The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1885-05-13

In the matter OF temperance, writes
I Bill Nye to the San Francisco IHgleside.
may say that no one would pick me
out as a radical on either side of the
question. 1t Is my doctrine that the
evil OF intemperance viii work its own
destruction when the proper time
comes. We may get pretty weary
waiting for the day Of our emancipa-
ton, but it Is certainly unwise to make
the cause of temperance obnoxious by
feeding 1t to the people day times, and
then waking them up in the night to
ask them if they have violated their
solemn obligation. You may convince
a reasoning human being. but you can
not teach him great truth by painting
it on any board fence in the civilized
world, and then running him into those
board fences till YOU have smashed his
nose several times, and taught him to
despise both you and the cause YOU rep
resent.
The above solemn chunk of philoso-
phy was written for me by warm,
personal friend, who told me that when
got tired Of writing mere froth and
foam and foohshness for the amuse-
ment of a sorrowing world, and wished
TO put together few sentences Of sense
to surprise the public with, he would be
tickled to death to come around after
Office hours and write me few without
charge.
But it was not on the subject of tenn
perance itself that / started out to
speak | desired to PROFOUND to the
readers of the IRgicSide a conundrum
or query. 1t is this: Why is it that
when a man becomes beastlv drunk.
idiotically inebriated, and hilariously
full, he will start out at once with what
remaining strength he NAV have to
hunt me up and converse with me till
his lower jaw gets loose and fall off on
the ground with a sickening thud?
Is it because | am good-natured, and
show unusual conversational powers.
or is it because the idea Of hunting me
up and associating with me does not
occur to a man until he Is very. very
drunk?
However this may be, it is indeed a
chilly day when | do not spend an hour
or two in social converse with man
who is uproariously drunk, sleepy
drunk, contidentially drunk, tearfullv
drunk, affectionately drunk, maudlin
drunk. musically drunk, incoherentlv
'
drunk, politically drunk. oratoricallT
drunk, admirably drunk, critically
drunk, disorderly drunk. ornamentaIlv
drunk, or just simply drunk.
He may be in a neighboring state
when the wild, Gngoyernable desire
comes over him to put something in his
mouth which viii ultimately steal away
his brains, unless he has taken the pre-
-, II
his person, but in the first stage of his
inebriety he gets ticket to where |
am, and then he goes on with the de-
bauch. He generally finds me at last,
and he sails up to where | am and be-
gins to converse. 1t seems to me now
that great deal of my time is taken
up conversing with parties who meet
me on the street or at stations or in
hotels, and then talk with me several
hours at a time while under the infiu-
ence of intoxicating liquor
| presume fifteen hundred men have
held me by the hand and sworn that
everything they had was at my service.
Money, clothes, houses, jewelry, or
anything else they had was none too
good for me. Then they would wiring
my hand again and start to 90 away,
OuI tHcg WCuIu always return ana talk
some more, and when L would swoon
and fall over they would reluctantly 90
away. When | ventured to remind
them the next day of their kind offer to
supply me with funds they most gener-
ally fail to call it to mind. Sometimes
they ask me in an injured tone of voice
if l expected to hold a man responsible
for all the promises he makes to the in
Vulnerable common fools he meets
while drunk.
So l desire to give notice in this pub
lie way that on and after this date
shall not hold any more open-air COM
m lnications with common drunkards,
and, as | want to be perfectly fair and
just toward all, am willing to bind
myself in a similar way not to try to
converse with sober people while / may
be drunk. Now, if there be anything
unfair or unreasonable about this prop
osition l am willing to alter it, so that
no one can find fault with it. want
to do exactly what is right. and / do
not require anything whatever of 9TH
ers that ] am not perfectly willing my
self to submit to.