St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1885-11-12
THE CURSE OF HUMANITY.


Among the encouraging signs of the
times is the attitude the press is fast
assuming on the question of temper
ance. To be sure the city papers are
not very rapidly coming out as tenn
perance organs but they are recOgniz-
ing the rum evil and the impending
danger, and some one has said that half
the battle is fought when you know
where your enemy is and what he is
doing.
The Springfield Republican has been
doing good temperance work for the
past six months. Last Friday it had a
startling object lesson. 1t published a
diagram that showed where the l46
licensed liquor dealers in that city
were to be found-the "black spots
upon the heart of the city" AS the
Republican says, no war map ever pos
sessed half so vital an interest for
the people of that city. AS in Spring
field so everywhere, the saloons and
the places where liquor is sold by war
rant of law are punched in the heart
of the communities. Laboring men
can hardly go from factories to homes
without passing by these dens-these
traps, so located that the weak man
can hardly help falling into them. True
it is that ''the rum shop has no right
to be on top of an intelligent, conserv
alive New England community"
In last Sundays issue of the Repub-
lican, under the caption, "What rum
does" the reporters tell the simple
story of what they have seen as the
result of the liquor traffic there. The
names of the saloons and streets are
given and the stories told would hard
ly be credited were they heard from
the platform. There is the little girl
doing her best TO lead homeward the
intoxicated man of 35, her father the
man of over three score years, whose
hair and beard are white, coming out
of one saloon only to reel into another,
while a young man strives to lead him
home amid the wild shouts and curses
of the graybeard.
A man in the prime of life reels into
a saloon and demands liquor. "YOu
need'n' think l CANT pay f'rit," he hic-
coughs, and as if to prove his words
pulls out fat roll of bills from one
pocket, then another from the other,
and caps the climax by displaying il
handful of silver. A word tells the
story. Two hours later he is put into
the station house dead drunk and in
the morning is put in jail because he
has not money enough to pay his fine
Six months ago this same man car
ried a stock of $4,000 worth of mate
rails and had Il couple of men at work
for him. To-day he is IA penniless sot.
One more and we are done: An arti-
san of foreign birth, honest, upright,
industrious, earns 81 day, but he
lives in a howell. His wife sis IA good
woman" he says, +but she has one
fault she is drunk from one end of
the week to the other" A little child
a girl, is growing up in this home, un
der the care of this mother.
But enough. We have not given Il
1.-THE of the stories published in this
one issue of paper. They are not
illustrations" gathered from wide ex-
perience, but the simple business-like
reports that appear in single issue of
a city jOurnal-the Republicans story
of what happens at its own door in one
of the most attractive of the New
England cities, city that has won for
itself the name of "the city of homes"