Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-07-17
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.
Contributed by Ladies of Washington Temper
ance Union.l

ance Union.l
Mrs Elizabeth Thompson, benevo.
lent lady of large means, is circulating &
tract which shows that the people of the
United States pay over SOC, 200, 900 wear
for spiritous and fermented liquors, and
only $95, ,50O, 900 for education, and $4s,-
100000 for religion.
Two thousand liquor dealers in Balti-
more last year paid 100000 for licenses
sOr indulgences; the court and Jail ex-
spenses amounted to 1919 900. The cash
sales of liquor during the year amounted
70 SIC, 100000. Seventy-fve per cent. of
shat amount, it is believed, was paid by
poor men whose families are made squalid
and wretched by the rum curse.
The Rev. DIR. Guthrie says: ''Whisky
is good in its own place. There is moth
ing like whiskey in this world for pre-
serving a man when he is dead But it is
one of the worst things in the world for
preserving a man when he is living. If
you want to keep dead man, put him in
whisky; if you want to. kill living man
put whisky into him. 1t was a capital
thing for preserving the dead Admiral,
when they put him in rum puncheon :;
but it was bad thing for the sailors
when they tapped the cask. and drank
the liquor till they left the Admiral as he
never left the ship-high and dry.''
The number of arrests for drunkenness,
and disorderly conduct resulting there
from, in Chicago, were last year IL, 900 !;
the year previous the number reached
nearly 14000. Ofthose arrested for drunk
enness and kindred offenses, more than
one-fifth are persons between 10 and 20
years of age; this would give nearly 5000
minors, large number of whom are
mere children, as having been more or
less debauched and demoralized by indul-
gence in Intoxicating liquors during the
period of one year in our city.
Who can wonder, in view of these ap-
palling figures, at the present movement
for the prevention of liquor-selling to
minors?
But this is not the worst feature of these
police court figures. OF the persons ar
rested in this city in 1873, no less than
21 ,594 were males, and 1914 females; and
the great majority of the arrests of both
sexes were for drunkenness.
Here is food for ret1ection-nearly 5000
females, many of them young, arrested
in one year, in this city, for drunken
ness. That the great majority of the per-
sons arrested of both sexes were extreme
ly youthful, is evident from the fact that
l9, lS5 were single and only S,023 married.
Much the larger number of these ar
rests are made on Sunday, after the thea
ters, concert halls and dance houses have
been in full blast, and have vomited forth
their debased and degraded attendants
upon the public street.
But this is not all. There is still vast
army of persons of both sexes who are
not arrested,@ but who, neverth1ess, are
nightly, more especially on Sunday, more
or less under the influence of liquor
This can be seen by the appearance of
the streets at a late hour on Sunday
nights; by the spectacle of half intoxi-
Gated, profane, ribald and obscene youth
of both sexes who crowd the street cars
and make it impossible for sober people
to use them without being alternately
saddened and shocked, and oftentimes
openly and grossly insulted.
Who believes that &c, 900 people would
be arrested annually in our city, one-half
of them for drunkenness, if these places
of Sunday decentralization were hermeti-
cally sealed up? Who believes that nearly
5000 females-mothers, daughters, and
sisters to many thousands more-would
be arrested for drunkenness in Chicago,
if these antechambers of hell were shut
up? Who, also, believes that this demor-
alization of the people can go on without
results which will, sooner or later, cause
the entire community to be convulsed
with 4 most appalling social revolution.
Figures, such as the above, are eloquent
of atfiiction, sorrow, anguish, agony, tor
ture, wretchedness, suffering, desolation
and death in thousands of hapless, com
FORTRESS, unbIessed, wretched, disconso-
late, and despairing homes. Accursed
are the lives, and stained with blood
the hands that cause these figures to be
inscribed upon our police records. No
less accursed will be the hereafter, and
no less stained with blood will be the an
nails of any community that refuses to cut
down to the very roots of the poisonous
Upas .tree which is their melting cause
and Instrument Chicago DaiJy Neoos.
Homestead Laws.
A general law was placed in the Senate
of the FortV-fifth Congress- authorizing