A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. BarnumBenton, Joel
History
A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum
Benton, Joel
Barnum's American Museum; Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
In the town of Vineland, N. J., where no intoxicating drinks are
sold, the overseer of the poor stated in his annual report that
in a population of 10,000 there was but one indictment in six
months, and that the entire police expenses were but seventy-five
dollars per year--the sum paid to him--and the poor expenses a
mere trifle. He further says: "We practically have no debt, and
our taxes are only one per cent. on the valuation. "Similar
results are reported in the town of Greeley, Colorado, where no
liquors are sold.
Our laws license the sale of intoxicating drinks under certain
restrictions on week days, but no man can claim the right under
such license to cause mobs, riots, bloodshed or murder. Hence no
man has, or can have, any right by license or otherwise to
dispense liquors to intoxicated persons, nor to furnish
sufficient liquor to cause intoxication. Our duty is therefore to
see that the police aid in regulating to the extent of their
legal power a traffic which our laws do not wholly prohibit.
Spirituous liquors of the present day are so much adulterated and
doubly poisoned that their use fires the brain and drives their
victims to madness, violence and murder. The money annually
expended for intoxicating drinks, and the cost of their evil
results in Bridgeport, or any other American city where liquor
selling is licensed, would pay the entire expenses of the city
(if liquors were not drank), including the public schools, give a
good suit of clothes to every poor person of both sexes, a barrel
of flour to every poor family living within its municipal
boundaries, and leave a handsome surplus on hand. Our enormous
expenses for the trial and punishment of criminals, as well as
for the support of the poor, are mainly caused by this traffic.
Surely, then, it is our duty to do all we can, legally, to limit
and mitigate its evil. As no person ever became a drunkard who
did not sincerely regret that he or she ever tasted intoxicating
drinks, it is a work of mercy, as well as justice, to do all in
our power to lessen this leprous hindrance to happiness. We
should strive to exterminate gambling, prostitution and other
crimes which have not yet attained to the dignity of a "license."
The public health demands that we should pay attention to
necessary drainage, and prevent the sale of adulterated food. The
invigorating breezes from Long Island Sound, and the absence of
miasmatic marshes serve to make ours one of the most healthy
cities in America. Scientific experiments made daily during the
whole of last year have established the fact that our atmosphere
is impregnated with OZONE, or concentrated oxygen, to an extent
not hitherto discovered on this continent. No city of the same
size in America is so extensively known throughout our own land
and in Europe as Bridgeport. It should be our pleasure to
strengthen all natural advantages which we possess as a city by
maintaining a government of corresponding excellence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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