Smyrna times., 1856-08-27

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land. We might have gone into our almshouses
and witnessed the evidences of the destruction
of property and the loss of character and
health, produced by these abandoned specula-
tors in rum. And if there had been, in this
State as there is in nearly FL others, Lunatic
Asylum, we might have gone into that, and be-
| held the effects of the rum-license system in
those incarcerated therein the countenances
from which cleaned no ray of intelligence-in
the sunken cheek void of expresson-in the
lustreless eye, gazing upon the walls of their
prison-cell but seeing nOthingl All this we
might have seen. But, o, who shall depict the
sad scenes that were hidden from the gaze of
the world by the impenetrable veil of private
suffering! Who shall enter the desolate homes
of drunkards and unveil to the world the untold
misery that there exists! What eye shall scan.
what language express, what pen describe, the
miseries which are unknown to the world and
unfelt by any save the members of the drunk
ards family! Here is the place to which all
the effects of ihtemperance converge! 1t is
here that they meet in one gigantic aggregate
of unutterable woe-falling with all their crush
ing weight upon the weakest of the human
race-women and children! This portion of
the effect of licensing devils in human
shape to sell rum, who shall describe -
Why, need we wonder if so many of the
petitions which crowded upon the last Leg
islature were filled with the names of ,oomen-
mothers, wives, and daughters. 1t is said that
on the passage of the Prohibitory Law, wo-
man, the wife of drunkard, "fel on her knees
and thanked God when she heard it, We can
fancy the intense anxiety with which she had
witnessed the progress of the cause of Prohi-
bition prior to the passage of this law in our
State. She had seen Neal Dow and John B.
Cough, amid the calumniatons of their oppo-
nents, first fling the banner of Prohibition to
+. the breeze and declare unwaveling hostility to
the desolating advances of intemperance. She
had watched that banner. She had seen it
sometimes barely discernable above the tumult
of the conflict between the powers of light and
the powers of darkness-sometimes trailing in
defeat with its champions almost poweress and
disheartened-at others, full high advanced.
10 with its determined followers pressing bravely
10 onward to the consummation of their glorious
,s object! And, finally, she had seen that bright
ir banner of hope rent by the storms of many a
~ hard fought contest, planted vctoriously on the
Il. very threshold of the strongest fortress of in
q. temperance! Maine, the " Star IN the East,
". was redeemed, emancipated from the worst
at kind of slavery-the SLAVERY Of rum. This
of woman, in common with al others who knew
IN by sad experience the miseries OF intemperance
pr. reioiced at this glorious result and hailed tht
triumph in Maine as the harbinger Of Hope.
a And, borrowing impulse alike from the tri
nd umph of the present and the interest of tn
On future, the cause of Prohibition spread rapid
over other States. State after State yielded t
cir its irresistible advance. AT length it burst uT
nee on the Diamond State. In the grasp of rur
aw were many of her sons In a state of despai
ous were many their families. This woman who re
, joiced atthe passage of the Prohibitory Law,wa
one not by thousands the only one who hailed wit
the Joy the effort of the temperance party to brin
nix it before the Legislature of Delaware. 1t pas
we ed both branches, and Delaware was added
um- the list States, which waved in brillal
unp triumph the banner of Prohibition.
ac- At the passage of this law and upon the b
q to ginning of its enforcement, a yell of despa
,pes went upward-or rather dOlunward-from Il
Of rumsellers of this State. Following the lei
ates of their organ-the DeIdware State Report
be- they declared the law to be tyrGnnicaL :
nee And why !-mark the reason =" Because
mot threw men out of employment-took away Il
the means by which honest men gained their liv
Ieny lihood ~ Threw men out of employment /!
road If men who rely upon degrading their fello
ate! man-upon giving him that which will inev
,ath- bly, ruin him for time and eternity and TAXI
lrna- in exchange all his earthly possessions and
Toice ducing him to poverty-entaling upon his far
ance ly all the innumerabe curses of intemperan
pro- If men who carry on a. traffic which, althou
They not prohibited by the civil law, is yet unden
} of a bly, contrary to the law of God-contrary
most the divine law for livelihood-can make {
mon, appeal in their own behalf, in the name of {
) and why cannot he who merely pliers from
ernal neighbor small portion of his property mi
ne of the same! Why could not the counterfeit
lives, when law was passed declaring his occupai
repu- a crime, have made the same appeal?
eigh- The Reporter we know to have urged in
in tenuation of the criminality of this occupat
worse, selling rum-the assertion that many OF
1t for rumsellers of Delaware "were the most hol
strain able and ind-hearted men in the communt
,e dc- This we would rather see than hear. We k
t Pro- it is false as far as our knowledge extend
vas no Honorable and kind-heGrted, indeed
ID the have seen, more than once, the proprietor
rm of these heils take knowingly the last siGpenC
nd his poor inebriate's earnings, and in excha
place before him the consuming POISON
e, and we have known them to be kind-heGrted!
eepers we have seen them give their liquor to
a only whom they knew TO have money ia their p
a true cts hut IL was only in order that they m