Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-09-25

What ought to 6e done is now being done.
The courts furnish the proper arena for
these gladiators, for in the courts, with
sworn witnesses, something approximating
the truth can be arrived at, and the public
mind be set at rest.
RUM AMONG CHILDREN.
1t is a terrible thing to see a full-grown
man hopelessly under the inhuance of alco-
hOlic stimulants; it is thousand times
worse to see a woman a confirmed drunk
ard. But if it is SO fearful for adults, what
| can be thought of it in the case of children q?
Drunkenness among children in this city is
quite common now, and it is growing with
fearful rapidity. One boy in Brooklyn died
last week aged fourteen. A post-mortem
| examination revealed the fact that death
had been caused by the continual and ex-
cessiVe drinking Of the vilest rum." The
medical testimony went to show that the
vital organs had been literally eaten away,
| that the liver was in as shocking state as
if it had belonged to a drunkard of fifty
years standing. The mother of the de-
ceased boy stated to the coroner that he
had arrived at that stage when he could do
nothing but drink. lie had not eaten any
kind of solid food for a considerable time
before his death.
! L saw, yesterday, from my window, a
boy and girl not over twelve years of age
the girl could not have been ten-rolling
along the sidewalk-now in the gutter, then
| in the middle of the street, both in a state
of beastly intoxication. Ragged and dirty,
unkempt and unwashed, :heiE faces blazing
with the lurid light of hell, they wore the
| debauched look of drunkards of long stand
ing. Of course they will keep on as they
have begun, and will, in very few years,
90 to graves in POtter's Field, of delirium
tremens. The terrible thing in all this is
its frequency. In the lower part of the
city there are thousands of these juvenile
drun.lards, and then there are enough of
them in the upper part, in the good resi-
dences. The common practice of keeping
liquors on side-boards, and using them at
the table, is bearing its fruit. The Ameri-
can child is too nervous, too easily excited,
to make such indulgences safe. There is
something in the atmosphere and climate of
this section of the heritage that makes rum
in every form danger. And, unsafe as it
is, there is no city in the world where so
much Of it is used
BUSINESS
has revived a little-not much, but enough
to make US feei that life is not entirely ex-
tinct; that people still live, and that they
have got TO eat, drink and wear. The great
tea house of II. & G.. B. Harrington & Co.
! informed me that since the war trade had
never been so dull as during the first two
weeks Of the present September and the
| dry goods, clothing, hardware and boot and
| shoe men bear similar testimony. 1 went
among them yesterday, and found their
faces a little broader and not quite so long.
The buyers had evidently come to the con-
clusion that they must have some goods,
and had gone in" to some extent. They
were tossing goods about quite lively,
though their purchases footed up rather
light. Notwithstanding, the merchants
hang on to the hope of 4 fall business with
conmendaole pluck. They say that the
stocks in the country are exhausted (for but
little has been bought for a year,, and that
the people must buy. In this they are
| doubtless correct. Trade must revive, but
| l have a notion that the hard times in New
York is not altogether owing to the hard
times m the country. The importers are
doing fairly we'll here-the iobbers are the
sufferers. Is not the trade changing Is
not the jobbing business leaving New York
and concentrating in the cities in the in
| terror Are not such points as Provi-
dence, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester,
Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, st.
Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, to say nothing
of the hundred smaller centres, supplying
the retail merchants of their respective Sec
tions ? What is the use of the country
merchant coming to New York oftener
than is necessary to know how the market
moves, from actual inspection My opin-
ion is that the jobbing trade is leaving this
city, and that in ten years the interior
points will do it all.
THE WEATHER.
Have you had any rain New York has
been blessed with three days and nights of
steady, constant, soaking rain. 1t has
been a very wet rain. The streets have
been flooded, the air has been cooled, and
it has become a pleasant, decent thing to
live once more. 1t was needed here, as it
was everywhere else. PIETRo
f.