Connecticut western news., 1878-09-12


 London alone drinks twice e much as is pro- duced, both good and bad. There is sold and consumed at least one hundred times as much as is produced. Follow gallon of the real juice from the press on the banks of the Don. TO to tho warehouse in Oporto, By the aid of best whisky elderberry- Juice, and water, it is made into five. In the London Dock ware house 1t grows into ten by the addition of po- tato " whisky, red saunders and other drugs. In New York 1t takes dose of shychnine or belladonna, whisky, and opium, and logwood, when it swells up into twenty gallons. In a wholesale house there it grows into forty gal Ions by the help of whisky, stramonium, red saunders, logwood, and sulphuric acid. Then the retailer doubles it into eighty by adding tobacco juice, water, burnt sugar, aloes, and sugar of lead.
 The man hardly lives who has seen a drop of puro Port wine.
 RUM IS A MURDERER,
 The peoplein general are not to blame for this state of things. They are about as good as ever; but Government has been frequent partner with the Whiskey Rings, and is, there- fore, participant in the guilt of the crimes that are chargeable to the vile poisons sold un- John Smith, who has paid $50 for license, is murderer; but Rum is, Whiskey is. The word Is horrible one; but in this case, it is true. Years agv a fellow at the South shot Yankee school master. There was no one to take the matter up, and 80 the subject passed out of mind in the community where the crime was committed. But, some time after the criminal came to Philadelphia and registered at one of the leading hotels. There his name was seen and recognized by a friend of tho dead school master, who appended to the outheners name the dread word '.murderer.v NO other name was ever written upon that page of the register. No one was willing that even his name should be found in company wit hat of A s,4. Is not accomplished in moment. The enemy takes your boy, clean and pure, takes him from the family altar, takes him from school, benumbs his faculties, destroys his reason, bars the gates of respectability and heaven against him, oarves the lines of degradation and disgrace upon his countenance, until even the mother that bore him cannot recognize in that bloated and disfgured face the lineaments the boy has been murdered, not less than if he had been struck down by the assassin's hand in the street.
 And the poor inebriate suffers thousand deaths. The tortures of the Inquisition were terrible but the thumb-screws that torment the drunkard are worse than any that were ever imposed by religious persecution They kill not only the body, but the soul. While the poor man is struggling with his appetite, the arch enemy steals around by some unguarded | avenue, in spite of a sisters tears, and a mothers prayers and bars the very gates of mercy against him. Then he plays with his Vlctlm, gloats over him at his leisure, and h- | nally damns him.
 The number of crimes annually committed in this county and directly traceable to Rum, | IS something fearful to contemplate. sinRle year shows eight hundred rapes, four thous- and cases of arson, four thousand highway robberles and hundred thousand petty lar cenies. One million men in this free land are to-day staggering toward drunkards' graves. Ninety thousand every year stumble and stag ger through darkness and gloom down to hen. And these men do not go down alone. Two million women and two million children are | bound, as with millstone about their necks, and cast into the social sea to perish. Two million orphans are yearly plunged into the skadowy and bottomless sea of shame and sor- | row, and thrown out upon the cold charities of an unpitying world. Two hundred thous- and women travel the dread road tosthe poor | house and two hundred thousand fathers are | sent to jail every year. All this is the work of the monster with whom we are called to con- tend.
 This demon is the enemy of our common | schools. The public schools are yearly robbed of two million children that ought to be under their care. More than this, there are four sac | looms to every school in the United States. Our schools are kept open six hours day and five days in the week but the saloons are open eighteen hours day and every day in the week. Keep the puplic schools open, SO 1 that the poor boy can see the path that leads by his fathers cot to the highest station in life but pray that he may not be cursed by being sent to Congress, or damned by being | slipped into the White House. Stop the schools and we will soon need mounted police- men to keep us from cutting one anothers | tlroats.
 Rum stings the happiness, stains the honor l and corrupts the purity of home which is the palladium of peace. Whatever touches the home touches the nation. If you are 0 drunk. ard your affections have strayed from the cir | cle at home. You care more for the rumseller'a wife than you do for your own. You do not love your own children as you do the rumseller's. Your wife is clothed in rags and tatters, your children are ill-clothed and hungry, while you | aid the rumseller's wife to ride in her carriage and his children to revel in luxury.
 Let us watch the progress of the rum hend in one of these homes. You, the trusted hus- band, have just taken to yourself wife who gave, her all into your keepingi She is young and beautiful and proud of you. She has placed her happiness in your hands, and, if before s you would betray her. But I shpSows hpaSSss soon cloud the sky of home she smells the | fumes of liquor in your breath the Injuries soon stop; the furniture becomes broken and is not replaced; the window-panes are shat | tered; the gate falls down the spoons and knives disappear and she hardly dares to re- | monstrate. Yet even this is too good for her she is removed to still poorer house, how el; her beauty is gone; her hopes have Tan- ply awaits the will of the Almighty, looking | to the day of death for relief from the shame and degradation. One Saturday night, pale and listless she sits up to await your coming, and cheer the ragged and shivering children. The little ones shrink back into the corner ct your approach, and go to sleep at last amid their sobs and the sobs of their mother. But this is not the end. In the morning the dead face of their mother, all scared and blood stained, meets the children's gaze. The father has fled. murdererl O assassin Thou canst not say thou art not guilty.
 Alchohol is the supreme criminal of all ages it is also the supreme spendthrim. 1t takes from the wealth of the United States, every year, two and one-half billions of dollars, more money than has ever been expended in the construction of railroads in this country. We spend and waste annually four times as much for liquors as for those great necessities of civilized hfe--cotton and woolen goods, boots and shoes, paper, flour and meat. Wm. E. Dodge when before the Potter investigG ting Committees committee appointed for the purpose of ascertaining if there were as big fools outside of Congress as in it-struck the nail squarely on the head when said: "stop the sale of rum and the hard times will soon exist in memory only"
 THE REMEDY.
 Divers methods of dealing with this great evil are proposed Some would have us keep still and do nothing but can we safely do this? The tiger has you by the throat, and you must grapple with the monster. The mid- night assassin has stolen in atthe window; are you to keep still and do nothingp I, there is an internal machine in your house, your own safety, as well as the safety of your loved ones. demands it's instant removal.
 Some propose as remedy the substitution of beer or wine for the stronger lquoFs. Against this evil plan we can only thunder the facts, spbstantiated by documentary evidence, that the countries that manufacture and drink most beer and wine, use most distilled liquors and have the largest per cent. of beastly, wife, beating, child-beating drunkenness. One of the very best ways to make drunkards is to feed them sweet wine, nurse them along in this manner, and you will have in the eEtd, tirst-class sots.
 Some advocate the license system; but defy you to show that license stops, or ever regulates the sale of liquor. The only good