The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-04-10

How 1t Serves a Bulwark to the Rum
Power-How 1t Might BE Made Potent
for Good.
People follow the dictates of fashion
as if she were veritable goddess. No
matter what may be the prevailing
mode of dress, they observe it slavishly.
The question as to whether it is becom-
ing to the individual has no weight;
sit is the fashion, and that settles the
matter. Crinoline or clinging draperies;
high-necked dresses or low corsages;
smooth bands of hair, or frowsy name
of bangs shading the brow; ''peg-top'
pantaloons, or skin-tight ones; high
hats or low-whichever may be the
fashion, that men and women wear.
1t is oftentimes unbecoming, some
times ridiculous, but all the same it is
followed.
This servile obedience to the whims
of those leaders of society whose eX-
ample sets the fashion is seen in many
other things than in mere matters of
dress or personal adornment 1t pre-
scribeS the style of furniture in our
homes, the patterns of our carpets and
wallpaper, even the architecture of our
houses. 1t decides the manner of serv-
| ing our meals, our hours of receiving
campany, our mode of entertaining
| friends. And in the fact that fashion. in
the higher circles of society, declares that
wines and other drinks are de ri1eur at
| dinner, the rum power finds one of its
| strongest bulwarks. A host may be
convinced that to do so is morally
wrong, and yet lack the courage to set
the fashion at defiance. 1t cost more
| than most people know for Mrs. Hayes
| to Danish liquors from the White House.
And in the fact that she did thus defy
an unwritten social law, may be found
the reason for much of the cheap wit
and boorish ridicule that was cast up
on her and General Hayes while the
latter was President, and which even
yet crops out in many newspapers from
time to time.
What can be more potent for evil
than the example set in this way for
boys and girls-the men of the next
| generation, their wives and the moth
ers of the next in succession? Can any
| parent talk soberly to his child of the
danger of tampering with rum in any
| shape or form-warn him of the terrible
drink habit which conquers the will,
| benumbs the conscience and makes its
devotees the veriest slaves who crawl
| Gods foOtstoOl-and at the same time
allow wines at his table? Example is
stronger than precept. The child will
! follow the first and scorn the second.
! The great evil of the fashionable tOier-
ance of strong drink is that it perpetu-
ates the vice of intemperance, and
braces up the rum power 1t furnishes
fresh crop of drunkards among the
men-ay, and sometimes the women
of to-day, and prepares the way for a
second among the children, by famil-
iariZing them with the Internal stuff.
"Touch not, taste not, handle not" is
precept that can not be too strongly
impressed, law that can not be too
closely observed
The evil of which we speak reaches
much further than to the circles of So
ciety wherein this abominable fashion
is set. A new style of dress is followed
throughout all social grades down to
the very poorest. The same is true of
this. Though the vast mass of the peo-
| pie may never follow the mode of hav-
ing rum in some form upon the table,
yet they fellow those who set and OBJ
serve that fashion by tolerating those
who drink. To drink rum is counte-
nanced in "Our best society" hence
the practice is tolerated by very large
majority of the people of the country.
SO long as man may get intoxicated
and yet retain his social standing
among the class which claims to be our
"aristocracy,' so long will the mass of
our people socially tolerate drinking
man.
No more telling blow could be dealt
at the rum power, no deeper wound
could be given to the Minotaur who
devours the Nations strong men and
youth, than for society to put its
stigma on the drink habit. If wine
were banished, not only from the
tables but from the homes of society
people, if the men who drink were
rigidly excluded from all social gather
ings in his circle. if drinking were
made questionable, what mighty
revolution would be worked! The po-
tent influence of fashion would be ex-
erted against rum and its devotees;
thousands and tens of thousands
of young men, not yet under the
domination of rum, would be saved,
the children of to-day would be
free from the terrible danger.
Let a man who is slave to
the habit be as rigidly ostracised