Litchfield enquirer., 1873-05-08


 spirits, and natural love of independence have led away him from the strictness or dullness of the parental home; or who in short, is from any reason in rebellion against the village social powers that be, can meet and with the chance travellers who come in from abroad, and enjoy such exhiliration as the entertainment and so- ciety of the place affords. The tone of that society is naturally influenced by the peculiar circumstances of its existence. Those who assemble there are hostile to the church that is hostile to them. They con- demn the temperance movement that condemns them. They criticise the so- ciety that excludes them. Yet in this so- cial opposition are to be found men of natural ability, kind-hearted, sociable, and of the ready wit induced by constant and not very decorous collision with people of every grade of society.
 Such an opposition thrives on the dull ness of village society proper, and it's in- aptitude to furnish any adequate recrea- tion or true social intercourse. Its strength is not often appreciated by those who see little of it. Politicians are about the only class that know it's full power. In fact no successAA local politician can exist in op- position to it. for the simple reason that there is an esprit da corps in this well organized social opposition that is entire ly wanting to the incongruous, disorgan- ized, divided and subdivided ''respecta- ble" elements of village society. The po- itical candidate who is we'll with the bar rooms and saloons is the candidate who can poll the largest vote.
 Nor is it at all difficult to see why such is the case. The men who meet every day; who drink and talk together; naturally learn to know and like each other. Their hkings may not always be founded on re- spect; but they are nevertheless strong enough to form bond of union that politicians know how to avail themselves of. ''Respectable' society, however, fails to furnish any such bond. It is wonder full how little the respectable" people of a village often know of each other. Those who meet for business, but never for rec reation, may respect each other, but the genuine personal attachments that grow even in the evil atmosphere of the bar room are wanting. The jealousies, the dislikes, and the differences, of village so- ciety, grow mp mainly between those who know least of each other. We have often been surprised to find, for instance, how the man who was most liberal, earnest and popular in his own party, his own ''set," or his own sect, was misconceived, almost hated in other parties, sets, or sects; not, indeed, because he was bitter partisan or sectarian, but because he was so little known by those who misjudged him.
 The New Englander must never forget that his weak side is his social side. As stern workers for bread in this world and salvation in the next, our race has few if any equals; but we have never been popular, or reputed an amiable people. Our sinners are the only class that seem really to love each others society; and so defective are our social arrangements that they offer no compensation or substitute even for the poor form of recreation and entertainment offered by the bar-room and the saloon which, for that very reason, no amount of legal repression or moral suasion have ever been able to suppress.
 l But while nothing is easier than the pointing out of evil social habits, nothing is more difficult than their remedy. Prev alent habits of liquor-drinking are natu- rally combatted by societies requiring the practice of total abstinence. Such socie- ties, if we'll managed, have the double good effect of bringing up young people to dis trust and dislike liquor-drinking, of con- frming older people in that dislikes and oi offering some partial social substitute for the bar-room and saloon. They lay the foundation of those general habits of to- tai abstinence that must always precede any successful attempt to restrict the i' quor traffic; for it is a great mistake to suppose that gentlemen who enjoy theil wine at home can ever successfully inter- fere with the practics oftheir humble brethren who take their whiskey at the public bar. The latter make this reply to prohibitionists of that sort: ''Gentlemen, when you refuse to drink with us as your fathers drank with our fathers, you are merely snobs; but when you persecute us for doing publicly just what you are doing privately, you are hypocrites. We shall mol stand that!"
 Temperance societies stir up the gener al conscience regarding the evils of liquor drinking; but unfortunately they cannot supply that general need of resorts fol reasonable recreation, open at all times and to all classes, that might perhaps supply the social necessities of village community. A clergyman of this place proposed, sometime since, the establish ment of rooms, open to the public, for the reading of books and papers, for playing at gamess conversation etc. No one acted on the suggestion; probably because the expense of suite of rooms, of books and papers, of service, fuel, etc., would be