The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-04-20

Family life is entirely neglected. All
idea of saving is forever abandoned.
Those drunkards who are married and
fathers of families take no trouble to
satisfy the most urgent wants of their
wives and children. If the wife com
plains, if she begs for a change of con-
duct, she is answered by blows, and
the children see the terrible sight of
the destruction of family ties. 1t is
from there that nearly all criminals
emerge, and it is there that the great
army of thieves and malefactors finds
recruits. (Alcohol and the State, p.
258). That you may not think my
Characterization of the dram-shop I'M
just, l add one more testimony, no
more conclusive in itself than remark
able for its origin. The witness is the
late Charles Brexton, of England,
three times a member of Parliament,
a graduate of Trinity College, Cam
bridge, and son of Sir Thomas Fowell
Brexton, proprietor of n of the
leading breweries of London. l pray
you weigh well his every word. 1T
is vain," he says. "that every engine
is set to work that philanthropy can
devise, when those whom we seek to
benefit are habitually tampering with
the faculties of reason and will, soak
ing their brains, or in1aming
them with ardent spirits. The
struggle of the school, the library
and the church, all united,
against the beer-house and gin-palace,
is but one development of the war
between heaven and hell"
Is it not evident, at a glance, that
the ranks of dramsellers, instead of
dimishing under the accumulating
light of science, philanthropy, and
religion, are growing in numbers and
degenerating in quality ? Our statis-
tics have shown their necessary in
crease in numbers to feed such in
creased consumption of their charac-
ter, we cannot doubt, in view of the
general principle that moral obduracy
and blindness keep pace with the
amount of light resisted. We need
only to look at the nature of the bust
ness and its surroundings. When the
dramseller deliberately procures and
HCbo DCIOlC III ] lllC - ~ =
bait of all vice and the surest agent of
self-destruction, he knows that he is,
in a great degree, responsible for the
mischief he produces. He knows,
also, that many of his customers are
struggling to escape his tolls, and he
steadily plots and maneuvers to bind
them helplessly.
Aside from the inevitable ten
dency of the business, what do
we know of the personnel of
those engaged in it in our large cities :
1t is to be remembered that these give
tone to the whole calling. steadily
planning the campaign for the com
mon interests of the business to the
remotest corners of the land. Take
Chicago with it's 5000 dram-shops,
and only half as many places for the
Emory A. Storrs, of that city, said
recently in their Tribune, that gradu.
ates of the Joliet State prison, in large
numbers, are at once furnished with
certificate of good moral character by
the city authorities of Chicago, anC
enter at once into the saloon business
The same is substantially true of Other
leading cities. When sunshine ant
the fragrance of blooming flowers ar
rest a rolling stone midway of a steel
incline, then may the dram-shOp fee
the spirit of progress and voluntarily
close.
2. Reform clubs, praying crusades,
temperance unions or the churche,
cannot capture this stronghold of the
enemy.
One of the most spirited, best con
Quoted and prosperous reform clubs il
the land is in one of the cities of Maine
1t has an excellent reading-room, 4;
weekly prayer meeting, and the sympa
thy and active cooperation of thu
Ladies Crusade. Its membership /:
large and steadily increasing. 1t meet
every afternoon for prayer, singing, adj
dresses and signatures to the pledge
But, alas ! A few years ago the politi
cal managers of that city Withdrew
from dramselling all the restraints o
law by deliberate notification of thu
well-known Maine law. Last montl
a circular appeal was handed abou
that city containing the following
words: To-day our streets are line'
with rum-shops and drinking saloons
there being one hundred and lifty-fou
that have paid a revenue tax to tn
government, alarger number than boil
the dry goods and groceries combined
beside the more secret gambling den
and brothels, all of which are con
stantly turning out their reeling ant
staggering victims until Bangor ha
become a fit place in which to lionis
Jesse James and other outlawed fugi
tives from other cities and States
Under such influences. and through
such an ordeal, our children are calle'
daily and hourly to pass"
a few years ago the ladi IS of Ohio
led by some of the most gifted AM
cultured, in the frenzy of desperation
besieged the dr%am-shops of that Stat
with prayer and hymns, kneelin'
IN the barrooms or in the mud of side
wolEc in tho midst of ahuSa indie