The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-08-22
ALCOHOL.

AS the result of the chemical change
which sugar undergoes in passing down
wards towards dead, inorganic condition,
substance is produced which has been
the cause of more sorrow, crime, and suf-
fering than all other evil agencies that have
afflicted the world. 1t has caused tens of
thousands of murders, and uncounted in
stances of robbery, theft, arson, incest and
suicide: it has brought misery and want
into millions of households; it has filled
aims houses and asylums with wretched
victims; it sends a never ending procession
of crime stained men and women to prison
and the gallews. What an awful indct.
ment this is to bring against substance
which stands so closely allied in chemical
relationship to innocent sugar Alcohol
is not natural product; it can only result
from spontaneous change which is ex-
cited in saccharine liquids under the inhu-
ence of a fcrment. If in the order of things
this chemical change had been impossible,
the human race would have been saved
from shedding tears, the aggregate vol
ume of which reaches to that of a mighty
gen, and oxygen are permitted to group
themselves in way to form the madden
ing liquid; and the great enemy to human
happiness confronts us in all our domestic,
industrial, and commercial relations. If
through disarrangement of Natures laws,
the vinous Preventative process should
suddenly cease, and not another drop of
any kind of spirituous liquors be produc-
ed, no sensible harm would come to any
industrial or art process, and no absolute
want in medicine would be encountered
Carefully viewing the matter from the
standpoints of the chemist, physician, and
artisan, we unhesitatingly declare that the
world in its present advanced stage has no
need Of alcohol; it is simply convenient,
but not necessary. Why not then make
determined effort to rid the country and
the world of the monster? Although alco-
hol results, as we have said, from spontane-
GUS changes, yet the aid of man is neces-
sary to form the various liquids containing
it into attractive and permanent beverages
The fermentation Of the juices of grapes
and other fruits produces alcohol; but if
let alone, Nature will not allow the spirit
to remain, except for brief space of time.
Nature abhors not only vacuum, but
manifestly one of her produces, for alcohol
is so unstable in its attenuated combina-
tiens that, if left to itself, speedily runs
If man ceases to interfere in the series
of natural changes which saccharine liquids
survive long enough to do mischief Why
not then compel the great army of men,
engaged in isolating and compromising the
agent, to let it alone? Alcohol is poison;
in the animal organism. In its purest and
best form, it slowly undermines the consti-
tuition, and hinders or arrests metamor-
phosis of tissues; in its vile associations,
as presented in these modern times, it kills
with the certainty and almost with the
rapidity of strychnine and arsenic. We
ask again, why not attempt to arrest it's
production, and thus strike a blow at the
root of the evil? There is virtue and
moral force enough in this country to COM
pei Congress to pass laws prohibiting its
importation in any form; and there is viz
tue and moral force enough in most of, if