The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-05
THE DRUNKARDs' CARNIVAL.

From the NJ Y. Tribune
1t is the general testimony of our city press
that the Christmas holidays were this year
distinguished by extraordinary and excessive
drinking. New York was drunk yesterday"
is the rather strong expression of one of them
with reference to New Years; but that the
drinking of that day was general and immo-
derate, even for New York, is the concurrent
assertion.
Drinking was once all but universal now it
is not. There is very considerable mino-
rity, even in this metropolis of sensuality,
who systematically and on principle reject
every intoxicating beverage. These are q
hundred times more numerous than they
were fifty years ago. But, apart from the
rigidly abstinent, it is our conviction that
there was more drinking and deeper drinking
here in the year 1869 than in any of the 2G0
preceding years since Hendrick Hudson dis
covered this island.
The fearful consequences can here only be
glanced at. Destitution, squalor, vice, pro-
higacy, robbery, murder-these are more pre-
valent in New York to-day than at any former
period. Beggary and harlotry, crime and in
fanny, crowd our Streets finding in the grog-
shop their source and their inspiration. Very
rarely is a novice drawn into gaming house
or den of debauchery except when under
the influence of liquor. 1t is our firm con-
NlCllOu ludt, IL HlCOHOllC D6NeIugSS cOtuu Ue
wholly and permanently banished from our
city, and all our police and machinery of
criminal justice went with them there would
thenceforth be less crime and far less misery
in our city than there is.
There is o very considerable body of re-
spectacle citizens who cannot shut their eyes
to these horrors, yet who are not converts to
total abstinence. They drink rarely and eau
iously-at least, they think so-are in no
danger of falling into drunkenness, and do
not feel constrained to give up what they
deem an innocent and pleasurable exhilara-
tion because others abuse liquor to their own
hurt and that of their families. They are not
convinced that oar way of fighting what they
admit to be great evil is the right way. We
do not propose at this time to discuss our
more palpable difference, but to ask them
whether they oggnt not to resist intemperance
in S6ni6 way. Grant that our way is wrong,
how does that excuse your seeming apathy,
your practical indifference? Here are tens
of thousands annually swept on to ruin by
the use of strong drink: how does our error,
if it be an error, excuse your heedlessness?
Admit that, with your convictions, you can
not act with us who stand for total abstinence,
does that excuse you from acting at all.
In Massachusetts and other States where
prohibition has been strongly advocated,
these moderates profess to favor stringent
Excise law, which they say would do more for
temperance than prohibition can, because it
can be enforced, while prohibition cannot be.
Yet in this State, where no serious effort foI
prohibition has been put forth for years, the
moderates raise no voice in favor of our mild
and liberal Excise law, but generally help
elect Legislators pledged to abolish all excise
laws or render them imperative. The Sunday
Mercury demands, as one result of our late
Democratic triumph, that the sale of liquor
shall be made as free here as that of sugar,
beside having Sunday given over to it, as il
is not to the sale of sugar; and this seems to
be in accord with the spirit now dominant
and certainly to prevail in fact if not in law.
Men of convictions and of moral principles
who are not total abstainers what is yOUI
way of repressing excess in drinking? LIE
Vonr acts answer