The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1878-03-07
A Cruel and Infamous SANDER.

We have hesitated for several weeks about
noticing the effects of an article which APP
peared some time since In the local columns
OF the Vlndscator giving the result of inter-
views of one of the editors of that paper with
the druggists of Staunton about opium eat
ing. We had hoped that it would not he
reprinted in other papers, and that the i'm
preston it was calculated to make would
soon pass off. We are sure no one could
more regret the bad eminence unintention-
ally given our city than our contemporaries,
for we are satisfied they had no thought that
they were opening up theme that was La
BILE to be exaggerated to the fabulous and in
furious proportions it has assumed. Now
and then we have seen paragraphs in our
exchanges abiding to the alleged opium
eating propensity of our people, but in OBJ
scure papers, and hence did not take the
trouble to contradict them, for fear that more
attention would be attracted to misrepre-
sentatlon that ought to correct itself. Last
week, however, our attention was called to
a short article in standard medical journal
the Medical and Surgical Reporter, Phil
adelphia-as follows:
"OPIUM EATINa.--An exchange says
that investigations into the opium eating
habits of residents of the Shenandoah Val
ley reveals the fact that in the town Of
Staunton 100 pounds of the drug are eaten
every week. Many young women and Ia
dies Of the first families are slaves of the
habit. A public anti-opium-e eating meet
fv,nr hoe hon hall ,of;fs Co.., toxr
on the drug is in circulation
Scarcely had we recovered from the aston
ishment caused by this wholesale falsehood,
than another physician placed in our hands
the Cincinnati Enquirer, of the 25th of Feb
ruary, containing letter dated Staunton,
Va, February 81, purporting to have been
written in this city, giving detailed and
circumstantial account of the interviews he
had been favored with and their result, as
respects the opium eaters in Stanton, and
the fearful prevalence of the habit through
| out the Valley. That article will be found
in full on our 4th page, and probably there
was never the same number of lines of print
ed matter that contained as many unmitiga-
ted and barefaced falsehoods. There is not
single truthful statement in it. 1t is deliD-
erately and willfully false from beginning
to end, as the formal statements of the drug
gists of Staunton, elsewhere published, will
fully establish. Then followed the reception
ct the New York Times, containing the let
ter OF the Enquirer, and Norfolk paper
also gave it an insertion so that the mali
cious ISLANDERS upon the people Of Staunton,
as well as the entire Valley, tending to do
US incalculable injury, have had widespread
notoriety.
| These facts coming to the attention of the
druggists OF Staunton, they promptly deter
mined to place themselves and the commu-
nifty right, and to that end held formal
meeting, the result of which will be found
in another column.
| What motive could have suggested the
fabrications contained in the Enquirer's let
ter, we are at loss to conjecture. Surely
no one could be so fendish as to deliberately
stab whole people in their reputation as
this correspondent has, and embrace in his
| monstrous ISLANDERS all classes and condi-
lions of community-not excepting young
ladies-and the only solution we can give
to it, is that the writer was recklessly
aiming at sensational article, regardless of
the serious consequences.
We can safely say that there is no COM
munity in the entire Union that is freer
from vice Of every description than the peo-
pie of Staunton and Augusta county, and
as to this particular habit, there are fewer
victims OF it here than in any place Of the
same size in the whole country. The testi-
mony Of the druggists shows that with
trade extending into half dozen adjacent
counties, there is not sold to exceed fifty
pounds per year, including all the forms in
which it is used, and for all the uses to
which it is adapted, by all the drug stores
OF Staunton. And yet this correspondent
gives it as truth that one hundred pounds
per sceek are consumed-enought to kill every
man, woman and child in the place-purely
to crafty the cravings of the appetite for
the poisonous drug. Not only are the res
ident citizens put down as chronic opium
eaters, but the Female Seminaries are in
vaded by this monster and made to appear
before the public as consumers of the drug
to the amount each, in cases mentioned, of
six dollars per week
The cruelty of the Enquir ea's publication
can be best estimated when it is known that
there are near four hundred young ladies
from various States in the Union receiving
their education here, and that this reckless
writer has spread it broadcast that the in
situations to which they are entrusted are
powerless to protect the wards placed in
their care from this consuming vice 1t lisa
terrible wrong; a cruel, burning SANDER for
which neither the law nor public sentiment
can devise an adequate punishment.
Except the article published in the Vi,sds-
Gator, which itself was a gross exaggeration
of the facts, as stated by the druggists, there
is nothing to justify any of the statements
of the correspondent He never visited
Staunton or interviewed the druggists. We
doubt whether he was ever here at all. Mr..
Tyree, Mr.. Allen, and the clerk with Wayt
& Bro, testify that no such interview was
ever had with them. The names of DR..
Murphy, DR.. Benner, DR.. Dykes, Mr.. Lloyd,
the pawnbroker, Mr.. MARYLAND, the elder,
are not known here and never have been.
Like the assumed facts of the correspondent,
they only have an existence in his corrupt
and Infamous imagination.
It is impossible to conceive a more heart
less SANDER than that which we have under
consideration. Here is community proven.
bal for its morality and refinement; far
famed for its educational and charitable in
stitutions-the enterprise and public spirit
of its citizens, their liberality, intelligence
and public worth. in every sense that goes
to make up an attractive and heightened peo-
pie. Yet this ruthless slanderer brings
them aU-not excepting the young ladies
and ministers Of the gospel-under the ter
rible influence Of Supplying and debasing
drug, and publishes them to the world as the
slaves Of habit that would contradict all
their claims to respect and decent recogni-
ton, were it true.