The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-08 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

Sia,—l have just returned, with sickened heart and de-
pressed spirit, from the densely populated district in which
I labour, grieved and shocked by those fearful exhibitions
of beastly intoxication so common in this locality, and also
in the town at large. I, therefore, sit down to fulfil the
resolve long made of addressing you on this alarming, dis-
graceful, and growing evil. The appalling and frightful
extent to which this most degrading vice is carried has,
for the last twelve months, weighed most heavily and
sorely on my mind, and often have I thought, when my
hurried gaze has been arrested by the large and glaring
placard proclaiming war to Romish superstitions—that
while the leading champions of Protestantism are arousing
the attention of their fellow-townsmen to the daring ag-
gressions and blighting progress of Papal error,—while
from the hoary battlements and massive turrets of our
beloved Sion they sound the trumpet's shrill alarm and
ring the bugle call for marshalling their troops in bold
defence of sacred truth, and the preservation of a pure
and holy faith—that while within the precincts of the hal-
lowed temple, and without its walls, they exhort with
burning eloquence their fellows to a martyr's courage and
to a martyr's bravery in the cause of Christian truth and
Christian liberty, the sensual and bloated Bacchus is
suffered, unimpeded, unobstructed, and unchecked, to
drive his desolating car, and to scatter unresisted his
demon, yet seducing charms, over the homes and dwellings
of now happy, prosperous, and virtuous—but, alas, ere
long, wretched, forlorn, and vice-ridden families. It is
high time to awake—high time for the preachers and
lovers of domestic and social virtue to arise and arm for
a determined struggle with the foe ; high time to unite
and oppose the devastating onslaught of a foe who
threatens to hold in brutal bondage millions of our
countrymen, to defend the citadel of English sobriety,
English virtue, and English order and morality.
Lest I may be saluted by some of your readers with the
salutation once given to St. Paul, " Thou art beside thy-
self," or lest I may be looked upon as one of those who
delight to make the dark more dark, and give a gloomier
tinge to the picture than reality would warrant, suffer
me to present, through the medium of your journal, to
the authorities and influential men of this great town a
few scenes which I sketched in my ministerial diary. I
shall first refer you to the hospital which, as a clergyman
of the district, it is my duty to attend.
CASE I.—A few months ago I made my usual visit
to the institution, when, upon entering one of the wards,
to my perfect dismay and horror, I found a man who,
although bleeding profusely from frightful wounds in the
head, received while fighting, was raving and frantic from
the effects of excessive drinking—he was as furious as a
chafed lion—he used the most foul and obscene language,
and uttered the met fearful blasphemies-1w eyes darted

and blazed with fiendish wrath and viciousness, and so
utterly did this frenzied paroxysm overwhelm and de-
monize him, that the usual respect for my office, which
generally, in cases of intemperance, is seen, however
slightly, was so far forgotten, that he welcomed ME
SPECIALLY with such a torrent of oaths and filthiness of
speech, that I was compelled to leave; and I heard after-
wards that his state of intoxication was so desperate; that
the surgeons found it necessary to strap him to his bed ere
they could perform the benevolent duties of their pro-
fession. You ask me how came this man there in such a
horrid and disgusting state ? He and a friend met—they
entered a low beer-shop—drank to excess—enslaved their
reason—left there intoxicated—made a second call upon
another " public-house," the master of which house,
although he saw their deplorable and beastly condition,
freely and readily responded to their call, " more drink "
—more drink—then they quarrel—fight—disturb the
peace—one falls to the ground wounded, is brought to the
hospital still drink—suffers for weeks—feeds on and enjoys
the fruits of pure benevolence which have been generously
provided for poor and unfortunate sufferers.
CASE 2.—1 have known of several within the last few
months brought into the institution in a state of death-
like insensibility, the result of long and continued drink-
ing, and some of whom have passed from time to GOd's
dread tribunal in that awful state.

