Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1853-08-17
Dealers In Liquor.

-
There are many men engaged in the sale
Of ardent spirits otherwise than by the retail,
who, from their known characters for homes
ty and integrity in all the walks of life, it Is
butjust and fair to concede, have never looked
di~spassionately and calmly at the injurious
tendency of their course upon their fellow
men. They have acted upon the principle
that it is advantageous to them in the pur-
suit of business, and have prosecuted their
in~vestigations.n n farther. 10 a gEeat extent,
they see. not the sqaallid poverty and abject
misery that surround those who visit the grog
shops, and they are therefore partiolly re-
lieVed of e%cealar demonstration as to the gi-
gantic evils of the liquor traffic and hence
they have not felt particularly called on to
Danish it from their establishments.
To such men we would address a few
words of kind reasoning, and ask them, in
view of their responsibility to God and the
community, if it be not their duty to discard
this branch of business and lend their aid to
the suppression of so enormous an evil?
By the most moderate computation, it is
believed that at least one thousand deaths
are annually occasioned in North Carolina,
by the use of ardent spirits. 1t causes an
annual useless expenditure of three millions
of dollars in our State alone and the loss of
as much more by bad bargains, mismanagc-
ment, time wasted, and unnumbered forms
of M-thrift. 1t makes one thousand paupers
every year, beside a countless multitude of
impoverished men, women and children who
are not classed as avowed paupers. At least
thTee-ffths of all the thefts, broils, breaches
ofthe peace and other crimes and misdemean-
ors are occasioned by it. It is the direct
cause of one hundred murders every year in
North Carolina. 1t brings about a heavy ad-
dition ts your taxes, by costs and prosecutions
in the punishment of offences and fastens
upon society twenty thousand habitual or oc-
%casional ~drunkards And this alone in our
own STATED!
Remember, too, that around every one Of
these crimes and misdemeanors, around each
of these deaths-around each instance of pau
perism and impoverishment, nay, around each
single act of drunkenness there cluster sucI
a throng of sorrows, not only to the wretcheC
%inebriate, but to relatives and friends, tina
for every draught of his from the ~so-calle,
:" cup of Kindness" it may be truly sail
some human heart has felt a pang. And ia
! the most numerous and most torturing O
! those pangs have wruhg female hearts tn
S hearts 0 ~fsisters, mothers, daughters. orwives
d pangs of shame and grief, or Of terror, for
e brothers, a sons, a fathers, or a husband
n disgrace, or danger, outrage, ruin or deatE
s Search your memories--al who are at a
T. observant of human Efe-and say, if a vas
o majority of all the vices, and crimes of ever
IS dye, that have occurred within your view
are not directly or indirectly traceable to til
Liquor-Trafic?
ID Look upon these facts-ponder them vel
at and decide with your own consciences rs
a the course you should pursue in the matte
or Let him who is engaged in the aaanqfactu
m of intoxicating drinks consider them also
k. they apply with equal force to him. aud wi
i'd we trust, lead him to the rightfu1 conclusion
u OF abandoning at once and forever Il
as making of the direst enemy to man on t
t /; earth.