# American Pocket Library of Useful Knowledge/Temperance

TEMPERANCE.
Being satisfied from observation and experience, as well as from medical testimony, that ardent spirits, as a drink, is not only needless but hurtful; and that the entire disuse of it would tend to promote the health, the virtue, and the happiness of the community: We hereby express our conviction, that should the citizens of the United States, and especially all young men, discountenance the use of it, they would not only promote their own personal benefit, but the good of our country and the world.
President Jefferson said, "The habit of using Ardent Spirits by men in public office, has produced more injury to the public service and more trouble for me, than any other circumstance."
Ardent spirits has made at least two hundred thousand miserable paupers in the United States, many of whom once enjoyed a competence, if not wealth.
It has annually destroyed thousands of our fellow-citizens, consigning them to a drunkard's grave, and seriously multiplying widows and orphans.
It has filled the jails, prisons, and penitentiaries of the United States with criminals, who have sacrificed character, society, and friends, for strong drink.
It has involved a waste of properly to the amount of many millions of dollars.
It has burdened the country with a tax of millions of dollars for the support of its paupers.
It has palsied the industry, corrupted the morals, and degraded the character of Americans; proving itself more injurious to our country than war, or famine, or pestilence.
And what good thing has it done, or will it do, to counterbalance these deplorable and alarming effects? Not One. There is not a single redeeming quality. It neither prevents nor cures disease. It does not aid labour, nor promote domestic happiness. It adds nothing to national wealth or prosperity.
Public attention has been awakened–an experiment of a proposed remedy for intemperance has been successfully made, proving by actual demonstration, that the power to terminate the evils of intemperance rests with the people. More than one million and a half of persons have signed the pledge of total abstinence, and as many more are practising upon the principle without signing. Thousands of merchants, grocers, and inn keepers, have discontinued the sale of ardent spirits; many distilleries have put out their fires; and everywhere the spirit of freedom from a degrading vice has been aroused. Light and love have awakened every effort, and they will accomplish the object. This object is distinctly announced to be the total disuse of intoxicating drink in the United States and throughout the world.
Parents, enlist your children on the aide of total abstinence. It can do them no injury, and may save many of them from ruin. Let them adopt the sentiment of the following lines.
THE PLEDGE.
The pledge we sign, to drink no wine, Nor brandy red, to turn our head, Nor whiskey hot, that makes the sot, Nor fiery rum, to turn our home Into a hell whore none could dwell: Yes–here we pledge perpetual hate To all that can intoxicate.
FEMALES
Are most deeply interested in the success of the temperance reformation. As it advances, it dries up the fountain of woman’s grief, and turns her tears of bitterness into tears of joy. Ladies, sign the temperanee pledge, and thus cast your influence on the side of temperance. You can banish alcohol from the nursery, the sideboard, the social circle, and the festive hall. Mothers, sisters, wives, we entreat you to throw your gentle influence around society, to hold it back from the cup of death.
A REMEDY.
Let it be enacted that the expense of supporting all paupers who are made such through the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall be equally assessed upon the dealers in such liquors: let every man who takes out a license be required to give ample security for the payment of his share of the tax; and let the public authorities see that the destitute wives, widows and children of drunkards be well supported. This would put an end to nine-tenths of the groggeries; and the fewer the sellers became, the heavier would be the tax upon them. Friends of suffering humanity! why may not this plan be tried?
One cause of the prevalence of intemperance is the low price of wine, brandy, &c. Put down the spurious compounds, and the genuine will not be so constantly held out as a plausible temptation to young beginners. May not all who value health join in copying the following and obtaining signatures to it?
PETITION
To the Legislature of —
    The subscribers respectfully represent,
That inferior whiskey, coloured by logwood, cochineal, &c., flavoured to resemble in taste the liquor imitated and impregnated with spirits of turpentine, cochilus indicus, oil of vitrol, and other poisonous drugs, is sold throughout the country under the various names of wine, gin or brandy; and whereas this imposition is most injurious to health, and especially grievous to the sick to whom wine may be prescribed: we therefore pray your honourable body that such penalties may be imposed, by fine and imprisonment, against all who make or sell these or similar poisonous compounds, as may effectually secure the health of our citizens from such wicked and fraudulent practices. And your petitioners shall, &c., &c.
TETOTALISM.
The objection lo beer, cider, &c. is that all Drunkards in the outset commence on such mild drinks, and thus form a taste for drinking which becomes habitual, and this habit becomes a second nature, leading slowly, it may be, but surely, to all the evils and horrors of drunkenness. Besides which, as temperance becomes popular, the strongest liquors are mixed with, and drunk as cider, beer, &c.
THE FRUITS!!
Some of the great advantages of the Temperance reformation are already realised. Witness the reduction in the rate of insurance of ships manned by Temperance sailors, and the improved and comfortable condition of the sailors themselves, who, in the wet, cold, and hardships which they undergo, confirm the fact tha liquor all cases is not only unnecessary, but worse than useless.
Witness the three millions who have given the Temperance Pledge to Father Mathew in Ireland; where distilleries have been turned into school-houses, where, instead of crime, quarrelling, fighting, poverty and rags, now shine forth the Temperance blessings of peace, joy, and comfort.
And many are the glorious results of Temperance, so many, that a volume might be filled with the glad tidings, which urge on the patriot and the philanthropist, and all good men to perseverance in this glorious work of reform.
THE TREE OF DISSIPATION.
The sin of drunkenness expels reason, drowns memory, distempers the body, defaces beauty, dimin- ishes strength, corrupts the blood, inflames the liver, weakens the brain, turns men into walking hospitals,–causes internal, external, and incurable wounds,–is a witch to the senses, a devil to the soul, a thief to the pocket, the beggar’s companion, a wife’s woe, and children’s sorrow,–makes man become a beast and a self murderer,–who drinks to others’ good health, and robs himself of his own! Nor is this all; it exposes to the Divine
* DIPLEASURE HERE! AND HEREAFTER TO ETERNAL MISERY!!!
The root of all is DRUNKENNESS!!!!