St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-08-21
Communicated.
Drink, Crime and Misery.

UtSLltIOIy, Ob tbC VI
almost every Judge, magistrate and re-
corder on the American bench. Re-
member that those arrested for drunk
enness do not furnish one 1.-THE Of the
drunkards, and then shudder to hear
that in single year 20S,9S9 were ARES
ted for crimes in which drunkenness
was entered as a part of the charge;
and that last year 5131 women-only
think of it, and of all the awful degre-
dation, all the unspeakable horror
which it implies-were arrested in Mid
dlesex, Eng, alone. In every province,
in every country and in every great City
of the world, it has been stated from the
seat of justice again and again, that
bur for drunkenness there would not be
in America one tenth of the existing
crime. 1t is getting to be the hideons
commonplace of judges. Do you think
they say these things rashly And if
You will not listen to the reiterated
warning of judges in their crimes, will
YOU listen to the noble hearted mission
aries who tell us what drink costs the
glory of England il the eXecrati0n of
her name over whole continents and the
ruin of her efforts among whole pOpnla
tons. Could | summon the Maori's of
New Iceland once so healthy that you
might smite man with Il broad axe and
in a few days he would be we'll, in the
language of high government official:
almost as bad as the American, pol
luted and contaminated by their
drink''-what would you say? II |
could summon the Indians of North
America, once not unhappy, now de-
graded, maddened and exterminated by
our tirewater, what would they say I
They have said that because of it they
,y1,f + IF (st,rictio IF rn ncl-
MahOmetans, what answer Is there Il
Christian in the world with conscience
so dead, with Il heart so rough, with
cheek so bIaZen, as not to blush when
he hears that if they see one of their
number drunk they have been heard to
say "He has left Mahomet and gone to
Jesus Ii we ask the Hindoos, what do
they saw? They have said by the lips
of their eloquent representative keshub
| Chundler Sen, that all the splendid ben
efts of English rule in India have been
nulified and counterbalanced by their
teaching them the use of Beer and
Brandy :" that the wailings of widows
rends the air of India with curses again
st the British Government for having
introduced this thing. And again from
the far off Southern Sea, the voice of
yet another Missionary says to us: eff
you love missions, work, help-help to
dethr0ne this demon of 1ntemperance,
our reproof before the heather the
blight OF our infant churches And;
Oh sirs, when yon hear such things, are
we Motive, the sons of free proud glo-
riOus America-are we not, to our burn
ing infamy, what one has called US, the
drunken Helots of the world 7 So much
then for disease and crime and coloni-
hat flnac drink in Inn
man misery? Have you hearts If
you have | might say: "Sit you down
and | will wiring your heart, for so |
shall it it be made of penetrable stuff: if
damned custom hath not braZed it SO,
that it is proof and bulwark against
sense But oh, | have no tongue to
utter, no inauguration to conceive, no
calculus to measure the immensely of
the National curse, this national calam-
ity. 1t would require the vision of the
Angels of Record, if they can gaze on it
with eyes unblinded by such tears as
angels weep, to tell of those miseries of
millions for centuries; to pass. as it
were from chamber to chamber of the
prophets vision of ambomination and to
mark the crime in every form the vice in
every shape, the disease in every aspect
that can make disease horrible, that has
peen caused by the corrupted fruit of
this tree of the knowledge of evil. He
alone whose ears are open to the .lon's
roar and the ravens cry, can catch the
numberless accents of that wall OF in
durable anguish and uncomfortable es-
pair, which has streamed upwards for
generations, till the vault OF heaven has
become one vast whispering gallery, to
prolong and reverberate the groans OF
i tbnca NJ ho ha vs. slain their own neace hy
this voluntary imprisonment. He alone
bv whom the hairs of our head are all
numbered, can count the widows who
are widows because of drink, the mad
men who are mad because of it; the
grey heads that it has made grey, the
sad hearts that it has crushed with sad
ness, the rpined families, the brilliant
minds, the unfolding promises, the
bright and happy boys and girls whom
it has blasted into shame and misery,
the young and gifted which it has hur-
ried along into dishonored and name
| less graves. Is it not Shakespeare him
self who says by the mouth of his dis
graced and ruined Cassie: go thou in
visible spirit of wine if thou hast no
name to be known by let us call thee
Devil" You who are unfavorable to
Intemperance | adjure you not to let
your opposition be merely negative, but
to work positively for the pulling down
of this evil precisely as you would for
the suppression of prostitution or any
other corrupting influence. For as
surely as the soul liveth this lisa way
that seemeth good unto man, but the
end thereof is Death.
H.