Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-07-27
Obstacles to the Temperance Move
ment in Russia.
From "The Russians of To-Day"

to odessa, and are living in many
stOried house, whose dUO57lik o
porter is a responsible person, ant
we are sorry to say that he is offer
drunk. Sorry, because his multifa
rious duties require sober mind.
He takes the rent of dodgers anC
gives receipts for it; he must keel
bad characters and Vagabond dog
out of the house-yard he has tt
raise an alarm in case of fire, to se'
that the sewers are clear, to ligh
the petroleum lamps on the staircase
after dark, to scatter ashes over tht
/ pavement when it is slippery will
frost, and to sweep away the snow
IF he neglectS any of these tasks ht
is liable to be fined, and even chas
tised in private, by the police; yef
he drinks himself incapable every
feast-day, and our iStUoschik, Oh
coachman, gets still more drunk in
his company.
Happily, coachman and porter
make no pretence of attending tC
their duties when tee boozing fit is
of sight, and leave you to get on
without them as you can. The tip
siness of the divOrnik always leads
to a big theft of the fuel stacked in
the front yard that of the isvoschik
obliges you to hire a public droschi,
which is, after all, better than being
driven about by a fuddled coach
man, who might charge the acacias
| that border the dusty streets or
plunge at full galop off the quay in
to the port, as some have been
known to do. Both the men are
good, industrious fellows when so-
! ber, and express regret for their
weakness /; but they have doleful
story to tell of how they once tried
to become total abstainers and got
into trouble with the authorities in
consequence.
This was about dozen years ago,
when the liquor traffic was farmed
out by Government to spectators,
who abused their monopoly to sell
vodki at eXOrbitant rates. The
peaSantry, knowing that there was
a tariff which was only eluded by
conniVance with the provincial au-
thorities, whom the mOnopoliSts
bribed, banded themselves into
temperance societies, with view
to forcing down the prices. Here
upon the farmers complained to
Government, and the tetOtal leagues
were dissolved as illegal secret SOci-
eties.
This had already happened in
1854 and 1859, before serfage was
abolished; and on both these occa-
siOns very summary measures were
taken towards forcing the people to
contribute to the revenue by their
intemperance. Policemen and sol
diers were sent into the disaffected
districts, and the teetOtalers were
flOgged into drinking; some who
dOggedly held out had liquor poured
into their mouths through tunnels,
and were afterwards hauled off to
prison as rebels; at the same time
the clergy were ordered to preach
in their churches against the new
form of seditiOn, and the press-cen-
SOrship thencefOrth laid its veto up
on all publications in which the i'm
morality of the liquor traffic was
denounced.
These things sound incredible,
but they are true. In 1865 the peO-
pie fancied that because they were
no longer serfs they could not be
treated so unceremOniOusly as of
yOre, but they found out their mis-
take. They were simply dealt with
as insurgents, and, though not
beaten, were fined, bullied, and
preached at till there was no spirit
of resistance left in them. How
ever, this new rising led to the aho-
Iition of the mOnOpOlies. An excise
was substituted, the vOdki fell by
competition, and the lower orders
of Russia are now drunker than
ever. According to the latest re-
turns ("WesseloWski's Annual Reg
ister") the liquor duties yield the
revenue 500, 900, ,000rOubles e32 ,000,-
600 sterling) year.
One morning a soft-spOken police
man, in a gray-tOp coat, calls to say
that our cOachman, who vanished
overnight, is lying at the station
under a charge of assault committed
while inebriate. Is it our pleasure
that he should be made to act as
public scavenger for three days in
the "drdnk gang?' We have a
private idea that to sweep the streets
would do our istvoschik no harm,
but the point isreally this-shall we
bribe him out of his scrape, or by
declining to do so stir up the police
to prefer charge which may keep
him in prison, not for days, but
mOnths?. We produce three rubles,
rejecting that we can deduct them
from Ivan IvanOwitch's wages, and
by and by Ivan turns up, sober and
thankful, to explain that he would
never have been arrested at all if
the police had not felt sure that his
master would buy him off.
This is so true that the man will
be sacred in the policeman's eyes
for perhaps three months to come.
Let him stagger about as rOwdily as
he pleases, be quarrelsOme and indO-
lent, the police will take no notice
of him till the time has arrived
when they think they may decently
claim three more roubles.
AS influential persons, such as
great noblemen, bishops, diplomatic
and consular agents, cannot be called
upon for black-mail, their servants
enjoy full license as to intoXication;
so do petty civil servants and mill
tary officers in their own persons,
for a policeman who meddled with
them might find himself in trouble;
but all nOn-of1icial people whose
servants exceed sObriety, or who do
so themselves, must D1ibe or take
the consequences, vtich are un-
pleasant.
A person may also be severely
punished for not getting drunk, as a
certain Polish schOOlmaster whom
we met one day disconsolately
wilding a besOm on the quays in
company of a dozen hOpeckless
rOgues who are being made exam
piles of because they had no friends.
The crime of our schOOlmaster was
that he lifted up his voice in his
school and in tea shops against
"King VOdki, )" and tried to inveigle
some university students into taking
a temperance pledge. He was pri-
vately warned that he had better
hold his peace, but he went on, and
the result was that one evening as
he was walking home somebody
bumped against him he protested
two policemen forthwith started up,
hauled him off, charged him with
being drunk and disOrderly, and
the next day he was sentenced to
sweep the streets for three days-a
,o,,+ +oroo which fortupatolU does not