortening 
 the lives of his fellow-creatures just to fill his own coffers. 
 W e might enter into arguments to show the saloon keep- 
 ers that they are wrong ; but they are already satisfied 
 of that.” 
 
 He was listened to with great interest by the crowd, 
 who were curious to hear the man whose wickedness 
 had given him a reputation almost national. Dr. Lewis 
 then' spoke a few feeling words, and all adjoiirned to the 
 Methodist church, where both Lewis and Van Pelt again 
 ■ made speeches. 
 
 The party arrived in Xenia in time to face an immense 
 audience assembled to hear the noted temperance apos- 
 tles in the City Hall. This meeting we reproduce at 
 length, as a good representative of its class during the 
 whole campaign. 
 
402 
 
 INTEMPERAJTCE, 
 
 Van Pelt was the first speaker. After some general* 
 arguments in favor of temperance, in which he was not 
 very successful, he proceeded with an inside view of the 
 campaign in New Vienna, from the saloon keepers’ stand- 
 point, telling how they met often to consult ; how the;^ 
 waited for .the women to overstep the bounds of the law ; 
 how one after another of his colleagues went over, leav- 
 ing him at last alone in the fight, and how, at length, he 
 saw his wretched business in its true light, and resolved 
 to give it uj). He gave a sample of his bravado speeches 
 to the ladies, day after day, and made the statement that 
 Cincinnati dealers offered to supply him with liquors for 
 a year, if he would only stick it out. By way of perora- 
 tion, he told the story of his surrender, which produced 
 a storm of applause. The climax was impressively re- 
 lated in the following words : — 
 
 “ Then I told all the men to retire, for this was the 
 ladies’ victory. I would surrender to no man, but to 
 them ; and I took that old meat-axe that I s’pose j'ou’ve 
 all read of [laughter], that I had threatened the same 
 ladies with, and knocked in the heads of the barrels, and 
 let the old serpent flow into the gutter.” 
 
 Dr. Lewis was then introduced to the audience, and 
 plunged at once into the subject, by stating that he con- 
 sidered this ‘the most important meeting ever held in 
 Xenia ; “ and,” he continued, “ I feel a deep anxiety lest 
 the little I have to say shall not be well said, for this ipove- 
 ment of the praying women of Ohio has got beyond the 
 direction of any one man ; its control belongs only to 
 God.” Some startling s'tatements from various judges 
 were then presented as to the proportion of crimes 
 caused by intoxication, the speaker having the testimony 
 of nineteen eminent jurists, none of whom were temper- 
 ance men. In a meeting he attended the other day, a 
 clergyman had recommended the introduction of the 
 
- ITS ASPECT AISTD ITS REMEDY. 
 
 403 
 
 light Tpines of France and Germany to suppress our fiery 
 stimulants ; “ but,” said the doctor, “ I would not walk 
 across the street to aid any temperance reform that did 
 not plant its two feet square on the rock of total absti- 
 nence. [Applause.] 
 
 “ Dr. J. G. Holland has stood for twenty years dkectlj'’ 
 in the path of the temperance reformation of New Eng- 
 land by his position on this subject. Said he, ‘ You are 
 not going to work in the right way ; men will have stim- 
 ulants of some kind ; the desire for them is as natural as 
 for air and sunlight. In Southern Europe every one 
 drinks his half pint or pint of wine daily, and is the better 
 for it. Let us induce our people to use these stimulants, 
 and all will be well.” At last Dr. Holland went to Eu- 
 rope; and what did he see? He is a man that prides 
 himself on his consistency. A great deal of his time is 
 taken up in proving that he does- not change ; that he 
 thinks just as he did seventeen hundred years ago — 
 more or less. But when he got to Southern Europe, he 
 took the back track for the first time, so far as I know, 
 in his life. Said he, ‘ God forbid that the drinking cus- 
 toms of my country should be changed for those of this 
 land ! Bad as they are there, they are worse here.’ I 
 too went to Snuthern Europe, where men use these light 
 wines. And what is the secret of their demoralization 
 there ? The women drink ! ! every woman, as well as 
 every man ; and during the time I was there, I never 
 heard^a woman deeline to clrink, except because of sick- 
 ness ; and one hour after dinner you could see the effects 
 of wine-drinking in the face and eye of every woman of 
 the company. And it is only because the praying moth- 
 ers and faithful wives of Ohio do not drink, that they 
 hate, loathe, abhor the deadly stuff, that they fight it from 
 their houses as the presenee of death, that any such 
 movement as this is possible.” 
 
404 
 
 rNTEMPEEANCB, 
 
 A scathing criticism of moderate drinkers followed. 
 
 “ Who,” he asked, “ set the example which young drink- 
 ers follow ? Evidently not the drunkards, the men who 
 get drunk every time they get the means ; for all classes 
 look upon them as disgusting. Nor is it the middle^ 
 class, who drink habitually, and get drunk occasion- 
 ally ; for in every family and social circle you will hear 
 them spoken of thus : ‘ Mr. A. has a good bank account 
 now, but if he goes on this way five years, it won’t be 
 so. Mr. B.’s credit is good to-day, but he will be a pau- 
 per in ten years if he don’t let liquor alone.’ No ; no 
 young man feels called on to imitate them. No; it is 
 the nice, elegant fellows, who turn up delicate cut glasses, 
 and sip the finest foreign wines ; or the sturdy, honest 
 old gentlemen, who take only pure Bourbon r and the 
 families that keep a little cordial for sociability, or a 
 bottle of brandy in the house ‘ for fear some one should 
 be taken suddenly sick in the night.’ These are the 
 men who set the fashion, whose, every word and motion 
 was imitated. For it is but a few men who set the style 
 for a place ; it is but a small number of women who de- 
 termine the fashion. And there are women, and in the 
 best society, — to our shame be it said, — ^.who serve as 
 agents to recruit the devil’s army of drunkards. 
 
 “Mrs. Colonel Smith smiles sweetly the Istdaj'of Jan- 
 uary, as she saj^s to the innocent young man who calls, 
 
 ‘ Take a glass of wine with me before you go.’ And 
 to that jmung man she is a very goddess, moving before 
 him in trailing, clouds of beauty. The woman who^ 
 would thus let herself down to be an enlisting officer for 
 the devil’s army of drunkards should be tabooed, inex- 
 orably shut out from all respectable society forever.'’ 
 [Prolonged applause.] A series of interesting sketches 
 followed, showing that the speaker could drop occasion- 
 ally from the severe to the lively and amusing ; but 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 405 
 
 througli them all ran one general mol’al : There is no 
 safety but in total abstinence ; and the moderate drink- 
 ers set the example which makes drunkards. 
 
 • He then address^ himself to the question, “What, 
 shall be done ? ” Nothing had ever raised communities 
 to such a height of moral sublimity as this women’s tem- 
 perance movement of Ohio, “ Three hundred times,” he 
 said, “ have I given temperance lectu:^es in which I urged 
 this movement, and never found the soil fit for it before, 
 Now that it has come, I almost fear to touch it, lest I 
 hinder. When I saw the women at Morrow praying in 
 front of that saloon, I felt weak ; too weak to add any- 
 thing to the' power at work ; and I knew then why , 
 brother Van Pelt had surrendered. He must have been 
 half crocodile, half tiger, and all devil, to have withstood 
 it. Now, friends, the hour of action has come. I pro- 
 pose this plan : We want a chairman, four secretaries, 
 
 ■ and ten speeches of two or three minutes each by clergy- 
 men and leading citizens.” 
 
 By unanimous vote of the audience. Dr. Lewis him- 
 self was made chairman, and Messrs. Dodds, Stern, Col- 
 onel Finley, of the Xenia Gazette, and the Rev. Mr. 
 
 . Maiiey named as secretaries. Short and pointed speeches 
 were then made by Rev.* Mr. Bedel, of the Baptist 
 church. Rev. Mr. Ralston, of the Presbyterian, Rev. J. G. 
 Carson, of the United Presbyterian, Rev. Mr. Morehead, 
 
 ^ Mr, Starr, Mr. Shaeffer, Rev.. Mr. Yockey, and Rev. Mr. 
 Maiiey. One or two hesitated sornewhat before em- 
 barking in the Hillsboro’ method of suppressing intem- 
 perance, but the expression of the orators generally, and 
 the tone of the audience, were decidedly in favor of it. 
 One hundred and fifty women enlisted on the spot, and 
 the meeting adjourned in a glow of enthusiasm until 
 morning. 
 
 At nine A. M. on the following day, the hall was 
 
406 
 
 iktejipeea:^;ce, 
 
 again crowded, mostly by women, who showed by their 
 countenances that the enthusiasm of the night before 
 had not been slept off. The work of organization was 
 again taken up, and the list of Yolunteers increased to 
 'nearly four hundred. Dr. Lewis advised a division of 
 forces into four bands, who should take separate districts 
 of the city. The ladies then held a private meeting, and 
 adjorirned until afternoon. 
 
 Notwithstanding the work had been so auspiciously 
 begun, the party of temperance missionaries went away 
 with manj^ misgivings in regard to Xenia, there seemed 
 so many formidable obstacles to be overcome. It was the 
 largest city yet attacked, having a population of nearly 
 eight thousand. It was aristocratic, wealthy ,*and con- 
 servative. There w’as a very strong element in the re- 
 ligious community of United Presbyterians, wdio could 
 not conscientiousl}^ sing a hymn, or allow a woman to 
 speak in a church. How^ could ladies from these churches 
 work harmoniously with INIethodists and others ? Then 
 there w^ere half a hundred weU-rcfbted saloons to encoun- 
 ter. These and other difficulties seemed to many almost 
 insurmountable. How they were sw^ept away lUve chaff 
 before the wind, will appear further along in this chapter. 
 
 Springfield was the next pipint of attack. It was ap- 
 proached wdth some fear on account of its size and the 
 strength of the liquor interest. Up to this time the 
 movement had not been attempted in anj- place contain- 
 ing more than four thousand inhabitants, and it was de- 
 clared by many that if it strove to make conquests on a 
 larger scale, it would inevitabl}* meet with defeat. Peo- 
 ple, however, wffio had witnessed the marked and speedy 
 •results of prayer in the smaller places, were sanguine 
 that the same method wrould prevail in the cities, if fairly 
 tried. Springfield contains something like fifteen thou- 
 sand inhabitants, being about double the size of Xenia. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 
 
 407 
 
 It had one hundred and thirteen saloons, besides whole- 
 sale houses, breweries, and doubtful drug stores. As in 
 Xenia, the ladies of the upper classes are slightly given 
 to aristocratic notions, while the liquor sellers were so 
 numerous as to form a society of their own, and other- 
 wise unite for joint protection and resistance. It was, 
 therefore, not a promising field for laborers for temper- 
 ance-according to the new plan, and many thought it 
 would give a searching test to the efficacy of the moral 
 method. 
 
 The subject of temperance had been agitated there 
 some time before Dio Lewis arrived. Six weeks pre- 
 vious the movement had been set on foot mainly by 
 “Mother” Stewart, under whose maternal supervision 
 it had since remained. W eekly meetings had been held 
 and moderately attended. The speeches were carefully 
 elaborated, and the essays were of the most polished or- 
 der, and all had a general tendency towards teinperance ; 
 but somehow the cause did not thrive. A legal cam- 
 paign had been vigorously pushed by Mother Stewart. 
 A vain attempt had been made to persuade the City 
 Council to use thmr power, under a city ordinance, to 
 abate the saloons as nuisances. And at last, just before 
 the arrival of the Dio Lewis party, some attempts had 
 been made with the praying method. But the nice 
 ladies held aloof, distrustful of such strange means : the 
 doubting, and well-disposed, shook their heads and- said,. 
 “ It was of no use ; whiskey had got too strong a hold,” 
 while the saloon keepers smiled a smile of good-natured 
 contempt. 
 
 Things were about in this condition when Dio Lewis 
 and Van Pelt came on the scene. The Opera House 
 was crowded to hear the far-famed temperance apostles.. 
 On the stage were the whole party of itinerant speakers 
 and journalists, together with Mother Stewart, Clifton 
 25 
 
408 
 
 LNTEAIPEEANCB, • 
 
 Nichols, editor of the Kepublic, who acted as chairman, 
 and several of the ministers and dignitaries of the town. 
 Van Pelt had his say first, and improved considerably 
 on his Xenia performance. The doctor followed in an 
 address which was, to some extent, the same as already 
 reported. The following, however, in regard to adul- 
 terated liquors, excited some surprise and considerable 
 applause among his hearers : — 
 
 “ He did not sympathize with the wish for pure 
 liquors ; on the contraiy, he considered the poison-com- 
 pounder the friend of temperance. He did not know 
 of any drug so deadly that it would not improve whiskey. 
 He would bid the mixers God speed, if it be lawful to 
 use the name of God in such a connection. There is no 
 nonsense so pervading and injurious as this talk about 
 unadulterated liquors. Men say, ‘ O, if we only had the 
 pure liquors that our grandfathers had, we would live 
 on as they did ; it is this poison stuff that kills us off.’ 
 It is aU nonsense. The reason liquor hurts us worse 
 than our grandfathers is the difference in other physical 
 conditions. They worked hard in the open ah, hyed on 
 coarse food, and though they drank often, did live out 
 three fourths of their days. The men. who five in the 
 open air now, who start with a good constitution and 
 unusual physical advantages, can live as long. Be not 
 deceived ! Alcohol is poison — it is poison — it is poison. 
 The more deadly it can be made, the better. If a man 
 has become an habitual drinker, the sooner he dies, the 
 less harm he does. Is it not better for him to go in a 
 year or two, than to go on, a curse to himself and the 
 ■world, for twenty ? If the whiskey could be so mixed 
 that it would kill a man in three days, it would be a 
 glorious tlfing for temperance.” 
 
 The speech was concluded in a blaze of enthusiasm, 
 and the business meeting began. It was conducted 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 40.9 
 
 in the same manner as the one at Xenia. Four secre- 
 taries were named by the audience — C. H. Shaetfer, 
 O. G. Hoffman, T. J. Finch, and O. D. Hawk. These 
 were to name one hundred ladies from the audience, who 
 would take an active part in the crusade. While this 
 work was going on. Mother Stewart was called to the 
 front. She said, — 
 
 “ God seems to be giving us the desire of our hearts, 
 but we have a very peculiar warfare here. I cannot 
 describe it. We. never did anything until we started to 
 work at the ‘saloons. It seemed to me that we were 
 only beating the air. Four months have passed since 
 that poor woman came to me for help for herself and 
 children against the rum sellers that were killing her hus- 
 band. I told her to-day to come here to-night, and see 
 if this meeting gave her hope ; and she is in the audience. 
 At last the people are interested ; some actual drunk- 
 ards, and young men, drinkers, but not yet drunkards, 
 have taken my hand, and said to me, ‘ Go on. Mother 
 Stewart ; we do hope you will succeed.’ Sometimes I 
 have felt so discouraged I almost wished that God would 
 lay me on a bed of sickness, for I might be an obstacle 
 in the way of reform. Still we worked on. I felt, when 
 that poor woman came to me, that our. great reliance 
 must be in prayer. The great question was. Could we 
 succeed in that way in this city ? . At last we went forth, 
 and then a host of friends seemed to spring out of the 
 ground. The burden of this thing has been on my mind 
 till I have felt that I could not live unless we went for- 
 ward. We could not trust to other causes. The poli- 
 ticiEtns admit that they are powerless. They are so en- 
 tangled that they cannot act. 
 
 “ On Monday two or three went out and prayed. 
 Good women came and prayed with us ; and at last, 
 yesterday, we went to the saloons, twenty or thirty of 
 
410 
 
 LNTEMPEEAITCE, 
 
 US, and to-day more came — yes, seventy or eighty ; and 
 you all know the result. Many gentlemen have said to 
 me, ‘ Those places must he closed ; ’ but I felt almost in 
 ^ despair when I received a telegram from Dr. Lewis. As 
 our band increased, there was a great crowd of men and 
 boys, but they were very polite and respectful. They 
 only seemed anxious to see and hear. To-day we visited 
 the Lagonda House saloon ; the proprietor treated us 
 very kindly, but locked the outside door to keep the 
 crowd out. He gave us the billiard rooms, and we had a 
 very precious season there. At the next ‘place I tried 
 to talk, a crowd collected. The man came out and said, 
 ‘ Get away ; get away, every one of you ; I don’t want 
 any trespassers ; you shan’t stand on my steps.’ ’ But I 
 was never more composed. When I started down from 
 the porch a hundred voices said, ‘ Stay where you are.’ 
 ‘ Go on. Mother Stewart, go on.’ Then a policeman 
 took the man in, and when we were ready to leave, he 
 came out in good humor, and bid us good day.” 
 
 Ten minute speeches being in order, John C. IMiller, 
 city solicitor. General Kiefer, Rev. INIr. Bennett, Rev. Mr. 
 Spring, L. H. Olds, and others responded to calls ; and, 
 though some of them handled “ this particular plan ” a 
 little gingerly, yet all were in favor of some decided 
 movement on the subject at once. The enthusiasm on 
 the subject of organization was not what it was at Xenia, 
 and as soon as the meeting came to real business, the 
 people seemed in a dreadful hurry to go home,- and kept 
 constantly leaving the hall. 
 
 Next morning, at nine o’clock, the Central Methodist 
 church presented a more encouraging picture. It was 
 nearly filled with ladies, who, by their coming, indicated 
 that they were ready to take hold of the work. An 
 executive and advisory committee were appointed to 
 subdivide- forces, arrange plans, and take entire control 
 
ITS ASPECT AJID ITS REMEDY. 
 
 411 
 
 of the movement. The names of four hundred and fifty 
 women, ready for the work, were reported. Dio Lewis 
 and Van Pelt were present. The former acted as chief 
 organizer, and the latter gave an account of his expe- 
 rience as a saloon keeper. Two or three men, belonging 
 to good families in the city, but who had been almost 
 ruined by intemperance, told the ladies that on the 
 success of the movement depended their own salvation 
 from rum. 
 
 The temperance party left for Lebanon in the after- 
 noon, feehng that the work had been well organized 
 and well begun in Springfield, and expecting to hear, 
 very soon, of grand achievements in the cause. But 
 such is the weakness of human judgment. In Xenia, 
 from which little was expected, a week sufficed to revo- 
 lutionize the town. In Springfield, which gave such 
 fair promise, the movement dragged along for months 
 with no great results. 
 
 There was a vague suspicion among the members of 
 the temperance band that Lebanon was small game for 
 half a dozen able-bodied men. From the account already 
 given, it will be remembered that there was but a single 
 saloon in town that had survived the terrors of the law, 
 and the proprietor of that was selling in strict conformity 
 with the law. But Dio Lewis had engaged himself to 
 lecture there, and was determined to improve what 
 opportunities for usefulness still remained. The keen 
 scent of the reformer discovered three saloons and a dis- 
 tillery in the little squad of houses that make up Deer- 
 field — the railroad station of Lebanon. It struck him 
 that the ladies of the latter place, having no foe to over- 
 come in their own midst, might do a little expellent 
 missionary work in their degenerate suburb. 
 
 There was a large and fine-looking audience assembled 
 in the evening to hear the doctor. Nate Woods, the 
 
412 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 only remaining saloonist, himself bought five dollars’ 
 worth of tickets for the lecture, and distributed them 
 among his friends. Van Pelt orated in the customary 
 style ; Dr. Lewis was very entertaining and impressive ; 
 the usual five minute speeches were extracted from 
 prominent men and ministers present, and the work of 
 organization was commenced. While many were doubt- 
 ing whether so many ladies were needed to suppress the 
 small whiskey shop that was left, and the two suspicious 
 drug stores. Dr. Lewis sprang upon the audience the 
 question of their interesting suburb — Deerfield. It was 
 a surprise. The hsteners pictured to themselves twenty 
 wagon loads of Lebanon women descending from the 
 steep hill upon the forsaken little town and its distillery. 
 In prospect it seemed hke the descent of Hannibal from 
 the Alps upon the fair fields of Italy. 
 
 A meeting was held in the Congregational church 
 next morning. Dr. Lewis acted as manager, and the 
 usual company of women was enlisted for service. A 
 disposition was manifested to supplement the work of 
 the law by a httle influence of the gospel, and then, 
 when the last remnant of whiskey was rooted out of 
 Lebanon, to push the victorious car over the hiUs to 
 Deerfield, and redeem that place from its load of wick- 
 edness and misery. 
 
 Nate Woods was sought out by a reporter, and unbo- 
 somed himself for the benefit of the public. He regarded 
 the situation as serious, and yet hopeful. He seemed 
 to be laboring under the delusion that the temperance 
 cause and the Eev. Mr. Burrows were identical, and 
 gave a long history of the persecutions he had suffered 
 at the hands of that gentleman. When asked what he 
 would do when the women came, he said he woidd shut 
 up his shop and go home till they got through. He had 
 money enough, and could stick it out as long as they 
 could. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIMEDY. 
 
