The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-08-12

is any other side.
When gigantic evil like intemperance
sweeps over the land, increasing and gather
ing strength as it goes, destroying alike the
great and the small, filling our prisons, our
aims houses and asylums, with its victims,
and carrying desolation and death everywhere
1T is but natural that it should be met as it
is being met, publicly by the pulpit and the
press-private'y by all the influences that ev-
cry good citizen can command-and it is my
duty and your duty, Mr.. Editor, to assist in this
great work in our small way, and call public
attention to some well-known facts-well-
known but seldom thought about "Famili-
arity breeds contempt" it is said, but it does
more than that--it closes our eyes and our
ears to many things that demand our serious
and immediate attention. For instance, a
man comes forward and presents a petition to
our city Council, signed by many good citizens
some of them members of the different
churches perhaps,-asking that he may be al
lowed to keep public house. This is an old
fashioned dccument--one that we have be-
come used to---the serpent that we have
uuTScu lIOtIl Ills lulduCy- u fiCG ttlttb We idNc
finally embraced, and the license is prob
ably granted. But let this document be word
ed in better English, and the honorable Coun-
ell might possibly hesitate. Suppose it should
state the facts in this way -" The subscriber
asks permission of your honorable body to
keep house where he may sell to your sons
their first social drink-after they have form
cd appetites for it, to furnish them all they
may call for--after they are confirmed drunk
ards-with blearcd eyes, bloated countenan-
ccs, shattered nerves and perhaps squandered
fortunes, to still deal out to them deadly
poison--so that every street may be disgraced
with reeling man, many houses supplied
with drunken husbands, many children rob
bed of their daily bread, aud great moral
ulcer on the body of society kept open, to be
not only matter of shame and modification
to all, but seriously threatening to sap the
very foundations of free government"
If the petition explained itself in this way,
Councils would in some cases at least refer it
to q committeeman yet this is just what
they all ask for--but because it has grown up
with our growth, we have finally shut our
eyes and ears and take it as matter of course.
Now suppose some stranger should come
among us and commence the sale of some
new drug that would kill one where rum kills
ten--that, in short, should cause but a tenth
part of the misery and death that results
from the sale of Intoxicating drink-would
we not even in this law-abiding community
th;nL eap,atI,;no ahouf Lonriny hin, RI n lau,,,
post. There certainly would not be any diff
ference Of opinion among us as to whether
the man should be allowed to continue his
business.
But usage has settled this liquor traffic up
on us so firmly that men sell drink and en-
courage it without once stopping to think
about its enormity.
1t has been estimated by some that nearly
one million deaths result directly and Indirect
ly from the use of alcoholic liquors annually
in this country alone. In attempting to show
the fearful loss of life through the agency of
alcohol, we must go beyond the mere state
ments of prison reports, aims house records
and coroners' inquests--thousands of children
die annually from the neglect of drunken par
ents TO furnish proper care, food and clothing,
and thousands more find premature graves
from feeble constitutions and diseases inherit
ed from parents who have wasted their
strength in drunken brawls and midnight Ca
rousals. What loss to the enterprise of the
country, looking at it in that light alonc-a
loss that the country cannot afford, rich as it
is in every thing that needs strong arms and
clear brains to dcveop--a legacy of misery,
poverty and want that ought not to be entail
ed upon the innocent women and children.
And then children who are brought up in
daily contact with drunkenness, profanity
and wretchedness, IL sound in health, do not
bring to manhood that moral training so e.
sential to lives of usefulness. 1t is impossible
to estimate the loss to the present and future
generations from this cause. How many chill
dren are being reared to-day amid scenes Of
drunkenness, whose names in the near future
will lie added to the big list of criminals, but
who might if they could have proper training,
become ornaments to society.
In regard to the loss of life among those
who have grown to manhood-Mr Coleman,
III " lCCCHt rpSSCu tfidtAc III nina, icfcib W
some calculations made from data furnished
by two societies Of neutrality-suspicious. of them
composed Of total abstainers and the other Of
those who use alcoholic liquors to greater or
less extent From these reports it appears
g that in the society of total abstainers the
average time of sickness In year to each
member is one and three-quartcr days--in the
other, eleven and seven-eighth days. The death
rate in the total abstainers' society was two
fifths Of one per cent.--and in the other one
and a half per cent. Assuming the member
ship Of each society to be 1000, there are four
deaths among the total abstainers, and fifteen
among the drinkers And it is fair to sup
pose that these were among what are classed
as moderate drinkers. Now surprising that
there are in Lambertvile 500 men who use
alcoholic drink, and who are sick ten days
each, every year, more than they would have
been il they were total abstainers counting il
at two dollars per day or twenty dollars pei