The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1831-1858, 1832-08-08

Intended it, however little he may have
thought of it, the nature Of his calling ha;
rendered it inevitable. He cannst be q
dealer IN spirits without becoming accessory
10 all this vice and ruin. r2. as.rs- 49,.
He does not wish TO create drunkards
lie does not take pleasure in multiplying
poverty, suffering and sin; he is astonlshed
that men can be such idiots and brutes; lie
wonders that they do not drink with mol
Grafton. Alas he does not reflect that the
inevitable tendency of the shop and the bar
room is TO ,lecoy men from themselves and
their self-command. He does not reflect
now hopeless it is, as all experience has
proved, that such places should exist, and
no men become Incorporate. Their exIs-
tence is certainly the occasion, if not the
cause, of vast proportion OF the evil. If
the poison were not freely offered for sale,
1t would not be purchased. ~
This is easily tested. How happens it
that in that village there were so many
neglected farms. and houses going to de-
cay; that so many families live in squalid-
ness and quarrelling, and that general
want OF enterprise marked its slovenly as
pect? There were four places in that VIII
lage at which strong drink was retaileG, and
it was the custom of the villagers to assem-
bic there and discuss the times. As nat
ural consequence they decame idle, shiitless.
slovenly, and quarrelsome. Now suppose
that twenty years ago the town had resolv-
ed that no retailers should be allowed there,
as has recently been done in Utica, N. Y. ).
that consequently no spirits had, since that
time, been carried there for sale. Who
can deny that the whole aspect Of things
null k.o kA~ - h. I1o,
see that the very persons who are now
worthless sots, would have grown up a
thriving, industrious population? This is
the result which we wish 10 see accomplish
ed throughout the community. 1t has al
ready been witnessed in some places, where
words have hardly power enough to ex
press the gratitude and gladness of the peo-
pie at the happy change. Whit binders
that the change should take place every
where? What binders that every commu-
nifty should be filled only with sober, thrifty.
enterprising men, helping forward instead
of keeping back the general good? What
hinders? Every one must see the answer
to he, the manufacture and sale of ardent
spirits. Let US turn the matter as we will,
it comes TO this at last. And until those
who are most concerned in the fact see it in
its true light, and become willing to sacri-
flee brief present gain to the welfare of
the community, the day of universal tenn
perance, with its train of blessings, will I've
retarded in its coming. They must first
lock up, for they hold the keys, the foun-
tans of that desolatiDg flood which now
overhows and stagnates upon the corrupt
ed land.
Honored be they who have done this
Honor to the names of those, the only per-
sons in any sense sufferers in this cause.
who have, with manly principle and consc-
entions self-denial, thrown away their gains
that their fellow men might be safe. They
already form numerous host, every day
witnesses accessons to their ranks. They
are now, and from this time forth they
must be, the most efficient promoters of the
anspicious reformation since each of Them
not only, like the resi- of US, refuses to
touch the poison as it flows. but absolutely
annihilates one of its streams. To these
men it belongs to finish the work which
others have SO propitiously begun.