New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-03-24
THE EVILS OF EXCESS.--PROHwIToRY
/ LAws-MEDICINAL STIMULI-II...-,r,,,,,,


has no ayowed advocates Even its slaves
curse the vice to which they yield, or regret,
with maudlin tears, their inability to resist the
false appetite for stimulants which long-con-
tinued excess has engendered. OF all the mil
lions whom it degrades, brutifes, and ruins,
there is not one who, in his sober moments,
stands forth its champion. Temperance, on
the other hand, has a host of active and ener-
getic friends. Society, as body, breaches it,
although SO many members Of society fail to
practice it, 1t is advocated in every pulpit
its PRONUNCIATION is the object of large and re-
spectacle social organizations; it is made
side issue, and sometimes a main issue, at the
polls, and stringent laws are enacted to en-
force it.
In short all parties, all creeds., all interests,
unite in deprecating drunkenness, and the only
question connected with it upon which they
do not agree is as to the wisest method OF
controlling the evil. Prohibtory State legisla-
ton has been thought by many sincere and
good men to be the best remedy; but it has
been tried again and again in New-England
and elsewhere, without having produced any
beneficial effects expected from it and at last
Massachusetts, SO long the stronghold Of pro-
hibition, has repudiated that policy by an i'm
mense majority. The Federal Government,
partly in the interest of temperance and partly
for revenue purposes, has imposed a tax upon
domestic liquors which, if the law were rigidly
executed, would at once lessen their consump-
ton and increase the sum total of the national
revenue; but it appears to have signally failed
in both these objects. There is no percepuble
decrease in the manufacture or consumption OF
domestic spirits, and no propOrtiate augmenta-
ton in the receipts of the Government from
that source. Laws of this nature are always
extensively evaded, and result in large amount
of official corruption and public Generalization,
without accomplishing the primary objects
which their originators had in view.
Experience seems to teach us that moral in
fuences are more potent than penal statutes In
restraining this species of excess. Father
Matthew's moral and religious crusade against
inebriety probably did more good than all the
prohibitory laws that have ever been enacted.
The extreme prohibitionists insist that alco-
hol has no uses as a incidence that it is, when
taken into the stomach, necessarily poisonous.
But here the faculty that has made disease and
the remedies for disease its study for so many
ages Increasing its knowledge and perfecting
its system of treatment with every passing
year, meets the allegation with point blank
denial. Who are best competent TO decide Tins
question. in which the health and lives Oh NIL
lions of human beings are myolved-the
professors of the art of healing, or individuals
who, cOnfessedly, are incompetent to prescribe
for their own ailments, and who, when pros
trated by illness, place their chief reliance upon
the doctorY Does not the profession in whom,
next to God, they put their trust in sickness,
know better than they do whether alcoholic
tonics are or are not necessary in certain phases
of diseased Common sense answers IN the
affirmative. Physicians tell us that alcoholic
medicines are among the most valuable RENE
dial agents in the Materia Medica-specifcs
which cannot be dispensed with without sacri-
ficing the health and lives of multitudes of
their patients. If we put trust in them-and
that We put trust in them is evident, or we
would not call them in to minister to us when
in danger-we are bound to subscribe to their
dictum.
So far, then, as medication is concerned, the
object of the phlanthropists who advocate
Temperance should be to aid the profession IN
its praiseworthy efforts to secure pure, I'M
aduIterated alcoholic stimulant for curative and
preventive purposes. If any law could be de-
vised for keeping the unwhOlesome and impure
liquors of commerce out of the sick-room, 1T
would be an inappreciabe blessing; and if, on
the other hand, a law guaranteeing pure
stimulant to all who are professionally declared
to need it could be practically enforced, that,
too. would be of infinite benefit TO mankind.
But no such special legislation could be rem
dered effective. 1t would be evaded, and
rendered null and void by the interests in con-
tlict with it, just as the liquor laws are now
nulifed by similar causes.
But when-as in the case, for example, Oh
Hostetter's Stomach Bftters--a medicinal stimn-
LIANT has been proved, beyond all caVli' 10 De
absolutely free from adulteratiOn, and COM
plete specific tor large class OF diseases, no
benevolent and enlightened friend of Temper
ance can consistently lift up his voice against
it. On the contrary,every proper effort should
be made TO procure the substitution of such
tonic for the acrid, fiery, and poisonous fluids
too frequently administered to invalids.
Il should be powerful argument in favor of
preparation like this, that it has been de-
priyed by rectitication, and by the medicinal
vegetable ingredients of which it partly con-
ssts, of all the deleterous properties present III