Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1865-08-16
LETTER FROM STOWE.

period somewhat remote in the future.
Circus proprietors have long coveted Yer
mont as theirs. They have passed up on
the New York side, and the crowd has
gone to Burlington and over the lake +;
crossed the Canada border, and the same
crowd Tor one nearly resembling i) has
precipitated itself into Stanstead, aud the
same thing has been repeated OIL the New
Hampshire boundary at Haverhill and
C~larcmont, until at length taking courage
at the growing disregard of law and moral
restraint, they have entered the State and
are having their own way unmolested by
the authorities.
The reception they have met with has
been such as to encourage their speedy
return. The mass never grow weary at
great promises made never to be fulfilled,
glowing advertisements never met, and
hopes excited that are never realized. To
the credit or discrcdit of our town it may
be stated that an effort was made to en-
force some of the restrictions imposed by
law, but the hands of the authorities
hung powerless by their sides under the
convincing and all-conclusive argument
that nine.tenths of the community would
be against them. Consequently the cir
Gus owners left us with one or two thou.
sand dollars of our money, and our Treas
urer is saved the labor of counting and
aside for future use a few hundred
dollars of theirs, for it has been said by
one supposed to know, that if prosecuted,
fine and costs would have been paid with.
out hesitation.
Perhaps it is unnecessary to moralizc
On this matter, but it would seem that
The memories of the recent past, saddened
rs they are by evidences everywhere met,
the great trials and sacrifices through
which we as a people have passed, and a
sense of the dangers from which we have
been rescued, as many profess to believe
'niy through Divine interposition, would
nave so chastened the public taste that
,ther means of relaxation from the veal
and tear of life would be found, than that
by strolling companies, made up
as they often are of lewd, lecherous de-
bauchers, let their exhibitions for the
lime being be vulgar, or modest, indecent
Or otherwise.
The bountiful Giver of every good has
not been 50 sparing in contributing to the
rational enjoyment of his creatures, as to
providing sources, innocent in
themselves and harmless in their results.
The writer of this is not fastidious in his
nor has he any wish to infict
upon the public any sentimentalism.
Neither has he any religion or morals to
of that he presumes to set up as a
standard of public or private virtue. The
views herein advanced are not the morbid
creations of an obscure individual. The
convictions and teachings of the good and
he pure, the pious and the thoughtful
nave been that the theatre and circus are
sources of vice and immortality.
The Baxters and the Bunyans, the Wes-
eys and Edwards of the past with the
Beechers and the Cuylers aud a host of
others of the present, unite in pronouncing
them evil and only evil. Viewing it
somewhat in this light our legislators,
who are not supposed to be particularly
staid or Puritanic in their notion of
have sought to remedy the evil.
Just here attention is called to the un-
believed rumor hat the circus company
we're in the State by invitation of Gov.
ernor Smith. But never mind about the
Governor. The green earth today suffers
no severer blight morally, socially, or po-
litically, than that resulting from the
lives of men in high places. If the FORE
going views are correct, crudely and in
coherently stated though they may be,
what will intelligent, candid men of the
world say of professors of religion who
not only patronize these performances by
their presence, but commend them to
others? What do they say +? They say
that the line of separation between the
Church and the world is becoming very
much obscurcd, and that the time seems
to be near at hand when it will be with
the greatest difficulty that the unassisted