Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1852-02-24
IPRICE ONE CENT.
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MISREPRESENTATION "a, 1852.
From the New Tribune.
The Core Of the Rum Question.

inierfer ing with mems natural rights, sub
iecting them to nquisitorial searches, re-
ducing the profits oflandlords, brea ling up
the business of dstIlers, &C., but no man
has ever yet asserted, so far as we have
seen or heard that Crime, Mi cry, Pauper-
ism, Vagrancy and the other fearfully in
creasing Social evils Of our time, would be
increased by the passage OF the act de-
handed of our Legislature by the prayers
of our 200, 900 petitioners. On the con-
tfary, if the RumseIers themselves were
examined successfully and compelled TO
make answer on oath,-'Do you believe
that our JaIs, Prisons, and Poor Houses
would be largely depopulated by the pas
sage of the Maine Law!--we believe ma
iority of them would be constrained to ans
wer, 'We do =
Of what avail, then, are vague ahstrac-
tons in the presence OF such fearful facts
as the Rum Traffic involves! Men in thou
sands are burning up their bodies aud burn
ing oul theil souls with the liquid madness,
which fills their homes with unspeakable
wretchedness and dooms their children to
shame, restitution and vice; yet we stand
paltering over foggy generalitles as if it
were question concerning the rings Of
Saturn or the mountain in the moon. pa
We protest against this cold blooded way
of viewing the matter The question on
which our legislators are called to pass in
considering the Maine Law concerns the
happiness of families, the prevalence OF Vice
or Virtue, the safety of human life. Ofthe
last hundred murders in our State, it rs per-
fectly within bounds to say that ninety
would never have been perpetrated hut for
Intoxicating Liquors. OF the sixteen hum
dred criminals in our State Prisons, fully
seven eightbs are either the children Of
dflInkardS, or themselves maddened by
liquor when they first impeled to crime OF
the eighteen thousand persons in one year
arrested on charges of crime and INSIDE
meanor, less than fifty were ToiaI Ahsti-
nentS, while a large majority We're exces-
sive drinkers. Of the denizens of our
Aims House, nine tenths have either been
| tpplers or were reduced 10 want by the
! tipping of others Oar gaming houses and
| haunts of iufamy float their victims 10 per-
| dliiton on river of strong drink, without
Which they could scarcely and but meager-
| ly exist. Yetin full view of these appalling
facts, journalists coolly chop logic about the
| periIs of excessive legislation, the proneness
| of law makers to ntermeddle with what is
none of their business, &c. They might as
we'll call on our fireman 10 listen 10 grace
full and silvery-toned speech in the midst of
vast and spreading confagration.
Patriot you profess to love your Country,
and are ready to pour out your blood in her
defense. But He that ruleth his spirit is
greater than he that taketh city; and
People who have thoroughly conquered their
own vicious appetites need fear no foreign
enemy. The general adoption of the Maine
Law by our States would add more to the
strength, wealth, vigor, industry and proper.
lty of our Union than new Bunker Hill or
half dozen Buena Visias Help ms, Tor
your Country's sake, 10 carry the Maine
Law?
Christian! when you pray Thy kingdom
come do you really mean any thing? How
is The kingdom of God 10 come except
through the banshnent and overthrow of
social al d moral evils? Can it ever really
come into a world filed with grogshops and
their concomtants unless these shall be
cleared out TO make way for il? How can
you be indifferent or sluggish in view Of the
contest now IN progress?
Moralists of all creeds, Reformers of all
shades, Phianthropis of every name or
nature, we claim your assistance, we ask
your earnest and active co-opelegion The
triumph of this cause requires effort and sac 5
riice, but it is richly worth them Help us
to carry the Maine Law. Tfl sas