 413 
 
 “ But suppose they swoop down every time you 
 open up ? ” 
 
 “ O,” said he, “ they won’t do that. They’ll get tired 
 of this by and by, and go home and mind their own 
 business. It can’t last.” 
 
 The next engagement of Dio Lewis was at Marysville ; 
 bnt after an exasperating drag of twenty miles through 
 the deep mud, the train was missed by a few minutes, 
 and the people of Marysville had to start the temperance 
 movement unaided and alone. What was their loss, 
 however, proved to be Franklin’s eternal gain. That 
 place had been among the first to enter upon the crusade 
 against saloons. Six had yielded, after an ineffectual re- 
 sistance, and the women were engaged upon the last and 
 worst. It was kept by one Munger, who has achieved, 
 in that locality, the reputation of a Van Pelt — unre- 
 generated. 'While the ladies were ’ praying about this 
 place, the temperance party drew near and listened. A 
 voice — that of a young woman, almost a girl — was raised 
 in prayer. It was so sweet and pure a prayer. that a 
 reporter telegraphed it entire to the New York Tribune ; 
 *so that thousands of readers in the east next morning 
 saw in their paper the tender, pleading words of a “ cru- 
 sader” before an Ohio saloon. 
 
 On the l4th and 15th of February Dr. Lewis and Van 
 Pelt were in Mt. Vernon, a manufacturing town of con- 
 siderable size, n-orth-east of Columbus. There were 
 twenty-eight saloons there, and the custom of drinking 
 had such a strong hold upon the masses that many, even 
 of the good temperance people, thought it folly to waste 
 any prayers for the regeneration of Mt. Vernon. It was 
 past cure. But others had faith, and among them were 
 ladies belonging to the very best society of the place. 
 A large band organized and entered upon the work, 
 with what remarkable success will be seen at the end 
 of this chapter. 
 
414 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 On the night of the 16th Dio Lewis was booked for 
 Columbus, where a great mass meeting was to he held 
 with a view to inaugurating the work there. All eyes 
 were turned towards Columbus for the answer to the 
 question, “ Can this movement succeed in large cities? ” 
 It was a tremendous meeting in point of size, but the 
 cold, critical lookers-on seemed to outnumber and par- 
 alyze the zealous advocates of the cause. As the seat 
 of the state government, the city was overrun with 
 politicians, who from the first looked with disfavor upon 
 the woman’s movement. The average politician, with- 
 out the facilities of the dram shops, would find politics a 
 dreary and unprofitable profession. These and certain 
 other elements united to smother what little enthusiasm 
 the ladies, in their private prayer meetings, had worked 
 up. The verdict of the press was “ failure ; ” and the 
 majoj'ity of people, who depend on their newspaper for 
 their opinions, straightway concluded that it was all up 
 with the cities. They were mistaken, as the record of a 
 succeeding chapter will show. With the Columbus ladies 
 it was only hope deferred. The cold-blooded politicians, 
 and some other disturbing elements, had checked, but by* 
 no means discouraged them. A great State Temperance 
 Convention was appointed for the following Tuesday, 
 and the meeting adjourned, after taking up a collection 
 to cover expenses. One hundred dollars v^re called for, 
 and the hats returned laden with nickels and copj^ers to 
 the extent of eighteen or twenty dollars.- The audience 
 had sacrificed something over half a cent apiece ! 
 
 From Columbus the doctor went to Washington Court 
 House, where a grand thankgiving jubilee had been ar- 
 ranged to celebrate the final closing out of rvhiskey from 
 the place. He was met at the depot bj' a brass band 
 and half the people of the town. The reception took 
 place in Music Hall, and was a memorable affair- in the 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 415 
 
 history of the little city. Mrs. M. G. Carpenter, wife of 
 the Presbyterian minister, who had been one of the 
 leaders in the movement, extended a welcome to Dr. 
 Lewis in the following well-chosen words : — 
 
 “ Dr. Lewis : In the name of the women of Wash- 
 ington I welcome you. Eight weeks ago, when you first 
 came among us, you found us a people of willing hearts 
 and generous impulses, fully alive to the evils of intem- 
 perance, but needing the magnetism of a master mind to 
 rouse -us into a determined resistance to its ravages. 
 Yours was that mind. Your hand pointed out the way. 
 You vitalized our latent activities ; you roused us all, men 
 and women together, and we have gone forth to the battle 
 side by side, as God intended we should ; ourselves per- 
 fect weakness, but God mighty in strength. He has 
 given the success — not yet complete, ’tis true, but our 
 faith is still unshaken. He sent you here ; He put the 
 thought into your head ; He prepared our hearts to re- 
 ceive it ; He has directed our steps. And now He has 
 'brought you among us again to gladden you with the 
 fruition of hope long deferred — to see the seed, sown 
 long ago by your mother, springing up, budding, and 
 bearing fruit. Dr. Lewis, in behalf of this whole peo- 
 ple, I again welcome you to the hearts and homes of 
 Washington.” 
 
 Dr. Lewis replied : — ' 
 
 “Madam and Friends: I cannot make a speech on 
 this occasion. I may, perhaps, compare myself to an In- 
 dian on a visit to the city of Washington — from the 
 frontier to the place where the battle has long been 
 fought and won. I have always been on the frontier, 
 always engaged in the battle of reform ; and now, to 
 find any thing really done, to find a town positively free 
 from the curse of liquor selling, it seems that there is 
 nothing for me to do. I feel as one without his working 
 harness. But I will say this: None bat God can ever 
 know how much I owe to this town, nor how fortunate 
 it was for me and for many that I came here. I will not 
 
416 
 
 rSTElNIPEEANCE, 
 
 say that this is the only community in which the work 
 could he begun. The heroism and self-sacrifice dis- 
 played in other places, . the moral force developed in 
 Southern Ohio, woidd make such a remark invidious. 
 Often have I tried to start this movement — once in par- 
 ticular, in one of the most moral towns in New England. 
 Two United States senators came upon the platform to 
 give the movement them sanction. We had as fine an 
 audience as could be assembled, and I said to myself, 
 ‘ At last we are going to succeed.’ But it was a dead 
 failure. I know not why. All the elements of success 
 seemed to be there ; but some invisible force was lack- 
 ing. There is an invisible force at work in this movement. 
 At last I came to you, and you delighted me by your 
 work. You came out to meet me with music and words 
 of welcome. But I come to thank you, to take you by 
 the hands, to look into jmur eyes, and tell you how much 
 I owe to you for being the first to cheer me with suc- 
 cess. I am indebted to, you for bringing out this plan. 
 I am indebted to you a thousand times more than you 
 are to me. But the hour of victory ledves me with httle 
 to say. I have never been able to visit the battle-fields 
 after victory — have always gone on to new fields. I can 
 only close by tendering yon my earnest thanks.” 
 
 Further festivities of a mild nature followed, after 
 which Dr. Lewis took leave of the town that won the 
 first complete victory under his system, and from there 
 went to Springfield, Dayton, and Cincinnati, at which 
 latter city he delivered a regular lyceilm lecture. Sun- 
 day was spent in advising and encouraging the labor- 
 ers at Hillsboro’ ; and on Monday the original party. Van 
 Pelt excepted, found itself reunited and headed for Del- 
 aware, a quiet little city in Central Ohio, the seat of 
 the Ohio Wesleyan University, and the home of Apollo 
 and the Muses. 
 
 On Monday the women of Delaware had no thought 
 of inaugurating the praying movement ; twenty-four 
 hours later they were thoroughly organized, and had en- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 417 
 
 tered upon the work in a glow of enthusiasm. Dr. Lewis 
 was invited to lecture, not by the citizens, but by one 
 or two students of the Chi Plii fraternity, who were also 
 perfectly guiltless of any intention of improving the 
 morals of the town. A large audience assembled in the 
 Opera House to hear the lecture, and almost before they 
 knew it, they were fairly imbued with the new idea. 
 They came for an evening’s entertainment, and Avent 
 awa}^ pledged “crusaders.” Next day a large meeting 
 was held at the Williams Street M. E. church, where a 
 permanent and effective organization was formed. Mrs. 
 A. S. Clason was made President, and Mrs. Bishop 
 Thompson Secretary. The most cultivated and influ- 
 ential ladies came promptly forward, and went to work 
 with an intelligence of purpose and strength of determi- 
 nation tliat spoke the inevitable doom of the thirty-three 
 saloons that flourished in their midst. 
 
 The temperance apostles reached Columbus next day 
 just in time for the great convention, to which all work- 
 ers in the cause had been invited. The proceedings of 
 this and other conventions, during the progress of the 
 movement, will be found in a succeeding chapter. 
 
 We have left the movement fairly inaugurated at a 
 number of interesting points, some full of promise, and 
 others of discouragement. It may be well to go back, 
 and, in the light of subsequent events, review the prog- 
 ress of the work. 
 
 Xenia was the flrst place where Dio Lewis tried his 
 skill as an organizer. The elements of opposition were 
 so plentiful that a stranger, on the morning Dio Lewis 
 left, would have said there was not a ghost of a chance 
 of success. One week later the writer returned, and 
 spent three days in the place. The very atmosphere 
 seemed to be changed. The excitement was as intense 
 as at any time during the war. In business, in society. 
 
'418 
 
 ESTTEMPERAi^CE, . 
 
 on the streets, everywhere, temperance was the all-pre- 
 vailing topic of conversation. Hundreds of women, 
 divided into several hands, were praying daily before 
 the saloons. The morning meetings in the churches 
 were crowded with men and women, and the most in- 
 tense interest was manifested in every part of the pro- 
 ceedings. While these meetings were in progress, the 
 stores were closed, and business generally suspended. 
 
 It was remarkable, most of all, to notice how the bar- 
 riers of society and denominationalism were broken down. 
 All churches and all classes of society were united in the ' 
 movement. People who, a week before, would have 
 counted it a sin to sing out of any but Rouse’s version, 
 now joined lustily in the old jMethodist hymns. One 
 prominent member of the U. P. church remarked that 
 she “ had got all over her old notions about singing 
 psalms, and women speaking in churches. If anybody 
 wanted to, discipline her, they might ; she would speak 
 or pray when she felt like it, and sing whatever was 
 started.” In society it was the same way. Every lady 
 in town, except one, belonging to what is known as “ the 
 first circles,” was active in the movement, and on the 
 streets daily. That one was sick, and could not. The 
 leaders, among whom might be mentioned i\Irs. Monroe, 
 Mrs. Finley, Mrs. Lowe, and others, seemed, from their 
 good sense, high standing, and zealous devotion, admi- 
 rably adapted to the great work before them. 
 
 There was one saloon, known as the “ Shades of Death,” 
 which, in the early stages of the movement, was the 
 centre of attack. Notwithstanding its notoriousl}- bad 
 character, its proprietor was a young man, named Phillips, 
 who had been well brought up, and who seemed to have 
 a few traces oT self-respect remaining. Day after day 
 the ladies had patiently prajmd and pleaded with the 
 man, but apparently to no purpose. Whenever they 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 419 
 
 attempted to enter, lie would thrust them out, good- 
 naturedly, sometimes, but always determinedly. But 
 one afternoon the church bells set up a deafening clamor. 
 People rushed about the streets in great excitement, 
 spreading the news that the “ Shades of Death” had 
 sui’rendered. Cheer after cheer rose upon the air from 
 the vicinity of the saloon. Hastening to the spot with 
 the crowds of people that were flocking in from all direc- 
 tions, the writer witnessed a remarkable scene. There 
 had been an unconditional surrender on the part of the 
 young saloonist, and a genuine “ pouring out ” of his 
 liquors. The doxology had just been sung by the crowd, 
 as though they intended it to be heard a mile, and special 
 emphasis was laid upon the last word of the flrst line. 
 The ladies, with tearful eyes but stout hands, had rolled 
 out the barrels. One of them tugged away at a faucet 
 for dear life, and when it would not come, she seized a 
 stone, and went at it with an energy that soon sent the 
 beverage reeking through the gutter. The mingled 
 fumes of whiskey and beer fllled the air, and people fell 
 on each other’s necks and wept. It was unanimously 
 voted on the spot to encourage Phillips in any legitimate 
 business he might undertake ; and now a well-patron- 
 ized meat market takes the place of the old trafSc in 
 whiskey. The same night two other saloons surren- 
 dered ; next day, two or three more ; and so on, day after 
 day, until the whole forty were reduced to half a dozen, 
 which still hold out, and will have to be brought to 
 terlns by law. 
 
 At Springfield the women continued the campaign of 
 prayer ; but somehow the cause did not seem to prosper. 
 At Lebanon Nate Woods resisted for a while, but at 
 length shut up his saloon, and left town to “ wait till the 
 storm should blow over.” At Delaware the work was 
 carried on vigorously. Part of the saloons yielded to 
 
420 
 
 INTKMPEKAi^CE, 
 
 persuasion, and the remainder were closed by the en- 
 forcement of the city ordinance. 
 
 Mt. Vernon was revolutionized almost as speedily as 
 Xenia. It is a city of about the same size, and much 
 the same characteristics. The women enlisted in large 
 numbers, and soon became a power that nothing could 
 resist. Saloon after saloon melted away before them. 
 Ten days sufficed to reduce the number from twenty- 
 eight to a dozen ; and it was not long before all, except 
 a few doggeries of the lowest character, were shut up. 
 The leading saloon keeper, who was among the first to 
 surrender, was one McFealey, known to con-sdvial spirits 
 throughout all that section of country. His place was a 
 favorite resort for Kenyon College boys, who came down 
 from Gambler to shake off the cares of learning and 
 drown them in the flowing bowl. A few days after he 
 had run up the white flag, a couple of correspondents 
 walked in to interview him. They were met with a 
 cordial shake, and, — 
 
 “ Have a glass of ginger ale, or lemonade, gentlemen ? 
 We don’t keep anything stronger now.” 
 
 Over this mild refresirment, he explained how he con- 
 ducted his business since whiskey was thrown overboard, 
 and what he thought of the temperance movement. 
 
 “ I don’t know what it is to be converted,” said he, 
 “ but from what I have heard people say, I think I feel 
 something like that. I never was so hap^ry in my life 
 as since I quit selling whiskey. Before, I used to cross 
 the street, when I saw a. lad}^ coming whom I happened 
 to know, to save her the embarrassment of recognizing 
 a saloon keeper publicly. Now all that feeling is gone, 
 and I feel that I am as good as anybody.” 
 
 He was running a restaurant and billiard room on the 
 temperance plan, and so great had been the increase of 
 
SALOON KEEPER SURRENDERS, AND SIGNS THE PLEDGE. 
 
MU/i 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSTD ITS EEISIEDY. 
 
 423 
 
 his respectable patrons, that he was doing a better busi- 
 ness than he had ever done before. 
 
 And so the work was going on in scores of towns, of 
 which there is hardly space here to mention the names. 
 At the time Dio Lewis returned to the east, the tele- 
 graph and mails were bringing to the daily papers re- 
 ports of progress from nearly every part of the state. 
 Besides the hundreds of saloons closed, and thousands 
 of individuals pledged to total abstinence, there were 
 indirect results none the less important. A strong pop- 
 ular feehng was growing up against drinking in every 
 form, and against the men who enrich themselves by the 
 misery and degradation of their fellow-creatures. Indi- 
 viduals were being saved from habits of self-destruction ; 
 and perhaps more important than any of these, the minds 
 of the young were moulded into a love for the principles 
 of temperance. 
 
424 . 
 
 INTEIMPEEANCE, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT SPREABS TO INDIANA. — SHELBYVILLE THE FIRST POINT 
 ASSAILED. — A JUVENILE SPREE THE IBIMEDIATE CAUSE. — THE HOME 
 OF THE AUTHOR OF THE BAXTER LAV’. — NOBLE WORK OF THE QUA- 
 KER LADIES OF RICHMOND. — SUDDEN UPRISING IN FORT WAYNE- — 
 HOW THE INDIANAPOLIS WOMEN DIRECTED THEIR ENERGIES. — PRATER 
 AND THE BAXTER LAW JOIN HANDS. 
 
 The work so auspiciously begun in Ohio early spread 
 into Indiana. The conditions being very similar, the 
 plan of operations was but slightly modified. The 
 ladies in Southern Indiana took to the praying method 
 with much the same readiness and determination as 
 their sisters across the line. They did not have the 
 personal presence and counsel of the commander-in- 
 chief, in consequence of which operations were begun 
 in some places somewhat irregularly. The very impor- 
 tant accessories of large numbers, of social prestige, and 
 of a favorable popular sentiment, which were so marked 
 in some of the Ohio cities, seemed wanting, to some 
 extent, in Indiana. The pioneers in the movement, in 
 the southern part of the state, were very largely Quaker 
 ladies, who waited not for organization, or any pro- 
 nounced backing on - the part of the general public. 
 They had faith to believe that’ God would send Them 
 numbers and strength as the work progressed. 
 
 The campaign in Indiana was inaugurated at Shelby- 
 ville on the 28th of January. The immediate cause of 
 the uprising of the women was a drunken spree of a 
 couple of youths between seventeen and eighteen j^ears 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 425 
 
 old, wlio belonged to the most pious and respectable 
 families of the town. One of them purchased liquor on 
 the plea that it was for family use, and, together with a 
 comrade who was not so new to the business, they 
 launched out upon a- bacchanalian revelry that would 
 have done credit to old and accomplished soakers. 
 Their pursuit of pleasure led them to a house of bad 
 repute, where their drunken orgies attracted the atten- 
 tion of the officers, who arrested them. Their pious 
 mothers and friends were horrified at the excesses of 
 the boys ; and so great was the feeling upon the subject, 
 especially among the women, that a ^‘mothers’ meeting” 
 was held at the close of the prayer meeting on the even- 
 ing of the 20th. The cause of the trouble was traced 
 directly to the sale of intoxicating liquors, and, as in the 
 similar case recounted by Dio Lewis, they resolved to 
 devote their earnest and prayerful efforts to the sup- 
 pression of intemperance. 
 
 The next morning another meeting was held. Soon 
 after, a committee of ladies waited on Mr. Schrader, 
 whose permit to sell liquor had just expired, and asked 
 him not to renew it. He replied that he would quit if 
 the others would ; and so the ladies were led almost in- 
 evitably into the work of visiting saloons. But the sa- 
 loon keepers all met them with the remark, “ Go to the 
 druggists. They are the ones that are responsible for 
 the most drunkenness.” Accordingly the- women went 
 to the drug stores, where tippling of a respectable kind 
 was encouraged. There were six of them, and, with 
 one exception, they positively refused to sign. It was 
 understood that the traffic in liquors, wholesale and 
 retail, formed the most profitable part of their business. 
 Each one would throw whiskey overboard if.all the rest 
 would ; but that was a promise which they knew they 
 were perfectly safe in making. 
 
 26 
 
426 
 
 ETTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 On the 26th of January, over a hundred women met 
 at the Baptist church, and organized the “ Woman’s 
 Teinperance Alliance,” with the following named offi- 
 cers : Mrs. John Elliott, President ; Mrs. ' Harrison, 
 Vice-President ; Mrs. Hattie Robbins, Secretary ; and 
 Mrs. Mattie S. Thompson, Assistant Secretary. An 
 appeahto the public was drafted, asking for assistance 
 in the good work of temperance reform. But this 
 method Avas not deemed sufficiently speedy and certain, 
 and it was resolved by a large majority to proceed to the 
 saloons in a body. George Deprez was ffi-st to receive 
 attention. He admitted them readily, and a prayer 
 meeting was held. When talked with directly upon the 
 subject, Mr. Deprez responded that he was a member, in 
 good standing, of the Presbyterian church, and hoped 
 thereby to obtain eternal happiness. Next day thqy 
 proceeded to other saloons ; but the proprietors gener- 
 ally met them at the door with the remark that their 
 house was kept for other purposes than prayer, and, if 
 the ladies wanted room for spch exercises, they could 
 have the churches and the highway. 
 
 But the band of praying Avomen increased in size, and 
 grew strong in faith and courage. They went on in the 
 crusade against saloons from day to day, meeting with 
 varying successes. A number of saloon keepers were 
 induced to quit the business ; men were led back from 
 the A'^ery gutter into Avays of sobriety ; and a feehng was 
 created in the public mind which will render the en- 
 forcement of the law a more certain and easy process. 
 
 The following incident is related as occurring in one 
 of the saloons at Shelbyville : A man went in to get a 
 drink of whiskey. While standing at the bar, the AA'ife 
 of the liqiTor seller called her husband to come to 
 dinner. 
 
 “ What have you got for dinner ? ” he asked. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 427 
 
 “ Roast goose,” she replied, naming several other good 
 dishes. 
 
 “Have you any apple-sauce ? ” he inquired with in- 
 terest, adding, “ I like apple-sauce with roast goose.” 
 
