The Worthington advance., 1876-09-14
ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO.


A S7RONH LETTER FROM WARREN
SMITH - HORRORS or INI.EALPER-
ANCE- TOBA ACCO SLAYES-CA USE OF
THE HARD TIMES
CINCINNATI, O., Aug. Is, 1875.
EDITOR ADVANCE: Yielding to the
inspiration Of the moment, I pen a
communication for your columns. The
first item I chronicle is inspired by the
excessive heat which has continued for
five weeks without change except from
hot to hotter; and the nights -sWelter-
ing hot is no name for them. The tor
rid zone in his palmiest days never
eclipsed our nights for oppressive, sui
try heat, resulting in the graduated
scale of little sleep, less sleep, and no
sleep ut all. One thing I fully realize,
that five weeks Of this torrid weather
las made an inrOad on my avoirdupois
to the extent of twenty-three pounds,
while the process of depletion still goes
on. It comes very near getting away
with my spirit of forbearance some
times, and 1 feel like hieing myself
back to Minnesota and recuperate my
wasted energies on its life-giving at
mosplere.
But the heat is not all we have to
contend with in the shape of objection
able features. With our experience in
travelling in different countries and cli-
mates, we had become Internationally
familiar with the vices of not only our
own but other countries, yet never had
our moral sensibilfties 50 shocked as
we have during our present brief So
journ here. 1ntemperance and its SIS
ter vices stalk sllamelessly abroad and
no word of rebuke is meted out to
them. o for some power to create a
temperance earthquake to shake the
bottom out of the hells of intemper-
ancc prevalent all over our 1and-Witll,
the glorious exception of Mobiles Coun-
ty! Heaven grant to her perpetual ex-
emptiOn from this king Of all curses!
With the fearful and soul-sickelling
evidences of this evil daily and hourly
before my eyes, admonisll the people
of the National Colony to stand firm
and untlinchingly in favor of temper
ance. Friends may be alienated by the
opposition we offer, but better aliellated
than lost. Nine out OF every ten men
I meet on the streets here 10y actual
calculation) wear the marks of the
beast written Enthusiastically on their
faces. l have seen little boys not yet in
their teens staggering under the intlu-
ence of Alcoholic poison, and this is of
frequent occurrence. Think of it, Oh!
ye fathers and mothers, and guard we'll
your consecrated realm against the up
proach OF this dire enemy who spares
none who fall into his relentless clutch.
Nor is this all. In nine instances dur
the last month have seen woman-the
mother of the race-maddened 10y rum
and rceling on the street. Over Il thou
sand licensed hell-holes within the cor.
porate limits OF this city feed and
perpetuate this terrible state of affairs.
One morning l went down to the police
court to make few observations. "A
score or more of men and women,
young and old, were brought from the
cells, and crime was written OH every
tace Of that motley crew, who, without
Il single exception, also bore tile marks
Of inebriety. Intemperancef feeds every
phase OF criminalitY. While / deeply
lament these terrible results, I much
more lament the moral apathy that al
lows these sickening outrages against
il common humanity to go unrebuked.
Heaven only knows when the end
cometll. There is no place I have yet
been in this city but What my olfactOry
nerves have been shocked by the poi
sonOus fumigatiOns of alcohol in one OF
more of its multitudinons forms, or the
Styslan fumes of that filthy, loathsome
narcotic called tobacco. We complain
of hard times and the public debt, and
yet the sovereigns tobacco and whisky
slayes) Of our Republic are spending
for distilled and malt liquors and to.
bacco alone enough money annually to
pay our national debt. This city man.
,.f:.ctures over $12,000,000 worth OF
malt liquors every year, while the dis
titled liquors sent forth from it's whole.
which only detiles, degrades and pol
lutes its patrons! Ye gods bend in pity
over it's slaves! We were on Front
Street to-day, and Il thousand hogs
heads of the vile weed were being trans.
ferred from tie wharf, and Oh the head
OF one was written ':48, ,O2O;;' on anoth
er, "4O,O03." The inference is easily
drawn. We conversed with a mechanic
who complained bitterly of the hard
times, and ut the same time putting
vigorously at his cigar. l casually
asked him how much it cost him pei
day for cigars, and found that lie spent
the moderate sum of seventy cents pei
day, four dollars and ninety cents pel
week, or two hundred and forty-fO,,l
dollars and eighty cents per year. The
true theory OF hard times is the extrav
agant vices Of the age, costing the race
a greater sum than all the comforts and
conveniencies it enjoys. The mechanic
just referred to would have no doub,
rung the phrase ''hard times" in lis
wife's ears, had she deigned to ask him
for calico dress costing serenity cents
These terrible evils have become pop
ular, and a temperance man stands 4
poor chance for political preferment
So absorbed has become the present
race in these vices, that the stream OF
hereditary descent is tainted, and !;
generation of t0pers and tobacco eaters
are being ushered into the world. A
prostituted and immoral press winks al
this outrage, and Il paid clergy blind tt
to the requirements of common Justice
not only fail to rcbuke these crying
evils, but receive the manufacturer :anl
vcnder of distilled hell and danlnatio,
into communion and church fellowship
A nation enslaved by foreign despo\
is 4 pitifcl sight; but Il nation from it:
representative bead down to it's mos,
humble citizen, enslaved by perverted
appetite, is more pitiful still. If caus'
and effect perpetuate their infallible re
lationsllip, so surely will this nation
pay the penalty of it's present physical
social and moral degradation, in suffer
ing dire, and at no distant periWl.
| WARREN SMITH.