Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-07-09
Temperance.
SAD SIGHTS.


Seat yourself at your window, gaze
upon the entrance way to the wine cup,
the beer mug, the whiskey bottle See
those gay, well-dressed young men, the
sons of culture and wealth; they enter,
they go and come. Mark the change.
The once gay and happy look, the once
healthful and youthful form, now dis
eased and prematurely old; once richly
clad, now in rags; once they mingled in
the society Of the wealthy, the respecta-
Bile and the happy, now they mingle with
the poor, the thievish, the low, the vile
and the wretched; once they bid fair for
usefulness, now their being is a curse and
shame.
See the stream of lost humanity as it
enters and re-enters. See those two rag
ged, timid children approach the door;
hear them tremblingly inquire, sis our
papa here?" Hear that coarse, brutal
voice, ''Get out Of here, you dirty, rag
ged, starved brats." The poor father
sits or lies stupefied with rum, robbed of
his means for clothing and feeding his
children, and the robber thus brutally
drives the children away. Is there not
God that will see justice done on earth
See the saloon-keeper, after he has
robbed the father of his money, and
drawn from him the life of his family :
he takes him as dead carcass and hurls
him iuto the street.
See that broken-hearted, over-Worked
wretched wife spending her strength to
get her drunken husband home, perhaps
to be brutally murdered by him when he
wakes and begins drunken mania.
Yet the man who is the direct cause of
this looks as a stalled OK, and because of
his money claims and receives a place
in good society. He has his palatial res
idence, his stately coach and four, and
society does him reverence because he is
rich.
from the dust of his dead, mixed with the
tears of suffering he has caused, and ce-
mented with the affections he has brought
to the grave; yet being rich he is honor
able. From every vault of woe and from
every hovel Of suffering there goes up a
cry against him. How can he hope to
stand before that Being who will surely
mete justice to mankind?
Look at that bloat Of humanity. He
slides, he hobbies, he crutches along; he
is well dressed; his staff is of most pol
needle work; his eyes are set in ulcerous
sockets; his nose is seedy, but lost to
color. He is wreck in high life. If he
was buried, society would feel that a
nuisance had been disposed of.
Still look, Here comes a poor pale,
half-clad child. It's very look shows star
Walton, ill-treatment and want indescrib-
able. Look again: a poor, emaciated,
timid, half-clad, over-worked, much
abused and broken-hearted woman. This
is the child and this the wife of the
| drunkard. The heart almost sickens at
the sights and thoughts.
Is it possible that in view of all these
| sad, wretched, sickening sights, there are
| still to be found advocates for rum? Ad-
voeates for legaliZing that which causes
more than half of all human woe. The
men who can stand in the face of history,
and what they daily witness, and advo-
cate the manufacture, the sale and use of
alcoholic drinks as beverage, and de-
clare it to be right, privilege, are men
lost to all moral reason.
You may say this is putting it too strong.
Will God Almighty make it less strong:
VIII he adjudgc right to men who advo-
cate rum?