New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-25
u lCommunlcated.1
's A PLENTY OF WINE AND MORE
AMUSEMENTS.o tat.+

the idea that to reform New Orleans there |
should be more wine and amusements. We |
always supposed New Orleans people drank
all the wine they could get, and delighted
in the delusion that a great deal of the $50
called" which never saw a grape. was
wine. Besides, there certainly can not be
found people more prone to spend on a
Sunday all the earnings of week in "wine
and amusements." You published very
good discourse by Mr.. Hartzell on temper
ance, and / hoped more good of that ser
mon than the enunciation of such senti-
ment as the above. Still, it can not be sup
posed that a more popular sentiment could
have been promulgated in New Orleans,
though with many it would be deemed
that one of the "w's' which usually is
coupled with wine, was, by, mistake,
omitted or left to the imagination.
This abundance of wine," it seems to
me, is the very apple of Eden, which,
plueked, was the very cause of all our woe.
Why do you like wine! Remove from it
all alcohol, and who would thereafter touch
wine-a dead, fat insipid draught The
little alcohol in wine as surely plants the
seed of that morbid craving for alcoholic
stimulus, as if it were plain whisky itself.
The little seed once planted germinates,
grows, calls for more and stronger nutri-
ment, until to wine comes brandy, to
brandy whisky, and the total man over
| powered by the growing love of alcohol,
| falls victim to intemperance. Here and
| there is a man or woman so much stronger
| than alcohol that he rules the craving mon
ster, but until we are tested none know if
| that one is himself, SO the only safety is to
! keep fast the door of our mouths lest, ere
we are aware, our souls and bodies are
| bound captives to love of Intoxicating
| liquors. x
You say to the drunkard, you must prac-
| tice total abstinence or you are lost. Say
to yourself, for fear might become as he
is will take no more wine, and see how
hard the resolution will seem. Yetyou ask
| of him self-control when his whole frame is
| diseased with a morbid craving for more,
and more, and more. If to deny yourself
now seems so hard, what will it be then !
and how can you ask of him such great self
denial when little self-denial is to you so
onerous
This 'wine" business in New Orleans is
the parent of mischief. One Sunday, in
church, an eminent New Orleans divine
said he regarded the drinking saloons of st.
Charles street as "the very gates OF hell
On Monday prominent member of that
church urged upon the ladies of the con-
| gregation to hold fair, and that they
should have in the fair champagne and
claret punch. because, said he, "by doing
so you aciH make more money. For there
| will be men at that fair who will go
straight across the street and buy liquor
tat one of those ''gates of hell" of course),
and you might as well have the money as
they The vote was taken, and a majority
carried the wine punch question, for the
benefit OF the patrons of those "gates of
hell" of course, and also to build up the
Lords cause by catering to the interests of
the devil-the Lord being, by implication,
too weak to take care of his own affairs
unless his satanic majesty gracioasly
assisted. At the fair one of the
propretors of those ''gates of help seeing a
pretty opening for an advertisement of his
house, or approaching the companionship
in calling, sent into the fair liberal dona-
ton of VINE punch which, through the pub
lie prints, was most graciously and CRATE
fully acknowledged by the ladies of the
fair. The money was made as was antici-
pated, but many hearts in that church were
panied by the wine punch assistance. Some
of those ladies were grieving and praying
over wine-loving and impenitent husbands.
One of them went to Carrollton with hers,
and had the intense sorrow of seeing him
made tipsy by a prominent member OF the
same church, with whom he drank bottle
of wine, and the church member made him
self merry with baccbanal tales, while the
husband gleetully told his wife, "you see
how it is, they are no better in the church
than out, all are alikeP' and there certainly
did seem to be a terrible affinity.
Since this incident, fair after fair has sue
ceedeI in New Orleans, and do not think
there has been one in which the public
prints have not acknowledged the receipt
of wine punch from the fair tables. Yet
only last winter your columns contained an
article, begging that on the first of January
there should be no wine pla ced on the
ladies' refreshment tables, and from my
heart l thanked you for the request, and
hoped it would be needed
The wine and amusements of New Or
leans corrupt even the Church of God, and
how can you ask fer more as a retormatOry
move2 When drunkenness invades the
sanctuary, and church members advocate
its sale to inebriates as laudable means
for building up the house Of the Lord; wheI
ladies can be induced to stand as sales
women to the very men who have just come
from the attentions Of pretty waiter girls
to feast their eyes in turn upon them and
for the same purpose of feeding depraved
appetite, it Is time that even the wording
should become alarmed, and in horror
shrink from the abyss toward which the
community seems rushing.
Frivolity never did much for people. A
good hearty laugh is no doubt refreshing
but one wearies of O constant strain for
something funny. Yet Americans seem to
think he who makes them laugh is more
worthy of adulation than he whose states
manship saves his country; and terrible
man is he who aims to make them laugh
and does not succeed; but it seems to me
we do not SO much need the funny as the
serious We need to be more thoughtful as