Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-11-05

gained contributes to the shutting up Of 9
dram shop. And they must all be shut up.
the rum and the wine and the beer selling
grocery, and temperate drinking relinquish.
ed, or drunkenness can never be prevented,
society purified from crime, relieved from
pauperism, freed from disease, and human
life extended to its allowed limits.
That drunkenness, By a necessity Of ma
tire, is producedb By drinking; MODERATE,
CUSTOMARY, REPUTABLE DRINKING and
that such is the settled, unohanging order
of Providence and hence the frequent,
frightful, loathsome manifestation of this
abhorred malady, among, and only among
temperate drinkers, so called; that is,
among those who have the rashness, the
temerity, Ihad almost said the impiety, in
the face of this settled order of Gods un-
changing providence, to subject the living
fibre of their own organism to the corrosive
action of intoxicating poisons; poisons
furnished by the Author Of all good for
medicine, not for aliment-and not intended,
and declared by the effects they produce
not intended, for habitual use.
This discovery is not fancy but fact; an
ascertained, palpable, indubitable fact, at
the knowledge of which we have arrived by
colating the data furnished during other
ages and in other countries, and comparing
the same with the state Of things existing in
our own; in the prosecution, Of which iu-
quiry we have visited the localities where
intoxicating liquors are manufactured, and
sold, and drank Wehave marked their ef.
feet in the hut of ignorance, and the parlor
of fashion we have actually taken the
dimensions of the miseries they have oc-
casioned, and summed up the number Of the
dead which they have slain; and while do
ing this, we have been surprised to learn,
that drunkenness was not, as we had once
supposed, calamity resulting from some
single, sudden, overwhelming indiscretion,
or at most from some few fragrant, wanton
cases of criminal indulgence, into which
men of every class were liable to besurprised;
but that it was calamity confined to single
class, the moderate drinking class; that the
victims were never " teetotalers," but al
ways moderate drinkers, and the process al
ways moderate drinking process not sud-
den, but gradual, beginning when drinking
began: continuing with its continuance land
making its silent, undiscovered, unsuspec-
ted advance, covertly and without sign Of
progress or note of warning; till suddenly
friends and kindred are awakend to the
knowledge Of the alarming truth, that, Sc
duced by moderate drinking into drunkon-
ness, father, son orr brother lies in ruins.
And having discovered this truth, to wit,
that drinking, I mean temperate drinking,
is what makes drunkards; truth moment
ous indeed, and big with everlasting conse
quence-but truth hid for ages-and still
hid from numbers; having discovered this
truth, we hasten to announce it both to the
vender and the drinker; to announce it, not
in the language of rebuke and elimination,
but in that of Heavens own mercy-saying,
as an Apostle said, /" Brethren, I wot that
through ignorance ye have done this, as did
also your rulers" who have licensed and by
licensing sanctioned the doing. Andfull
we'll we know that even God winketh at
those bygone days of ignorance, though now,
and far as the light shineth, commandeth all
men eoerya0here to repent.
That self-denials and sacrifices will be re-
quired, in effecting that change in our social
habits which is called for by this discovery
of the deleterious effects of even the mod
crate use of intoxicating liquors on the hu-
man constitution, must be admitted. And
it must also be admitted that, so far as sacri-
fees are concerned, manufacturers and ven-
ders will be chief, I had almost said, the
only sufferers. Still it must be recollected
that those are sacrifices that patriotism as
we'll as religion sanctions; and such too as
are elsewhere called for: whenever in this
onward movement Of society any new and
valuable improvement is introduced. Not
canal can be excavated, a railroad con-
structed, steamboat started, or even a
spinning jenny or power loom put in mo-
ton, without impairing the fortune of. some
and taking away the means of procuring
bread from others.
And yet these partial temporary evils are
submitted to, and often without murmur,
even by the sufferers, cheered as they are by
the prospect of public, enduring, super
abouuding good.
But never was the endurance of private
temporary evils encouraged by the promise
of requital in the bestowment of such public
enduring and superaboundiug good as in the
case before us.
O.! could the employment of capital, and
the consumption of provisions, and the
waste of labor, in the manufacture of in,
toxicating liquors, be prevented; and could
the moral and physical energy, now paralyzed
by their use, be directed to the production
of comforts, how different would be the con.
dition of all classes-especially of the labor.
ing poor, who now, small as their earnings
are,. eagerly purchase, and unheedingly press
to their lips, that cup whichis ever, to those
who taste Of it, the cup of af1iction-often
even the cup of death
Brethren, iun-keepers, grocers, whose
business it has been to sell to drinkers the
drunkard's drink, has it never occurred tc
your minds that the liquors dispensed were
destined, though unseen by you, to blanch
! eonna nlnu of health To withnr some hlnssnn