The union Democrat., 1871-01-28
SONORA. TUOLUNGNE COUNTY. JANUARY IS, 1871
WOMEN AND WxNE.

WOMEN AND WKNE.
Woman has never been associated with wine
without disgrace aud disaster. The toast and
the bacchanal that, with musical ALTERATION.
couple these two words. spring from the hot
lips of sensuality, and are burdened with
shame. A man who can sing OF wine and
women in the same breath, is one whose pres
ence is disgrace, and whose touch is pollution.
A man who can forget mother and sister. or
wife and daughter, and wantonly engage in a
reyel in which the name of woman is invoked
TO heighten the pleasures of the intoxicating
cup, Is, beyond controversy andw without miti-
CATION, beast "Doss thou think, because
thou art virtuous. there shall be no more
cakes and ale?" Aye, cakes and ale, if you
will, hut let it be cakes and ale. Let not the
name by which we call the pure and precious
ones Ct home be brought in to illuminate a
degrading feast.
OF the worst foes that woman has ever had
to encounter, wine stands at the head. The
appetite for strong drink in man has spoiled
the lives of more women-rnined more hopes
for them, scattered more fortunes for them,
brought to them more shame, sorrow and
hardship-than any other evil that lives.
The country numbers tens of thousands-nay,
hundreds of thousands-of women who are
widows to-day. and sit in hopeless weeds, be-
cause their husbands have been slain by
strong drink. There are hundreds of thou
sands of homes scattered all over the land, in
which women live lives of torture, going
through all the changes of suffering that lie
between the extremes of fear and despair. be-
cause those whom they love, love wine better
than they do the women they have sworn to
love. There are women by thousands who
dread to hear at the door the step that once
thrilled them with pleasure, because that
step has learned to reel under the influence
of the seductive poison. There are women
groaning with pain while we write these
words. from bruises and brutalities inflicted
by husbands made mad by drink. There can
be no evaporation in any statement made in
regard to this matter, because no human i'm
agination can create anything worse than the
truth, and no pen is capable of portrayiag the
truth. The sorrows and the horrors of wife
with drunken husband, or mother with n
drunken son, are as near the realization OF
hell as can be reached in this world, at least.
The shame, the indignation, the sorrow. the
scene of disgrace for herself and her children,
the poverty-and not unfrequently the beg
gary-the fear and the. fact of violence, the
lingering, lifelong struggle and despair of
countless women with drunken husbands, are
enough to make all women curse wine. and
engage unitedly to oppose it everywhere as
the worst enemy of their sex.
And now what shall we see on the New
Years Day. 1871? Women all over the city
of New York-women here and there all over
the country, where like social customs pre-
vail-setting out upon their tables the we'll
filled decarters which before night shall close
will be emptied into the brains of young men
and old men, who will 90 Keeling to darker or
ges, or to homes that will feel ashamed of
them Woman's lips will give the invitation,
woman's hand will fill and present the glass,
woman's careless voice will laugh at the eff
fects of the mischievous draught upon their
friends, and having done all this, woman will
retire to balmy rest, previously having reck
oned the number of those to whom she has,
during the day presented dangerous temp
tation, and rejoiceG over it in the degree of
its magnitude.
O woman woman Is it not about time
that this thing were stopped? Have you o
husband. brother or son? Are they stronger
than their neighbors. who have, one after an
other, dropped into the graves of drunkards p
Look around you, and see the desolations that
drink has brought among your acquaintance
and then decide whether you have right to
place temptation In any mans way, or do
arght to make social custom respectable
which leads hundreds of thousands of men in
to bondage and death. Why must the bottle
come out everywhere? Why can there not
be festal occasion without this vulgar guz-
zling of strong drink.
Woman, there are some things that you can
do, and this is one: you can make drinking
unpopular and disgraceful among the young.
You can utterly dscountenance all drinking
in your own house, and you can hold 10 sus-
picion every young man who touches the cup.
You know that no young man who drinks can
safely be trusted with the happiness of any
woman, and that he is unfit as man can be
for woman's society. Have this understood
that every young man who drinks is socially
prescribed. Bring up your children to re-
gard drinking as not only dangerous but dis
graceful. Place temptation in no mans way.
If men will make beasts of themselves, let
them Go it in other society than yours. If
your mercenarv husbands treat their customers
from private stores kept in their counting
rooms, shame them into decency by your re-
gard for the honor of your home. Recognize
the living. terrible fact that wine has always
been, and is to-day, the curse of your SEX
that it steals the hearts of men awey from
you, that it dries up your prosperity, it en-
dangers your safety that it can only bring
you evil. II social custom compels you to
present wine at your feasts rebel against it,
and make social custom in the interests of
virtue and purity. The matter is very much
in your own hands. The women of the coun-
try, in what is called polite society, can do
more to make the nation temperate than all
tho Legislators and tumultuous reformers that
are struggling and laundering in their efforts
to this end. AT any rate, If they will try.
they shall have Scribner's Monthly to help
them DR.. Holland in .Seri6ner's Jor Jan,
CUTTING GRAFrs.-Those who have graft
ing to perform next spring, will find it use
full to cut their gratis now. If the winter
happens to be very severe one, it will some
what check the vigor or vitality of young
shoots, even If they remain alive and appar-
emily uniniured. Some sorts of plum and
pear and even of apples, are considerably Of
iected by severe cold. Grape cuttings are
much better taken off before winter. They