St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-12-02

ment. SABBATH keeping, at least out
wardly, is wholly respectable and fash
ionable. The exceptions make the
most noise. From time to
time the running of public convey
ances, the carrying of the mails, and
the keeping open of the post offices has
been checked. Thirty-five years ago,
friends of the Sabbath secured a
Sabbath reformation as the reward of
their efforts. Forty railroad compa-
nies stopped running their cars on that
day, canal locks were not opened,
large numbers of stages and steamboats,
ceased to run, official business was not
transacted, dramshOps and theatsrs
were closed, Sunday parades were dis
continued. Z.
Profane swearing has not ceased, as
| need not say; but it has greatly di-
minished everywhere. 1t has been
banished from the drawing room and
the lips of gentlemen. An oath now
a-days, like an obscene word or hint,
drops its utterer instantly out of good
society.
What has been gained in political
morality? A public sentiment that
will tolerate no corruption, the closest
scrutiny of the dOings of public officers,
investigating committees, impeach-
ment trials, the political if not social
ruin of those implicated in credit mObi-
iier schemes and salary grabs, the
downfall of Tweeds, bosses and rings,
the wrecking of the senator and the
machine together, "Civil Service Re-
FORM" the "taking" subject of the pop
ular lecture.
The losses to the national treasury
by corruption and fraud have fallen
from S21.15 in every $1,000, in Van
Buren's time, to twenty six cents in a
thousand, in the last administration.
The moral character of trade has i'm
proved within the last fifty or sixty
years. 1t was formerly common say
ing, says Theodore Parker, "that if a
Yankee merchant were to sell salt wa
ter at high tide, he would cheat in the
measure. The saying was founded on
the conduct of American traders
abroad, in the West Indies and else
where. Now things have changed for
the better"
AS to intemperance this too has
been placed under a social ban. Drunk
enness long since ceased to be respect
able. From the great middle class of
society drinking habits have mostly
disappeared. The etiquette of hospi-
tality long since ceased to require the
offer of intOxicants to guests. Tenn
perate if not total abstinence habits are
necessary to employment on most of
our railways and in most of our large
manufacturing and mercantile estab-
lishments.
Respecting unchastity, except in one
direction, = viz, divorce - there has
been substantial gain. The standard
of purity in conduct and speech among
our rural populations is far higher than
in the days of our fathers. Lapses
from virtue are more rare and less ca
silly cOndOned. Polite literature has
been mostly purged from the indelicacy
which characterized it. The multi
tudes of vile publications such as were
once openly sold and read, though they
are still in the market and find readers,
circulate mostly out of sight,-at least
since Anthony Comstock lose, and now
cad haunted life of outlawry.
A great increase latterly in the num-
Der of divorces cannot be denied, and
in no view that may be taken of the
fact does it seem gain to the public
morality. But to estimate it fairly two
or three things should be borne in
mind. AS another says: "The divorces
of our day, morally considered, count
against the runaways from matrimony
and the illegalized assumptions OF
marriage relations, quite extensive un-
der the deleteriOus influences of French
infidelity, less than one hundred years
ago. The elOpements and runaways
now are few in comparison with those
of that period, less even than twenty
five years ago. Now combining the
runaways and divorces, we find nc
such condition of things as existed
when Onetwentieth part of the news
papers, in a single month, contained
one hundred and twenty three adver,
tisements of runaway wives"
1t hardly needs mention that in thii
progress in morals the church has fully
shared. The drunkenness and other i'm.
mOralities of which the ministry wer,
guilty in the early periods of our ma
tiOnal existence have almost wholly
disappeared, except among the igno
rant cOlored people at the South. The
use of intOxicants as a beverage, ex
cept perhaps in one or two denomina
tions, is almost unknown among min
listers, and the cases are rare in which
they do not set examples which theil
fiocks may safely follow. An excep
ton to this rule is reckoned fall, ant
the offenders reputation and his offic,
are at once forfeited.
Slavery is now dead and its attend
ant and inseparable evils are steadil.
dying too. Dueling has almost who'll!
|