CASE 3.—lt was only on Thursday last that I went
to the bedside of a man whose head was covered with
blood and wounds, and, upon asking him the cause, he
said be had been fighting, when drunk, with another man.
CASE 4.—A day or two ago I found a man lying there
with a terribly fractured arm—the fracture received
from a fall while drunk. I found, sad to say, he had
been a most respectable man—a man of more than com-
mon education—once a devout and earnest member of a
Christian church, but, alas! he had drunk deeply, and lost
himself.

Did I not fear to trespass on your columns, I could
recount numberless others ; I could tell of women falling
down stairs in a state of intoxication, breaking arm or
leg, and carried here under the brutalizing effects of liquor.
But now for the district.

CASE I.—A few months ago, on the Sunday, I was, as
usual, going to the afternoon service in the school-room,
when I found the street in sad confusion and disorder,—two
men partly naked, and fighting fiercely, opposite the place
of Divine worship—both of them drunk to excess. The
police-officer then on duty, being unable by himself to en-
counter these intoxicated savages, sent for the help of
some of his brethren, who, coming to the spot, after
a terrible scuffle managed to secure the men, and restore
peace and order.

CASE 2.—The day following (Monday), having to go
into my district several times, I was compelled to witness
two disgusting scenes, both the result of drunkenness,—
the first, two women, with dishevelled hair, bloody coun-
tenances, matted heads, clothes torn from their backs,
heads bleeding, both raging like furies. The second case,
—a man in a frenzy from intemperance, disturbing thepeace
and quiet of the street ; when taken home by some kind
friend who was passing by, so furious and fiend-like was
he, that his wife and children grew pale with fear at his
approach, and shuddered when he staggered into the abode.
I heard the history of the man, and found that he had
been in respectable circumstances—for a time a consistent
member of a religious body, a kind father, and indulgent
husband, a quiet neighbour, and a steady and industrious
workman. But in a fatal hour the winning voice and
syren-call of Bacchus caught his ear, and made him her
victim.

CAsu 3.—Last week, passing through the street, I
saw, at mid-day, two men, intoxicated, stripped to their
waists, fighting, set on and encouraged by a throng alike
the infatuated and senseless victims of strong drink.
CASE 4.—A Monday or two ago, in passing down one
street only, before eleven o'clock in the morning, I met
FORTY drunken women, all tumbling and reeling home
to their miserable and affrighted children.
CASE s.—Last Sunday I visited a house where I found
children and room in sad confusion—fright seen on every
countenance—the poor wife in tears,—face swollen. Upon
inquiry I found the husband a man given to excessive
intemperance. It appears he is often drunk twice or thrice
in a-day ;he spends every penny of the money he earns in
the ale-house, the wife keeping a large family by her own
exertions. Last Saturday he came home in a state of wild
and unmanageable drunkenness; kicked his wife unmerci-
fully with his thick-nailed boots, struck her on the face,
broke three of her teeth, and then, like a brute, went to bed.
Numerous are the families I visit in their chairless
and bedless hovels, surrounded by squalid and filthy
poverty,—a patch of dirty straw cast into the far corner;
a poor, haggard-looking wife and mother, in the midst of
starving and ill-clad children; and when I ask the cause, my
suspicions are confirmed. The father—the husband—with
his pound, thirty shillings, or two pounds weekly, is
allured, is seduced, is beguiled to the drinking booth,
or the more luxurious and princely " gin-palace," and
there, amid jovial riot and Bacchanalian song, amid wanton
dance, and the sparkling wine-bowl, or the less costly
ale-cup, he drowns the thought of crying children asking
for bread— of broken-hearted wife, wild and mad with sor-
row, as she sees in fancy's eye the cruel monster, who swore
in sight of heaven to love and cherish her, squandering
with prodigal and thoughtless hand the hard, hard earn-
ings of the six-days' toil. My present task is made more
painful when I am forced to say that such cases, so
revolting, are daily brought before my eyes, that they
are multiplying fast, are on a rapid increase, and
that woman, tender-loving woman too, often acts the
tragic part of murderess and destroyer of her children's,
her husband's home and comforts—that woman, winning
woman too, forgetting her pure and lovely nature, and
sinking into the abhorred hag of Bacchus' train, offers
her gentle offspring as worshippers and victims for his
bloody altar. These are facts—facts undeniable—not
the dreams or pencillings of poetic minds—but glaring
and appalling facts. Shall these continue ? Can they ?
indeed they must not —they cannot so continue with im-
punity ; retribution, dire retribution on such as these—
retribution in the dreadful form of plague and pestilence ;
a country cannot thrive and prosper while a vice, like some
ferocious vulture, feeds upon its vitals. What can a
kingdom be—what will she be—whose vast and multi-
plying masses— whose fast-increasing children of the
workshop, wharf, anvil, and the plough (the strength and
sinew of a people) become the sottish and idle votaries of
intoxicating Bacchus—who steep their senses and benumb
their fine feelings, and destroy their strength of arm and
limb in the maddening and enfeebling vat of horrid
drunkenness ? What can a kingdom be—what can a
nation be—whose rising generation— whose future men
and women—whose children, male and female, are nou-
rished in the midst of vice—who live and move amid the
scenes of vilest sensuality—children listening to the ob-
scene and filthy jest of a besotted father—listening to the
dreadful oath and wanton speeches of a drunken mother
just returned from the neighbouring ale-house ? What
can a country be—what will she be with an increasing
multitude of such as these—what—what ?

