Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1852-08-12
Gen. Scott ON Temperance.

go Gem. SCOtL Oh nIeAnpcrlnces
Gen. Scott, even before the temperance
reform was commenced as an organized
measure, employed his pen in exposing. and
in attempting 10 persuade from, the monster
evil. In 1921, he wrote an Essay upon the
subject, from which we. take the following
extracts:
.Itis now many years since the writer of
this essay was frs. made to reflect, with
some intensity on the vice of drunkenness,
whilst endeavoring 10 apply aremedy, in a
small corps. 10 that greatest source OF disease
and INSTRUMENTATION in the rank and file Of
any army. Having the attention so awak-
ened, and subsequently, being much accus.
toned to change ofpIace from one extreme
ofthe Union 10 the another. he has been
led to observe. with more than usual keen.
ness, The ravages ofthe same habit among
the more numerous classes Of the communi.
~. The conviction had thus been forced
upon him that, Of all accidental evils, this
is The most disastrous to our general popula'
tion.
Insanity from other causes is, for exam.
pie, exceedingly rare. The yellow fever
only visits, occasionally, some Of our larges.
cities on the seaboard--lhe small pox, once
the terror Of the world, has disappeared be-
fore The benign influence of vaccination
but the vruS Of in,emperance sill circulates
everywhere, and saps the foundations OF
morals, health, and happiness! For, not
minu,ely to dwell, in this place, on The in
Vulnerable disorders, both domestic and pub
lie, which hourly result from the earlier
progress of intemperance-happily in some
few individuals never carried TO excess nor
ripened into fixed habit-and all such ills
alone constitute a ftightful aggregate-how
few are the families that have not been,
within the memory Of the living, plunged
into the deepest affliction byihis baneful vice!
that have not had son blghted in the
vigor Of youth and genius by lis peslental
breath fond husband alienated by the
syren-or father laid in an untimely grave
by The destroyer, leaving tender offspring
destitute and fororn. Lives there person
who believes this picture overdrawn2 Lee
him 60 forth from his corner and enquire o
The first man Of observation in his way
whether such caIamities do not almost daily
occur within the sphere of his knowledge
There can be no doub! that magistrates, law
yers, physicians, divines, and others. much
in the world, or much connected with III
business and suferings, would universally
concur in one mourniul reply
"Tis quenchless thirst
Of ruinous ebriety that prompts
His every action and imbrutes the man
Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood
He gave them in his childrenS' veins, and hates
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love"
is there, then, no an.ido,e for this evil
no kind preventive TO the mother vice whic
augments, in thousand ways, the genera
sum of human wretchedness! We ar
told of an ancient spring, the waters {
which gave 10 those who even once dram
Of them, sovereign disIasle for inoxicasin
liquors. In our times. private association
have in,erposed their benevolent efforts t
arrest The burning fluid; moraists have de
claimed, and legislatures enacted partial Law
against it, and The pulpit, too, armed viii
divine revelations, everywhere sends (otl
its denuncialions. The evil spreads.
master yet remains TO be found.
General Scott proceeds 10 show some
the happy results which would flow from ii
adoption Of temperance principles
Thus it may be shown, (and some Of Il
probable results will be more strictly den
onstraed,) that, under the operation Of Il
proposed law. ardent or burning spiri
might gradually, and in the lapse Of fe
years, be almost entirely banished from Il
country: other beverages, salu,ary in The
effects, or comparatively innoxious, subs
ruted by corresponding degrees; home indu
Try maintained and promoted;. disease siI
ptf6ed and diminishedj freside enjoymer
fenced in against their most powerful enem
in short our general population render
as moral and robust as 1t is, by inherilan
and in fact, politically free.
oh. will not be attempted TO class the e
terprise herein proposed, with the great re
oluiion which gave birth 10 our country,a q
practical example to suffering nations!
But certainly, 10 break the shackles of Il
vice which has held and is likely 10 ht
millions Of our countrymen in stale
moral bondage and Of physical debilil
q would be reform only inferior in imp
lance to thai happiest and most glorious
human achievements .... .. ..