Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1853-11-02
From the Albany Register.
Tntemnaranna

The prisoner, who is nineteen years OF age,
pleaded as an excuse for his conduct that he
was drunk at the time, and did not know
what he was doing.
NeD York Ecening Post.
Such was the concluding paragraph of an
account of the arrest of a young mar for
robbery, who was taken in the act Of crime.
1t is no new plea. 1t is heard in every court,
on almost every trial. 1t forms the subject
Of appeals to the sympathies of j%uries, to the
mercy of the courts, and to the clemency of
the executive. We refer to those who are
connected with the administration of Grim
inal justice, for the truth of this. We were
for three years connected with that admin
~istration in our city, and our heart was pain
cd and sickened by the constantly recurring
plea of inebriety as q paliation for crime
The wife, with q face bruised by the brutal
ity Of a drunken husband, plead for mercy
in his behalf, charging his violence to strong
drink. She told Of the time when he was
atfectionate and kind-when they were hap
ply, until the destroyer came and dashed their
cup Of life with contention and strife. Chill
dren, ragged and hunger-wOrn, plead for in
temperate parents and parents for intemper-
ate children. Eyes red with weeping, or
swollen with intemperance, appealed to the
bench, the jury and tho audience. Intern
perance ecming up from it's orgies for pun
ishment, thronged the halls of justice. 1t
was a sad exhibition, and furnished food for
anxious reflection. Can any thing be done
to stay this tide Of destruction that is run
ming onward through the land, swelling and
increasing in volume yearly, that sweeps
away and buries in it's turbid food, thousands
Of our people? that fills homes with desola-
ton, and prisons with convicts-that visits
the rich, the poor, and the middle classes
alike-that breaks the hearts of parents, and
makes the young hopeless in life, in death,
and hopeless in eternity, that takes the strong
man from his labor, the intellectual man from
his studies, the official from his duties, the
husband from his wife, the parent from his
children, the children from their parents, and
hurries them all, a great army of the fallen,
to a death and grave Of dishonor? To this
great aggregate Of social calamities AM pri-
vate griefs, it adds enormous taxes and bur-
thens upon the frugal and temperate. 1t fills
the alms-houses, with paupers, and swells to
an enormous amount the expenses of the
courts and prisons. Without it the iails
would be comparatively tenantless, and the
criminal courts deserted.
Can any thing be lone to stop this mon
strous evil, that goes on increasing with ac-
celebrated ratio all around us? What say
the statesmen who shape the destiny of ma
tions, and work public good? Can any thing
be done? Who will make the effort to save
our people from a scourge to which, in COM
p%arison, the plague that swept over Europe
in years long gone by, gathering its harvest
Of thousands, was comparatively harmless.
That destroyed only the bodies of men by a
woodworking disease. Intemperance des-
trovs the souls as well as the bodies of its
hundreds of thousands of annual victims
1t leaves no pleasant memories, no incense
to the living from the graves or its dead.