The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1885-12-18
THE PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARD
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.
n A. nlIRHNElL,

Oh tllODn lD u DIOIIIIIltIlI ufIu u JUL
physician. They had both been unwell
for some little time, and the doctor, who
was so interested in the family, found
himself 40 bafied by the diseate that he
concluded to call in the assistance of an
older man. The second physician left a
prescription which was taken to m of
the oldest and most skillful druggists in
the city. The druggist as he was putting
up the prescription, CARRIED on u con-
%versation with u gentleman in the store.
Without noticing it he took the wrong
bottle from the shelf and put up u most
deadly poison, which resembled In APP
pearance the medicine that he should
have given. The consequence was that
in a few hours the young physician was
witnessing the dying agonies of his be-
trothed and of her sister while the whole
family was wailing in understandable an
guish. Hundreds of thousands of people
were Mortified. and i'll the street cars and
on the trains and on the streets and in
their families they were expressing their
profoundest pity and sympaty. The
druggist whose carelessness had caused
the suffering expressed his feelings in
matter by trying to commit suicide, and,
if ever that act even approached the JUS
| titiable in the minds of those who read
the story, il did then. Only the deepest
commiseration was felt for him, even by
the afflicted family, his reputation for
skill and ~carefulness causing everybody
ia think of him as almost the greatest
sufferer of all. Such accidents do not
happen with great frequency. If they
did what an awful place to live in would
this world be | remember once in my
younger days Il young man in my native
town was found dead ut the foot of M
embankmcnt in front of his fathers
house. In the night he had rolled down
and died among the stones and refuse or
the brink of the river. There, i'm sigh
of his fathers front door, his stricken
parents found him the next morning
having had his death struggle within easy
reach of their aid if they had known 1t
He had been a promising young man ant
his parents were among the prominen'
and wealthy people of the place. Ye'
strange 10 say, when the new went on
through the village the next day no
body's face turned white. nObody's BLOOD
stood still for a moment, nobody's hear
checked its beating for an instant, there
was no swift chill, no feeling of f%aintnes,
and twist of anguish at the heart strings
in short, no electric shock of horror wen
through that community yer the awfu
calamity that had befallen one of its frs
families. Only a passing wave of sym
patty and pity stirred the hearts of re-
spectacle people briefly and then all wa.
forgotten.
Now, why should these two cases have
been treated SO differently by the pub
lie? In the first instance, two young la
dies had died by accident, amidst the
comforts of Il most luxurious home, min.
istered To by those who loved them with
the %intensest passion, and attended by
the best skill of the ablest physicians
and when they died multitudes of strang.
ers mourned for them. In the second
instance, q Young man of promise who
had never harmed any one, rrds murder.
ed, gave up his last breath i'm an unclean
place, the cold rocks for his dying couch,
wandering dogs for his companions, nc
hand of love ministering to him while
the chilly night air from the river en-
shrouded him. Even the friends of the
family were not as much.shocked as were
strangers in the first instance. Scarcely
II thought if any was given to his muir.
derers. Why? Because he died q drunk.
ard, and has murderers Tere r1lmseliers
People had long expected him to pitch
over that bank while Keeling home to his
fathers house at an hour when there
would be none to help him. They had
Tong been accustomed to the sight of men
dealing hellish poison to their fellow
men by which their reason, a mans cit.
adel and safeguard, was submerged and
destroyed. But II is not common to have
people pass swiftly from health to death
by the instrumentality of a fearful drug
Therefore over the latter we loudly la,
ment, while over the former We only
SWIVEL if we do anything at all. All the
while, however, down in the bottom o.
the heart we know that we would rather
rather a million times have our children
perish accidentally by an overdose Of
morphine than to linger through shame,
full years to lie down at last In a rotten
d~runkard's grave. 1t We're infinitely
better for N nation that the l00, 900 who
drop from our midst every year into
d%runkaId's graves were brought out or
to some prairie and shot down by the U,
:. army and have done with ii while they
are yet decent citizens. The influence
on the public mind would not be so or.
rupting and deadening to all moral SEN
sibilities. If Intoxicating drink did it,
work as sUiJHy as i tdoes surely, as swiftly
for instance, as strychnine, public ven:
geance would leap on 1t more quickly
than tightening from the sky. But the
whole matter illustrates most forcibly the
saving, uttered about three thousand
years ago by the wise mau who always
knew from experience what he was talk.
ing about, Because sentence against an
fore the heart of the sons of men is fully
set in them to do evil" When the sen.
tence is "eXcuted speedily" as in the
case of taking %strychnine or morphine,
we are so afraid that there ceases to be
any such sin in the world as taking such
poisons except in the case of few sui.
cides. But i'm the case of drinking alco.
holic~ liquors, taking morphine injections,
eating opium, swearing, gambling, and
many other vicious practices, the Sell
tence not being "erecuted Speedily" our
only safeguard is to learn to hate them
for this very devilish seductiveness.
This is living on a much higher moral
plane than To be simply too afraid OF
them To be in any danger from them. II
is this hatred which it is the mission OF
Christianity, embodied III u c~ivIiiza-
ton, to produce more and more. 1t il
the height of morality to Danish the evil
before the sentence is executed" We
can never hurt ourselves hating intoxi.
eating drinks. Our God is consuming
fire" against such things, and it is our
duty to cultivate Il likeness to Him in
this respect rs in others. He has put
these evils i'm the world, or rather alloWed
them to come in for the purpose of edu.
eating us up to this very passion.
The movement going on to-day under
the auspices of the w. G. L. u. affords an
opportunity to all the people in Manka-
to who have a spark of love for God,
home or native land to think over the
seductive and baleful influence of alco-
hol, and to swear that they will not wait
for the sentence to be executed on our
fair land or on their own persons or
those of their children. 1t is a terrible
thing to have our hearts calloused against
an agent of destruction which we know
to be more terrible in its seductive and
deadly power than the swiftest poison in
our drug stores. If we get to that state
| don't know what moral influences can
reach liz. One way to get into that state,
is to pay no attention to the grand work
going on i'm u midst and give it no help.
One way to get into the opposite condi-
ton and to feel happy in the conscious
ness of being of some use to our God and
community is to come out pronOuncedly
and generously and actively for the cause
of total abstinence.
The December Harpcr's Magazine, the
| so rist MAG numhnr proyao N ha hv