 “ No, hut I will soon have some,” was the answer. 
 
 And the man at the bar, waiting for his dram, thought 
 to himself, “What has my family for dinner to-day? 
 This man has roast goose and apple-sauce, and my fam- 
 ily have none. I will furnish no more money for him to 
 buy roast goose and apple-sauce.” 
 
 About two weeks later, Jeffersonville was seized by 
 the same epidemic. Two hundred ladies formed an or- 
 ganization, and began the usual street operations. They 
 were followed by crowds that sometimes became so noisy 
 as to compel them to suspend their efforts for a time. 
 In Muncie, Kokomo, and many smaller places, the 
 movement was started in a similar way. 
 
 In Richmond, a staid Quaker city of twelve or fifteen 
 thousand inhabitants, the work was quietly inaugurated 
 late in February. A few determined Quaker ladies first 
 started the street movement, but they rapidly gained in 
 numbers until all the churches were represented in the 
 ranks. Richmond is the home of William Baxter, au- 
 thor of the Baxter law, and is therefore u good point 
 from which to view the effects of that enactment. It 
 will be remembered that the law provides that no man 
 may keep a saloon or sell intoxicating liquors until he 
 has secured the signatures of a majority of the voters in 
 his ward or township to a petition asking for such saloon. 
 He is required to furnish bondsmen, who shall be liable 
 for any violation of the law on his part, and, further- 
 more, the property on which the liquor is sold is liable, 
 as under the Adair law in Ohio. As may be readily 
 seen, not one saloon keeper in twenty can comply with 
 all of these conditions and carry on a profitable business. 
 
428 
 
 INTEMPEEAiTCE, 
 
 The consequence is, that in that city, out of the thirty- 
 one registered saloons, hut a single one was licensed 
 under the Baxter law, the husiness of the other thirty 
 being carried on in direct violation ©f it. The law is 
 ineffective in the cities, simply because it is almost im- 
 possible to secure direct evidence against" any of these 
 places. . Men who drink will not swear to it, and thus 
 dry up the source from whidh they expect to get more. 
 And if by any means a witness is secured, he is bought 
 off, if there is money enough in the treasury of the 
 liquor sellers’ association to do it. It is very different, 
 however, in the country districts. There hundreds of 
 saloons were closed up by the law, and will remain closed 
 as long as it exists. A majority of the voters in country 
 townships is generally found to he opposed to whiskey 
 selling, while, from their detached locations, the whiskey 
 sellers cannot combine to override the law. 
 
 At the present writing, all the druggists are pledged, 
 and about two thirds of the thirty-one saloons mentioned 
 have either succumbed to law, or to the prayers of the 
 women. Not less than seven of these yielded to the 
 simple influence of prayer, and some of them are now 
 zealous advocates of temperance. . -The finest saloon in 
 Richmond was kept by one McCoy. It was called “ The 
 Continentar,” the word being displaj'ed in a manj'- 
 colored arch over the door. But McCoy surrendered to 
 the 'ladies, and now a croae-bar, underneath the arch, 
 bears the word “Market.” Twenty gentlemen sub- 
 scribed fifty dollars each, and loaned him that amount 
 to set him iqD in business. August Woeste poured out 
 his liquors unconditionally, and was rewarded with the 
 proeeeds of a public supper given in his establishment. 
 
 Thomas Lichtenfels, kowever, surrendered under the 
 most interesting and dramatic circumstances. He had 
 always prided himself on selling strictly according to 
 
ITS ASPECT A3!TD ITS REMEDY. 
 
 429 
 
 law, had a regular license under the Baxter bill, obtained 
 without fr^id, and never sold to drunken men or minors. 
 As the lower class saloons surrendered, one after an- 
 other, their customers centred upon him ; and, though 
 he was taking in money- twice as fast as ever before, he 
 felt a growing disgust at the character of his patrons. 
 At length the ladies began to visit his saloon, and remain 
 some time each visit. One afternoon he undertook to 
 shut them out, and half a dozen who had entered were 
 imprisoned from four o’clock till nine P. M. with the 
 rudest crowd the city could furnish. The rowdies ex- 
 hausted their resources in attempts to frighten and 
 browbeat the ladies without actual violence ; and for a 
 while it looked as if they would not hesitate at that. 
 They called for beer as fast as two persons could hand it 
 .out to them, quoted Scripture in blasphemous mockery, 
 and parodied the songs sung by the ladies. Finally they 
 raised a cloud of tobacco smoke so dense and sickening 
 that it drove out two of the ladies, but the others stood 
 it like heroines. They did not attempt any religious 
 exercises, but continued most of the time in silent 
 prayer. Before the evening was over, the proprietor 
 was heartily ashamed, of his patrons. Precisely at nine 
 o’clock he announced that the “• time had come to shut 
 up, according to law ” (the Baxter bill directs that all 
 saloons shall close at that hour), and turned off the gas. 
 He followed the ladies into the street, shook hands with 
 them all, and said, “ This is the last day I will open a 
 saloon ; this is too much for me.” The next day he did 
 not open, and is now preparing to move West. 
 
 Fort Wayne has a population of about twenty-two 
 thousand, and there is probably not a city in the state 
 that does a larger liquor business, in proportion to its 
 size. The Germans compose about one third of the 
 population, and are, almost to a man, bitterly opposed 
 
430 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 to the woman’s movement. Then, in addition to tliis, 
 the Christian people of the community were indifferent 
 and inactive on the subject of temperance long after 
 their brethren and sisters, all about them, were in the 
 field. But at last there was ah awakening. Though it 
 came late, the city was aroused from centre to circum- 
 ference. For twenty years the dram shops had ruled 
 the town, and there were not a hundred respectable peo- 
 ple to contest their sway ; but almost in a day all this 
 was changed. The first public meeting was held about 
 the middle of March, and within a week there was a 
 powerful central organization, and branches extending 
 into every ward in the city. 
 
 The plan .of operations adopted by the women differed 
 in some essential particulars from that generally fol- 
 lowed. Instead of praying in saloons and on the streets; 
 they resolved to hold regular morning prayer meetings 
 in the churches, and then start out upon the work of 
 the day. That work, it was decided, should consist of 
 visits to every citizen, to secure the pledges of voters not 
 to sign any more petitions, for permits under the Baxter 
 law, not to lease property to liquor sellers, and to refrain 
 from drinking themselves. They also cumulated the 
 druggists’ pledge, which was largely signed. As can 
 readily be seen, this course, persistently carried out by 
 the active organizations in every ward, soon rendered it 
 impossible* for a saloon keeper to renew his permit, ac- 
 cording to the requirements of the law. A lawyer was 
 employed to give his whole attention to the business, 
 and thus prevent the perpetration of any frauds by the 
 saloon keepers, many of whom had afready forfeited 
 their licenses by selling liquor on Sundays and after 
 nine o’clock at night. Committees were appointed to 
 gather evidence, and the men put their hands in their 
 pockets liberally to back any prosecutions that might be 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEISIEDY. 431 , 
 
 begun. Under this strange combination of the law and 
 the gospel, the influence of the whiskey element gradu- 
 ally wasted away. The Sundays — hitherto a boisterous 
 holiday — became quiet, and the nights were once more 
 free from the sounds of revelry. Unable to renew their 
 licenses, and afraid to continue selling without them, the 
 dram sellers are one by one dropping off, and seeking 
 other employment. If this work, so energetically be- 
 gun, is patiently and persistently carried forward, there 
 is no doubt that the curse of intemperance, if not wholly 
 swept from the city, may at least be restricted to very 
 narrow limits. 
 
 The Christian women of Indianapolis became inter- 
 ested quite early in the campaign. The first to move in 
 the matter were Quaker ladies, but they were soon re- 
 enforced from .other denominations, and the movement 
 acquired a strength that was felt and acknowledged. 
 The high respectability of those connected with it will 
 be seen from the following list of officers of the “Wo- 
 man’s Christian Temperance Union : ” President, Mrs. 
 Delitha Harvey ; Secretary, Miss Auretta Hoyt ; Cor- 
 responding Secretary, Miss Gertie Holliday ; Treasurer, 
 Mrs. Carrie Evans. There are also prominent in the 
 work Mrs. Hannah T. Hadley, Mrs. Elizabeth Jenkins, 
 Mrs. J. Trueblood, Mrs. Bartlett, Mrs. Bayliss, Mrs. 
 Wingate, Mrs. Boggs, Mrs. Townsend, Mrs. Stagg, Mrs. 
 W. A. Holliday, Mrs. Israel Taylor, and others. While 
 prayer was to be relied upon as the chief weapon in 
 the warfare, these ladies determined not to employ it 
 in the same manner as their sisters in the Ohio cities. 
 The direction which the movement took was towards the 
 County Commissioners, before whom came the petitions 
 for saloons, under the Baxter law. These documents 
 are examined by them, and, if found satisfactory, the 
 permit is at once issued. But this system had, in the 
 
432 
 
 ESTTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 large cities, and especially in Indianapolis, degenerated 
 into the most notorious farce. Under the old law, every 
 liquor seller was compelled to pay a round sum for a 
 license. Now, all he had to do when he wanted a new 
 permit, or his old one renewed, was 'to hire a man to go 
 out and get the required number of signatures ; and it 
 was remarkable how readily that number was always 
 obtained. The graveyards were generally well repre- 
 sented, and the list was further ornamented with the 
 names of plenty of fictitious persons, non-residents, 
 minors, and others, with an occasional property-holder 
 or two thrown in to give character to the thing. When 
 these palpably fraudulent, lists were presented ,to the 
 commissioners, there was no one to call in question their 
 genuineness, and they were generally passed upon with- 
 out any objection being raised. 
 
 Here, the ladies perceived, was an opportunity for use- 
 fulness. They could be present at the examination of 
 these petitions, and, with very httle evidence, expose 
 their fraudulent character. • Accordingly, one day, the 
 sedate commissioners were surprised in their delibera- 
 tions by a band of these women, who came in in the 
 interests of temperance. The session was .opened by 
 prayer, permission to pray having been granted, and 
 then the batch of documents passed under the scrutiny 
 of these zealous women and their legal adviser, with the 
 most alarming results to the whiskey fraternity. Out of 
 twenty-four petitions presented, only four stood the 
 test, and were j)assed upon. 
 
 The ladies then turned their prayerful attention to 
 the enforcement of the existing provisions of the Baxter 
 law, especially those in regard to liquor selling on Sun- 
 day and after nine o’clock at night. . As in most of the 
 large cities of the country, the saloons hardly made a 
 ■^I'etence of closing on Sunday ; and as for the nine 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDT. 
 
 433 
 
 o’clock provision, a good share of the money taken in 
 passed over the counter after that hour of night. The 
 temperance movement had not proceeded far before 
 there was a public sentiment which demanded of the 
 city authorities the execution of the law in these re- 
 spects. An order was issued to that effect, and the 
 result was, the next Sunday was the quietest ever 
 known in Indianapolis. « 
 
 Three objects, then, were the aim of the women of 
 Indianapolis — first, to arouse public sentiment; second, 
 to persuade men, by the power of Christianity, to give 
 up the sale and use of intoxicating liquors ; and, third, 
 to enforce the Baxter law. To illustrate how successful 
 they were in their first object, a union mass prayer meet- 
 ing, held early in March in the Academy of Music, was 
 crowded to excess, and upwards of a thousand people 
 were turned away unable to get in. A similar meeting 
 was in progress at the Third Presbyterian church, and 
 was crowded in the same manner. A month before, it 
 would have .been difficult to get together a corporal’s 
 guard to talk or hear about temperance. Though the 
 movement took a somewhat legal, turn, it never for a 
 moment lost its eminently religious character. Every 
 meeting, for whatever purpose called, was opened by 
 prayer, and, in most of the meetings, religious exercises 
 were the chief feature. At present, the organization of 
 the women has reached almost absolute perfection. Its 
 ramifications extend into’ every ward, ‘street, alley, and. 
 house in the city ; and so well do the ward associations 
 fulfil their mission, that the men who sign petitions and 
 thase who circulate them are getting to be a distinct 
 race. Those ■ engaged in the movement belong to no 
 particular religious sect or political party. Episcopali- 
 ans and Methodists, Democrats and Republicans, aU 
 stand upon a common platform, and battle with a com- 
 
434 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 These features, which are so prominent in the capital 
 city, are characteristic, to a greater or less extent, of the 
 work throughout the state. At Lawrenceburg, Union 
 City, Bedford, Madison, Greenfield, Wabash, Warsaw, 
 Lafayette, Kokomo, Logansport, Terre Haute, and in 
 scores of the smaller towns, the praying method and the 
 Baxter law have joined hands. The deficiencies of the 
 one are supplementecLby the strong points of the other, 
 aiid the result is a combination so powerful that few of 
 the saloons can stand up against it. It will require the 
 most persistent watching on the part of the women to 
 see that the demands of the law are fully met ; but they 
 have pledged eternal vigilance and prayerfulness, which 
 alone are the price of their liberty. If this work in 
 Indiana is carried forward for a few months longer with 
 the same wisdom and zeal that have characterized it thus 
 far, popular sentiment on the subject of temperance will 
 reach a point where most of the saloon keepers will find 
 it profitable to go out of the business. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 435 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE woman’s movement IN THE LARGE CITIES. — DIFFERENT CONDI- 
 TIONS IN CITY AND COUNTRY. — THE EXPERIMENT FIRST TRIED IN 
 DAYTON. — HEROISM OF THE PRAY'ING BANDS, AND* INSULTING CON- 
 DUCT OF THE MOB. — EXCITEMENT PRODUCED BY THE CAMPAIGN IN 
 COLUMBUS. — DISCOURAGEMENTS FROM EVERY QUARTER. — PRAYER 
 MEETING IN THE CAPITOL. — HOW THE MUNICIPAL CODE WAS SAVED 
 INTACT, — THE CRUSADE IN CLEVELAND. — CINCINNATI A FORMIDA- 
 BLE POINT. — THE THREE STAGES OF THE MOVEMENT THERE. IN- 
 
 TENSE OPPOSITION OP THE LIQUOR SELLERS AND GERMANS. — THE 
 CHURCHES PUT TO GOOD USE. — PROCLAMATION OF THE MAYOR, ETC. 
 
 Early in the progress of this remarkable movement, 
 the problem of* the large cities began to excite interest. 
 “ The praying plan will do well enough for small towns,” 
 people said, “but when it comes to the large cities, — 
 Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, — why, it’s folly 
 to think about it ! ” On the other hand, many enthusi- 
 astic friends of the cause firmly believed that it would 
 triumph everywhere and under all circumstances, and 
 would soon sweep the whole cnrse of liquor from the 
 land. Then there was a large middle class, who believed 
 that just sq far as the movement went, it would do good, 
 and that therefore it was the duty of all to give the 
 women every encourageinent, and make the reform ex- 
 tend as far as possible. If it was effective in driving 
 out the saloons and reforming drunkards in the . small 
 towns, it would be a great work ; and if anything could 
 be done in the cities, there was so much the more to be. 
 thankful for. 
 
 It will very readily be seen that the conditions of sue- 
 
436 
 
 INTE]MP:5RA:srCE, 
 
 cess in a small town and in a large city are very differ- 
 ent. In the former, the saloon keeper forms a part of 
 the social fabric, and is more or less dependent on the 
 esteem of his -more respectable .fellow-citizens. Unless 
 he is on good terms with his neighbors, he is doomed to 
 an isolation that soon becomes positively unendurable. 
 Whiskey sellers are much like other men in human in- 
 stincts and pride. The taunts thrust by schoolmates 
 upon their children, and the moral aversion of the com- 
 munit}^ to themselves, cut more deeply than is generally 
 supposed. In the city, on the contrary, the saloon keep- 
 ers are so numerous as to form independent business and 
 social combinations. If the better class .of people look 
 down upon them, it makes very little difference with 
 their profits, or enjoyment of life. They are courted 
 and paid by politicians. They are winked at by the au- 
 thorities. They wear good clothes and drive fine horses, 
 and the pleasures which wealth can purchase amply 
 compensate for all the loss of social prestige. 
 
 • There are other things which render success less diffi- 
 cult in the country towns. There the women know the 
 character and surroundings of each of the saloon keep- 
 ers with whom they have to deal, and can therefore ap- 
 proach them more intelligently, and consequently more 
 effectively. The ladies themselves, also, are acquainted 
 with each other, and readily unite in the work. But in 
 the cities, society is divided up into grades and cliques, 
 which can no more combine than oil and water. Ladies 
 hardly know their next-door neighbors, and are always 
 afraid of them until they become well acquainted. Then 
 the ramifications of the liquor interests are so vdde- 
 spread, and have so important an influence in all 
 branches of trade, that business men are afraid to de- 
 clare their principles. And so it is impossible for tem- 
 perance men to separate themselves from all restraints, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REaiEDY. 
 
 437 
 
 and. unite themselves in opposition to the power of 
 whiskey. 
 
 In view of all these facts, the friends of the cause 
 awaited the result of the experiment in the cities with 
 beating hearts. .It early became apparent that that ex- 
 periment would be made. Dio Lewis boldly declared 
 that one hundred women from each church, in any city, 
 hound together by the same Christian faith and zeal, 
 would drive out the rum shops just as speedily and as 
 surely as had been done in Washington and Wilmington. 
 God’s arm was not shortened, that it could not save big 
 towns as well as small ones, and prayer was just as effec- 
 tive ascending from the stone pavement in the city as 
 from some obscure cross-roads in the country. 
 
 The first city of any size to begin the women’s cru- 
 sade was Dayton. The work had just been inaugurated 
 in several cities of intermediate size, such as Xenia, Mt. 
 Vernon, Springfield, &c., when Dio Lewis came*there. 
 Dayton is a manufacturing town of about forty thousand 
 inhabitants, laid out in broad, beautiful streets, and built 
 up with substantial residences’ and business blocks which 
 betoken wealth and luxury. How many of those hand- 
 some stone fronts were reared on the tears and groans 
 of widows and orphans, any old citizen can tell. Large 
 distilleries in the city and vicinity have been a prominent 
 source of the wealth concentrated there. Add to this 
 that the people were conservative and aristocratic, and 
 the result'would hardly seem favorable for the introduc- 
 tion of the praying plan of overthrowing saloons, of 
 which there were over five hundred. 
 
 But the movement was started. A little band of 
 temperance women began to pray together, and it was 
 not long before their numbers and spirit had grown too 
 large to be contained within narrow church walls. A 
 temperance mass meeting was held in Music Hall, pre- 
 
438 
 
 INTEISIPERANCE, 
 
 sided over by Dio Lewis, and on the next day, Februa- 
 ry 20, a permanent organization was formed. A vice- 
 president from each church in the city was appointed, 
 who formed a committee for the arrangement of work. 
 It was decided, however, not to move at once upon the 
 saloons, but, by prayer and private endeavor, to make a 
 more thorough preparation for the task of regenerating 
 the morals of the city. After a few days spent in this 
 manner, a number of ladies went quietly, in small' com- 
 mittees, to many of the saloons, and gave the proprietors 
 an opportunity to yield gracefully in advance. But 
 there was not much inclination thus to yield. More 
 vigorous measures, therefore, became necessary. After 
 a few more mass meetings and days of prayer, two hun- 
 dred women were enhsted for active service, and the 
 band felt strong enough for an aggressive move. On 
 the morning of the 6th of March, two companies were 
 designated, under the- leadership of Mrs. Weakley and 
 Mrs. J. Harry Thomas, respectively, to visit the saloons. 
 There were twenty-two in each band, and they started 
 out with a firm step ; but beneath their water-proof 
 cloaks their hearts throbbed anxiously. The rain was 
 falling steadily, and as the women huddled together 
 under then- umbrellas, and offered up their earnest 
 prayers, tbe crowd recognized their heroism by deco- 
 rous behavior. Saloon after saloon was visited, services 
 generally being held before the doors ; and at last one 
 man, who had a light stock of liquors, offered to surren- 
 der if they would pay him first cost. The vile com- 
 pounds were then emptied into the gutter, amid much 
 rejoicing. In the afternoon the two bands exchajiged 
 territory, so that the same saloons received two visits. 
 
 The excitement now began- to increase. The bands in- 
 creased in numbers, and more favorable weather brought 
 out great crowds of people to witness the strange specta- 
 
ITS ASPECT APro ITS REMEDY. 
 
 439 
 
 cle of women actually praying on the streets. The rab- 
 ble began to grow turbulent and threatening. Saloon 
 keepers saw the matter was putting on a serious aspect, 
 and fought every inch of ground by the most unscrupu- 
 lous means. It socm came to be known that the visit of 
 the ladies to a saloon meant free beer and whiskey at 
 that place, and there “the boys” rallied in force, like 
 vultures over a dead carcass. The result was, more 
 drunken men on the streets than had been seen since 
 the Fourth of J uly ; and, as if this roundabout warfare 
 was not sufficient, direct insults were heaped upon the 
 ladies. The voices of prayer and song were drowned 
 by those of ribaldry and blasphemy. Bits of bologna 
 and crackers were thrown at the kneeling women, who 
 bore these indignities meekly and with no word of re- 
 proof. One of the worst elements in these noisy mobs 
 , was the women, mostly of foreign nationalities, who 
 joined their screaming to the shouting and swearing of 
 their male relatives. 
 
