The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-02-07
is 1T A SMALL MATTER2

There are those who express them
selves, in mild way, as opposed to in
temperance, opposed to the degree that
they would, if they could without too
much trouble, destroy the traffic in
liquors, but who, after all, consider the
matter as one which belongs to the indi,
vidual, and altogether too small thing
to worry about in any way.
In short, these people regard intern
perance as matter of minor import
ance and the agitation of the question
as something too small for the consid--
Grafton of any but small minds, and of
men and women of limited ideas.
They do not know the Importance of
the question, nor the extent of the
curse, and have no earthly idea of its
Importance. They do not know that
the liquor traffic is organized destruc-
ton; that its cold and clammy fingers
are extended in all directions; that its
hand is on every house in the land;
that its methods are as vile as anything
born of the devil can be, and that its
/ power is stronger than anything that
has yet combatted it, except law, and
that is an open question whether law is
/ its master.
1t has a thousand ways to do its work,
but we have only space in this article to
call attention to one of them. In a
city like Toledo there are eight hundred
whisky and beer shops. OF this number
! possibly one hundred may be called re-
/ spectacle, that is the proprietors would
not pick the pocket of drunken man,
and they observe the laws sufficiently
/ as to have some little care, as to whom
/ they sell liquor. Neither do these sellers
| 90 especially out of their way to seek
| trade, for they have a sufficient number
/ of customers who 90 to ruin voluntarily
/ to satisfy them. 1t is their interests to
| be as near decent as the miserable
business they are in permits them to be.
! OF the remaining seven hundred it is
safe to say that ninety per cent. are
merely traps, and traps of the most
/ cruel description. On one street in the
! city of Toledo there are twenty dens
whose principal business is the enticing
of boys, the educating of their virgin
stomachs to beer, the training of them
to debauchery first, and crime afterward,
! They have back rooms, secure from the
observation of the general public, where
boys from twelve to eighteen are not
only permitted to come, but are lured
! by all sorts of devilish arts. There are
| billiard tables for them, at which they
play pool, for drink; there are card
tables at which they may play for drink
there are all the games at which they
may play, the one inseparable condition
being that upon the result of each game
drink depend.
These boys have little money, for no
father or mother gives child of this
tender age any amount of money which
the keeper of the shop would care for.
But he makes his money out of them,
all the same. He gives them credit for
all they choose to spend, the more the
better. When this credit has reached
the proper amount, for his purpose he
demands his money. The frightened
boy, astonished at the to him frigktful
amount, knows not what to do, and the
whisky seller has him exactly where he
wants him. He frightens him by
threatening to send the bill to his
father or mother, which threat brings
the victim to his knees. Anything but
that. Then it is suggested to the
frightened boy that his father has
books, his mother linen, his sister
iewelry, and he is taken to pawn
broker who will advance money on
such goods without asking where it
comes from, or how obtained The
poor boy has but one alternative, he
has exposure staring him in the face,
and theft is his only escape. The
pawnbroker and the rum-shop man are
partners, the boy is indicted into
crime, goods are removed from the
house, retail theft begins, which rapid
ly progresses into Wholesale, and an
honest boy is convert into thief.
The writer of these lines is con-
versant with one instance where two
innocent servant girls were discharged
from house within six months on sus-
picion of stealing goods of this kind,
the thief really being the youngest son
of the family, who had been instructed
by rum-shop keeper first into beer,
and afterward into theft to pay his
bills. The ruin of the boy was DELHI
erately planned and mercilessly ex-
ecuted.
This is no exaggerated statement.
There is not a village where the sale of
liquor is permitted that does not have
these traps in its midst There may be
liquor without crime but there is very
little crime without liquor. Liquor first
oetrays the boy and then it holds him
IN horrible embrace until he is ruined,
and useless even to the interest that
olighted him.
Is 1t a small matter? Is it a
light thing to have in every city, town,
iillage and hamlet in the country-men
whose business it is to corrupt the
fouth of the country, to teach them
theft, to disease them mentally, physic-
lilly and morally, to educate them In
lebauchery and criminalityP Is it a
mall thing 10 have such business,
packed by millions of dollars, and every
nan concerned in it, from the brewer
md distiller who makes the hell broth
Town through the wholesaler and re-
ailer with a money interest in the de-
ltruction of childrenp Is it a small thing
o have every family threatened by
hese vampires, with the certainty that
very year the CHASTITY roll of their VIC
inns will be enlargedP
| These holes cost the city of Toledo