Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-20
Tuesday Morning, Sep. 20, 1881.
A "Bo>TON NOTION, ;,

Some of the ttBoston notions' are good ones and of this character is the notion that a good time to work for the reform of a drupkard is at the critical moment when the officer of the law first arrests him. The drunkard's first arrest marks an era in his downward descent. It shocks him and leaves him in a condition to sharply realize the benefits of temperance.
 Acting on this idea an arrangement was made three months ago by which an intelli gent and humane person has been in attend ance at one of the municipal courts of Bos- ton to offer help to some of those who ap- peared there for the first time under charge of drunkenness. This ''drunkards' friend, g MT. Blood, and the judge have worked to- gether, and MT. Blood, by permission of the court, took ffty-eight persons Ion proba- tion" in the month of June, and sixty-fve in July. Although every licensed dealer in i- quors binds himself not to sell to minors, many of these s'probationers" were boys, and some were girls. MT. Blood makes it his business to look after the families of his pro- bationers and to help them in their determi nation to abstain Of the sixty-five persons he took in charge in July he was able to send sixteen out of the city to work This means to put them away from the temptation to drink in many cases. Of such cases, the most simple in his care, the following is an illus tration: Case No. no is young woman who was enticed into bad house and persuaded to drink beer She appeared as one would who had been drugged. She was penitent, and has promised to be more careful in the future where she goes and what she drinks. She is now in 8 good country home, doing well and contented. The cases which are much more difficult are those where whole family is in one of the neighborhoods which are so sodden with liquor that it is hard to lift any household above it's power.
 MT. Blood acts as the representative of a committee and presents his monthly reports to the Rev. Messrs. Hale. Brooks, Patterson King, Tilden, Seymour, Mills and others most of whom are ministers of large churches, and are able to interest in the trage- dies brought to light in their investigation the charitable societies and individuals in their congregations. It was by the meeting together of these clergymen that the plan was set on foot. And it carries with it the moral support and sympathy belonging to the working force of their several churches The Boston AdUertiser speaks well of the working of the plan and says: Nothing is easier for any man or any woman who wants to know what is the real life of the lower classes of society, going on side by side with the comfort and luxury of Walnut avenue or of Highland street, than to spend an hour in court any morning and see the frightened woman who is recov- ering from the first night in police station, or the young man who is trying to recollect what he did and he did not say in the crazy broil of the last evening. Nothing is easier than to find place, with the advice of either of the clergymen we have named or of their agent, in which one can lend a hand in set ting some such boy or girl on better track People who really want to know what the life of their time is may find little examina- tion in such directions healthy tonic from too full dose of Gaborieau or of Bellot''