Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-12-20

Gl1Ou Speak0SI Gue GruCil.
Ifthe American people see in us
sober, manly, temperate, self-reliant
industrious and honest race, Mr.
Froude may take up the dirt and throw
lit back and forth, but the more he
tries to lay it on, the more may Amer.
Iica, great and just as she is unpreju.
diced, the more will she become indig.
nant against him and tel him: "HoW
dare you say such things of a people
who are the very flower, and bone
and sinew, of our industry and COM
mercew If I was in Mr.. Froude's
place, tell you what would do-ev-
cry evening | came out to lecture and
to blackguard the Irishman, | would
try to get an Irishman blind drunk
and bring him on the stage; and then
instead Of telling to you so many lies,
all I would do would be to put this
fellow on chair, and say: "Look at
him!"
Whenever [ see drunken Irishman
reeling about on the streets, as a priest
[ regret and weep for his sins, but I de-
clare as an Irishman, I feel as if
could strangle him with these hands
of mine, for disgracing so grand peo-
pie, so honorable race, and so pure,
heroic, and magnificent history as
ours.
Now, my friends, it is not only the
evil of the State, as we have seen, but
it is secondly the domestic evil. All!
dear friends, the highest honor that
God gives to man, perhaps, is the hon
or of making him the father of a fam
lily. He is, under God, the creator of
that family that grows around him.
He has brought this child into the
world, and God has conferred upon
him the honor, and at the same time
the responsibility and the obligations
to be the father of the cbild's soul as
the body. The little child borne upon
his mothers BOSOM is the father of
the man that is to be infWenty years.
time; but the soul can scarcely be said
to be born into active life, and that
soul must be borne, and reared, and
brought up in that infa child by ed
rrc,,s4it,r-.. E ------------------ -
The fathers example must go before
that child even as the Angel Of God
went before the hosts of Israel in the
form Of a pillar of fire-a burning shin
ing light of virture- virture! Oh!
what blessing is it for the grown man
in after life, to be able to look back to
the days of his early boyhood and say
of the old man that is in his grave:
81 never heard a bad word from him;
l never saw him in a position unwor-
thy of a man; never heard from his
lips, or saw in his life, anything that
could teach me sin or vice; the exam
pie upon which my character was form
ed was that Of a saint of God and a
perfect Christian.
It is the highest blessing, perhaps,
that God can give to man; and this is
surely a blessing that the drunkard
denies to the child that God gave him
in this world. How do they grow up?
They see their mother pining away!
pining away! in unwomanly rags; they
see her lack-luster eye; they see the
evidences of despair in her pale, ema-
ciated face. They, perhaps, see her
with fear and terror in her young
heart in the day when she in her des-
pair also takes to drinking, and be-
comes the most hideous thing in this
drunken woman. In the
the father losing his en-
ployment and the confidence of those
around him, becomes besotted drunk
ard, falls from step to step, from one
abyss Of depravity into another; and
the young child sent out to learn all
that was bad in the world. Perhaps
his uniform life Of the street, and the
nightly message on which he is per-
petually running is to the grog-shop
now, or the saloon, now for beer, now
for ale, now for whiskey; the only idea
Of enjoyment as they grow up is what
they see their parents enjoying; and [
have known myself little boy before
he was fourteen years of age, become q
confirmed and irreclaimable drunk
ard, because every time the father sent
him to the public house for whiskey or
gin the little lad took his share of it
before he brought it home. What re-
manned Of the joys that ought to sur
round that famil y upon their domestic
hearth? Not vestige of tenderness
not vestige even of common
decency remains; demoralizing pow
erty comes in it's lowest and most hid
eous form. In it's train it brings all
the vices, all the coarseness, all the
bestiality which is forced upon those
who have the misfortune Of perceiving
this lowest aad most degraded form of
poverty.
| have often attended deaths-beds
for the last twenty years and [ have
seen death approach in all the terrors
Of his majesty, and in every form that
he can assume to lay his icy hand upon
the heart and upon the head of the dy-
ing man and still it into the calmness
of death. l have seen him approach
like a gentle woman whose coming
was expected, whose face was wreathed
in smiles, who came in order to take
the soul and body by an easy transi-
ton, bring it into the presence Of Jesus