Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-07-07
THE PROGRESS OF TEMPERANCE re-
FORM

- hAAOAOhSh
in public sentiment, and that can be
accomplished only after the lap OF
time. 1t must come gradually and
attempts to produce a sudden or
radical change will always prove
abOrtive. The crusade against in
temperance that has been carried
ON more or less vigorously for
number of years has accom-
plished but little towards the sup
preston of drunkenness, but il
has inaugurated a reform and com
ing generations will reap its bene-
fits. Temperance societies are gen.
orally failures, pledges are signed
but to be broken, and prohibition
laws are of questionable effect.
Movements like that inaugurated
by Francis Murphy sweep the
country like a cyclone, but their
raging IS soon over and little is left
to prove that they ever existed. All
of these things, however, indicate
that the public mind is awake TO
the evils of drunkenness and their
repeated occurrence, growing in
force and intensity, will finally ac-
cOmplish the great end at which
they all are aimed.
To our way of thinking the at
tacks on this monster vice have
mostly been made in the wrong di-
rectiOn. The war is aimed too much
at the whisky dealer while the real
culprit, the drunkard, is in a man.
ner liOnIZed. The rum-seller is
never too good for the vilest virtu-
peratiOn, while the beastly drunk
ard is,always in the role of an innO-
cent victim to be pitied and prayed
over, and on slight promise to es-
chew his evil habits he is immedi-
ately converted into a hero. That
is not the way TO mold public senti-
ment. 1t is the assassin who stabs
in the dark that is to be condemned
and not the merchant who sold him
his dirk or the smith who forged it.
The act of selling liquor is not in
itself crime, but drunkenness is,
and the law should punish it as
such. Under the present state of
public sentiment such laws would
be Intellectual if not impossible; the
temperance apostles should seek to
make drunkenness disreputable,
and then the law could make it a
crime. There can be no doubt that
drunkenness does more harm to So
ciety and is more injurious in its
effects on mankind than larceny.
When the ignOminy that is attach
ed TO larceny comes to be attached
TO drunkenness then the law can
provide the Sanao Fu"i9hr-lornt for
the two Offenses with equal certain
ty of its being enforced. But as
long as IT'S only a joke for gentlemen
to get drunk, or at most, a pitiable
weakness to be cOndOned and
smiled at, so long will the vice ex-
list and 50 long will all efforts at re-
form be futile.
But as great an evil as drunken
ness is to-day, and as lightly as the
Otfense is now regarded, there has
been greater progress in reform and
a greater change in public senti-
ment than is generally believed.
Some of the present generation can
well remember when the Hospital
BILE decanter always greeted the
welcome guest, and it is only of late
years that tippling has been relega-
ted TO secret places, and the screen
has become a necessary appendage
of the bar-rOOm. In early eras
drinking was not only a reputable
social custom, but it was highly re-
spectacle to get "dead drunk. D" Then
the prOudest boast of manlineSs was
20 be
Unmatched at the bottle, unconquered in
war
1t seems strange to us that Christ
ian people should have ever sane
toned such practices and extreme
indulgencies as were then engaged
in, and it is stranger still that our
TOistering ancestors should some
times have mingled such degrading
habits with their devotions. Long
fellow tells us that King Olaf while
keeping Christmas at DrOnthiem,
"O'er his drinking horn the sign
He made OF the cross divine,
A. lac drank and nuttered his prayers"
The following Bachanalian
rhymes would hardly be recognized
as the work of a Christian priest,
but it was no less a person than the
chaplain of King Henry ii of En-
gland, Walter Mapes, who penned
them. Such sentiments in these
days would not be tolerated and
could only he regarded as approach
ing the sacriligious. We quote the
lines to prove that drinking was
then looked on in much more IA
vorable light than now. This is the
way in which that pious preacher
expressed himself:
In tavern let me die when LIES journey
Cndeth,
Be the wine cup brought to me ere my soul /
aScendeth,
That the holy choir above as il DER me
benueth,
Wei may praise the drinker stout whom it |
To God cOmmendeth.
brightest souls in heaven above have 10y I
the goblet thTiven,
souls imbued with nectar strong TO realms |
above are driven,
Swecter tastes my wine to wine TO me in "a /
tavern given
Than the Bishops pious tap, well with |
water shriven."
At much later period than the |
one in which King Olaf or Mapes /
lived drinking was held in high /
repute and "the drinker stout" was
quite hero. 1t was fashionable as
late as the the 18th century to en-
gage in drinking tournaments, and
the man who stood up the longest
at one of these bouts was a great
These contests were
very popular at time somewhat
earlier than the date mentioned and
were held between respectable rep
of rival cities, counties
and even nations. The great