Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1880-05-14
Intemnerance i'm High Life.

Drunkenness is not exclusively vice
of the so-called CLOVER classes ;" this is
tact too often overlooked in the current
discussions of intemperance and its rem
edies. We believe as fully as does DR.:
Bartol OF DR.. Clarke, IN the principal OF
substitution, in the New Testament rad
icalism of overcoming evil with good.
We have made frequent and earnest ap-
peals for such an enlargement of the
methods of temperance reforms as should
treat the causes as well as the effects Of
the drinking habit, and seek to diminish
the sale by stopping the demand for it,
We have no patience with the assump-
ton that society has fulfilled its duty, or
that reform has done it work, when the
sale OF even the manufacture of liquor
is legally prohibited. Neither appetite
nor native depravity will explain the in
temperance of the Clover classes" Go
to their wretched habitations, learn the
poverty of their lives, even greater than
the poverty of their purses: see how
they work, and eat, and sleep,-and you
will begin to understand that the delu-
sive glitter of the drinking saloon is an
effect rather than cause of their mis-
cry. They should be helped out of this
condition and fortified against such temp
tations, by every appliance that Christi
anity can suggest or philanthropy de-
wise. Fight the rum-shop with the cof-
fee-house, the tavern with the reading
and recreation-rooms,h omelessness with
evening homes, ignorance with educa-
ton, darkness with light.
But this is not enough. Is drunken
ness any less terrible when the drunkard
falls under a mahogOny table than when
he tumbles into the gutterp-when he IS
sent home in hack instead of being
hustled to the station houseP Is it more
dreadful for drunken man of the lower
class to break his wife's head, than for a
drunken man of the upper class to break
his wife's heart? Is a skeleton in the
closet less CHASTITY than skeleton in the
pitiless glare of the living-room light?
If you do not from your own observation
know the widespread and baneful effects
of intemperance among the well-to-do
and wealthy classes, your experience OF
life must be very limited. Ask the ply
sicians, ask the ministers of the city, and
they will tell you whether the excessive
useofstrong drink is chiehyt lie vice of the
working people. There is scarcely a FAM
lily undefiled, in some of its connections,
by. the demon-touch of intemperance.
The saloon is pitfall; but so is.the
club. The bar-room is the devils camp;
the side-board is his ambush. Whiskey
is debasing; but French brandy is warm
ed with the same fire of hell. A drunk"
is not made innocuous because it cost So
instead of ten cents. Calling alcohol by
fine names, and drinking it with that
kind of moderation that stops just short
of total intoxication, doesn't change its
nature or avert its effects. With all our
boosted advance in culture and civiliza-
ton, drunkenness still remains the mon
ster vice of society. And the unwise
methods of any of the advocates of tenn
perance, whether demagogue apostles or
sincere fanatics, does not absolve any
Christian teacher from the duty of plac-
ing the emphasis of his utterance upon
tue policy of abstinence.-Golden Rule.