Public authorities, and men of influence in the town, lend
me your ear, while I entreat you with all earnestness to
help in stemming the torrentof drunkenness that threatens
to demoralise and wasteyour country's people—entreat your
energy and zeal in checking and opposing the bold and
dauntless march of desolating intemperance. I suppli-
cate your co-operation with the clergy of the town in
endeavouring to devise some plan whereby the lower
classes may be sheltered, may be screened from the fas-
cinating temptations that beset them. I entreat you, if it
be possible, to cease adding to the frightful number of
licensed " spirit-houses ;" cease from sanctioning at every
corner, and at every turn of our over-crowded districts,
buildings, which, by their extent and external decoration
and grandeur, and by their internal adornment of sculp-
ture, painting, and the charms of mirth, music, and in-
toxicating drinks, shall entice the unwary passer-by to
enter those doors which too often prove to be the gate
"that inclineth to death." I entreat you to exert your
authority and influence in closing entirely all public-
houses on the Lord's day. 0, ye see not, and ye know
not, as I do, of scenes of sensual riot that pollute the
evening of that holy day. Deliver us from the withering
curse of open "drinking palaces" on the Sabbath evening.
We ministers of the Church may wear ourselves
away; we may visit the chamber of poverty and vice from
morn to eve ; we may point the outcast and the vile to the
" fountain open for sin and uncleanness ;" we may plead,
reason, and exhort the drunkard to forsake the path of
premature death, and the horrors of eternal despair; we
may spend our strength ; we may sacrifice our days to
works of ministerial love and charity ; and our hearts may
throb, and our pulse beat high, and our bowels yearn to
reform and bring home the wanderer and the vile, but
alone—alone as we are single-handed in the conflict, and
worse than alone, while those professing the Gospel of
purity and sobriety, and virtue, are getting gain' are
extending their domain, and accumulating fortunes
by the multiplying of those haunts of drunkenness
—alone in a densely populated district, what are we—
what can we do ? We exert ourselves beyond our strength
—we feel already sinking in the fight. As lovers of your
country—as Britons proud of her unsullied flag—proud of
British valour, and British virtue, and British blessings—
as Christians—as Churchmen who venerate and love the
holy temple of youe fathers, and who desire to preserve
her respected sanctity—as philanthropists, as men who
know the joys of a virtuous home and virtuous wives, and
loving and obedient children, help—aid to banish the
curse—to eradicate the disease that, like a plague-spot,
widens, enlarges, and mars the otherwise glorious beauty
of your fatherland ; help to drive the pestilential evil from
your town—a sin that fills your jails, crowds your work-
houses, throngs your hospitals, depopulates your country,
carries to an untimely grave the healthy and robust among
the labouring classes—a sin that multiplies your destitute
widows and famishing orphans—a sin that profanes and
desecrates God's holy day.
Abstain from such rapid licensing as heretofore, and
close these houses on the Lord's-day.
I am, Sir, CLERICUS.
Liverpool, Nov. 3, 1853.