Juniata sentinel. [volume] (Mifflintown, Pa.) 1846-1873, 1871-04-05
TEMPERANCE AND CRIME.


Not long since a mother in Syracuse
took her little child's life by forcing down
its throat a cup Of whisky. The Tribune
comments upon the case a. follows
"The temperance question has become
an unmitigated bore to many men of cul.
ture and refinement. Tragedies, such as
that at Syracuse. may very properly
serve. they think; as text for needed
and beneficial sermons to the lower class
es, bat their conscience being clean, there
is no reason why these unbandsome
corpses should be brought between the
wine and their more delicate senses. But
it is to these very men we wish to say
few practical words. They would be
prompt TO remove stagnant pool if the
wind carried the miasma into the windows
of their own costly dwellings as well as
into the novels where it originated. Put
ting all questions Of morality aside,
drunkenness, as our physicians and the
statistics of every State prove, is the
pregnant, death breeding influence which
is the cause Of half the physical disease
and cerebral weakness in America to-day.
Climate infiue nee has its share IN this,
but temperam ent has more. We are COO
bilious and nervous people to bear the
use of liquor with impunity; and the
more cultivat ed the man, the more accus-
toned to brai n rather than manual labor.
the less able is he to bear it the more sure
and rapid is its effect, not only upon him.
himself, but pom his children and his
children's children. The bottle of cham
pagne on his dinner-table. to the cool
headed man of business is, he holds, a
necessary harmless stimulent after bis
days work /; only vulgar fanatic would
protest against it. He keeps it there.
therefore. and passes with smile of in
difference the vile grog-shops where the
dangerous classes find their necessary
stimulent. They are not of his kin OF
kind, either in their temptation or down.
fall. In few years he wonders why his
son, under the influence of champagne
and highly seasoned food, should become
hopeless debauchee and libertine. and
is still more puzzled as to where his
daughters could have inherited their
weak bodies and weaker minds. Let any
man consult his family physician. and he
will learn the old. hackneyed fact in
science, that the use of liquor entails upon
offspring a greater or less degree Of i'm
becility and disease.
I've confne ourselves to the purely
physical view of this ma tier. The sta
tislics, with which we are familiar, leave
none Of US ignorant Of the fact that
drunkenness has dragged into onr peni-
tentiaries aud Jalls two-th lrds OF their
inmates. Looking around through what
is called society, we see but few families
out of which some gallant. generous boy,
the one usually the most love d and most
worthy of love, has not gone down that
sudden path into the outer darkness,
cursing God and his own life. Is this to
have an end ? Shall we act as reason
able men, and grapple with drunkenness
as we would with cholera or any other
pestilence Or shall we, fahers and
mothers, 60 on year after year building
our hopes on our boy. teaching him
Christ love with our lips, and with our
hands putting cure death in his grasp ?"
A SMART MARYLAND GIRL.-Miss