Connecticut western news., 1879-12-24
stPilRrim'' has am Interview,

EDITOR: NBws:--.Ina recent conversation: with well known temperance man of this town, he remarked that there was much more drunkenness on our streets since the license vote than the year before. <
 But said l, "hoW do you. u.reconcile that statement with the alleged boast of the liquor dealers, and the complaint of the temperance element, that there was just as much liquor sold last year as in any previous year?"
 "Well !" said he, 'sthe fact is, there wasn't as much Hqner sold last year as before, al, though 1t is neither the fault, nor to the credit of the temperance element, or prosecuting agents and the recent social change finds an easy solution in the perceptibe drifting apart ot the two elements originally comprising the late temperance wave, which at the start swept all before it, saint and sinner; necessa- Fily effeeting an i1idiscrininate mixture of all grades of society, having the same affinity one to another as water to oil; and after the agita- tion of the first enthusiasm which shook them together, had subsided, the oil came to, the surface and repudiated the relationship"
 But "said l, "you will admit the salutary effects of the coming together of these classes of society, even for brief period p
 'I will admit that for a time the rum power suffered a: check but the effect of the
 
 drinkers are more confirmed in the habit than ever, having experienced the weakness of a demonstration that boasted such vast strength, sand promised so much, but which left them Respondent and in despair"
 "Yo ou think then that the temperance or ganizaton has outlived it's usefulness? ?'
 ''I don't say that. The rising generation needs teacher and adviser, but the present curriculum needs revision. They want not only rules and precepts, but erdmpleS and practice. Of course facts and metaphors are interesting to an appreciative audience, but we all know now that 60,O00 drunkards go down to dishonored graves annually in our state; that King Alcohol is robbng our fam flies; that millions of dollars are annually spent for rum; that if all the drunkards were linked together like sausages they would make a chain thousands of miles long, etc. practical ideas and suggestions, coupled with practical aooyk for diminution in these sta tistics." ,,:r
 ''What is your idea of an effective means of accomplishing this work P
 ~ Well, as moral suasion is proven ineffect- i've, try the other thing. The drunkard has been petted and pitied and fiattered, and fed with maledictions upon the heads of the rum sellers he has been brought to consider him. self a martyr and victim to evil, rather than guilty perpetrator of crime. Now make drunkenness crime, and each violation pun, lshable as crime give the drunkard to un- derstand that crime against conscience, self. respect, family and God, is crime against the commonwealth, and punishable with lm- prisonment; lock up the first man who trans gresses this law, and keep hlm in du:ance vile, long enough to reflect that the wages of sin is not only a headache, an empty wallet and a sense of shame, and humiliation in pub lie sentiment; shat he is not considered an unfortunate object of sympathy and pity, to be encouraged in his downward career by the exercise of the too lenient spirit of Chris tian charity, but as criminal to be sternly dealt with by the strong arm of the law. This course, tried as an experiment., would tend to call into requisition the better nature and determination, inherent in the breast of every man."
 This is surely heterodox suggestion, but I am not sure, Mr. Editor. that 1t is rot en- titled to some consideration, in view of the inadequacy of all the tried methods for the suppression of drunkenness: What think you? x PILGRIM.