The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-08-26
Temperance.
An Iowa Judges Rebuke.

The Hon. f. NJ. Hubbard, district
judge of the eight judicial district of
Iowa, in passing sentence upon some
liquor-dealers for violation of the pro-
hibitory laws of the state, said: while
there are greater crimes known to the
law which are punishable with greater
severity, there are none which involve
more of those qualities known as des-
picable meanness and audacity than the
selling of Intoxicating liquors. There is
something in the taking of human life
so instantaneous that it shocks and ter
rifles the minds of all; and yet we look
upon the man who takes human life
quite as surely, but by a slow, linger-
ing process, if not with condemnation,
at least with horror. You who stand
before the court for sentence are in
every moral sense murderers, and you
are within the spirit, if not the letter,
guilty of manslaughter; for the law saws
that whoever accelerates the death of
human being unlawfully is guilty of
the crime. Your bloated victims upon
the witness stand, and who undoubtedly
committed perjury to screen you from
the law, not only abundantly testify
that you are accelerating death, but
that you are inducing men to commit
still greater crimes than your own.
You still maintain the appearance of
respectability, but how morally leprous
and scrofulous you are inwardly! The
ruin, poverty and idleness which you
are inflicting upon this community
declare, as from the house-tops, that
you are living in idleness and eating
the bread of orphans watered with
widows tears; you are stealthily kill
ing your victims and numbering the
peace and industry of the community,
and thereby converting happy, indus
trious homes into misery, poverty and
rags. Anxious wives and mothers
watch and pray in tears nightly, with
desolate hearts, for the coming home
of your victims, whom you are Turing
with the wiles and smiles of the devil
into midnight debauchery. One can
have no adequate conception of cata-
ract until he has seen Niagara, nor of
the terrible fury and grandeur Of a
storm in mid-ocean until he has wit
messed one; so no one can know the
utter degradation and total depravity
to which his species can be brought
until he looks upon the desolate ruin
caused by your hellish traffic. You are
persistent, defiant law-breakers, and
shamelessly boast that, in defiance of
the law and moral sense of the COM
munity, you will continue in your
wicked and criminal practices. 1t has,
therefore, now become the imperative
duty of this court to let fall upon you
so heavily the arm of the law that you
shall either be driven from your nefa-
rious traffic or ruined in your fortunes
or wicked prosperity. You have be-
come stencil to the nostrils of the
community, and all good men are pray
ing that you be speedily reformed or
summarily destroyed. By the provi-
dence of God and the favor of this
court these prayers shall be speedily
answered by signal and exact Justice
for your crimes. And, finally, let me en-
treat you, if you are not lost to every
sentiment of humanity, to desist from
your criminal vagabond traffic and be-
take yourselves to some honest calling
for livelihood-that you may yet be-
come virtuous, useful citizens, and en-
titled to the respect of Christian com.
munity. If you persist in this way
your ruin is certain, and you will re.
ceive, as you deserve, the execration OF
mankind. You may think that the sen.
tence of the court is harsh and uniustly
severe, but the court assures YOU that,
compared with your crimes and the des
olation you have already brought upon
the community, it is mild in the ex
treme."