Lancaster gazette. [volume] (Lancaster, Mass.) 1828-1830, 1828-05-13
MORAL.
FOR THE LANCASTER GAZETTE.

eACeHSA'C duu PiOauinS Siio~'' P
bly, several of your readers now realize the
kind solicitude, and daily anxiety, which a
neighbouring family costs me. Possibly
some of your correspondents may suggest
effectual means of relieving me, and rescu-
ing my neighbour and his household from
impending wo.
refer to an ingenious mechanic. In
early life his habits were correct, he was an
industrious, attentive, promising young man,
and married respectfully. His prospects
were good, his business prosperous, his cal
culations iudicious, several years, and the
little family was continually rising, in private
and public estimation.
His character established, his affairs well
arranged, and his property quite decent, he
saw no danger, nothing wrong, after giving
proper directions to his apprentices, in spend
ing social hour, especially in the evening,
at a neighbours store. He generally found
amusement there and often met people with
whom he had business. In process of time,
his calls at the store became so frequent,
that some of his most valued friends, and his
wife among them, began to be anxious. Her
father, venerable elderly man, in a very
pleasant, tender, and affectionate manner,
with smile suggested to his son-in-law,
shat mechanick's shop, standing too near a
store or tauer1, ,Uas sometimes defac'd by
its smoke" Still, when a leasure hour oc-
Cured, (and-h he soon found such hours with
out difficulty he would step into the store +;
and often find himself unexpectedly detain-
ed there, till his business in the shop had
suffered. His love of store-company, and his
consequent attachment to ardent spirits, in
sensibly acquired strength, till his amiable
wife, perceiving this gloomy change in his
character, and foreseeing its natural and
ordinary consequences, lost her ambition ;
her spirits were depressed, she was detected,
discouraged, and often seen in tears. In
the tenderest, the most impressive and affec-
tionate language, she told him her distress
sing apprehensions-tha his neighbours and
friends saw with regret the change in his
character, and bewaled its inevitable effects
on himself, on her, and on their family. All
this was lost 1t was too late He was angry,
and challenged her, his neighbours,a land even
the store-keeper, TO name the time when he
was intoxicated, or incapable of manag-
Cbo ,a,,1J l,,f
insisted, still weeping, that his habits were
greatly altered he was more from home,
from his shop, from his family than formerly,
and it aOas thought he ,Cas getting into bad
,cay. But the tavern and the store had be-
come his favourite places of resort, and re-
main so to this day. His habits have subject
ed his family to innumerable hardships and
notifications and though that sorrowful
wife, and that faithful and industrious moth
er, has done all in her power to keep the
family comfortable, to render them respecta-
Bile, vrtuous, and pious, the means ofeduca-
ton enjoyed by the children have been de-
plorably limited.
The father of that family is now between
fifty and sixty, and though not destitute of
bread, he is counted with men IN Eo,c ciircum-
stances. He begs the Collector to be pa
tient-"it is next to impossible for me-
chanick, in these hard times, to get money
for his work, but he will call and pay his
taxes before-." What the IRREGULAR
ty of his habits costs him in a year is a ques-
ton on which he always differs widely from
his wife, and from all his correct and Judi
cious neighbours.
Now to the point. The anxiety men
toned, in which presume many readers of
the Gazette sympathize with me, is this few
of my neighbours talk better, or more bold
ly, of intemperance than the Uery man, whose
family so deeply feels, and so justly bewails
its effects. Most ardently he approves and
apphuds every exertion, publick or private,
to check the prevalence ofthis great calami-
ty; and though his stomach is daily and re-
peatedly stimulated by the bottle, still, mere
ly because he guards against absolute drunk
enness, no cautions, warnings, arguments, or
admonltlons, relating to intemperance, can
touch has feelings-they are pointed at
drunkards only How many amiable fami-
lies are now depressed, suffering thousand
forms of wo, by the intemperance of parents,
who were never, or very seldom, seen in
toxicated? ask assistance from any cor
respondent of the Gazette, who can furnish
a weapon, with which this vice can be sue
cessfully assailed, in the man, the parent,
whose character, whose family, whose stand
lnp in Socitv iS sufferinr and 1rboeo Lo..