The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1876-03-22
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.
EDITED BY A LADY.

to, - in his No. III article, that we belong to
the strong-mnded persuasion" does NOT
cause the least blush of shame If he will
consider oni labors and prayers during the
last two years he must know that we are very
positively strong-minded against everything
connected Nth intemperance, and terribly in
earnest to do everything in our power to sup
press the traffic. To the challenge for public
debate he says, ''we have no disposition to
spend our powder in that way upon an audi
ence of women and children" These two
men and children" have already become a
power against their side y and the boys and
lads that are now under temperance training
will soon be voters.
But " the main question, viz that of Sc
curing the majority at the coming election, ;"
is the matter that interests both sides now, and
We hope every voter will read carefully and
thonghtfully the following objections and if
the "other side :" can point to any " unfair
ness, misrepresentation or stratagem y en-
bodied in these objections, they will do so.-
We only aim to present simple truth direct to
the conscience.
| We begin with the proposition that" All
persons admit that the traffic in strong drink
is an evil. Hence rumsellers and their pat
rons say that it must be regulated by license
law. Were it not an evil, there wo uld exist
no necessity for regulating it. But it is
wrong to license an evil. The Bible has two
ways only of dealing with evil, namely, by
prevention and prohibition it does not license
it.
| Licensing the sale of Intoxicating drinks
makes it respectable. Good citizens general
| ly regard the traffic as a low, disreputable
business. But a license law throws around it
the sanction of the State, and thereby gives it
the appearance of legitimate and honorable
business. Rumsellers understand this and
advocate license law. The Prohibitory Law
treats their traffic as crime, and themselves
as criminals for this reason they oppose it
with all their might. Prohibition denounces
their infamous business !; license approves it,
1t is not strange that they advocate the latter.
license law chiefly accomplishes but two
things LIST, 1t protects rumsellers in their
destructive traffic. 3D. 1t provides the drink
ing classes with the facilities of gratifying
their appetites. Both of these things are i'm
moral and sinful, because they increase crime,
pauperism, and misery. 1t is unkindness and
cruelty to the drunkard's wife and children to
license a man TO sell their husband and father
that which beggars them and destroys their
happiness. More than that there is absolute
wickedness in such an act. Government is
cry instead of exposing them to these evils.
The license system is an unjust monopoly.
1t authorizes a few men to sell strong drink,
and prohibits all others. If the traffic be good
and useful, then all alike should be permitted
to engage in it. If it be injurious, then none
should be allowed to drive it. To license a
few men to make three -fourths of all the
paupers and criminals for the unlicensed cit Z
zens to support, is a burdenthat vrtuous
| people may well resist.
| The conditions of all license laws are I'M
mercful. The best of thom have these pro-
visions Not to sell to an intoxicated man.
! The vender may sell to him until he makes
him drunken, and then he must stop until the
unfortunate drinker becomes sober, when the
sale may be renewed and continued until in
toxieation occurs the second time and thus
on indefinitely
The license system never diminishes intem-
perance. 1t has been tried two hundred years
in our land without diminishing the evil. 1t
has been tried in other lands with no better
effect.
The plea, also, to license only the high
er class of grog-shops is false. If only one
class must be licensed, let that class be the
lower one for wrecks of humanity only pat
ronize these.
Shall we license man to sell strong drink
when we can not name any good that he can
do ? BY no means. 1t will be time enough
|
to one good thing they can do.
Let us look at the rumseller, that we may
know with whom we may have to deal. He
| is man selling for gain what he knows to
be worthless and pernicious, good for none,
dangerous to all, deadly to many. He has
looked in the face the sure consequences of
his course, and il he can but make gain of it,
is prepared to corrupt the souls, embitter the
lives, and blast the prosperity of an indefinite
number of his follow-creatures
Let us notice the traffic as connected with
taverns or hotels 1T has been almost uni
yersally regarded as essential to the being of
an Inn, that it should be fitted out with all
the variety of Intoxicating drinks. In the
popular notion of it, one of the chief purpos-
es of Tavern is that it be a convenient and
respectable place for drinking. The promi-
nent feature is the Bar. Remove that, and in
popular estimation the Tavern is gone.
Now we deny wholly the business of this
conception. We deny that there is, by either
necessity or propriety, any such bond of con-
nection between the traffic in drinks and the
business of Inn-keeping. 1t is no part of the
appropriate functions of that calling to deal
in liquors. A Tavern is not, in the nature
and fitness of things, grog-house. The two
| things are so far from being identical that
they are even antagonists their union is in
consistent and disastrous, and ought to be at
once prohibited by Law. And il to any one
| tnlS proposition seems startling, lou nlm SuS-
pend his judgment and reflect little.
This union of the Traffic with useful call
ing, and the conception of it as u necessary
union, are of such practical Importance as to
justify a careful consideration in the view we
are now taking. Intemperance has fastened
no other abuse on a deluded world so strange
as the perversion of the Tavern system into
universal agency for the ministration of
drinks. II is at this point we are yielding
the most infatuated and effectual support to
the Traffic.
Other modes of the traffic shock and alarm
us more, not because they are pushing the
same work through its more matured and
dreadful stages. The work is one (; and the
service rendered in it by our fashionable ho-
tells is more important than any other. Theirs
is the fundamental work of decoying the VIC
! tim.
Let no man who votes think that he can es-
cape the responsibility of the act. His vote
| ha1, tba Of tlo NJ ,f