 The result of this unseemly mocking and jeering was 
 to inflame the public mind, and bring thousands out to 
 the evening mass meetings, where reports of the day’s 
 proceedings were read and commented upon. Under 
 such dire persecutions the bands steadily increased in 
 size, and grew more determined. Says a correspond- 
 ent, — 
 
 “ The women form for action near the curbstone, and 
 are speedily encompassed by the crowd, who watch with 
 varying manifestations and emotions. Lines of men file 
 into the' bars to quench real or affected thirst, and the 
 clink of foaming glasses chimes in with the soft, pathetic 
 notes of the worshipping women. But the plaintive 
 voice of prayer, when the women on bended knees sup- 
 plicate the mercy of God, produces an instant and inde- 
 scribable hush even in the bar-rooms; and as the'elo- 
 
440 
 
 INTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 qiient pleadings ascend, the influence quickly strikes the 
 nearest rank of spectators, and penetrates to the outer- 
 most fim of the ragged semicircle formed about them. 
 There are moments, when the women weep and pray, 
 that their influence is thrillingly impressive, and men 
 even who do not approve of the saloon devotions are 
 unconsciously but irresistibly affected. Excepting among 
 the depraved, there is not the remotest suggestion of 
 levity in the scene. It is toxrchingly solemn.” 
 
 For nearly a month, operations on this plan continued 
 with httle variation. As the novelty wore off, the 
 crowds of spectators decreased somewhat, and the op- 
 position seemed to be dying out. But it still had a most 
 vigorous life ; and when, on the 6th of April, the muni- 
 cipal election came on, the work of the bummers was 
 brought to the surface. The whiskey candidate for 
 mayor (Butz) was found to be elected over the temper- 
 ance candidate (Houk) by a large majority ; and whis- 
 key councilmen were put in ofiBce, to see that no trouble- 
 some McConnelsville ordmance should vex the peace of 
 the saloon keepers. This was taken as a verdict for free 
 whiskey ; and next morning, when the women reported 
 at Grrace church for active duty, they were astounded 
 by the following proclamation, which emanated from the 
 Board of Police Commissioners : — 
 
 Whereas it has become apparent to this board that 
 the visits of the recently organized bands of ladies to 
 the various saloons in the city, and the occupation by 
 them of the sidewalks and streets for religious exercises, 
 have, on several occasions, attracted large crowds of riot- 
 ous and disorderly persons, who assembled in the vicinity 
 in such numbers as seriously to threaten the peace and 
 good order of the city, and materially to obstruct the 
 free and proper use of both the sidewalks and the 
 . streets ; and. 
 
 Whereas it is, by the laws of this state, unlawful for 
 any person or persons, by agent or otherwise, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMBDT. 
 
 441 
 
 1. To sell, in any quantity, intoxicating liquors (ex- 
 cept wine manufactured of the pure juice of the grape, 
 cultivated in this state, beer, ale, or cider), to be drank 
 in or upon the premises where sold, or in or upon any 
 adjoining premises connected therewith ; 
 
 2. To sell any intoxicating liquors whatever, without 
 exception, to minors, unless upon the written order of 
 their parents, guardians, or family physician ; 
 
 3. To sell intoxicating liquors, of any kind whatever, 
 to persons intoxicated, or in the habit of getting intoxi- 
 cated ; and. 
 
 Whereas, all places where liquors are sold in violation 
 of these laws are declared public nuisances, and, upon 
 conviction of the keeper thereof, are required to be shut 
 up and abated as such ; therefore 
 
 Be it known, that orders have been issued to the po- 
 lice force of this city to prevent the use and occupation 
 of the streets and, sidewalks as aforesaid, and to give 
 special and careful attention to the enforcement of the 
 said laws, and make prompt arrest of any and all per- 
 sons violating the same. 
 
 By order of the PoHce Board. 
 
 Wm. H. Sigman, 
 
 Mayor and ex officio President Police Board. 
 
 A council of war was held, and it was decided best to 
 desist, in deference to the law, but to call upon the au- 
 thorities to execute the law so appropriately quoted in 
 the latter part of the proclamation. And so, after 
 twenty.^five days of unwearied labor in the interest of 
 temperance and humanity, the “ crusade ” was brought 
 to a sucf^en end. Operations, however, were by no 
 means suspended. The method was merely changed, 
 ad at the present writing the campaign is being vigor- 
 ously pushed in every direction but that of street “ cru- 
 sading.” 
 
 In Columbus, the movement passed through a great 
 many critical preliminary stages before it came to street 
 27 
 
442 
 
 IHTEJIPEEANCE, 
 
 praying. Mention has already been made of the serious 
 obstacles encountered in this city, as the political centre 
 of the state, and of the interest felt in the cause at the 
 capital city, throughout the state. From the first, every- 
 thing seemed to go wrong. About the middle of Febru- 
 ary, an immense mass meeting was held under the direc- 
 tion of Dio Lewis ; but for some reason the clergymen * 
 of the city developed a decided antagonism to the great 
 temperance apostle, and would not work harmoniously 
 with him. Prohibitionists kicked out of the traoes because 
 law was not the objective point. The newspapers took 
 grounds against the movement. Prominent citizens with- 
 held their means and influence, and when a man did come 
 to the front, the cry was raised, “ It is a woman’s move- 
 ment. Let it alone, or you will spoil it.’’ Bad advice 
 was heaped upon the movers in the work, and bad blood 
 was developed at almost every step. 
 
 All this hindered, but did not discourage, the faithful 
 and persistent women. Thej^ held their women’s meet- 
 ing, turned out to the mass meetings, and filled the 
 churches when temperance sermons were preached. 
 When the prohibitionists and preachers got into a wran- 
 gle, they calmed the troubled waters by a prajmr, and 
 one of the soothing old hymns. The women’s daily 
 prayer meetings were kept up with increasing interest, 
 and at last, in the face of all discouragements, they de- . 
 cided that the time had come to 'go forth and^ grapple 
 with the monster in his very haunts. Without any pre- 
 vious announcement, one hundred and fifty^omen is- 
 sued forth from the Fii'st Presbyterian church, on the 
 afternoon of the 3d of March ; and while the deep- 
 toned bell tolled, took their way, in a long and solemn 
 procession, up High Street. In five minutes it seemed 
 as if half the people in town were on their track to wit- 
 ness the strange sight. The great retail liquor estab- 
 
SINGING OUTSIDE THE SALOON. 
 
ITS ASPECT AlTD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 445 
 
 lishment of Glock & Stevenson was passed by, and the 
 column came to a halt before the American House, one 
 of the leading hotels in the city. Four ladies — Mrs. 
 S. V. Desselleiii, Mrs. H.. C. Lewis, Mrs. N. J. Miner, 
 and Mrs. W. W.. Bliss ascended the broad steps, and were 
 received in the parlor. by the proprietor and his clerks. 
 The bar-keeper was summoned, but no promise to quit 
 could be extracted from him. Two large saloons in the 
 immediate vicinity were entered, and impressive ser- 
 vices held. Then the procession filed into the Neil 
 House, and marched back to the office. Neither the pro- 
 prietor nor bar-keeper was in, and .the _ column moved 
 on, followed by a crowd of two thousand or more. Other 
 places on High and Broad Streets were visited, and the 
 ladies returned to the church to pray and talk the mat- 
 ter over. 
 
 The second day of the campaign* commenced amid 
 great excitement. The women were upon the streets in 
 increased numbers and with reinvigorated courage. In 
 the afternoon, three 'hundred of them filed out of the 
 First Bresbyterian church, and amid the ringing of bells, 
 moved upon the saloons. The throng of excited spec- 
 tators increased at every moment, until it was difficult 
 for the police to clear the way before the advancing 
 column. Saloon after saloon was visited. Wherever they 
 were admitted, thej^ prayed and pleaded with the saloon 
 keeper, and when 'they were shut out, a prayer and 
 song were offered on the steps. The vast crowd surged 
 and crowded about the praying women, and occasionally 
 became noisy and threatening. At lengtB the second 
 day’s work was done, and the ladies returned to the 
 church, where continued j^rayer had been offered up 
 while they were upon the street. 
 
 Next day the immense crowds induced a change of 
 programme. The force was divided into four good-sized 
 
446 
 
 INTEirPEEANCE, 
 
 bands, each going in an opposite direction. During the 
 afternoon, one 'of the squads encountered a crowd of 
 « Germans at a beer saloon on West State Street, who 
 ,had eyidently prepared for their coming. The bar- 
 keeper met the ladies at the door, and refused to sign 
 the pledge. The ladies then began to siug, and imme- 
 diately a shrill cornet within struck up “Shoo Fly,” 
 which was continued, with ingenious variations, all 
 through the prayer. The building was filled with men 
 and women, who yelled and cheered, and even spit upon 
 the kneeling women. The chief of police, who was 
 present, made a speech to the crowd, commanding order. 
 The ladies then moved on to" the next saloon, while the 
 able-bodied cornet man sarcastically played, “Home, 
 Sweet Home.” As soorr as they. were gone, the crowd 
 of loafers came together and held a mock prayer meeting, 
 at the conclusion of which all were invited in to drink. 
 
 While the ladies were kneeling in prayer at the next 
 place, a beer wagon drove up, and the stalwart German 
 driver shouldered a keg and marched through the circle 
 into' the saloon, at which bold achievement ffie men, 
 women, and children set up an unearthly shouting and 
 screaming. Among the results of the first few days 
 work were one or two saloons closed, and all kinds of 
 liquor banished from the restaurant at the Union Depot. 
 Many signatures were also added to the citizens’ pledge, 
 and among them that of James G. Bull, democratic 
 mayor of ■ the city. Many of the men who signed the 
 pledge were notoriously hard chunkers. 
 
 This method of operations was continued, day after 
 day, with no marked success. Tremendous mass meet- 
 ings were held in the great City Hall, and abundant 
 sympathy with the cause was exhibited. But, somehow, 
 it did not prosper. No man of recognized ability and 
 force came forward to champion the movement and se- 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS E.E]\IEDy. 
 
 447 
 
 cure for it aid and support among the men. There was . 
 also no one among the ladies well' adapted to the leader- 
 ship of the forces. Their numbers dwindled from day 
 to day ; the excitement subsided ; side issues were raised ; 
 and within a month the crusade in Columbus was prac- 
 tically at an end. Not many saloonists had quit, but 
 over four thousand persons had' signed the total absti- 
 nence pledge. 
 
 On the 20th of March, one hundred and twenty-five 
 ladies formed in procession and marched to the rotunda 
 of the State House, where they took possession, and sang 
 and prayed for an hour. The members of the General 
 Assembly left the halls of legislation, and formed a circle 
 about the prayer meeting. Hats were removed, and re- 
 spectful attention paid, but the effect of all this labor 
 upon subsequent legislation was not apparent. 
 
 Early in April a bill was introduced into the General 
 Assembly to sO amend the. municipal code as to take 
 away from town or city corporations the right to prohibit 
 the sale of ale or beer, and the keeping open of tippling 
 houses within their limits. This was known as the 
 Pearson bill, the aim of which was to knock the bottom 
 out of the hundreds of ordinances similar to that of Mc- 
 Connelsville, which were going into effect all over the 
 state, and working such fearful havoc among the saloons. 
 
 As SDOii as this bill was before the House, both parties 
 rallied their forces for the struggle. Delegations of beer 
 venders poured into the capital to see the bill through, 
 and counter delegations of crusaders were sent to pre- 
 serve the laws intact. Here, again, the Columbus ladies 
 paid their respects to the legislature. When it was 
 known that the bill had come up for discussion, the 
 alarm was given. Bells were rung, and in an hour the 
 hall was filled with female advocates of temperance, 
 who watched the words and vote of every member with 
 
448 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 exasperating closeness. The hiU' never passed, and for 
 this the friends of temperance everywhere are indebted 
 to the prompt action of the women of Ohio, and espe- 
 cially of Columbus. On Saturday,, the 18th of April, it 
 being the last session of the House, three hundred wmmen 
 staid with the members until midnight, and had the sat- 
 isfaction of knowing' that they had put a quietus on the 
 schemes of the hquor sellers for a year, at least. 
 
 Cleveland was seized suddenly by the epidemic, and 
 experienced a violent attack. The city is nearly three 
 times as large as Columbus, and is the seat of a large 
 liquor trade. The inauguration of the “ temperance 
 crusade,” therefore, stirred the whiskey elements to the 
 lowest dregs. The devotees of Gambrinus learned when 
 the ladies were going to make then’ first advance, and 
 were on hand in an immense mob to receive them. 
 March 19, four bands started out, one on the east and 
 three on the west side. One of the latter bands, while 
 going up Pearl Street, was followed by a fierce and ex- 
 cited crowd, who assailed them with yells and insulting 
 remarks whenever they attempted to sing or praju The 
 rabble finally became' entirely unmanageable. The ladies 
 were threatened with violence, and one or two of them 
 were quite seriously injured. A number of men w'ho 
 interfered to protect the ladies were severely beaten, 
 and a policeman, in attempting to keep the mob back, 
 was struck on the head with a brick and nearly killed. 
 The ladies, at last, escaped from the howling popidace 
 and returned home in safety. 
 
 These barbarous demonstrations of course excited 
 indignation in the minds of all good citizens, and many, 
 who had been opposing the movement of the women, 
 were now driven to take sides wdth them. Neutrality 
 was changed to sympathy, and sj^mpathy grew into sup- 
 port ; so that the liquor sellers, next day, found their 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 449 
 
 opponents strengthened, rather than weakened, by the 
 violent treatment they had received. The crusade was 
 renewed with increased numbers. An angry and threat- 
 ening crowd followed them, and when a policeman at- 
 tempted to arrest one of a crowd of roughs, a fight 
 ensued, in which the police were obliged to use their 
 clubs vigorously. For a while a riot seemed imminent; 
 but re-enforcements from the police headquarters pre- 
 vented an outbreak. During the excitement the German 
 brewers organized a procession of lager beer wagons, in 
 which sat men on beer kegs, drinking as they moved 
 along. 
 
 That same night both parties to this irrepressible con- 
 flict were warned by a proclamation from Mayor Otis 
 to “ abstain from all such assemblages on the streets of 
 the city as would tend to disturb the peace of the com- 
 munity, as such assemblies were in direct violation of an 
 ordinance of the city.” It was announced that if any 
 attempted to molest citizens in' the orderly exercise of 
 lawful rights, whether in the streets or elsewhere, it 
 would be at their own peril. This ambiguous document, 
 like Belshazzar’s warning, or a Delphic oracle, had to be 
 interpreted before it could be determined to whom it 
 applied. The judge of one of the courts came to the 
 rescue, and decided that the mayor could legally pro- 
 hibit the assembling of the ladies io pray on the street 
 before a saloon ; but if they were admitted inside, the 
 laws of the city could no longer reach them, and they 
 could carry on their devotions untrammelled by law. 
 
 With this lucid exposition of legal restrictions as a 
 guide, the ladies went on with 'the visitation of saloons. 
 The mayor’s proclamation rvas strictly observed. Wher- 
 ever they could persuade a dram seller or liquor mer- 
 chant to let them in, they prayed and sang, and pleaded 
 with him to give up the business ; but where they were 
 
450 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 denied admittance, they passed quietly on. The procla- 
 mation and the emphatic expression of puhhc sentiment 
 in favor of protecting the ladies, had the effect to allay 
 the excitement, and prevent any further demonstrations 
 of violence. Some of the wholesale liquor establish- 
 ments on Water Street allowed the crusaders to come in, 
 and for a while the voices of prayer rose on the air with 
 the fumes of rye and Bourbon. 
 
 For several weeks this plan of operations was kept 
 up ; but owing to the restricted field of labor, the ladies 
 found that little could be accomplished beyond obtaining 
 names to the citizens’ pledge, and exerting an infiuence 
 privately. Popular interest subsided as the novelty wore 
 off, and at last the beer jerkers were allowed to carry on 
 their avocation unmolested by praying women. 
 
 Cincinnati was a point which the crusaders hesitated 
 to attack. It loomed up before them as an impenetrable 
 barrier to their complete success. The general behef 
 was, that the women would not be rash enough to at- 
 tempt any movement with the country plan of praying 
 in saloons. If they should, people predicted the gravest 
 consequences to. the peace and good order of the city. 
 Even the most sanguine friends of temperance trembled 
 for the result of the battle, when they made a survey of 
 the field. To begin with, there were between three 
 thousand and three thousand five hundred regular places 
 where liquor was sold. There were scores of heavy 
 wholesale houses, the aggregate annual trade of which 
 amounted to thirty-three million dollars, or more than 
 double the value of the immense pork trade of the cit}’. 
 Millions of capital were invested in this vast- business. 
 The money made by the breweries and distilleries built 
 scores of massive business blocks and elegant private 
 residences. Banks and business men -were largely de- 
 pendent on whiskey monej^ for the conduct of their 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 451 
 
 trade. Many of the wealthiest men in the city were 
 whiskey dealers, and their rank in society was high. 
 
 Then, too, the habits and sentiments of the people 
 were not a pleasant subject of contemplation for a tem- 
 perance reformer. One third of the population were 
 Germans, educated to the use of beer and wine from 
 ’their youth up. Every movement in the interest of 
 temperance was regarded by them as an interference 
 with their personal rights, and an abbreviation of the 
 liberties which they were led to expect in coming 
 to this land. Those who entertained opposite views 
 were looked upon as Puritans, fanatics, and bigots. To 
 change all this condition of aifairs would seem like over- 
 turning the very foundation of things. SociM drink- 
 ing among Americans, also, was quite prevalent. The 
 wealthy and aristocratic families in the city and suburbs 
 had their cellars stocked with choice wines and liquors, 
 Tfhich figured conspicuously in the hospitalities of the 
 house. Prominent business men, lawyers, physicians, 
 and politicians took their occasional or regular dram, as 
 they had done for years. Young men, with plenty of 
 money, consumed vast quantities of choice drinks at the 
 high-toned places ; while in the common beer saloons 
 gathered thousands of laboring men and mechanics, to 
 spend, for beer and whiskey, a good share of their weekly 
 earning's. Well authenticated cases are cited of indus- 
 trious Germans who spent regularly a full half of their 
 pay for their daily supply of barley juice. 
 
 So much for one side of the picture. What was there 
 on the other ? A few hundred men and women, who 
 realized the terrible evils of intemperance ; about twelve 
 thousand church members, who could generally be 
 counted on the side of temperance, though some of 
 them rented property to liquor sellers ; a carefully elab- 
 orated state law, which was as dead as though it had 
 
452 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 been enacted in China ; and perhaps what was more than 
 all, the inspiriting example of the scores of small towns 
 throughout the state, reports from which crowded the 
 daily press. To inaugurate the woman’s temperance cru- 
 sade on such a basis, to all human calculation, seemed 
 the height of presum^Dtion. But it was done, and at the ^ 
 present writing (late in April) the movement is still in 
 progress. . 
 
 The honor of taking the - initiatory step belongs to the 
 ministers of the Methodist Episcopal church, which has 
 led the van in so many great moral reforms. At their 
 Monday morning meeting, about the first of March, these 
 clerical gentlemen unanimously decided that the spiritual 
 and temporary interests of society demanded a great tem- 
 perance reformation, and indorsed the woman’s movement 
 as the best means of effecting this great work. A call 
 was made for a meeting of the ministers of all denomina- 
 tions, which took place on the following morning. A 
 large number of clerical gentlemen of all stripes of belief 
 were present. Views were interchanged, and plans pro- 
 posed, and the result of the meeting was to unanimously 
 determine upon a mass meeting of friends of the woman’s 
 temperance movement, to be held at Wesley chapel, on 
 Thursday evening following. A committee of two from 
 each denominatioir represented was appointed .to make 
 arrangements for the meeting, and prepare rules for its 
 government. The mass meeting was largely attended. 
 Many came out of pure love for the cause, and many 
 others from motives of curiosity, expecting that a cru- 
 sade was to be organized at once. Speeches were made 
 by a number of women, ministers, and citizens generally, 
 ,all of whom with one voice called upon the women of 
 Cincinnati to organize and push forward the work begun 
 by their sisters throughout the state. It was decided to 
 appoint a woman’s meeting next day at three o’clock, at 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 453 
 
 tlie First Presbyterian church, and the assemblage broke 
 up in a glow of enthusiasm. 
 
