The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1859-11-11
DiSSip at Among Americans.

DASSipsttloH AIlcnw americans.
We are beyond question, the most dis
sipated people in the world. We defy the
production of a record of any race of men
in any age SO thoroughly immersed in dis
sipations as the Americans. The Russians
drink seventy millions of brandy per year;
the Germans use incalculable quantities
Of beer and wine; the French, Italians,
Spanish, Portuguese, and all the Inhabitants
of the Mediterranean, indulge in the use
of vinous liquors, the domestic Irish drink
whiskey, the English swim IN ale, porter
and high proof brandies; the Americans
drink anything and verything, that will
inflame the esophagus and intoxicate the
brain. AS general rule we care nothing
in this country for quality; our aim is
quantity, The Americans drink as tho
they were in penal bonds to the manufac
turers of liquors. They consider their
heads as so many VOLCANOES, which must al
ways be in condition for an eruption.
1t is certainly high time to begin to look
at this matter seriously. The dissipation
among the young men of our large cities,
frightfu as it is, is increasing every mo
ment. There are probably ten thousand
young men in New ork, who have not
been absolutel y sober for three years, and
twenty thousand more are in the habit, at
least once a week, ofthrowing off all re
strants, and reeling through the brctheIs
and various hells which form a large part
of the suj stratum of metropolitan life
There are hundred thousand men of all
ages in New York alone who drink large
quantities of poisonous liquors every day.
Of the myriads that moderately indulge
in the use of corrupt stimulating fluids, it
were utterly vain to speak. The young
men OF our cities are not prepared like
those OF the country, to resist the shocks
of disease, the bodies are all fragile, like
the plants shut in from the sun, and inf
Intestinal quantities of deadly poison de-
range the blood and madden the brain
The police reports of New York develope
the astounding fact that nearly all the
crimes with whose horrible details the
columns of the press are filled, may be
traced directly to the villsinous liquors of
America.
What is to be done? If we could con-
fine the disease to the cities, it would be of
comparatively trifling Importance; but the
hope of checking so malignant and conta-
glous pestlence 10y interposing metropo-
Titan walls is idle and ridiculous Amer
lean cities give tone to American life; the
inhabitants Of the country and the town
are, by railroad cars and other convevar-
ces in direct and constant communication:
the educational movements, the virtues,
the fashions, the follies of the city, fy on
the wings of lightning into the remotest
recess of rural life. The English farmer,
in former ages, lived and died in blissful
ignorance of the dangerous destinations of
&C famous London towns" The old things
however, are passed away, the farmersand
the farmers daughter are as familiar at ST.
Paul and London Bridge as the most aris
tocrat representatives of the houses of
York and Lancaster. The rosy cheek, pc
cuiar to "merrie England" is removed in
a few hours by a locomotive from the sha-
dy haunts of Salisbury Plain to the dense
fog and sitting smoke of fish market up
on the Thames-Cheapside, Smithfield and
Paternoster Row, are freighted regularly
to the most quiet and beautiful homes of
the Severn and the Tyne.
No other people under the Heavens are
rushing so madly on as the Americans.
We are prating from Sunday morn till
Saturday eve, about liberty, equality, and
fraternity writing eulogics upon the Amer
ican Eagle, Hail Columbia, and the Star
Spangled Banner; elbowing each other from
the pavement to get into the front rank of
fashion; sending money away to convert
Australia, the Sandwich Islands and Cen
trail Africa, while the actual "Greeks are at
our DOORS" the devil seems really driving
us down the precipce to irretrievabe ruin.
Our nation is young, but dissipation is al
most universal. A few years more, and
the fruit of our Upas tree will ripen into
a horrible harvest of desolation, crime, de
cease and death.
"Swinsh gluttony
Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst her Gorgeous feast,
but dashes blindly on to moral chaos. The
experience recorded by Shakespeare strikes
no sympathetic cord in happy proud
America -
"Though look old yet am strong and lusty;
For in my youth | never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors to blood;
Nor did I, with unbashful for, head, WOO
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as lusty winter,
frosty but kindly"
AN ORDER OF THE DAY OF MARSHAL