St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-12-12
VOLUME 43---NUMBER 22ll.

of laws, and enactment of more strin-
gent ones. In local option states,
''there has neUer been q gear in which so
many towns have voted entire prOfibi
tiOn." License states are agitated from
end to end with new bills, amendments,
tax laws, bell punch, civil damage en-
actments. A great demand for strict
| temperance literature 2000 pamphlets
sent out in 6 weeks time this fall by
National Temperance Societies: during
the year 25,000,000 pages. Note
This society alone has stereotyped
620 varieties of books and pamphlets,
costing $4,000, and given away $780,
600 worth. Among
other things 1 have minuted the follow
ing: Political and religious cOnven-
tiOns in 1879 have given special promi
nence to this question in Congress the
House voted June 18th to establish
standing committee of nine to consider
and report on all bills relating to liq
uOr: bill for national commission on
alcoholic traffic passed the senate in
July: representative men like Justice
| WestbrOoke, Noah Davis, and others,
speak decisively not only in criminal
suits bat in public places in one case,
| Ocol luI0IulCIou W JnIOIS. OoCIcldIy
McCIary requires candidates for U. S.
Army to answer question about use of
liquor: ardent spirits not allowed on
board the yacht Jeanette, commissioned
by Gordon Bennett for the North Pole
leading magazines discuss the matter:
Richardson's lesson book, a regular
text book in many schools: total ab-
stinence becoming condition of en-
plOyment on western railways: New
York Mutual reduces insurance rates,
finding average of life increasing
among causes for this are the more tenn
perate habits of people. (Dr. De Nor
gan.) l have noticed and partly read
accounts of state or district temperance
conventions in 80 different states and
territories. The number of organiza-
tions is already like the number of
devils of old, legion by name, ready also
to challenge any number of the devils
that haunt our 100000 saloons or go
about in either stealthy or startling
shape to devOur men. 1 especially
this morning salute the l | 900 branches
of the w. G. Il. u, also their pres-
dent Miss Frances E. Willard, also the
| women of that order in our own village
to whom we owe much.
The Sabbath. Wide interest in this
direction. Fresh in our minds is the
Sunday Convention in Boston, Oct.
2Ist, ult.; out of this came 81 able pa
pers and addresses for publication ;
Sunday league with branches in every
town in Massachusetts, also a quick
ened public feeling. ought to speak
with honor of those 20 laymen who got
together few years ago in New York,
as Sabbath Committee: quietly, stead
lily, and in many ways they have work
ed towardsa general awakening through
the country. We may call it by that
name; not only New England stirred
exceedingly, but such pivotal points as
| New York and st. Louis. Not only So
Der Philadelphia and sanguine Chicago,
but Eyes, tell it in Gath,) even unsanc-
titled Cincinnati is beginning to talk
about having a Sabbath business men
talking it on the street: doing it on the
road: no more Sunday trains from Gin
cinnati to Sandusky and to Cleveland.
Yes, publish that fact in Askalon pub
lish it to Mr.. Vanderbilt, while the
brotherhood of engineers are putting
up their petition for a Sunday. Some
other parties like VIM. E. Dodge sell
out their elevated railway stock until
the Sunday trains quit running over
heads of people who want to go quietly
to church. Will Mr.. Beecher please
stop preaching if he cannot stop the
trains running after him. l will add as
the sentiment of our people, emphati-
cally of some once entangled unwit-
tingly therein, no more funereal pa
geantry on Sunday.
The Family. Never was the question
of marriage and divorce so prominent.
Simultaneously in various states it is
before churches, legislatures and the
press it was a leading topic this year
in the Congregational Conventions of
Vermont and Massachusetts and Con-
necticut. Committees were organized
to act toward a permanent reform, in
Guiding such men as Pres. Buckham in
this state, Prof. Phelps and Chas.
Theo. Russell in Massachusetts, Ex-
Pres. Woolsey in Connecticut. Bills
have passed or are pending in various
legislatures; our own you know made
an infantile beginning in the direction
indicated by Gov. Proctor-first, by
putting some small difficulties in the
way of parties coming into the state to
obtain divorce second, by diminish
ing the facilities for getting out of one
marriage for the purpose of getting in
to another. 1t ought to make us blush
that we stand before the world with
300 persons divorced annually between
Lake Champlain and the river Connec-
ticut; 1868 bills granted in ten years.
Our Christian people will not cease
pounding at the door of the Senate and
House at Montpelier till we get some
thing safer and more stringent than
this. The American public has never
held mormOnism as positive a stencil
as now: Secretary Evarts could stand
it no longer. 1t is some relief that an
official protest has gone out from the
Department of State, besides the fact
that under the national law Utah as it
is. will be held at arms length from the
Union. The beginning of the end has
come to the Oneida Community. The
family system just now introduced.
came in from the pressure of outside
sentiment which ought TO have pressed
a good while ago. Until 1879 there
were no husbands, no wives, children
plenty. Hereafter, though holding
property IN common, there will be mar
rled folk and single folk, and this
means that after while the Oneida
Community will live like any other
community. That public attention is
now widely directed to the Importance
and sanctity of the family relation is
good and thankworthy. All the ioys
of home of which Thanksgiving Day is
itself monument, are centered in IFS
holy bond: the security of the Repub-
lie rests upon its legal enforcement.
Business Morals. 1t really looks rs