 The woman’s meeting was attended by about three 
 hundred. They were not from the wealthy and aris- 
 tocratic classes of society ; nor did .they represent the 
 opposite extreme. They were well-to-do, intelligent, 
 thoughtful ladies, many of whom had been prominent 
 in charitable and Christiair enterprises. There were also 
 a few among them whose plain garb and pale, sad faces 
 told the story ‘of personal sufferings from the evil they 
 longed to suppress. The burden of their prayers was, ' 
 that they might be guided with wisdom, that every 
 ^ word might be spoken in love and gentleness, and that 
 only the spirit of kindness might prevail in their efforts 
 with the liqijpr sellers. A deep feeling of earnestness 
 and piety, prevailed. The only business done was to 
 appoint a committee of six ladies to have charge of the 
 organization of a league. The names of all those who 
 would volunteer for personal service were enrolled, and 
 made a lengthy list. 
 
 Then followed a series of temperance mass meetings, 
 held in the evenings at the principal churches. Popular 
 • interest in the cause was exhibited by the hundreds and 
 thousands of persons who flocked in to these meetings, 
 and listened eagerly to every word that was said for 
 temperance. At the second regular mass meeting, the 
 wholesale druggists of the city, through Mr. Burdsal, 
 reported that they had voluntarily agreed to sell no spir- 
 ituous liquors except to physicians and druggists, and 
 not to them when there was any reason, to believe it 
 Avould be used as a beverage. One of the hotels — the 
 'Henrie House — also reported that its bar should be ever 
 , thereafter discontinued ; and that, to this day, bears the 
 honorable distinction of being the only “ temperance 
 hotel” in the great city of Cincinnati. 
 
454 
 
 INTEMPEKANCEj 
 
 - This era of mass meetings continued, unmarhed by 
 any special incident, until the 10th of March, when D. 
 M. Bleaks, keeper of an extensive saloon on Fourth 
 Street, near Plum, and formerly chief of police, sur- 
 rendered, on solicitation of a couple of ladies who went 
 quietly to him 'with the request to close. This gave 
 much encouragement to the women about entering upon 
 the great work. It was, aften mature deliberation, de- 
 cided best not to begin at once with the visitation of 
 saloons by large bands, but to go in separate committees 
 •of two or three, and talk privately with the liquor sellers. 
 To facilitate the work, the city was divided into twenty 
 districts, each embracing about, six squaresi Two ladies 
 were appointed to have charge of each district, the un- 
 derstanding being that they should first canvass their 
 territory thoroughly, and plead with . the Tiquor sellers' 
 to yield. 
 
 This visitation by committees was properly the first 
 stage of the street work in Cincinnati. The first day the}' 
 started out in this manner, there was a tremendous sen- 
 sation. As the two or three elderly ladies passed quietly 
 along the street, arm in arm, the cry of, “ Temperance 
 women,” was raised, and soon they found themselves in 
 the midst of a dense crowd of women, children, and 
 rowdies, who -howled and surged about them as though 
 they were an invading army, or some wonderful show 
 on wheels, instead of a couple of Aveak and inoffensive 
 ■qmmen. Some of the committees experienced more dif- 
 ficulty than others ; but all were treated in the most 
 barbarous and insulting manner, and received scarcely 
 a Avord of encouragement from any one. It Avas a Aveary 
 and thankless task, and, when day after day of this try- 
 ing labor brought no results, it was determined to adojpt 
 some more effective plan. 
 
 By this time organization had been more thoroughly 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSD ITS REMEDY. 455 
 
 completed. Advisory and executive committees were 
 appointed, to have entire control of the plans and move- 
 ments of the league. The following officers wers elected 
 for permanent service : President, Mrs. Chas. Ferguson ; 
 Fii st Vice-President, Mrs. W. H. Malone ; Second Vice- 
 President, Mrs. W. H. Allen ; First Secretary, Mrs. E. 
 L. Johnston; Second Secretary, Mrs. E. G. Dalton; 
 Treasurer, Mrs. Dr. E. .Williams. 
 
 One incident that occurred early in the campaign gave 
 a new impulse to the movement. The brewers of Cin- 
 cinnati loaded up wagons with beer, organized a force 
 ^f five or six hundred able-bodied Germans, and marched 
 to the relief of the saloon keepers in the adjoining town 
 of Madisonville, who were besieged with the temperance 
 band. When the ladies assembled in the church, the 
 Cincinnati crowd, by concerted action, formed before 
 the door, and with music and beer thought to break up 
 the proceedings. Not succeeding, they began to pour 
 into the church, to overawe the few feeble women in- 
 side. But fortunately several German ministers from 
 Cincinnati' were present, and preached the gospel of 
 Christianity and temperance to the intruders in a man- 
 ner wholly unlooked for. The scene was dramatic and 
 impressive ; and so well did the women and ministers 
 improve their opportunity, that some of those who came 
 to. scoff were actually moved to tears. Mrs. Wells, a re- 
 markable little woman, who afterwards attained quite a 
 reputation for her pure and simple eloquence, did most 
 effective service at this crisis. The effort to overawe 
 
 j Madisonville ladies was a failure, but it aroused the 
 Cincinnati ladies to the necessity of giving their liquor 
 sellers and drinkers enough to occupy their attention at 
 home. 
 
 The second stage of the work ^ Cincinnati was the 
 crusade, after the approved country style. The plan of 
 
456 
 
 EsTESIPEKAXCE, 
 
 visitation by committees was given a fair trial, and found 
 to be wholly ineffective. It was necessary either to 
 abandon the movement altogether, or else rally more 
 strength, and visit the saloons in bands of sufficient size 
 to command some respect. The latter plan was immedi- 
 ately adopted. Subordinate leagues began to be organ- 
 ized in different parts of the city, and the change of 
 tactics gave new life to the mass meetings which were 
 still regularly continued. The street crusade was fairly 
 inaugurated on the morning of March 26, when thirty- 
 five women arose from their knees in the Ninth Street 
 Baptist church, and volunteered to go with Mrs. Fergi^ 
 •son to one of the fashionable Fourth Street saloons. It 
 ^as known as the “ Custom House,” and was situated 
 next door to the Merchants’ Exchange. The time chosen 
 for the visit was about half past eleven o’clock — just the 
 hour when the business men on ’Change were wont to 
 step in next door to “ take something.” The band of 
 women descended upon the place so suddenly that some 
 of the honorable merchants who were inside had no 
 chance to escape, and were compelled to sit for half an 
 hour and listen to the praying and singing. They would 
 have given several barrels of jpork apiece to have been 
 able to crawl through a knot-hole ; but they were faiidy 
 caught, and put on a bold front. 
 
 The news of this sudden raid spread through that part 
 of the city, and in a few minutes the whole square from 
 Main to Walnut Street was packed full with people, 
 stretching their necks in a crazy endeavor to catch a 
 glimpse of the women behind the green shade. The 
 services over, they were invited to come again next day; 
 which invitation they promptl}' accepted. They then 
 pressed their way out through the crowd, and returned 
 to the church, where prayer had been offered up con- 
 stantly while they -^^ere out. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEilEDY. 457 
 
 Four other bands, numbering from thirty tb sixty 
 each, went out the same day, exciting the greatest com- 
 motion in their respective districts. The one which 
 attempted some missionary work in the German beer 
 saloons on Freeman Street met with the most shameful 
 treatment. The crowd rushed in pell-mell after them, 
 mounting chairs, tables, and each other’s backs, and keep- 
 ing up a continuous shouting, yelling, and laughing. 
 When the ladies in one part of the room began the sweet 
 strain, “Rock of Ages,” the Germans struck up “Die 
 Wacht am Rhein,” and the two choruses mingled to- 
 gether strangely on the air. 
 
 The scene next day near the Merchants’ Exchange 
 was more exciting than the first. A crowd of two or 
 three thousand persons surged and swayed about the 
 little nucleus of jDraying women, who were refused ad- 
 mittance to the saloon, and held services on the walk 
 in front. AmM the yells of the mob, and the cries of 
 “ Keep back ” from the policemen, rose the fervent, 
 eloquent prayers of Mrs. Ferguson, Mrs. Leavitt, Mrs. 
 Glenn, and Mrs. Stewart, and the strains of the well- 
 known hymns could be heard above all the noise- and 
 commotion. The proprietor of the saloon mounted a 
 curb-stone, and addressed the thirsty crowd with, “ This 
 way, gentlemen ; walk in and get your drinks ; there 
 goes another fifteen cents.” The excitement increased, 
 and the pushing and jostling of the crowd made many 
 tremble for the safety of the dauntless band. 
 
 A lieutenant of the police appeared on the scene, and 
 said, “For God’s sake, ladies, stop this ! you wdll create 
 a riot ! ” A scissors-grinder, who had been hired to go 
 through the crowd ringing his bell, was stopped, when 
 he came near the ladies, by some man. A fight ensued, 
 and the scissors-grinder was arrested. Another man, 
 who tried to create a disturbance, was arrested, but. 
 
458 
 
 XNTEMPEEAI^CE, 
 
 at the urgent solicitation of the ladies, was released hy 
 the authorities. 
 
 In Fulton — a remote corner of the city, l}dng far up 
 the river — the crusade was begun early, and prosecuted 
 with vigor, squads of ladies going out daily in street cars, 
 from the city to re-enforce the little band. Their labors 
 were rewarded, after a few days, with the first, and 
 almost the only, “ pouring out ” during the whole course 
 of the movement in Cincinnati. Eichard Manley, who 
 kept a beer saloon and billiard-room on Front Street, 
 broke in upon the hymn they were singing one morning, 
 with, “ Hold on a minute — I’ll give upl” He then told 
 the ladies that his whole stock was at their disposal, and 
 that he himself would help to throw the vile stuff into 
 the street. With beaming faces the ladies rolled out the 
 beer barrels, knocked out the fawcets, and sent the con- 
 tents reeking through the gutters. The bottles upon 
 the shelves were brought out, and dasheff upon the pave- 
 ment, before the eyes of the gaping crowd that stood 
 about. After the saloon had been emptied of everything 
 that could moisten the throat, or make glad the heart of 
 man, the proprietor thought of some fine old Catawba, 
 stored away in the cellar. This was soon hunted up, and 
 shared the fate of the rest, the conscience-stricken sa- 
 loonist saying, if he owned all the liquor between there 
 and Columbia, the women might have the whole of it. 
 
 This campaign of active street work was just begin- 
 ning to bear promising fruits, when it received a sudden 
 and unlooked-for check at the hands of the mayor. The^ 
 bands of women were increasing in numbers, and the 
 rabble was gradually diminishing in numbers and grow-" 
 ing less dangerous, when Mayor Johnston, at the instance 
 of the Board of Aldermen, sent in to one of the morning 
 meetings, about the last of March, a quasi-proclamation. 
 He “ respectfully urged that the women would desist 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 459 
 
 from any .further interference with the rights and privi- 
 leges of the business community, and adopt some other 
 mode of accomplishing their desires, which was not so 
 objectionable.” His imperative duty demanded of him 
 the enforcement of the ordinances with which the ladies 
 had come into collision. The document created quite a 
 commotion, and was at once referred to the Adrisory 
 Committee, with instructions to consult with lawyers 
 •upon the questions involved, and report at the next 
 meeting. The decision of the committee was, to abide 
 scrupulously by the ordinances of the city, and cease 
 praying upon the streets ; but to call upon the mayor, 
 in turn, to enforce dll the ordinances. They argued that 
 a technical trespass of theirs should not be dealt with 
 more severely than the open and constant violations of 
 the law on the part of the saloon keepers. 
 
 Then began the third stage in the movement. In 
 response to inquiry as to what they might do, the mayor 
 had told the women they might meet in the public 
 squares of the city, and pray all they liked, or even in the 
 saloons, if the proprietors were willing to admit them. 
 Here the ladies saw an opportunity for usefulness, and 
 were prompt to avail themselves of it. The bands con- 
 tinued, as' before, to meet in the Ninth Street Baptist 
 church in the morning, and in the afternooir to send 
 forth from the headquarters of the various leagues as 
 many volunteers as were available. These bands went 
 to the market spaces and public squares in their district, 
 and there preached the gospel of temperance and Chris- 
 tianity to the crowds that gathered. Saloons were called 
 at on the way to and from these services ; but the liquor 
 sellers, as if by concerted action, uniformly refused them 
 admittance, and they passed on, without infringing on 
 the majesty of the law. 
 
 The labors of the daj'^ ended, the bands took their way 
 28 
 
460 
 
 INTEMPERA2!TCE, 
 
 back to tbe chnrcb from wbicb they started out, great 
 crowds of the unwashed following at their heels. The 
 doors of the church were thrown open, and the street 
 rabble rushed in, filling all available space. This was 
 probably the most successful feature of this stage of the 
 work in Cincinnati. In these meetings, men, women, 
 and children heard the. gospel of peace who had never 
 been inside of a church before. One young man, who 
 was thus led in, acknowledged to the ladies that it was 
 the first time he had ever heard the story of Christ. 
 Pledges were always ready at the desk, and hundi-eds — 
 almost thousands — of men and boys, in the .course of 
 these meetmgs, voluntarily walked forward and took 
 upon themselves the pledge of total abstinence. Some 
 failed to keep it, and yielded to subsequent temptations ; 
 but rhany did not, and now bless the “ prajdng women” 
 for their deliverance from the terrible curse of intem- 
 peranoe. Among the leagues which did the most effective 
 service in this direction, was that having its headquarters 
 at Finley chapel, and led by Mrs. S. K. Leavitt, Mrs. 
 Alfred Hill, and others ; that of the Ninth Street Bap- 
 tist church, in which Mrs. Whitredge, Mrs. Ferguson, 
 and Mrs. Dr. Dalton were prominent ; that of St. Paul's 
 Methodist Episcopal church, led by Mrs. Glenn and Mrs. 
 Bishop Clark ; that of York Street, headed by Mrs. 
 Hudelson, Mrs. Robbins, Mrs. Moore, and others ; and 
 that of Wesley chapel, in which Mrs. W. I. Fee and Mrs. 
 George B. Beecher took an active part. These bands 
 varied in size from day to day, but were generally all on 
 the streets at the same time, and numbered in the aggre- 
 gate from one hundred and twenty to two hundred and 
 fifty. 
 
 At the present writing this method of operations is 
 still observed. The authorities having shown no dis- 
 position to enforce the ordinances of the city against 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDT. 
 
 461 
 
 saloon keepers, the ladies do not adhere strictly to the 
 mayor’s orders, hut sing and pray wherever the spirit 
 moves them. Generally, however, devotional exercises* 
 are confined to the market-places, and the infringements 
 upon the sacred rights of saloon keepers are of short 
 duration, and somewhat rare occurrence. What the 
 next stage of the movement will be, it is impossible to 
 predict. It still has a strong and vigorous life, which is 
 a sufficient guarantee that, in some form or other, its in- 
 fluence will be felt for years. But the test has been 
 applied, and it cannot be denied that for the redemption 
 of large cities from whiskey, the woman’s Movement is 
 a. failure. 
 
462 
 
 LNTEMPEKANCE, 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT IN THE EAST. — ON THE PACIFIC COAST. — IN THE 
 SOUTH AND WEST. WOECESTER THE TRIAL POINT IN NEW ENG- 
 LAND. THE WESTERN PLAN DISCARDED. THE INTEREST IN NEW 
 
 TORE CITY. INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADE FELT IN CONGRESS. 
 
 DESCENT UPON THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE. GREAT RESULTS IN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. DISGRACEFUL SCENE IN CHICAGO. IN GENERAL. 
 
 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, 'witliin three 
 months from the time the first prayer was made in the 
 streets of Hillsboro’, the Woman’s Temperance Move- 
 ment had spread over the entii’e country. The temper- 
 ance columns of the daily papers, in a single day, con- 
 tained despatches from Kansas and California on the 
 west, from New York and Massachusetts on the east, 
 and from Michigan and Wisconsin on the north, while 
 even the Southern States gave evidence of an awakened 
 interest in the subject. But the farther the movement 
 got from its source, the less it seemed to have of its ori- 
 ginal force and vitality. As the originator of the- plan 
 was wont- to observe, the Ohio Valley was about the only 
 soil in which the thing would grow. In other states it 
 took* on new and strange forms, and generally, after 
 passing rapidly from one experiment to another, died 
 out after a few weeks’ ag-itation. 
 
 Considerable interest was excited in the success of the 
 movement in the East, where temperance legislation for 
 the past twenty years has been so prominent a subject 
 in politics and morals. In the course of his second tour 
 through Ohio, Dio Lewis announced that he was about 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 463 
 
 to return to inaugurate the work in Massachusetts, and 
 declared his belief that Worcester could throw off the 
 horrid incubus in three weeks, and Boston in as many 
 months. For various reasons, Worcester was selected 
 as the first point of attack. A mass meeting was held 
 on the evening of March 2, under the direction of Dio 
 Lewis.. There can be no doubt that the meeting was a 
 success. . Many went there with positive prejudices 
 against the praying plan, and many others without the 
 least confidence in its success ; but Dr. Lewis worked 
 with such peculiar tact, and told the story of the crusade 
 in Ohio with such good effect, that the whole audience 
 soon reached a state of enthusiasm that was a surprise to 
 themselves. It was soon" apparent that there were sev- 
 eral hundred women in the audience ready for vigorous 
 work. The signs were so encouraging that the over- 
 sanguine orator predicted that within two weeks the 
 thirstiest man in Worcester must drink water, or go 
 dry. But then came a two days’ season of debate and 
 deliberation, during which the warmth of their enthusi- 
 asm cooled off very perceptibly. After- talking the mat- 
 ter over long and earnestly, it was decided to be imprac- 
 'ticable for the conservative East to adopt the peculiar 
 method of the unconventional West, and a compromise 
 was agreed upon. Instead of praying in saloons until 
 the keepers would close up, the women determined to 
 go in smaller bands, and work by private and personal 
 appeal, not only with the liquor seller, but with the 
 owner of the property which was rented, for the sale of 
 liquor. Hotel keepers and druggists were to be pro- 
 ceeded with in a similar way. 
 
 This mode of operations, it will be perceived, was in 
 marked contrast with the Ohio way of doing things, and 
 yet it was an indication of a deep and genuine temper- 
 ance revival. Eastern people generally approved the 
 
464 
 
 INTEMPEEANCB, 
 
 plan as mucli better than that of marching through the 
 streets in large bands ; and it was generally believed in 
 the West that the Ohio plant would not bear transplan t- 
 ment into a climate so uncongenial. This, then, practi- 
 cally settled the question, not only for Worcester and 
 Central Massachusetts, but also for all New England. 
 No doubt some good has been accomplished by the 
 method of operations chosen; but there have been no 
 reports of surrenders of saloon keepers, or of any pour- 
 ing out of liquors. Boston was left to enjoy her thirty- 
 five hundred dram shops in security, and the prediction 
 of Dio Lewis went unfulfilled. The refined tastes of 
 New England could not tolerate such Western vulgar- 
 isms. 
 
 Boston, however, deserves the credit of some good 
 resolutions. The next day after the Worcester meeting, 
 the Total Abstinence Society of Boston passed the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 “ Resolved^ That inasmuch as the women and children 
 are the chief sufferers of the untold evils of intemper- 
 ance, it is eminently appropriate that the female sex 
 should take the most active part in the efforts of the 
 day for the suppression of this universally acknowledged 
 immorality ; and we look with deep interest on the wo- 
 men’s movement in regard to temperance reform, and 
 cherish the hope that a divine Providence will direct 
 and rule over it for good. 
 
 '■'‘Resolved, That, in the opinion of this board, no 
 great success in the temperance reform can be expected 
 till the Christian church and ministry take a decided 
 stand on the side of total abstinence.” 
 
 Dio Lewis first appeared in New York city on the last 
 day of February. Very little temperance excitement 
 had preceded him, and the mass meeting at Association 
 Hall was not an astounding success. An admission fee 
 
ITS ASPECT AOT) ITS EEjSIEDr. 
 
 465 
 
 was charged, although Dio Lewis gave his services free. 
 Nothing was 'done at that meeting, or indeed at any sub- 
 sequent time, towards an organized crusade, on Western 
 principles. The general influence of the revival in other 
 parts of the country, however, took a strong hold on the 
 popular mind. Vicar-General Turner, at St. James 
 Cathedral, in Brookhm, a week later, referred to the 
 temperance movement, and urged his congregation to 
 give it all the aid in their power. This is one of the 
 few instances in which the crusade was sanctioned by 
 high authority in the Catholic church. The agitation 
 of the question in the city was continued for a month 
 or more, in a variety of ways. Once or twice, a small 
 number of ladies in Brooklyn quietly began a saloon vis- 
 itation, but this phase of the work never grew into any 
 prominence. Meetings of clergymen and friends of the 
 cause were held from time to time, and the customary 
 resolutions passed, reciting the evils of intemperance, 
 and the necessity for some action for their suppression. 
 
