Litchfield enquirer., 1881-06-30
OTHER SIDES.

OTHER SIDES. Itis a tradition in the town of Litchfeld that early one morning loud boyish voices were beard from certain upper chamber in the parsonage, growing noisier and more guar relsome, till the head of the family thought at last it was time to interfere. -sT aa Boys! boys!" the stern voice of the plucky
 little parson thundered out, at the foot of the stairs. Boys! what is all this noise about ?" The chamber door was slammed, opened, there was rush into the upper hall, and an outraged indignant voice, with touch of
 horror Ill it's tone exclaimed:
 "Father! Henry says God couldn't make a sheet of paper with only one side to it r As Bishop Berkeley said about the straw
 berry, no doubt God could have made any
 tbing with only one side to it, but he never did land while "Henry, persistent as Calico,
 hung on to the truth as he saw it, just as he
 has hung on to every truth he has seen ever since, do not doubt that his niaturer mind
 would agree with me that there are several sides to everything, even to the temperance question. a.. -...-
 am not one of those people who regard the drunkard as moral baby, a creature
 whose pitiable weakness is such that all temp
 tation must be sternly removed from his path and the tempter punished instead of the trans gressor. This is not Gods me thod. with his world, and the nearer we approach his meth cd the greater our success will'be and ought to be. believe in stopping the irresponsible sale of liquor most thoroughly, but also be- leve in strengthening the feeble knees of the liquor drinker so that he shall be enabled to pass by saloon as calmly as temperate man cotld, and gain fresh strength from, every re- sissance to evil, instead of growing limp and falsby in his moral muscles from never using them = -... 5e- But to lame man give a .crutch Let us look at the special temptations of the common sort of drunkard; not those who inherit the dreadful thirst that only death entirely quenches.
 What is the average condition in life of drunkards? We know most of them are men who work hard, physically, for their daily
 bread. They get up early in the morning, eat solid indigestable breakfast of poor cof- fee, fried meat, or fried cakes and molasses,
 hot potato, greasy pork, doughnuts pie, salt fish, tough ham, bakers bread; rarely eggs,
 never fruit. Some one of these substances is hastily swallowed in room full of exhausted air; for if it is not the family bedroom, it al-
 most invariably opens into that apartment. Often, indeed. the only part of this meal that
 
 mother sets on the table over right some cold remains of the day before's supper, and the coffee pot is left on the back of the stove to be drawn forward when the drafts are first open ed. The dinner pail has as matter of course been furnished with pie made of poor lard,
 bad flour and whatever filling is most conven- ient and accompanied with fried twists of doughnuts, slabs of ''cup cake," or rounds of
 thick cookies As soon as his breakfast is 1 eaten, this man leaves the hot and close kitch- en for walk in the bitter cold of winter or
 the breathless heat of summersto his place of work, anywhere from two rods to two miles from his home. He works hard all the morn: ing in another sort of atmosphere as stif1ing as
 the first, and then swallows his cold dinner at
 noon, and recommences his work till it is
 time to go home again, see them every day of my llfe-a grimy, weary, sullen procession
 toling even in their gait, shambling home to
 hot supper, taken into systems whose mus cular exhaustion totally uhfits them for the
 reception Of the scalding greasy messes,& ,&he half fermented 'sauce, the unpalatable ''hash" of
 boarding houses, the heavy cake and recurrent pie. After this, what ? If man is married and has home, his wife is as tired as he is.
 She too has worked all day at her house if she
 is childless, and has nothing left of strength or cheer to ir'part; if she has children, this is their sleepy time, and they begin to scream.
 to fret, to make their own Bedlam, as cross and sleepy children will. If the wife is neat she is naturally cross too; if she is slattern, the house is cheerless in itself The man must go somewhere to rest himself in the eve
 ming. If he is unmarried and boards, the room he calls his own is small, stuffy, cold or hot; the parlor of the house IS that sacred cavern housewives cleanse adorn and shut up Tn solitude and darkness "a sort of social re
 celvlng vault, only that it opens now and then to sewing circle as we'll as funeral
 He cannot sit there boarders are not allowed to their clotLes are greasy and dirty 1; they
 would soil the elaborate tidies, and his shoes smudge the floral carpet. Nor are they al
 lowed in the Kitchen. They too must go somewhere to rest. IFS ssn 5fi'-|zs# ss a--ss',
 They are tired in soul and body No hu- man being can live wholesome life without some>cheer and solace in it's course, so these betake themselves to the street, with oppressed digestion Fasping their tempers, weariness ex- hausting their nervous fluid, cold pinching every unstrung fibre, or heat burning into the unsteady brain; filled with vague desire for something pleasant and there is the saloon right in their path, bright, clean, cheerful,
 with gay ornaments, a warm fire in winter, open shaded windows in simmer, billiard ta-
 bles, dominos, cards, backgammon boards, CuCCnCiS CdSy diHuS6iIlei1tS t9 QlStfaCL thoughts full of bitterness against God and man on ac- count of the steady grind of their lives; and over all this here is place where they can go
 in their daily working dress, wear their hats sm ke their pipes, put their feet up as high as their heads, and forget their miseries if only
 they will pay for glass of the insidons fluid that for the time rests and relieves the uneasy and laboring digestion, .warmss the chilled
 frame, exhilarates the dull mental organism and pours the brief but blessed an@sthetic of forgetfullness over all their troubles. They are warmed, and fed, and comforted they are happy; it is here they find the one ray of sunshine in their cloudy existence ..,. --f,.r Dear reader, this is their side of it.. Now
 what are we doing2 We shut up the saloons with great expenditure of money, of anxiety, Of labor, enduring evil report and actual loss !; we take all this rest and cheer, which, de1u- sive as it IS, is all they have, and what do we give them in place of it? I know a town one out of manv-where Ladies' Temper ance Society holds a weekly prayer meeting. They nave hired pleasant room, warm and lighted, for this purpose, and their meetings are regular. and am told fervent. Now, what II these ladies should take the money they pay for that room, and hire another on some lower floor, light and warm it, put in cheap, comfortable chairs and tables, and each of them spend the one hour week they now glve to the prayer meeting in making good conee and tea, which some one hired for the purpose can dispspae every night, at cost