Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1858-06-10
G&mgnamt M(att1.
From the Spirit Of the Age.
THE DANGERS OF THE LIQUOR
r.r DRINKER.' =


In the olden time, when our fathers earn
ed their bread by the sweat of their brows,
there were, comparatively, but few drunk
ards. Then there were but few idlers, and
hence but few to lounge at the tavern and
grog-shop. Then too, spirituous liquors were
less adulterated, and fewer poisonous drugs
were used in their composition. The alcohol
being generally pure, it was used with grea-
ter safety, and in those days men drank their
dram in the morning, and perhaps a glass be-
fore dinner, from youth to old age, and re-
NAMED sober, industrious, upright men. But
is it so now Do you know q man within the
last twenty years, who commenced and con-
tinued his regular morning dram at twenty
years Of age, who didnot becomes drunkard
before he was thirty2 We do not r~ecollect
one. One cause of this, is the unfortunate
change in the industrial habits of the coun-
try. Our grand-fathers, worked all their
lives-our fathers worked till they were for
ty.6ve-the present race can hardly be said
to average ten good working years in the
whole of a lifetime, and our children very
clearly indicate they do not intend to work
at all. This then, perhaps, is the great
propelling cause of the %intemperance ofthe
land. Idleness, the mother of almost every
vice, is the promoter.of drunkenness. The
man who drinks at all, is in imminent dan
ger from this source. A dram will make
him feel that he can easily do his job in
half the time, and when he has taken three,
he is too rich to work, and then the thing is
up. .
The adulteration of liquors and the use Of
poisonous drugs and acids in their manufac-
ture, no doubt contributes very far towards
the increase Of inebriation. When it was
first made public, that strychnine was extern
sively employed in the manufacture of whis-
key, many a topper stood aghast and trembled
at the thought Of drinking poison. But a man
who loves liquor will get used to any thing:
Now they. will drink it, poison or no poison,
though perhaps every man who drinks a
quart, swallows enough of poison to kill two
men, if taken otherwise. What is to be the
effect? The days Of the drunkard are to be
shortened. Old age will come on at30 or
IS, blindness, premature feebleness Of the
limbsand joints, tremulousness, a dry, parch-
ed skin, a haggard couptenance, will be his
portion, and soon demons dire will haunt his
fevered brain, till death and hell shall close
his history. May he take timely warn
ing. "
The extensive adulteration of domestic IL
quors in this country, is known to every one.
No dealer in the poison pretends now to de-
ny it.. Perhaps however a still larger bust,
ness is done, in the adulteration of foreign
liquors. One of the most complete systems
of fraud now practised on the community
and the government, is connected with liquor
adulteration. There is least five times the
quantity ofFrench Brandy sold in this coun-
try, that Is imported from France. One
gallon of pure French Brandy will make a.
bout FIVE of the miserable counterfeit sold for
that article throughout the country. Hun
dreds of men are engaged in its manufacture,
and perhaps the officers of justice are cogni-
zant of it, and leave the makers to pursue,
unhurt and unmolested, their murderous
schemes. 81
More MADEIRA Wine is sold in the United
States annually, than has been made in the
Island of Madeira for the last FIVE years-so
of all the foreign wines. One gallon Of
genuine wine, with Legations of pure spirits,
Is gallons of water and 2 gallons of white
syrup, with coloring Ingredients, make up
the component of much Of the wine that is
sold. Many, chemists, in fact, require none
Of the genuine wine, relying upon other
things, drugs, acids, &C., to give the liquid
made of their compound, the proper favor Of
any particular wine. Reader, there is dan.
ger in the ~glass-whiskey or wine, it mat
tiers not, there Is disease and death in it
Close your mouth against it, nowand forever.