 At a meeting held in the Hanson Street Methodist 
 church, on the evening of March 12, Dio Lewis took 
 charge for five minutes, in true Western style. He 
 called for all the men who believed in Christian women 
 and their work to get up. Hundreds jumped to their 
 feet, while applause shook the house. He next called 
 for the women who thought intemperance a curse, and 
 who were willing to help rid the country of it, to rise. 
 A -multitude of women were on their feet instantly. 
 He then called for all the men and women who were 
 ready to unite in the work to get up, whereupon nearly 
 the whole audience arose, amid great enthusiasm. Dr. 
 Lewis pronounced it “ magnificent.” The Rev. Dr. 
 Steel, jumping up, said, “ It is magnetic ; ” while the 
 Rev. Dr. Fulton, walking up and down the platform, 
 cried, “ Glorious ! glorious ! ” But, as far as heard 
 from, nothing ever came of it. 
 
466 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 Strange as it may sound, the influence of this temper- 
 ance movement was felt even in the halls of Congress. 
 On the 2d of March, Judge Lawrence, of Ohio, in- 
 troduced into the house a bill which provides that in 
 the territories of the United States, and in the District 
 of Columbia, every husband, wife, child, parent, guar- 
 dian, or other person who shall be injured in person, 
 property, or means of support, by any intoxicating liquor, 
 in person, or in consequence of the intoxication, habitual 
 or otherwise, of any person, shall have the right of ac- 
 tion, in his or her own name, against any person or per- 
 sons who shall, by selHng or. giving intoxicating liquor, 
 have caused intoxication, in whole or in part, of such 
 person or persons, for all damages sustained and exem- 
 plary damages ; and the owner or lessee, or person or 
 persons, renting or leasing any building, or persons hav- 
 ing knowledge that intoxicating liquors are to be, or are 
 being, sold thereon, or who shall knowingly permit in- 
 toxicating liquors to be sold in such building or prem- 
 ises, shall be liable for all such damages, severally or 
 jointly, ^c . ; all of which is substantially the Ohio Adair 
 law transplanted into national legislation. 
 
 The following, partaking somewhat of the nature of a 
 joke, was presented to the Senate, March 18, by Senator 
 Carpenter himself. The letter was referred to the Com- 
 mittee on Finance, and ordered “to be printed.” 
 
 New York City, March 18, 1874. 
 
 To Senator Carpenter, President of the Senate : 
 
 As the tidal wave of the temperance crusade wiU soon 
 Teach Washington, on behalf of the army of women who 
 are ahve to the movement, we ask you to join our ranks. 
 Your high position, your well-known eloquence, and 
 your championship of women, mark you as a man to 
 step to the front. We want you and Senators Chandler 
 and Sprague to inform the committee to receive our 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 467 
 
 praying band at the bar of the Senate. Congress is be- 
 ginning to recognize this leading reform. The bill just 
 passed to investigate drunkenness proves this. Will 
 you read this appeal to the Senate, asking permission to 
 receive our band under the escort of your chaplain ? 
 
 ^ Yours, in behalf of the crusaders, 
 
 j Mrs. P. R. Lawrence. 
 
 About a Aveek later a mass meeting was held, under 
 the auspices of Dio Lewis, at which General Leggett, 
 Commissioner of Patents, was one of the principal 
 speakers.. Meetings of clergymen were also held on 
 various occasions, but nothing resembling the woman ^s 
 praying movement was attempted in the city of W ash- 
 ington. 
 
 Annapolis, the quiet seat of the Maryland legislature, 
 received a visitation- of women about the middle of 
 March, much in the Western s'tyle. A bill was before 
 the legislature to allow townships and wards to deter- 
 mine' for themselves Avhether they should allow liquor to 
 be sold within their limits — in other words, a local 
 option law. Baltimore became interested in the ques- 
 tion. An immense meeting was held in favor of the 
 proposed measure, and, shortly after, a delegation of 
 one hundred ladies started by steamer for the capital 
 city, to present a memorial to the legislature in favor 
 of local option. When the steamer arrived, the House 
 was in session, and the ladies were furnished with seats 
 in the lobbies. Shortly after, the House, in order to 
 rid itself of the crusaders, adjourned, and most of the 
 members left the_ halh The ladies then took possession, 
 sang a hymn and the doxology, and adjourned them- 
 selves. The memorial was then. presented to the Senate, 
 where it was received and read. Shortly after the ad- 
 journment of the House, a brass band appeared to sere- 
 nade the ladies ; but their attentions were cut short by 
 
468 
 
 ESTTElMPERAlirCB, 
 
 order of tlie President of the Senate. A temperance 
 mass meeting was then held in the hall of the Capitol ; 
 and soon after, the ladies returned to Baltimore by the 
 steamer. 
 
 The Pacific coast was not exempt from visitation by 
 the temperance revival. A regular, organized crusade 
 was entered upon by the women of San Francisco early 
 in March. Their visits were mainly confined to corner 
 groceries where liquor was sold ; and in a few days six 
 of these were reported closed, as far as the whiskey 
 business was concerned. The women filso appeared be- 
 fore the Board of Supervisors, and presented a petition 
 for an increase of the licenses paid by the liquor sellers. 
 Mayor Otis gave his indorsement to the movement soon 
 after it was* begun, and wished the ladies success in all 
 their efforts against intemperance. But.the most unique 
 feature of the movement in California was a bill passed 
 by the General Assembly, making it a misdemeanor for 
 a person to accept an invitation, or invite another, to 
 drink at a public bar. 
 
 In Pittsburg, Pa., the ladies orgauizkl, and pushed 
 forward the work with considerable energy. Many 
 other towns in Western Pennsylvania became aroused, 
 and inaugurated the street praying movement. In 
 Ithaca, Lockport, Elmira, and a large number of cities 
 and villages in Western New York, the temperance re- 
 vival Avas, for weeks, the all-absorbing topic. From 
 Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan, reports came of the 
 same work going on. Even from Louisiana came words 
 of congratulation and encouragement to the “noble 
 Christian women, throughout the country, in their Tip- 
 rising against the gigantic vice of the age.” In Leav- 
 enworth, Kansas, the men went with the women to pray 
 in the saloons, and consequently the whole party was 
 very badly treated. • 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 469 
 
 In Philadelphia, the work was begun quietly, and car- 
 ried forward with very little noise, but a great work was 
 accomplished. The saloon keepers took the alarm, and 
 were advised by the Supreme Council of the Liquor 
 Dealers’ Association to close all their dram shops on 
 Sunday. Some twenty, who failed to heed this injunc- 
 tion, were arrested by the police, and heavily fined. If 
 reports are to be trusted, the labors of the women were 
 rewarded with greater results in Philadelphia than in 
 any other large city. At a temperance meeting held in 
 Horticultural Hall about the middle of April, the follow- 
 ing statement was made by Mrs. Dr. Elizabeth J. French, 
 regarding the great work which had been going on. It 
 took the outside public, and even the Philadelphians 
 themselves, by surprise. 
 
 Saloons visited, 406 
 
 Refused admission to, ' 2 
 
 Expelled from, 7 
 
 Church members who had rented property for 
 
 saloons, agreeing to rent them iio moi’e, . . 38 
 
 Churches opened to the “band,” 212 
 
 “ refused, 2 
 
 Saloons closed, . 367 
 
 Pledges signed by saloon keepers, 281 
 
 “ “ “ bar keepers who resigned, . 80 
 
 “ “ “ drunkards, 1,613 
 
 Children sent to Sunday school, 411 
 
 Converted, 200 
 
 Members of the praying band, 24,870 
 
 Chicago developed more fierceness and bitter hostility 
 between the two factions — or, at least, on one side — 
 than any other of the large cities in which the work was 
 commenced. The women began visiting saloons early 
 in March ; but this method of operations met with in- 
 tense opposition from the saloon keepers and their ad- 
 herents, and was at length abandoned, without having 
 
470 
 
 INTEIMPEEAKCE, 
 
 produced any marked results. Efforts in the cause were 
 not, however, wholly given up. The whiskey element 
 having attained the ascendency in city politics, a propo- 
 sition was made in the City Council to repeal the Sun- 
 day saloon-closing ordinance. This aroused the whole 
 body of women who were at all interested in the tem- 
 perance cause ; and, on the afternoon of the 15th of 
 March, five hundred of them met at the Clark Street 
 Methodist church. One hundred of the number Avere 
 appointed a committee to present to the Council a re- 
 monstrance, signed by sixteen thousand women of the 
 city ; and while they were out on their mission, the rest 
 remained in the church to pray. On their, way to the 
 City Hall, the delegation was followed by a constantly 
 increasing crowd of men and boys, which became almost 
 a mob before they reached .the doors of the Council 
 Chamber. 
 
 The ladies were allowed to come in, and their memo- 
 rial placed on file ; but the repeal ordinance was passed, 
 in their very faces, by a vote of twenty-two to fourteen. 
 Then came the trying ordeal. The defeated ladies rose 
 to depart, headed by a posse of police, who strove to 
 break a way through the howling and groaning mob, 
 aaEo assailed them as they passed with the foulest epi- 
 thets. The ladies, who were the wives and daughters 
 of the most respected citizens, hid their faces in their 
 hands, and hurried on through the gantlet of filth. A 
 reporter of a morning paper thus described the scene : — 
 
 “But when the open air was gained, the situation in 
 no wise improved. Egress was had by the door in the 
 rear leading to the alley next to the Grand Pacific. 
 Thousands were crammed into this space a howling 
 menagerie. The police cleared the sideAA'alk, but the 
 crowd lined the verge, and poured a volley of blasphemy 
 and obscenity at the procession of ladies. When La 
 
ITS ASPECT AJSTD ITS EEMEDY. 
 
 471 
 
 Salle Street was reached, other thousands were awaiting 
 their approach, and these howled even louder than those 
 Avho greeted theta in the alley. The noise was positively 
 hideous ; and this hooting, yelling, blasphemous moh, 
 and five thousand roughs, the very offscourings of the 
 saloons, flanked and .followed them clear to the door of 
 the church. Jostling them on the way ; spitting tobacco 
 juice on their dresses ; pulling at their chignons ; in 
 some cases tripping them up ; knocking off the hats of • 
 their escorts, — brothers, husbands, or sons, — giving 
 the latter kicks, cuffs, and digs in the ribs ; and all the 
 while the hooting, yelling, howling continued, and not 
 infrequently members of the procession would sink to 
 the ground, swooning from very fright.” 
 
 The Chicago Times, in speaking editorially of this dis- 
 graceful affair, used the following vigorous language: — 
 
 “ The onset of a howling mob of ruffians upon a com- 
 mittee of respectable ladies that visited the Council 
 Chamber last Monday niglit, to remonstrate against the 
 repeal of the Sunday tippling law, cannot be character- 
 ized in the terms of condemnation that it deserves. It 
 was the most vile and disgraceful demonstration of the 
 spirit of ruffianism ever witnessed in this city. Prob- 
 ably not another city in any civilized country on the 
 globe has ever witnessed, in time of peace, a perform- 
 ance so unspeakably brutal. An invading army of bar- 
 barians, licensed to commit any manner of outlawry, 
 could hardly have exhibited towards a body of decent 
 and well-behaved women a more disgusting temper of 
 diabolism. It was the outspew of the slums, and grog- 
 geries, and brothels ; it was the grand army of pimps, 
 loafers, blacklegs, thieves, and drunken roughs, mar- 
 shalled to defend scoundrelism and indecency against 
 the protest of virtue. The ruffianly conduct of the per- 
 formers was certainly' worthy of their thoroughly brutal- 
 
472 
 
 INTEMPER ANCB, 
 
 It would be impossible, within the limits of an ordi- 
 nary volume, to give anything like an adequate review 
 of the woman’s movement in half of the towns and cities 
 where it was inaugurated. And the story, if told, would 
 only be a repetition of the same features, with merely a 
 change of incidents and surroundings. The writer has 
 aimed to present, as briefly as possible, an outline of the 
 work in the most prominent cities, and in the smaller 
 towns in Ohio, where the movement first attracted the 
 attention of the country. Each peculiar phase has been 
 described but once, although it may have appeared at 
 many of the points referred to. The full history of this 
 remarkable temperance revival cannot be written until 
 the movement has subsided, and time enough has elapsed 
 to allay the excitement, and trace out the main influ- 
 ences set at work to their results. The two following 
 chapters will supplement this review of the external fea- 
 tures of the movement by giving some insight into the 
 spirit and purposes of those most actively engaged in it. 
 
473 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LICENSE TS. PROHIBITION. ^ THE PROHIBITIONISTS TRY TO CAPTURE 
 THE woman’s MOVEMENT. — LICENSE VIGOROUSLY OPPOSED BY THE 
 LADIES. — THE FIRST GRAND CONVENTION IN COLUMBUS. — PROHI- 
 BITION STATE CONVENTION AT MT. VERNON. — SECOND WOMAN’S 
 CONVENTION. — MASS MEETINGS IN CINCINNATI FOR AND AGAINST 
 LICENSE. — GRAND WOMAN’S ANTI-LICENSE CONVENTION IN CINCIN- 
 NATI. 
 
 The woman’s movement had. not proceeded far be- 
 fore the old controversy regarding license and prohibi- 
 tion was renewed with fresh interest. The prohibi- 
 tionists, who had been a steadily increasing political 
 party in Ohio for .several years, made an early attempt 
 to capture- the movement and appropriate its results. 
 They had been vainly striving for years to accomplish 
 by law what the women were now doing hy moral force. 
 They saw the important bearing of the new reform 
 upon their efforts, and promptly came forward to further 
 the cause and carry it in their arms. This, disposition 
 was apparent in the first convention, at Columbus, where 
 an attempt was made to set the two factions, of workers 
 by prayer and workers by legal force, by the ears; The 
 latter, however, claimed to be in full sympathy with the 
 gospel method, only they wanted to supplement it with 
 a little law. They were anxious to hitch on the praying 
 movement as a powerful auxiliary to their struggling 
 political party. 
 
 But the women refused to form any entangling al- 
 liances. They hoped to conq-uer by love, and not by 
 
474 
 
 rNTEMPERANCE, 
 
 force ; but if they failed, and had to resort to harsher 
 measures, there were already sufficient laws lying idle 
 on the statute-book to break up nine tenths of the saloons 
 in the state, if once carried into execution. Whatever 
 motives or feelings may have been developed later in the 
 progress of the movement, the ladies, in its early stages, 
 as a rule, never thought of law, or politics, or woman’s 
 rights. They worked with an eye single to the sup- 
 pression of intemperance, and that by moral means. 
 As to the right of women to vote, and of the state to 
 govern individual action by prohibiting every man from 
 selling liquor, the ladies paid not the slightest heed, so 
 that they were not easily hitched on to the prohibition 
 car. Dio Lewis, when asked for his advice, placed him- 
 self in square opposition to prohibition. It had failed, 
 he said, utterly, in Boston, and the question could only 
 work mischief if introduced at that stage of affairs in 
 the woman’s movement. 
 
 The question of license, also, soon grew into promi- 
 nence. But whereas the ladies generally refused to 
 have anj'thing to do with prohibition, they were not slow 
 in giving emphatic expression to their sentiments against 
 license. The progress of the controversy on these points, 
 however, may be better traced by a brief review of 
 the principal mass meetings and conventions held, pro 
 and con. 
 
 The first general convention was held in Columbus, 
 Februai’y 24. It was called by Dio Lewis, without any 
 reference to license or prohibition, but simply as a means 
 of interchanging experiences and congratulations, and 
 establishing a uniform basis of operations throughout 
 tile state, where the movement had been begun. It was 
 held in the City Hall, and attended by not less than fif- 
 teen hundred delegates, most!}’' women, from the various • 
 fields of labor. The general tone, as well as the results 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDY. 475 
 
 of the convention, are summed up in the following plat- 
 form, which was unanimously adopted : — 
 
 “ Resolved^ ■ That the success of the Ohio woman’s 
 movement in behalf of the temperance reform has given 
 ns substantial assurance that the traffic in and use of in- 
 toxicating drinks can and will be removed from the state 
 and nation. 
 
 “ Resolved, That in the prosecution of this work we 
 rely on divine assistance, seemed through fervent, per- 
 sistent, and importunate prayers to Almighty Grod, of- 
 fered in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and with hearts 
 filled with love for souls. 
 
 “ Resolved, That faithful and persistent prayer must, 
 as an inevitable result, be accompanied by efficient, per- 
 sonal, and organized work. 
 
 “ Resolved, That, in addition to contributions of 
 money, generously and freely given, it is recommended 
 to the men aiding in the woman’s effort to suppress 
 intemperance in our communities, and to the women who 
 carry on the work, to avoid all envy, hatred, malice, and 
 uncharitableness, bitterness of speech, and denunciation 
 of the men engaged in the liquor traffic ; to cultivate 
 their acquaintance and kindly feeling, and by all honor- 
 able and practicable means to assist them to change from 
 a business injurious to society, to some other calling re- 
 munerate to themselves and beneficial to the. commu- 
 nity. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Mrs. E. D. Stewart, Mrs. M. W. Banes, 
 Sarah Pollard, C. M. Nichols, 
 
 Miss Lizzie T. McFadden, H. S. Fullerton, 
 
 Mrs. H. J. Sharp, J. M. Richmond, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 Two days later, the regular State Convention of the 
 Prohibition Party was held in Mt. Vernon. Of course 
 the woman’s movement formed the principal subject for 
 consideration. No one opposed it, but, as the last of the 
 
476 
 
 INTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 following resolutions will show, they were not w illin g 
 to leave it to itself : — 
 
 “ Whereas the manufacture, sale, and consumption 
 of intoxicating liquors is in open violation of the law of 
 God, and antagonistic to the moral, social, and political 
 well-being of society ; and 
 
 “ Whereas the Christian women of Ohio are seeking to 
 eradicate this evil by the instrumentality of prayer to 
 Almighty God, and Christian, womanly entreaty with 
 liquor sellers against their destructive traffic ; therefore, 
 
 “ Resolved^ That we, as delegates to the State Con- 
 vention of the Prohibition Party of Ohio, in convention 
 assembled, do hereby congratulate the noble self-sacri- 
 ficing women of Ohio in their success, and assure them 
 of our sympathy and co-operation with them, and all 
 other agencies of the temperance reform. 
 
 “ Resolved^ That we will not only unite our prayers 
 with our sisters to Almighty God, but we will call upon 
 our brothers in Ohio to assist in making permanent the 
 benefits of this moral uprising by the execution of law 
 against all engaged in the liquor traffic, and to seek 
 through the ballot-box the speedy enactment of such 
 prohibitory laws as shall exthpate the evil of intem- 
 perance from our state. 
 
 ‘.‘S. L. Roberts.” 
 
 The following letter from Dio Lewis, representing the 
 views of the friends of the woman’s movement gener- 
 ally, was received with the most severe denunciations 
 from some of the speakers of the convention, among 
 whom were Dr. Porter, of Columbus, and Rev. John Rus- 
 sel, of Miclfigan : — 
 
 “ CoLUiiBUS, February 24. 
 
 “ To the President of the Prohibitory Convention 
 at Mt. Vernon. 
 
 “ I cannot suppose that your convention will take any 
 interest in my opinion about prohibitory law ; but as I 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KBMEDT. 
 
 477 
 
 have been at work for some time with all my heart and 
 strength in the cause of temperance in your great com- 
 monwealth, you may, perhaps, permit me a word. 
 
 “ In my humble opinion no law could be more just, 
 or more justifiable, than that which would remove the 
 source of a large part of all our poverty, misery, and crime. 
 The prohibitory liquor law, thoroughly enforced, would, 
 I have never doubted, contribute more to the wealth of 
 the state, and the welfare of society, than all the other 
 laws of our statutes put together. But if this law be 
 enacted before piiblic sentiment is prepared to enforce 
 it, it must divert the attention of temperance men from 
 the vigorous and undivided employment of those moral 
 influences which alone can give development and power 
 to public sentiment. I affirm that its influence in New 
 England has been disastrous up to this time. 
 
 “ If the great social and moral revolution now in prog- 
 ress in Southern Ohio is not disturbed, but encouraged, 
 within six months a prohibitory liquor law could be as 
 easily enforced in this state as the law against theft. 
 
 “ Will not the convention which meets in Mt. Vernon 
 on the 26th, and which I believe will contain a large 
 number of the truest friends of temperance in the state, 
 give a word of hearty approval of the ‘ Woman’s Tem- 
 perance Movement ? ’ 
 
 “ Trusting the convention may pardon this intrusion, 
 I am, sir, and gentlemen, 
 
 “Your obedient servant, 
 
 “ Dio Lewis.” 
 
 • On the 17th of March, another State Temperance 
 Convention assembled in Columbus. But it was a state 
 convention only in name. There was no necessity for 
 it ; and the call was so ambiguously, stated that when 
 the few delegates assembled they could find nothing to 
 engage their attention. The entire, day was spent in 
 discussing the object of the convenirion, and at the last 
 moment an attempt was made to clear up the muddle by 
 a series of resolutions ; but they were tabled, and the 
 
478 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 convention adjourned without even giving its reasons 
 for coming together. 
 
