See the pauperism it has produced. We have sung of our goodly heritage,
and foreign nations have disgorged their exuberant population that they
might freely subsist in this land of plenty. But in this granary of the
world are everywhere seen houses without windows, fields without
tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, and
penitentiaries and almshouses filled to overflowing; and a traveller
might write--BEGGARS MADE HERE. We are groaning under our pauperism, and
talking of taxes, and hard times, and no trade; but intemperance has
stalked through our land and devoured our substance. It has entered the
houses of our unsuspecting inhabitants as a friend, and taken the food
from their tables, and the clothing from their beds, and the fuel from
their fire, and turned their lands over to others, and drove them from
their dwellings to subsist on beggary and crime, or drag out a miserable
existence in penitentiaries and almshouses. Two-thirds, or 150,000 of
the wretched tenants of these abodes of poverty in the United States,
were reduced by intemperance. So themselves confess. It was rum, brandy,
and whiskey, that did it. And the Prison Discipline report tells of
50,000 cases of imprisonment for debt annually in the United States, in
consequence of the use of ardent spirits. O, its sweeps of property can
never be known.
Look at the crime it has occasioned.
It is said that there is a spring in China which makes every man that
drinks it a villain. Eastern tales are founded on some plain matter of
fact. This spring may be some distillery or dram-shop; for this is the
natural effect of alcohol. It breaks down the conscience, quickens the
circulation, increases the courage, makes man flout at law and right,
and hurries him to the perpetration of every abomination and crime.
Excite a man by this fluid, and he is bad enough for any thing. He can
lie, and steal, and fight, and swear, and plunge the dagger into the
bosom of his nearest friend. No vice is too filthy, no crime too
tragical for the drunkard. The records of our courts tell of acts
committed under the influence of rum, which curdle the blood in our
veins. Husbands butcher their wives; children slaughter their parents.
Far the greater part of the atrocities committed in our land, proceed
from its maddening power. "I declare in this public manner, and with the
most solemn regard to truth," said Judge Rush, some years ago in a
charge to a grand jury, "that I do not recollect an instance since my
being concerned in the administration of justice, of a single person
being put on his trial for manslaughter which did not originate in
drunkenness; and but few instances of trial for murder where the crime
did not spring from the same unhappy cause." Of 895 complaints presented
to the police court in Boston in one year, 400 were under the statute
against common drunkards. Of 1,061 cases of criminal prosecution in a
court in North Carolina, more than 800 proceeded from intemperance. Five
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account