The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-04-18
From the Boston Courier.
AVOID TEMPTATION.

An asylum for the reception and cure of in
ebriates, is about to be- established at Bing-
hampton, in the. state Of New York. The
Trustees, disappointed in act obtaining an ap-
preparation from the Legislature, have issued
an appeal to the churches of the United States,
and the American public, for assistance
From the New York papers we gather some
sad and. startling facts showing the need Of
such an institution, and the good it may do if
established. More than twenty-eight hundred
applications have already been made, it is said,
for admission to the institution, and among
them are three judges, twelve editors, twenty
eight clergymen, thirty-six physicians, forty
two lawyers, and, strargest and saddest of all,
four hundred and ten women. These, we fear,
are in some degree what may be called repre-
sentative facts, revealing q condition of things
existing to a greater or less degree in al parts
of the country. The number of men, cultiva-
ted aud intelligent men, too, In the United
States, who impair their usefulness, and short
en- and embitter their lives by Incorporate
drinking. is truly appalling,
Ours is the only country in Christendom, in
which intellectual and educated men, of high
social position, and holding honorable trusts,
make shipwreck of themselves by excessive
drinking so frequently, that the occurrence
awakens more of sorrow than surprise. In
England, France and Germany, it is very rare
for a lawyer or physician or clergyman to ruin
himself By strong drink but in our country, it
is unhappily not rare. Every year reveals more
than one of these melancholy tragedies; and
there is no professional man of midcle age,
who cannot give you a mournful catalogue of
persons among his contemporaries, who started
with fair hopes and good prospects, and fell
by the way, avictimized by his insldious SUBJ
;eet. What hovoc it makes, too, among our
LII cd hou uoanu houa oIfhaP farmaH
The habit, or fatally increased at Washington,
where Moloeh Of intemperance is ever passing
his victims through the frei There are some
obvious reasons to account for this melancholy
state of things. The climate of America is
one source. of temptation. Extreme heat and
extreme cold both put the system into a state
which Graves some kind of stimulus Rapid
changes of temperature act In the same man.
ner. The general character of our climate Is
stimulating and exhausting to the nervous sys-
tenn 2 But the same influences that stimulate
add5to the susceptibility and thus the Ameri-
can brain and nervous system are more sensi-
tive and exeitable than the European. While
We drink mere than the Europeans, we are
not so well able to bear what we do drink.
But a more efficient cause, and one that ex-
plains.the hoYoe made by intemperance among
men who earn their bread by their brains and
not their hands, arises. from our way of life,
and the incessant action and unrest which
characterize it, especially in our cities and
large towns. The spur is always in the brain,
there is no such word as repose in our
dictionary. To some, ambition and the love
of, political distinction are a perpetual goad-
pursuing them as Orestes was pursued by the
furies. Others are melted by the passion for
accommodating property which becomes a con-
Stunning and devouring disease, turning whole
some food into headache, and stufing the pill
low with needles instead of feathers. The
professional man who has the facility of wri-
ting. and speaking, and is good-natured besides
has no peace Of his life. Every day he is be-
sieged with applications to make an address
here, to lecture there, to attend this public
dinner, to preside at that public meeting-and
not only that, but everything that is said m st
be<Rritten out for the press, or so carefully
prepared that it may be safely taken down,
word for word, by those enemies of the human
race, the reporters. 1t is all work, with no
rest and ne play. It as a feverish and fervid
existence fall of unnatural excitement and kept
IN a perpetual ,whirl by stimulating external
influences. After a reasonable days work is
over, the jaded lawyer, or doctor or clergyman,
must light his gas, and in hours stolen from
neeIfulI rest, drive the roweIs into his already
over-driven brain, and force into it unnatural
action.
Insulted and outraged, nature takes her re-
venge, she takes it in impairing digestion; in
dull headaches; in depression of spirits that
covers everything with black Grape; in flying
and wandering pains, and above all, in a sort
of vague, uneasy craving, and aching void, a
harrid state of the sensation-half faintness
and half ~sting--at the very core of life. To this
morbid state of tho system, the decanter gives a
relief, a temporary oblivion. But,
of oeazse, the amount must be constantly in
creased In order to produce the effect for this
is the memorable law of the habit. Slowly
insensibly the destroyer winds his folds
about his victim, and the end is the lunatic
asylumJo or the poor house, where the beginning
all hope and promise.
The obvious lesson to be drawn rom SUCH
melancholy facts is the necessity of all se'u-vigl-
Lance ON the part of those, who, from temper.
lment, endowments and position, are expo sed
this form of danger and temptation. The
preservation of ones faculties is a moral and re !
duty. To ruin the health and wear
,ut the brain prematurely under the sting of
or avarice, is a plain violation of the
aw of God. And an equally obvious lesson
s it, that under no temptation of exhaustion
Under no demands-should a professional or
Intellectual man have recourse to wine for res
The end of i: is madness and death.
Touch not, taste not, handle not, is the only
rule of safety. ~ q-tE
SIT -
WHAT WE LIKE TO SEE.-The following
paragraph rs clipped from an exchange, but it
5 applicable to this latitude and we would
that eur subscribers who are troubled,
With borrowing n~eighbors, shall read it in their
.9Es5a+.lt -,
We like to see a man refuse to take his local
paper, and all thetime sponge upon his neigh
Dor for the reading of his
We like to hear. a man complain, when you
,sk him to subscribe for his home paper, that
he takes more papers than he can read nor,
and then go round and borrow his neighbours
nome paper, to. read or loaf upon him until he
has gathered the news out of it.