The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-12-20

Tuesday Morning, December 20, 1870
Prohibition,
PORTLAND

Prohibition.
Our practice was, in our crusade against
tne rum shops, to send through large dis
trict OF country, notices of meetings TO be
held In the various towns, naming the dav
and the hour. These expeditions would take
us over many hundred of miles of road. and
occupy many weeks. Our purpose wa. to
bring our meetings home to the door of every
farm house in the State, where we could get
at the people who had no interest in politics
and party, except to promote, so far as they
could, The common welfare; people who were
not office holders nor Office seekers, and who
had no personal interest in keeping any po-
lifical party in the ascendency. The entire
population turned out to these meetings, In
many cases, making them the occasion of
holiday for all the surrounding region, espec-
tally in fine weather. .,.....
In one of these towns our notices included
meeting in a considerable village called
"Slab City" in Blank County. We had heard
OF this place, as one where the rum trade had
full sway. and had done its perfect work. At
meeting thirty miles away, we received
friendly warning that preparations had been
made to lynch us at Slab City, and threats
were openly made there, that we should not
leave the place alive. We kept on all the same.
We knew there was no house at that village
where we could be entertained, and therefore
arranged for thatlat place three or four
miles away, bat went there on hour before
the appointed time, that we might see what
the rum trade could do for people brought
thoroughly under its inf uence.
There was in the place large fine dwelling
house, white, with green blinds, all in per-
fectly good condition, the residence of the
village rumseller; near it a large "store," also
white, with green doors and green shutters
and little in the rear large farmhouse,
built in the best manner; ventilator on the
root, the walls nicely clapboarded, and all
painted white, with trimmings of different
shade, the whole denoting the thrift of the
owner. But in all the village besides, there
was not clapboard, nor brush full of paint.
The houses were all of one story, many Of
them mere shanties; the walls Of many of
them roughly boarded, the the roofs of some
being covered with slabs, the smooth sides
placed alternately in and out, overlapping
each other little. 81 III
All these people worked for the rumseler,
making slaves, shocks and shingles, receiving
their pay in small quantities of mere necessa-
ries of life, but mostly in New England rum,
which was currency, by common consent, in
Slab City. There was an old delapidated
meeting house in the village, but no preach
ing had been in it for many years. There
was no Sunday meeting, no Sunday school,
no district school rum had done there its
perfect work. The business of the people
was to buy the Squire's rum, and their sole
enjoyment was to drink it.
The Sundays were spent by the men, loaf
ing around the rum shop and the bank of the
river, where they spent many hours in catch
ing fish; some of them in the woods shooting
birds and squirrels with old flint lock mus
kets; some of them pitching quoits; many of
them doing away the weary hours in half
drunken sleep. The children spent the time
in ranging the pastures and woods, nut
hunting, birds'-nesting, and in every idle
sport that might turn up; the women spent
the day in helping the men and rambling
with the children. Such was Slab City, fair
specimen OF what the whole country would
be under rnm influence; perfect sample OF
what the country is so far as rum influence
prevails; an influence in deadly hostility to
the interests of the nation and the people
Well, we held the meeting at the appointed
hour, in the old, dilapidated meeting house,
which had been dense!y crowded by ragged
and dirty crowd half an hour before the time.
We took the precaution to set guard upon
our carriage lest it should be DESTROYED, and
the horses ham strung In the planest way
possible, we showed the people that they
were mere servants of the rumseller; that all
their labor went to enrich him and supply
his family with every comfort and luxury
| while they and their families we're living in
'penury and rags, with insufficient food, cloth
ing and shelter. We contrasted their misera-
BILE cabins with the fine house of the rum
seller-and the rags and dirt and ignorance
to which their wives and children were DOOM
ed, with the fine clothes and luxurious sur
rouudings of the wife and children of the
rumseller, all OF which were the eresult of their
labor, which ought to 60 to the comfortable
support of their own families; that in a word
they were sacrificing every decency, comfort,
and al enjoyment in life while the rumseer
was enriched by the results of their work.
| By and by the scowng eyes of the uIwash-
ed crowd began to soften and their savage fea-
lures to relax. The women began 10 draw
closer their ragged shawls, to look at each
other in sidelong glances, saying very plainly
to each other, as we watched them closely
Is this so, isn't this true? I'd.