 The most important- event, and one which brought 
 the matter of license anew before the people, was 
 an immense mass meeting in favor of a well-regu- 
 lated license law, held at Exposition Hall, Cincinnati, 
 Saturday evening, March 28. The attendance was very 
 large, probably reaching upwards of five thousand. The 
 larger part of the audience was composed of Germans, 
 and prominent wholesale and retail liquor dealers, who 
 were present in large numbers. There were also many 
 prominent business men and well-known citizens present^ 
 who, taken together with the high character of the 
 speakers, gave a tone of respectability to the meeting. 
 Speeches were made by Judge Whitman, Judge Taft, 
 Emil Rothe, Rev. M. Lilienthal, George F. Davis, S. 
 A. Kittredge, James H. Laws, and O. J. Dodds. The 
 meeting was presided over by George F. Davis, a temper- 
 ance man. It was opened by praj-er, and mainly con- 
 fined to arguments in favor of a “judicious license law ” 
 to regulate the traffic in .liquors. An occasional side 
 thrust was directed towards Dio Lewis ; but in the main 
 the woman’s movement was treated with respect. The 
 following resolution, which was adopted without ffisseut, 
 has, at least, the merit of brevity. It was the text upon 
 which half a dozen lengthy speeches were made. 
 
 “ Resolved, that it is the sense of this meeting that a 
 judicious license law meets the wants of the times, and 
 affords the best solution of the question of traffic in in- 
 toxicating hquors.” 
 
 Out of the many speeches delivered on this occasion, 
 we give a few brief extracts from that of Judge Al- 
 phonso Taft. It embraces, substantially, the arguments 
 used by all. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS KEMEDT. 
 
 479 
 
 “ If men are permitted to drink, some men must be 
 permitted to sell. The right to diinkand the right to sell 
 go together. A*judicions law to .regulate, license, 
 the sale of liquors, would close at once more than half 
 of the drinking places in Cincinnati, and at the same time 
 improve the character of those which should remain.* 
 It would limit excesses, and to a considerable extent re- 
 store a respect for and observance of the- laws on the 
 subject.' 
 
 “ The principle of imposing a moral guardianship, by- 
 law or otherwise, of good men or good women over their 
 fellow-citizens, in the exercise of their tastes in-innocent 
 things, has usually provoked rather than repressed ex- 
 cesses. Free agency is a principle of God’s moral gov- 
 ernment. All attempts by men to defeat the fair opera- 
 tion of that principle have failed. 
 
 “ I cannot doubt the humane and religious motives of 
 those engaged in the present temperance crusade in the 
 city. But it seems to me that they are not quite satis- 
 fied with God’s plan in dealing with moral subjects. 
 His plan is too slow, and allows too much libert}^ They 
 would have a certain fi.xed control delegated to good men 
 and women over the unwary consciences of their fellow- 
 men. One effect of their well-meant zeal is to punish 
 the innocent and excuse the guilty. The man who 
 drinks to excess is the object of then’ complacency, while 
 the rest of the world are charged with the guilt of his 
 excesses. This is not a fair distribution of human re- 
 sponsibility^ . • ' 
 
 “ Signing a pledge I regard as useless, and it tends 
 to depreciate a mail’s self-respect. As a motive it has 
 no meaning. To do or not to do a thing which concerns 
 one’s self, for no better reason than that he has promised 
 
480 
 
 IKTEMPEEANCE, 
 
 to himself, or to persons who have no right to exact such 
 a promise, is trifling with his own independence. If a 
 thing ought not to -be done, stop ddhig it. A promise 
 or a pledge makes it neither better nor worse. 
 
 “ It is an objectionable feature of the present crusade 
 that it intrudes religious observances upon those who do 
 not ask them. Prayer for or with those who desire it 
 is commendable ; but when forced upon the unwilling it 
 is a mockery of God, as weU as of the victims on whom 
 it is forced.” ■ 
 
 This mass meeting of course created a necessity for 
 another bf an opposite nature. ‘ The anti-license portion 
 of the community felt called upon to make its voice 
 heard. The license men had provided able speakers to 
 sustain their views, and turned out an immense crowd to 
 hear them ; yet there were numbers and eloquence on 
 the other side which only needed an opportunity for 
 public • expression, to make their influence felt. The 
 meeting was called for Thursday night, April 9, in Pike’s 
 Opera House. Meteorologically considered, it proved to 
 be the worst night of the season. A cold rain and snow 
 rendered the streets almost impassable ; yet the building 
 was well filled. Friends of the cause turned out as a 
 religious duty, and made up a large and enthusiastic au- 
 dience. Hon. C. W. Rowland presided, and he, with 
 the Hon. Will Cumback of Indiana, Hon. E. D. Mans- 
 field and Rev. Dr. Walden, made the speeches. The 
 stage was filled with prominent gentlemen, and with a 
 choir of singers backed by a full brass band. 
 
 The following resolutions, which were unanimously 
 adopted, gave expression to the sentiment of the meet- 
 ing : — 
 
 “ Resolved, That what society acknowledges alike inju- 
 rious and dangerous to 'its interests should be neither 
 protected nor encouraged by law. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY, 
 
 481 
 
 ’■'•Resolved, therefore. That the traffic in intoxicating 
 liquors should not be licensed, and that the Constitution 
 should not prevent the legislature from restraining, 
 limiting, or suppressing it. 
 
 “ Resolved, That the existing laws, or others that the 
 legislature may pass to diminish or suppress the evils of 
 this traffic, should be strictly enforced in all respects.” 
 
 One of the most interesting and argumentative speeches 
 was that of the venerable E. D. Mansfield. We append 
 two or three of the concluding paragraphs, which con- 
 tain, in a nutshell, the principal reasons why most Chris- 
 tian people are found on the anti-license side. 
 
 “ The third idea is, that they will make this business 
 respectable. They have three thousand funnels now, in 
 this city, to run the liquor out of, and they think by the 
 license system they can reduce the three thousand fun- 
 nels to one thousand funnels. But do you think there 
 will .one drop less of liquor run out of those one 
 thousand than out of the three thousand now ? Not a bit 
 of it. You will never find a brewer or a distiller going 
 to any public meeting to reduce his own business. No 
 common sense man would do it. The thousand funnels, 
 if they are reduced down to a thousand, will run more 
 liquor than the three thousand. . They will make it more 
 respectable — that is, by enlarging it, they think it will 
 be more respectable. How respectable an aristocracy of 
 drinking-houses would be ! [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 “ Did you ever hear of such a thing in regard to 
 drinking-houses ? Did you ever hear of such an aristoc- 
 racy and such respectability? [Laughter.] Can you 
 conceive of such an idea ? Now I will tell you what it 
 looks like to me. It would be like a gentleman who 
 finds his garden full of snakes, and they begin to multi- 
 ply until it becomes very uncomfortable, and he wonders 
 what he Avill do with them. He hardly knows what to 
 
482 
 
 IJrTEMPERAlTCE, 
 
 do ; but at last a thought seizes him. He says, ‘ I -wlII 
 license them ! ’ [Laughter.] License snakes in a gar- 
 den ! And for what reason will he license them ? ‘ Why,’ 
 he says, ‘ the garter snakes will all be killed, and all the 
 rattlesnakes will be left.’ [Renewed laughter.] I never 
 got hold of such, an idea as these people got when they 
 declare they are going to kill all the little saloons, and 
 leave the big ones to bite and poison worse than ever. 
 
 “ I knoAv of only one reason^why there should be a 
 license law. It will put some money into the treasury. 
 But what sort of money will it be ? The Anglo-Saxons, 
 our ancestors, had a compromise with every crime, upon 
 which every one of them could be paid out. Murder, 
 suicide, and every crime could be paid for if you put the 
 price high enough. Everything of the kind was com- 
 mitted and paid for. Now, if we go on and license 
 every evil in society, TVe shall be just where they were. 
 We shall be commuting and compromising with murder, 
 suicide, death, and ruin, and ever)’ dollar that goes into 
 the treasury will groan and exclaim as its victims roll 
 along to the grave, rattling over your streets, ‘ Murder, 
 suicide, paupers.’ Every dollar in your treasury will 
 tell of crime commuted, and the gro,ans of ruin and 
 destruction will go up to the God of Sabaoth, who hears 
 and loathes all crime. [Great applause.] ” 
 
 About this time the constitutional convention, which 
 was in session in Cincinnati, came to the question of 
 license or no license in the new constitution. The 
 division of the members on the matter was very nearly 
 equal ; those from the country districts generally oppos- 
 ing, and those from the cities generally favoring, license. 
 The question presented itself in various forms to the 
 convention, and is not, at the present writing, disposed 
 of. The following is the proposition of Judge West, 
 which excited much discussion both in temperance and 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEMEDY. 483 
 
 anti-temperance circles. It is designed to be submitted 
 as a separate article to the electors, for ratification or 
 rejection, and if ratified to stand in lieu of Article XV. 
 of tbe present constitution. 
 
 Section 1. Except in compliance with, and upon 
 tbe terms and conditions prescribed by law, no person 
 shall traffic in or sell intoxicating liquors within this 
 state. 
 
 • Sect. 2. Laws shall be passed to prevent the evils 
 and compensate the injuries resulting from the sale or 
 furnishing of intoxicating liquors, and from the intoxica- 
 tion consequent thereon. 
 
 Sect. 3. County commissioners, township trustees, 
 and municipal authorities, shall have power severally to 
 restrict or prohibit the traffic in, and sale of, intoxicating 
 liquors within their respective jurisdiction, and to impose 
 thereon terms and conditions other than and in addition 
 to those prescribed by law. 
 
 Sect. 4. Nothing in this constitution shall be con- 
 strued as denying to the General Assembly the power to 
 restrict or prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxi- 
 cating liquors, or to regulate the same in any manner not 
 consistent with the provisions of this article. 
 
 In view of the importance of this matter, in the new 
 constitution, a call was issued for a third grand conven- 
 tion of the Women’s Temperance Leagues of Ohio, to 
 give an emphatic expression of opinion on the license 
 question. The convention met on the 22d of April, 
 and was the largest and most important of the series. 
 The extent to which the organized temperance move- 
 ment had now spread in the state, may be judged from 
 the fact that one hundred and forty-one different leagues, 
 in seventy-three different counties, were represented by 
 delegates. The Ninth Street Baptist church — the place 
 appointed for meeting — proved entirely inadequate in 
 size, .and the convention adjourned to Wesley chapel, 
 — the largest church audience-room in the city, and 
 
484 
 
 INTEMPEEA2TCB, 
 
 capable of bolding over two thousand people. During 
 the whole of the sessions of the convention this church 
 was crowded — sometimes almost to suffocation. 
 
 The first subject for consideration, after the body was 
 organized, was, of course, the license question. A com- 
 mittee was appointed, consisting of one from each county 
 in the state, to draft a memorial to the constitutional 
 convention, indicative of the feeling of the temperance 
 people of Ohio generally, and the women’s leagues in 
 particular. After deliberation, the committee returned 
 an article which they offered as a substitute for the 
 proposed article in the constitution. With the exception 
 of the first section, it was substantial!}" the same as that 
 submitted by Judge West. The first section, however, 
 provides that the state shall not, in any way, license the 
 traffic in intoxicating liquors. 
 
 The debate which followed on the report revealed a 
 great . unanimity of sentiment against license in any 
 form ; but there was. considerable difference of opinion as 
 to the best manner of bringing the matter before the 
 constitutional convention. But the report was finally 
 adopted, amid great enthusiasm, and a large committee 
 of ladies was appointed to convey the memorial to the 
 constitutional convention, where it was received and 
 laid on the tqble for future consideration. The debate 
 on the second and third sections of the article was inter- 
 esting, as showing the position of the delegates in regard 
 to prohibition. A few of the most radical were for the 
 complete and eternal prohibition of the traffic by state 
 laws. They argued that it made no difference whether 
 the general public was prepared for it or not ; it was the 
 duty of every temperance man to declare for the total 
 annihilation of alcohol. The large majority of the con- 
 vention, however, and those of the most sober sense, 
 believed that it would be folly to demand a prohibition 
 
4 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 485 
 
 law now, when the public sentiment is not able to carry 
 into execution the laws that are already upon the statute- 
 books. In other words, a little law, well enforced, 
 would be better than a sweeping prohibitory law, which 
 it was absurd to suppose could be carried out, especially 
 in the large cities. 
 
 Another important, but somewhat chimerical, project 
 before the con\*ention, was tliat of memorializing Con- 
 gress to abolish the revenue from all intoxicating liquors, 
 used as a beverage, including native wines, ale and beer, 
 and thus withdraw the apparent support of the govern- 
 ment from the traffic. The debate was continued with 
 great skill and pertinacity by both sides. 
 
 “In God’s name,” said Mrs. Weitzel, of Middletown, 
 “let us not recognize by law the great evil ; let us wash 
 our hands clean of participation in the wrong, if we 
 expect a just God to reward our labors in this cause. 
 Women themselves often, very often, have to pay this 
 tax. Their husbands’ liquor bills are sent to them to 
 pay from their hard earnings at the needle or wash-tub. 
 If you increase the tax, you increase their already heavy 
 burdens ; you take from them and their needy children 
 the bread from their mouths and clothing from their 
 backs.” 
 
 Another speaker wanted the convention to consider 
 two facts : — 
 
 1. That Congress has no power, under the Constitu- 
 tion, to authorize the manufacture of ardent spirits, or 
 the vending of them in the different states, and has no 
 power to prohibit the same. 
 
 2. That many men have large amounts of money 
 invested in the liquor business, and that Congress simply 
 lays its hands upon the property, and says it shall pay a 
 certain revenue. This lessens the profits of the busi- 
 ness, and checks the sale. If Congress lets the traffic 
 
4 . 86 ' 
 
 INTEMPEEAITCE, 
 
 
 alone, it would simply offer a premium to and facilitate 
 this nefarious business, He thought whiskey should he 
 more heavily burdened with tax than any other kind of 
 property. • 
 
 The subject was finally referred to a committee, who 
 reported in favor of postponing further consideration of 
 the matter until the next convention. A compromise 
 was, however, struck, in voting to ask Congress to pro- 
 hibit the importation of intoxicating liquors. The 
 remainder of the time of the convention was devoted to 
 hearing brief reports from delegates, concerning the prog- 
 ress of the work in their several districts. They generally 
 indicated no abatement of interest in the cause through- 
 out the state, but a more fixed determination to shut up 
 the saloons, by all available means of law and love. 
 Allusions to the former method were more frequent than 
 in the first convention, showing that the gospel plan is, 
 to some extent, losing its distinctive character. 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 487 
 
 CHAPTER XXYIII. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OPPOSITION TO THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT. — 
 BITTER ARTICLES AND ABSURD STORIES PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN 
 PAPERS. — A SPECIMEN OF BEER DRINKERS’ RESOLUTIONS. — ATTI- 
 TUDE OF THE CATHOLICS. — ARCHBISHOP 'PURCELL’S LETTER. A 
 
 MANSFIELD PRIEST’S ANATHEMA. — DR. J. G. HOLLAND IN OPPOSI- 
 TION, ETC;, ETC. 
 
 In the foregoing chapters, the progress of the -woman’s 
 movement has been viewed mainly from the orthodox 
 temperance stand-point. The intense opposition which 
 it excited has only been referred to incidentally, in the 
 course of the narrative. The character of this opposi- 
 tion, however, is in some cases so extraordinary as to 
 render a more extended notice of it necessary to the 
 completeness of this history. We therefore give place 
 to a number of extracts from the articles and speeches 
 of the anti-temperance press and orators. 
 
 The following correct translations of some of the 
 articles published in the German papers of Cincinnati 
 appeared in .the Cincinnati Gazette. The movement was 
 first treated by these papers in a sarcastic and humorous 
 way, as in this extract from an early editorial in the 
 Volksfreund : — 
 
 “ The women’s war against the saloons, in the various 
 southern counties of our state, is still in full bloom. By 
 companies the banded ‘ water virgins ’ march from saloon 
 to saloon, fall upon their knees, and fight ‘ King Alco- 
 hol ’ and ‘ Emperor Gambrinus ’ with singing and pray- 
 ing, so that the windows rattle. In Greenfield, Highland 
 County, they boast that they have already prayed and 
 
488 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 sung down eight saloons ; and the other six they hope to 
 capture soon. Of the four druggists, two have signed 
 the pledge ; the other two, as most incorrigible sinners, 
 continue to make opposition, but will undoubtedly finally 
 have to surrender. A German saloon keeper, by the 
 name of Hiens, had declared his willingness to sell no 
 more whiskey, and to restrict himself to the sale of beer 
 and ale. But to such a capitulation the managers, with 
 and without hoop skirts, will not consent ; they demand 
 an unconditional surrender ; that is, to water, tea, coffee, 
 and snuff. The temperance law they do not for the pres- 
 ent design to invoke, but will endeavor to capture peace- 
 able citizens by labors of love and a glib tongue.” 
 
 But the “ labors of love and a glib tongue ” continued 
 to spread and achieve such great results, that the hu- 
 morous was changed for the impartial ancLphilosophical 
 tone. Witness an editorial from the Volkshlatt : — 
 
 “ The temperance movement of the women in the 
 interior of the state seems not yet to have reached its 
 culminating point, but continues to spread to other lo- 
 calities that have, up to this time, been free from the' 
 mania. In larger cities, like Cincinnati, Cleveland, To- 
 ledo, Columbus, Dayton, &c., such excesses, of course, 
 would be impossible ; but in the rural districts,, and 
 smaller towns and villages, they have full sweep, and 
 but few will dare to think of resistance or opposition. 
 Under these circumstances, those who are affected there- 
 by seem, for the most part, to have come to the conclu- 
 sion to let the storm expend its fury. Movements of 
 this kind are usually of but short duration. The more 
 violent they are in their first assault, the sooner will they 
 come to an end. The Know Notliing movement, for 
 instance, which in 1854 and 1855 bore all before it, and 
 at first seemed irresistible, soon afterwards lost itself in 
 the sand, without leaving a trace behind. The present 
 
489 
 
 ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 woman’s movement is evidently destined to tlie same 
 fate, for the excitement and strain upon all the powers 
 are too great to be of long duration.” 
 
 The movement refusing to die out, in accordance with 
 the prediction of its enemies, the beer-drinking editors 
 began to show their tempers. The Waechter am Erie, 
 published in Cleveland, relieved itself thus : — 
 
 “ There is, in our view, a distortion and ugliness in 
 this whole farce which is disgusting to us, and seems like 
 a profanation of prayer ; for in reality this movement to 
 pray away the drinking saloons is nothing else than a 
 lynch procedure. Behind the psalm-singing women 
 stand the gentlemen heroes of the slipper ; and gallants, 
 too, if necessary, adopt other measures, if the soft, pious 
 cooing should prove unavailing. The whole offers in 
 the tedious winter months — and insufferably teciious it 
 is in such nests — a somewhat exciting and amusing 
 entertainment ; and then one can get his ‘ bitters ’ anj’'- 
 way in the drug store, or it can be bought from one or 
 the . other of the large places on the sly". The saloon 
 keepers are not to be blamed if they retreat from these 
 houndings. .Who can, for any length of time, b.ear the 
 howling, and this folly in the mask of morality and vir- 
 tue? No; more annoying than a swarm of mosquitos, 
 worse than a bed full of bed-bugs, is such a woman’s 
 siege ; and in some places they have made the thing very 
 comfortable for themselves by. planting a movable tab- 
 ernacle, with stove and chairs, before the saloon, in 
 which from early morning till late at night ‘ the- good 
 work ’ is carried on in the most comfortable manner, in- 
 terchangeably with tattle. Think of the condition- of a 
 saloon keeper who receives a visit of this kind. Is he 
 not in a worse case than a sensible man in the midst of 
 a swarm of fools ? ” 
 
 A correspondent of the Vollcsfreund, writing from 
 Portsmouth, says, — 
 
490 
 
 INTEMrERA^rCB, 
 
 “ Tlie temperancists here are beginning to be the 
 plague of the land. Not content with howling against 
 all devotees of the spirituous in their public prayer meet- 
 ings, they now make raids upon the saloons, and by 
 singing pious hymns seek to induce the beer and whiskey 
 sellers to leave the broad road of vice, and to close their 
 saloons. Even the most unyielding and determined 
 must, under the application of such a moral torture, 
 eventually become tractable, and be glad to dispose of 
 his supply of whiskey to his tormentors for a considera- 
 tion. Thus they bought of a' beer saloon keeper of this 
 place, ‘ Dutch Michael,’ the whole stock of whiskey he 
 had — about four gallons — for thirty dollars, and then 
 sprinkled the street with the precious stuff. If any one 
 takes a drink to strengthen his stomach, then these camel- 
 swallo^^ers and gnat-strainers set up a howl ; but if the 
 city treasury is robbed of the insignificant sum of ten 
 thousand dollars, they hold their tongues, and cover the 
 crime with the mantle of Christian charity.” 
 
