The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-10-27
The Grog-Shop.
Considered from Farmers Standpoint

Considered from Farmers Standpoint.
Mr. j. b. Alcott, the editor of the agricul-
tural column of the Hartford Courant, is an
Horatian, and adorns whatever he touches.
His gossip about pumpkins is vastly more ell
tertaining than the gossip Of other papers
about pumpkin-heads, and his talk of Of onions
as strong and racy as the subject Of which he
discourses In Fridays Courant he talks,
wisely and wittily, of the grog-shop. This is
what he has to say:
Whether the farmer has anything to do
with the general use or disuse OF intoxicating
liquors, is question that may properly be pro-
posed for discussion. happened in at tenn
perance meeting not long since, where there
was large room full of well-dressed people,
but did not see farmer or any man active
in out door industries in the crowd. There
was no celebrated speaker to lead, but the
time was fully occupied until late hour by
short and interesting addresses from local
talkers-mostly mechanics. One was father
who spoke with the deepest feeling of sons
tempted to their ruin by convenience OF dram
shops. Farmers who have no sons, or whose
sons are not yet big enough to be lost in that
way, can scarcely be expected to feel as deeply
as that man did, but any of them will be able
to consider the character of the liquor trade as
touching the quality of their neighborhood and
the value OF their property. Does strong drink
improve the farmer or the farm workman?
Does grogshop raise the price of adjoining
land, or assist in starting any but wreclxing in
dustrieS? Farm products have not paid very
we'll of late-excepting cider, perhaps, but no
good farmer will maintain that large sales OF
strong cider are sign of business prosperity.
No more than any good druggist will argue
that large sales of quinine indicate the above
mentioned things. No; the farmer. II he
could choose would prefer neighbors with teeth,
L. Ngn.sa safnNaIal
and they know as we'll as any class of men on
the footstool that the benefit OF dram-Shops,
where any appears, is counterbalanced, ten
times over by the injury they do. The light
of the grog-hole IS essentially wreckers 5 iight,
depending for its oil upon the losses OF individ-
uals and of society. Common sense runs so
strongly in this direction now that don't un-
derstand how farmers will avoid joining in 1t.
Not from any particular desire to prevent case
hardened old hands, long given over as bad
eggs, from wetting their whistles, but because
open liquor shops do so continually enlist and
recruit their hard cases from the young and
indiscreet, as to be fairly ranked with land
piracy and other illegitimate forms OF business
discountenanced by law.
Farmers in this region will handle consider
able dung in the course of the year, and they
don't care greatly while they are about 1t, now
rich it is in stable waste and animal decay but
the good farmer will permit no steps to hasten
that decay unproftably, no more than ne VIII
permit any Steps 10 HdStcll the ueCdJ anu
radiation of society or individual life. He
wants the natural eXerement without any ply
sic to urge its coming, and will allow, every
time, that any other farming don't talloW
to use the expressive phraseology OF the farm
in this connection.
The farmers position at the social substratum
and foundation of our civil polity, inclines
him to look for waste and save 1t, but he can
not sit idly by, seeing unnecessary waste with
out lifting his hand to stop it. The saving
o.r1la aofor 70 inn
that, however any social waste may be running
to his present advantage. In some sense he is
the keeper of Abel and Abel's progeny, as our
poor-house accounts regularly show Ii he
can look unconcernedly ON while another mans
children waste their parents or their own sub
stance, he is but establishing precedent for
the like hard heartedness where the screws OF
a sorry fate are put to his own children and
his own property.
Every one who stimulates artifcially does so
from weakness or thoughtlessness.. Ii with
pill or powder, he is too ashamed OF HIM
self to ask one of us to take the medicine with
him. Is there any good reason why alcoholic
stimulants should not be put i'll the catalogue
with pills and powders? For thoughtless acts
there can, of course be no good argument; but
for goodness sake, if our iniirmities require
something alcoholic, or we get to thinking they
do let us take the dose in private, like those
who know that but for their faults or mlsior-
tunes they would never need it.
Public opinion does not allow the grog or
beer saloon to rank with the drug store, how
ever. They are less respectable to-day Their
presence hurts the value of adjoining real es-
tate. Neither quinine, nor opium, nor the
last popular whip for the jaded human system
PROSTATE their devotees in helpless drunken
ness along our streets. Uncle 1t Of New
Britain, Il beg his pardon, but really need to
print my screed with a local instanceQ is not
himself totally abstemious man; but he left
his labor last summer and spent several days
of his valuable time, working StrenuOuSly as
few men know how to work TO prevent beer
saloon in the vicinity of his homestead. a
thousand dollars would not have tempted him
to have a liquor shop set up there. 1t would
know, and every good farmer in the State
knows that the value of property next grog-
shop must ever remain comparatively low.
Now what shall we do about it.