The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-11-05
Eea I8E CEAE10N.
A Country Letter

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their social aud domestic arrangement.
Is, and always viii be q failure PoweI
backed bv decided public opinion
may pass laws 10 this cud, and enforc
- them for season; but the instinct t,
a break the barriers oE restraint, inheren
/ | ia the human heart, viii finally trampli
: down all such Laws, and "the last stat,
| of that people IS worse than tie frst
And it can also be as positively stated
that only the moral law has any effective
power in such cAses-0nly the refuins
inhue noes of a pare christianity, upheld
; and Illuminated by the splendid exam
! pes oT us Teachers in sobriety, humility
and goliy patieuce-a charity, long suf
ering and patient -as also by an ad
sanced civilization, the very result oil
such teaching.
Sumptuarv Laws have been passed
and for q tiGe attempted to be enforced,
0y most civilized aud semi-civiIized
governments, and the objects of re-
straint, for the past two thousand years,
nave included tue habits and appetites
oI men IN all their avenues. History,
| however, has written Ichabod across the
face of all Of them, and they are only
now remembered by the student of his
| tory as the cur;Osities of legislation
| Among the first OF these laws (if We pass
by the laws of Moses against unclean
food, and especially that in hoe signo Uinces
Of the Western States. the hog we find
that of Locria, $50 b. c., which enacts.
that no woman should appear abroad
with more than one maid servant, unIess
she icsre drunk, or wear gilded and en-
| 1Fni5araJ aDt,araI ba
| co act unchasteiy." 4 pause may be
made here TO remark, that Zaluecus, the
author of this law, was q wise man. His
was the doctrine of reclamation. He
prohibited by negatioH--by denying
chat those females who disobeyed his
aw were either sober or chaste. Would
It he inappropriate to say that our heads
If the church, who are 50 clamorouE for
State, political prohibition, might sub
timely educate their enthusiasm by
learning the Wisdom and doctrine of
this old Greek, or even that of those
'ther Greeks of Sparta, who taught
temperance in the drinking of wine by
making their slaves drunk, that their |
children should see how beastly they |
were made by the excess?
The Romans in whose constitution, |
or societary organism, was an officer |
called Censor, TO whom was intrusted |
not only public but private morality, |
the sGbimity of paternity in govern |
ment, commenced some 80 years before |
Christ to pass laws restraining luxurious |
living, enactipg in one instance that no /
ordinary entertainment should cost |
more than twenty cents, and the utmost |
TO be expended on feast the sum of |
two dollars; but all these laws were as |
Intellectual 10 patting an end to glustoDy, |
as the constitutional enactments Of |
Maine and Iowa will be in restraining |
drunkenness. One law, however, fol |
lowed another in Rome, in consequence |
Of practical disregard by the people, |
down to the days of Augustus, when
Rome, despite of prohibition of luxury
and extravaganza in living as part of |
aer fundamental law, despite her lex
Orchia, Didia, Faunia, Lucretia, Corne-
liza, Autia, Julia and many others, be-
came the very harlot of gluttons, cloth
ing herself in cloth of gold and royal
purple to dine off fish from the anti
podes and the tongues and brains of
pea cocks! They drank Falernian, it is
Crue; but as we no where find any par
ocular penalties or prohibition, for TAX
ing a "little wine for the stomach's
sake" we are compelled to say that the
Romans were duly sober people, all
things considered.
On the other hand the konig king, able
nan) of the Germans, the people who
destroyed this same gluttonous Rome,
was he Sho could drink all his followers
drunk. They had, as an organized So
ciety, two sublime pleasures-to fight,
and gormandizing, get drunk and their
nope after death, as the Supremest fe-
lcity, was to be admitted to the tables
of Wooden in Walhalla and Join in his
drunken orgies, But few Improvements
were made in their riotous and turbu
lent habits, until Luther unmasked the
lamp Of God, and the light of a pure re-
iigion, bursting upon them, taught that
diyinest of all creeds 'that ye love one
another" And to-day, and since the
of the nineteenth cen
tury, this people have been the leaders
of an advanced civilization, whose cul-
ture is the admiration of the world, and
whose sobriety and temperance is by
none excelled. What, the Germani (
Yes, the German He drinks his modi-
cum of beer and smokes his pipe, it is
true; but his beer is not mixed with
bark as here, and he does not
make brute of himself by drinking
American whisky tempered by stryehnia.
France, like Rome, is an example of
governmental police interfering with
the domestic habits of her people. Char
lemagne, thousand years ago, was a
but it was in the use of :
furs. Philip ", called LIE Bel, in 1900,
to improve on the great
JariOvingiap, had extended enactments !
restricting all manner of
in dress. Charles VI, in :
1895, decreed that all save a soup /;
and two dishes for dinner be pro- :
hibited; and others followed with +
equal wisdom In 1880 Montague in J
his essays disconrsing in his quaint !
fashion of these prohibitions, says, :
difficulty gives all things their estima-
ton; there are few Romans seen in the
fencing schools of Rome, which is full !
If French. Oar appetite contemns and !
passes by what it has in possession, to !
run after that it has not. To forbid US I
Is to make Us have a mind to I
i. To give it wholly mp TO US, is to be- /
get in US contempt" And again he I
says, ito enact that none but princes
shall eat turbot, shall wear velvet or
gold lace, and to interdict these things
% the people, what is it but to bring
lhein into a greater esteem, and to set !
syery one more agog to eat and wear s
shem. France, however, kept up the /
legislation until about 100, Il
the famous days of Louis lie Grand, the 1
XIV; by which time feudalism and /
Iesuitism being IN high triumph over i
he masses, all the others had become /
he birds of paradise and peacocks Of {
fashion, and q very race OF gormands. (
noted throughout the world for their Il
extravaganza in diet and the skill Of {
their cooks. The sunny hills of france. Ii
however, became BY adoption the very !
nome Of the grape, and every one, how /;
ever humbled and bowed down by the l
living lie Of feudality, could have bis
little bottle of wine Tor dinner; 90 it Is
/ rare thing to see FTenchman drunk, I
eut still universally known for his ottaF ;
fe rose air and dress, and as the ekisf d
Osugre in cuisine
How was it with our immediate ]
ancestors7 Nothing very definite on the
subject Of personal government can be
nund before The Norman-French con
luest, the old Tuet0aic and CelticIlberty ]
5 ling the rule ;bHt with the PIantagenets.
from Edward III IN 1916 ,pater
nal rule ID England and Scotland was
ID full vigor; and laws prohibiting and
restraining the people in their food,
dress and drink were ii great favor.
While some of these laws remained on
the statute books until as late as thirty
: ars sro. they had fallen into genere1