 But still the praying went on, and the saloons melted, 
 away before the advancing women, like the frost before 
 the sun. Then the German editors began to get mad about 
 it. The movement was always referred to as the “ pray- 
 er pest,” and the tone of editorial articles was some- 
 what like the following, which was published in Die 
 Gegemvart, of Covington. In speaking of the INIeth- 
 odists, whom the editor holds responsible for all this tem- 
 perance agitation, it demands that they should all he 
 hung to lamp-posts, and swept from the face of the earth, 
 for the following reasons : — 
 
 “ In the first place they undermine the morals of the 
 people. They furnish more rascals, great and small, 
 counterfeiters, adulterers, perjurers, and bank swindlers, 
 than all the other sects put together. They are the 
 founders of the Young Men’s Christian Association, .the 
 
ITS ASPECT ANH its REMEDY. 
 
 491 
 
 principal school of all 'gallows birds and swindlers. S. 
 Colfax, forifler Vice-President of the United States, the ' 
 greatest perjurer and scoundrel of the nineteenth cen- 
 tur}^ is a Methodist, and the father of the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association. General O. O. Howard, Chief of 
 the Freedmen’s Bureau, who has swindled God and all 
 the world, is a Methodist. The suit of the ' Methodist 
 Book Concern in New York, which it took years to de- 
 cide, and in which all those who were interested wer^ 
 convicted of perjury, is an evidence of their wickedness ; 
 the many complaints against their ministers -for adultery, 
 seduction, and other crimes, are an evidence of their im- 
 morality. We could furnish evidences by the thousand, 
 if we had the room. 
 
 “ Secondly, they trample the doctrines of Christ under 
 foot, and make a mockery of prayer and religion. They 
 boast to the world that they believe in JeSus, and at the 
 same time they fight for Satan and his kingdom. Christ, 
 when he instituted the holy supper, took the cup of 
 wine, drank of it himself, and .gave it to his disciples to 
 drink, saying, ‘H'his do in my memory.’ The Methodist 
 church of America resolved dhat they woidd -use no wine 
 at the communion, because it is a sin. Now, we ask every 
 sensible man whether this pack prays to Him who said, 
 
 ‘ This do in my memory,’ or whether they pray to him 
 who said to Christ, ‘ All this glory will I give thee if 
 thou wilt fall doAvn and worship me.’ The answer was, 
 ‘Depart frotn me, Satan.’ We say, Methodist, do not 
 name the name of Christ, for you^do not believe on him. 
 We pronounce every Methodist, or other hypocrite who 
 says that wine drinking is a sin, and at the same time 
 professes to believe the doctrine of Christ, a mean, sneak- 
 ing liar ; for every man who declares that the commands 
 and doctrines of Christ are a sin, is a fool and an ass, if 
 he says that he believes in Christ. 
 
 . 30 
 
492 
 
 INTEMPEEAJSrCE, 
 
 “ And now, tliirdly, the greatest crime of the Meth- 
 odists is this : That in their churches they Sdppt resolu- 
 tions that are inimical to the hherties of the people. 
 They send hundreds of petitions to the various legisla- 
 tive bodies, as Methodists, in order to pass laws accord- 
 ing to their taste and for their benefit, and to the injury 
 of the rest of the people. They come together in their 
 churches, and conspire, and discuss, and resolve how they 
 jnay attack the property, and business, and the lives of 
 their fellow-men. They come forth from their churches 
 in troops, and interfere with the business of our country- 
 men, . threaten them with death, and deprive tliem of 
 their liberty. They pray that their God may strike the 
 saloonists and their families dead. (Very Chiistian — is 
 it not ?) ^ 
 
 “ Is this* right? is it Christian? is it humane or citizen- 
 like? We say no. 
 
 “We say to this band. Halt ! for your hour has come. 
 Become a man and a citizen, or you must be destroyed. 
 We fed the South with powder and lead, when it at- 
 tacked the rights and the existence of this country. Just 
 so must this rabble be punished. We are not at all afraid 
 to write against this band because a few Germans are to 
 be found among them. These should keep away from 
 them, or leave them and become decent men. It is sad, 
 but true, that among the. German iMethodists there are 
 some who are not exactly the best of bretliren ; but then, 
 they may yet be converted, and return again ?o the bosom 
 of humanity. May thp light shine upon you.” 
 
 It is but fair to say that the tone of the more iufluen- 
 tial German papers in Cincinnati never became so bitter 
 as the above, although many false and exceedingly un- 
 just statements were published. The following is a 
 single instance : After the ladies had been engaged for 
 some time in the crusade in Cincinnati, the Yolksfreund 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 493 
 
 one morning came out with th^ charge that the leader 
 in prayer of one of the hands was seen so drunk during 
 one of the services that she could scarcely rise from 
 her knees when the prayer was ended, and reeled away , 
 to the church in the most disgraceful manner. This 
 seemed too grave a charge to pass over in silence, and a 
 committee of gentlemen was appointed to Wait on Mr. 
 Haacke, the editor of the paper, for his authority and 
 proofs. He refused to give either, but repeated the 
 charge. At length the truth of the matter came out. 
 A ragged and dirty Irish woman one day eame stagger- 
 ing into the circle of kneeling women, in a state of in- 
 toxication, knelt with them, and afterwards followed 
 them to the church. The German readers of the Volks- 
 fr.eund never got the benefit of the correction, and to 
 this day believe that one of the leading praying women 
 was out on her mission too drunk to walk ! 
 
 Another absurd story, which was started with still less 
 foundation, was to the effect that the women engaged in 
 the movement were paid regularly for their services, at 
 the rate of threeklollars a day. It was in vain to deny 
 this ridiculous charge to any of the less intelligent Ger- 
 mans ; they had read it in their papers, and therefore it 
 was gospel. Admitting the truth of the statement, it 
 would have been an expensive campaign for somebody. 
 Five hundred dollars would have been needed every 
 night for weeks and months to pay off the bands for 
 their venal prayers and songs. 
 
 Having given considerable space to reports of tem- 
 perance meetings, it might be of interest to produce a 
 representative of another class. The following resolu- 
 tions, adopted by a large anti-temperance mass meeting 
 held at Hamilton, in March, show the sentiment enter- 
 tained by the beer drinkers, in regard to the woman’s 
 movement : — , 
 
494 
 
 rNTElMPEEAjrCE, 
 
 . Resolved, By all tl^e German citizens of Hamilton 
 and suburbs, — 
 
 “ 1. That we organize in order that we may.be better 
 able, after deliberation, to cope with this nuisance, and 
 that we adopt such lawful measures from time' to time as 
 are necessary to secure us our just liberty and rights. 
 
 • “ 2. That we never will permit that our religious and 
 social liberties, and especially the latter, be infringed 
 upon or taten from us under the cloak of a religious 
 movement, by which religion itself is only disgraced 
 and mocked. 
 
 “ 3. That under temperance, according to its proper 
 meaning — ai^ expression to which, with many other 
 inisused words, its true meaning ought to be restored — 
 we understand moderation in the use of spiritual liquors, 
 a matter which we highly appreciate, and whose opposite, 
 ‘ drunkenness,’ we dee^oly clespise, and for whose abolish- 
 ment we are ready to do all in our power, 'and for which 
 we shall strive with all our influence. 
 
 “ 4. That we consider the movement known as the 
 women’s whiske}^ war an unlawful one, and that a hypo- 
 critical attack is made by it upon social liberty, and a 
 sacrilege is committed upon religious exercises, especially 
 the exercise of prayer, which, as private devotion, was 
 by the Founder of Christianity himself emphatically 
 destined not to take place at the street corners, but in 
 the solitude of a closed room. To term it in short 
 words, we can call it nothing but lunacy, and a fanatical 
 swindle. 
 
 “ 5. That we in this movement recognize a total rev- 
 olution of the Christian, social orders, by which the nthn 
 is the head of the woman, and not the opposite. We 
 recognize in it an aberration of the women from God’s 
 destined path of duty in which man and woman can be 
 satisfied, and that they ought to consider that Christianity 
 first raised the woman to an equal being with the man, 
 but surely not to the end that man should become the 
 slave of their notions and imbecile ideas. 
 
 “ 6. That we, as citizens of German descent, without 
 difference as to religion, will use every means hi our 
 power to secure and hold for ourselves the liberties which 
 the Constitution grants. * 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS BEMEDY. 
 
 495 
 
 “ 7. That we look' upon all advocates of the move- 
 ment as enemies to. religion and social liberty. 
 
 “ 8. That we will give no candidate, be it for state, 
 county, or city office, our support or vote who takes part . 
 in the movement. 
 
 “ 9. That these resolutions shall stand and be carried 
 into effect as long as the now raging temperance mania 
 exists, and until ^hese imbecile women, as we wish, for 
 their own good, may soon prove the case, become sensi- 
 ble again, and are prepared to return to their own re- 
 spective duties. 
 
 “ A saloon keeper in Seven Mile will apply to-morrow, 
 through Van Derbeer & Symmes, for an injunction 
 against temperance visitation in that village.” 
 
 Reference has once or twice been made to the attitude 
 of the Catholics on this question of women praying down 
 the evils of intemperance. In some toAvns the Catholic 
 priest came out decidedly for it ; in others he was favor- 
 ably inclined, but afraid of the consequences of his 
 espousing the cause. Generally, Imwever, the move- 
 ment met with determined opposition from the authori-^ 
 ties in the Catholic church. Archbishop Purcell, whose 
 word is law in Catholic circles, Avas early appealed to to 
 define his position in the matter, which he did in the 
 folloAving letter : — 
 
 “ St. Paul, in his instructions to the Romans, and 
 through them, to all Christians, advises them ‘ not to be 
 more wise than it behooveth to be Avise, but to be wise 
 unto sobriety.’ Rom. xii. 3. 
 
 “ The undersigned takes this occasion to answer the. 
 numerous applications made to him for sympathy and co- 
 operafion in the crusade against intemperance. 
 
 “ He does not noAv, for the first time", express publicly 
 his sj^mpathy Avith the object, if not AAdth the means 
 adopted by the crusaders, or his readiness to co-operate • 
 with every legitimate and wise effort for the suppression 
 of intemperance. Scarcely has he ever had the spiritual 
 
496 
 
 INTEMPERANCB, 
 
 care of a congregation, as priest or bishop, without warn- 
 ing those who heard him of the temporal and eternal 
 evils resulting from excess. In sermons and pastoral 
 letters he has insisted on the necessity and exhorted to 
 the observance of holy temperance, going so far in one 
 of those let.ters, many years ago, gs to express the wish 
 that not one of his flock were a low, disrepirtable saloon 
 keeper. For ten years he practised total abstinence, 
 hoping, by example, to induce those#whom his words 
 reached not, to shun the vice that leads to every other 
 vice. He is even now totally abstinent. This he con- 
 siders pretty good ; but he cannot go to the excess sug- 
 gested by some of the lady league. He cannot instruct 
 or preach that it is a sin for a day laborer, who has to 
 carry the hod, on a broiling hot day in July or August, 
 up a steep ladder to the third or fourth story of a build- 
 ing, to restore his exhausted strength b 3 '- a glass or two 
 .of beer. This he would consider cruel. If the toiler 
 has the physical endurance and the will to do without 
 the beverage, in the name of God let him do it. And 
 if he cannot take this refreshment without drinking to 
 excess, let him abstain altogether, or quit the hard work, 
 or die — for it is be'tter so than to be a drunkard. 
 
 • “ Again, the archbishop cannot ask a clergyman to 
 
 blaspheme the divine Author of our religion bj* asking 
 him Avhy he made wine at Cana, in Galilee, to recreate 
 guests at a wedding.' Why lie instituted the Eucharist, 
 the Lord’s Supper, partly in wine, of ivliich he com- 
 manded the apostles to drink. Why Jehovah’s Holy 
 Spirit teaches us in the Bible that God made ‘ wine to 
 cheer the heart of man.’ Psalms ciii. 13. And the vine 
 to ask why it should desert its ‘ wine that cheereth God 
 and men.’ Judges ix. 13. Wh}- did the d 3 *iug patriarch, 
 under the influence of divine insphation, wish his son 
 ‘ abundance of wine ? ’ Wh 3 ^, again, does the Hol 3 ' Ghost 
 tell us that it is ‘ hurtful alwa 3 ’s to drink water, or wine, 
 but to mix them is pleasant, or sometimes to drink one 
 and sometimes the other ’ ? 2 Mccb., last verse of the 
 
 ^ Old Testament. 
 
 “ But God, they object, did not make the wine. We 
 have shown that he did make it. Neither did he make 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 497 
 
 the bread, except in the miracle of the loaves in the 
 desert. But he made the grape and the wheat, from 
 which wine and bread are made, the one by a process 
 not much simpler than the other. Catholics, then, go to 
 the Bible, and they understand it ; and with the .blessed 
 Book before them, we cannot with bell, book, and can- 
 dle, with praying and psalm-singing in the mud, -excom- 
 municate those who drink, or those who dispense the 
 liquid which' God has made to be used with moderation 
 and thanksgiving. This, then, is the verdict of the Word 
 of God : Use, do not abuse ; and if you cannot use with- 
 out abusing, use not at all. 
 
 “ Some few years past, three or four Protestant clergy- 
 men called on the archbishop to ask his co-operation in 
 an attempt to abate the nuisance of the grog-shojDS. He 
 told them that when thea’e was the question of the li- 
 ^censing, or absolute prohibiting, of the sale of inebriating 
 liquors, he earnestly recommended, the imposing of as 
 heavy a fine, or license, on the venders of such liquid as 
 they could bear, and inexorably to close, by all the pen- 
 alties known to the law, those vile' bar-rooms where bad 
 liquor is sold to minors, drunkards, men or women, who 
 are now the pests of the community, a disgrace to their 
 families, and teaching by word and example the broad 
 way to perdition. This, he conceived, would be the 
 most effectual check to the evil we deplore. It would 
 diminish, perhaps, by two thousand the three thousand 
 ‘ spiracida ditis,’ those craters of hell, by which our city 
 is in peril of combustion ; and it woudl pay the city 
 much, if not all, the expense of the workhouse and other 
 institutions which honest and sober citizens are now 
 shamiefully taxed to support. 
 
 “All which is resjpectfully submitted to all whom it 
 may concern. fJ. B. Purcell, 
 
 “ Archbishop' of Cincinnati. 
 
 This letter was *ably replied to by Dr. J. G. Holland. 
 We quote one or two brief extracts-: — 
 
 “ Besides, would it not be well for us to remember- 
 the women who engage in this crusade are working in 
 
498 
 
 INTEjSIPEEAirCE, 
 
 the only way that Providence has left open to them ? 
 Who are they? They are the mothers, wives, sisters, 
 and daughters of men whom they have seen, year after 
 year, dropping into the graves of drunkards. They have 
 suffered worse than death that the rum seller might hve. 
 They have seen their loved ones become sots, idiots, 
 madmen. They have seen their fortunes squandered ; 
 they have found themselves disgraced ; they have been 
 cursed, beaten, bruised ; they have seen their peaceful 
 and happy homes turned into places of fear and torment. 
 Boys that were nursed on the bosoms of some of them 
 have been transformed by drink, into fiends. Men whose 
 kiss of love and loyalty honored them with wifehood, 
 have degenerated into beasts. For these, through weary, 
 suffering years, th6y have prayed. Nay, they have knelt 
 with them, and held up their weak *and imbecile hands 
 while they prayed for themselves. Day after day they, 
 have done this, as . men have gone to their business 
 through temptations that beset their path at every cor- 
 ner, and have received them at night only to cover them 
 from sight A^dth shame, and sink back into their old 
 despair. The sorrows through which these women have 
 walked have been simply immeasurable. No words of 
 mine can describe them ; no words of. any man can ex- 
 aggerate them. 
 
 “ They have looked to’ the leaders of the church for 
 help ; have they had it ? They have looked to the politi- 
 cians for help ; have the}' received it ? They have asked 
 for laAvs, whicli^were easily made to satisfy their clamor : 
 have the3^*lDeen executed? The}' have been pure and 
 abstinent tliemselves ; has their example been of any 
 avail ? They have pleaded with all the eloquenoe _of 
 love with those who have broken their vows to cherish 
 and protect them, to forsake their vice, and have re- 
 ceived only cuVses or promises not worth a straw. What, 
 in God’s dear name, was there left for them to do, but 
 just what they are doing, and what you condemn ? W^ho 
 have driven these women to this great necessity ? Who 
 have forced them into a position from which all their 
 •natural instincts dissuade them? Who have made their 
 crusade absolutely necessary, in order to save the men 
 of the present generation from going to ruin ? IMen, 
 
ITS ASPECT AND ITS EEIVIEDY. ' 499 
 
 and men of influence, with shame be it said ! If the 
 leaders of the Christian’ church had done their duty, and 
 the leaders of state and national politics had done theirs, 
 ‘there would not be a dram shop to-day between Canada 
 and the Gulf. The whole business has thus been left to 
 God and the women ; and the latter are praying in the 
 churches and in the street, and pushing on their divine 
 and peaceful crusade, because the men of America have 
 failed to do their duty. Shall a Christian man, in high 
 station or low, hft his voice against them?. Rather let 
 him hide his head in shame and self-contempt. 
 
 “ You say that you, or those for whom you speak, can- 
 not, ‘ with bell, book, and candle, with jDraying and psalm- 
 singing in the mud, excommunicate those who drink, or 
 those who dispense the liquid which God has made to be 
 used with moderation and thanksgiving.’ "VYhat is this 
 liquid ? Is it wine ? That is the liquid you talk about ; 
 that is the liquid the drinking of which you find justi- 
 fied in the Bible. But whiskey is not wine. Whiskey 
 is the liquid that burns up stomach, brains, morality, 
 industry, prosperity, life. Whiskey fills a hundred thou- 
 sand homes with misery, and is poisoning the blood of 
 the generations.' Whiskey fills the poorhouses, and hos- 
 pitals, and prisons. Whiskey is associated with nearly 
 every crime committed in your community. It is the 
 grandf fiery fountain of the national woe and crime. 
 This is- what the women of Ohio are seeking to banish ; 
 and they know that with it must go that which all the 
 national experience has proved will be used as a_ cover 
 for the baser liquid.” 
 
 But while men of high position and great influence 
 were carrying on the discussion with courtesy and mod- 
 eration, some of the smaller fish strung together a series 
 of bitter denunciations, and imagined they had thereby 
 settled the question forever. The following short ex- 
 tract from an open letter by the Catholic priest of the 
 flourishing city - of Mansfield, Ohio, deserves a place 
 among the literature of the campaign, as a sample of its 
 kind : — 
 
500 . 
 
 miERIPEEAKCE, 
 
 “ The woman’s temperance movement is absurd in its 
 nature, in its concomitants, in its advocates, and in its ef- 
 forts. Neither signing a pledge nor the screams of crazy 
 women will help so much as to make one-man temperate. 
 Suppose that our Mansfield ladies fill with their prayer- 
 ful screams, and then ‘ Come to Jesus,’ and their glorys, 
 and their amens, our narrow Main Street. How many 
 of the saloon keepers and their visitors will be moved to 
 pledge themselves in sincerity to abstain? Will they 
 call upon the professional drunkard, or upon those who 
 use with reason of beer and wine ? The first class will 
 be as much moved as Balaam’s ass to pass the narroAV 
 gate. The second class will look upon you as a set of 
 bigots and lunatics, and with great reason ; for how do 
 you dare to call upon men to abstain from what they do 
 not abuse, and use with reasonable moderation or tem- 
 perance? To tr}- to deprive others of their rights is 
 nothing else than despotism and Puritanism, which seems 
 to be a boon Ohio has inherited from the.New England 
 States. 
 
 “ This is Pharisaism, Puritanism, h}'pocrisy, pure 
 sectarianism, intolerance in the name of a false God, 
 whom the reformation and its ignoble upholders, the 
 preachers are setting on their self-fabricated altars, and 
 whom everybody should adore or perish. 
 
 “A. MAGE^'HAX^\”. 
 
 We had hoped to give extracts from some of the lead- 
 ing speeches of the campaign in opposition to the move- 
 ment, 'including the disgraceful one delivered b}* Judge 
 Safford before the liquor sellers and drinkers of Chilh- 
 cothe ; but space forbids. Enough opinions of represen- 
 tative men and papers have been cited to show the 
 animus of the forces arrayed against the temperance 
 cause. It is onlj" when these utterances,- and the resist- 
 ance which they provoked, are taken into account, that 
 the grand results wliich the women achieved can be 
 properly appreciated. 
 


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