Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1850-08-29

same prison, l7O male convicts 1913 of whom
drank to excess before imprisonment, and 90 of
them were intoxicated when committing the crimes
for which they are punished
There are among these prisoners So husbands
and fathers, who have, in the aggregate, 1s0 chill
dren, who are exposed to the evils incident to
their fatheir's position.
For information upon this subject we have
searched the records of insanity, and there learn
the melancholy fact that large portion of the lu.
macy which comes under the inspection of the off
GERS of our Insane Retreat, has its origin in ntem-
perance. -. ---... ~ -.
We have searched, too for the legitimate causes
of idiocy, and though we have no statistics upon
this subject in our own State, we learn from re-
port of Committee of the Massachusetts Legsla-
ture, appointed in 1913, to investigate this SUBJ
ject, that of thirteen hundred idiots in that State
between eleven and twelve hundred were the chii-
dren of drunken parents committee of the
Ohio Legislature, appointed for similar purpose
report two thousand idiots in that State, very
large maj jority of which have either been intemper-
ate themselves, or are the descendants of intem.
perate parents.
From hence, we have turned to the history of
murder in our own State, and learn the singular
fact that nearly all the murders which have been
committed here during the last twenty years, have
either had their origin in the grog shop, or their
authors have been prompted to their deeds of vio-
lence under the stimulus of strong drinks. Six
murders *s* have been committed in this State
the last year, and the authors of five of them have
been proved to have been urged "a sf,e fatal word
under the maddening influence oI4Atoxicating Ii
quors. We have been favored with the testmo-
ny of Jude Ellsworth, of the Supreme Court ol
Errors Of the State which is that eight-tenths oil
all the criminal cases he ever tried and every case
of murder ever investigated by him, have had their
origin in ntemperance.
From still further increase of pauperism and
crime, with the terrible consequences to communi-
ty incident upon their further development, large
potion of the people feel that they have right
to be protected. Whatever compromise may have
been heretofore tacit.y acknowledged in the ad
ministration of the State Government, by virtue
of which, under our present system, few have
made themselves rich by crowding our prisons and
poor houses, as well as furnishing victims for the
/
fdeath the people feel that this Legislature is un-
der solemn obligations to exercise the ample and
unquestoned power vested in them, and to say
that hencefoTh and forever there shall be NO MORE
/ legalized extension of this great work of desola
ton and death; no more special privileges giver
to men engaged in that traffic, which, more thar
any other slavery endured on earth, robs men o
their manhood, sunders the family relation anc
transforms men into drunkards and criminals.
Your Committee are deeply sensible that no OBJ
ject whatever so vitality affects the whole commu
nifty, in all its social and moral interests, as this
and they can only expect an efficient remedy fo
the gross wrongs under which the people suffer
by prohibiting entirely the traffic which is the pri
mary source Of the evil As far as we can ascer
tain, those States which have enacted such law!
are eminently in advance of our own in ability t
abridge the sources of pauperlsm and crime, anC
Of course to lessen the expenses incident thereto
None of the New England States, save our own
now sanction the sale of intoxicating liquors as
beverage, each having prohibitory laws, more o
less stringent, according to their circumstances.