The Worthington advance., 1881-02-17
Summer in the poem read at the st. An
thony Falls Celebration:

| win Dattle ax ana bloody nag nn1urIed,
Cleaving the skull OF every weaker race,
Beware! for though the Red Man finds no God.
s 1S eeSyf Sr
Falls back at last upon the culprit's head:
For every Black Man killed in slaverys name,
And hall the wealth amassed by unpaid toll,
Went down III wars grim waste, and debt, and
And IS the Red Man. though foredoomed to fall,
Less dear to Him who made and loves US all.
SEVERANCE on DRUNKENNESS.
Hon. NJ. J. Severance, Of Mankato,
recently delivered a lecture on temper
ance at Red Wing, taking radical
ground against drunkenness rs distin-
guished from liquor selling. lie said:
lie did not believe in women crowd
ing in among beer kegs and praying
with the bloated vender, nor that the
| Great Ruler would lay aside the great
plans Of the Universe in order to ans wcr
such prayers. The drunkard had been
| petted too much, patted on the back,
put to bed and kissed to sleep. War
had been made on tho vender and on
/ the liquor and drunkenness called \
| disease. Suck course had no more
effect than feeding teaspOOnful Of
slippery.elm tea to cast iron rl,inocer-
os.
lie took the ground that drunkenness
| was a crime and said:
lie believed in defining drunkenness
to be 4 crime in the statute books, and
to punish the first offence with Il fine;
the second offence with Imprisonment
i'll the county Jail for six months; and
the third offence with imprisonment in
the States prison for Il period not less
than one year 1T hard labor. lie would
! disfranclise the edrunkard, for lie was not
competent to exercise the tights Of i'll
telligent citizenship, and if he brought
the iucaWacity upon himself. he ought
not to ask it, and If it were disease,
that he could not prevent, then he
should not have the right, any more.
than the maniac. lie should rather he
like one suffering from bydroplobia,
who begS IN his lucid intervals that he
may he fettered, to prevent him, in his
fits OF raging madness, from biting his
wife and children. This is the law in
! Switzerland. No man convicted OF
drunkenness can vote there until he has
a certificate from the proper official that
lie has reformed.
We have no doubt that this will
sound novel to the temperance extrem-
lists of Worthington. The plan here
has been to pet the drunkarl and de-
nounce the vendor. The drunka:d has
only to profess repentance. ask the
sympathy of church people, and then,
as Mr.. Severance says, ''he will be pat
ted on the back, pnt to bed and kissed
TO sleep.' Then he gets liquor by the
quantity, drinks again, professes repen-
tance, and is again kissed to sleep.'
| There is food for serious reflection in
the suggestion of Mr.. Severance. Wor-
thington has been noted as a radical
temperance town, and has never toler-
ated an open saloon. Notwithstanding
this fact, there has been much drinking
and drunkenness in the place. 1t has
not been so open as in places where sa-
looms have been licensed, but any one
in Worthington can lay lis finger on a
half dozen men who have been intoxi-
GATED frequently during the past six or
eight years, some Of them every few
days or weeks during that time.
This shows how impossible it is to
prevent drunkenness by laws directed
exclusively against the vendor.
In last weeks Journal, DR.. Barber
intimates that the ADVANCE is y filthy
concern anyhow, and he prays to he de-
;ivercd from it. We do wish Barber
would quit rushing into print and at
tacking us, for lie provokes us into be.
ing ''sassy" and telling on him every
timc he does SO. Now, this charge of
''flth" lays him wide open. The ''tilth''
is his own and he had better shiny on
his own side. a few years ago when we
lived along side of him he dumped the
slops from his kitchen and chamber
right up against our house I'LL winter.
In the Spring lie stuck his head into our
front door and ordered us in squeaking
voice to clean that stuff away. We
told him to clean his own stuff away.
Then lie went and Uniformed on us. -
and here came D. Shell, Peter Thomp-
san and e. L. Sutton, grave and rever-
end members of the village council, to
order us to clean that stuff away.
We took them out and showed them
how it was ''himself," that Barber had
been throwing dirt on us all winter.
Then Dan Shell and e. L. Sutton came
very near ''bursting' with laughter,
but they had to preserve the dignity of
their office, and they advised division
of the dirt. Barber then scratched a.
round and hauled part of it away.
We do wish Barber would let us a.
lone. We have so many funny things
to tell on him that We'll have everybody
laughing at him the first thing he
knows.
Dr.. Barber, in last weeks Journal.
administers to us the severest castiga-
ton we have had since our blessed
mother padded us with il shingle. lie
lntimates that We are Il dog" that the
ADVANCED is Il ''Slum, "and fears that he
may some day become our bed fellow.
From such All uncalled- for and un-
heard-of calamity he prays the immorc-
al powers to "forefend" linn. And we'll
he may. lie knows we are business on
hug. Ever since he came up to us on
the sidewalk and undertook to whip us
for introducing Spiritlalism into Wor-
tiington, he knows how affectionate
and warm we are in the matter of ad-
ministering an embrace. We are ju t
fierce, so to speak, on hus. On that
occasion we hugged him till he was
black in the face. There isn't a young
lady within ten milos of Worthington
who wouldn't give her gaiter boots to
have us hug her half as hard us we lug
ged Barber Oh that OCCASION. No won
| der hp nrnvS tho i'm p,.,rt,l ,>o,,,o.. - -