Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1886-02-13
DRUNKENNESS.

EDITOR INTELLIGENCER:- What is
drunkenness?G Go visit your prisons and
among their drearly cells behold the
house-breaker, the felon, the murderer,
the outlaw, who fears neither the laws
Of God nor man.
Go visit your hospitals and among
their inmates behold those afflicted
with dropsy, jaundice, paralysis, con-
vulsions, and that most terrible calam-
ity that can befall man, insanity.
90 visit your ruin holes, your sinks
OF iniquity, and observe the bleared
eyes, the bloated countenance, the
palsied and tottering frame, the stagger.
ing gait, the poverty and wretchness,
and the detestable deeds of vice every
where apparent and hear the curses.
the vile and loathsome language which
issue from the lips of the inhabitants of
these dens of sin, and when your soul,
sickened with the sight of such human
misery and depravity has turned away
with horror and disgust and detesta-
ton, know you that all this is drunken
ness--all this the effect of rum. Bnt I
would not leave you here;I would con-
vey you to the drunkard's parents.
whose cup of pleasure is removed far
from them, whose hearts are bound
down with anguish and filled with des-
olation and despair almost to BURSTING.
Behold the manifest, heartfelt, but vet
untold grief exhibited in those pale
emaclated countenances, in those heavy
sunken eyes whose springs have long
since ceased to respond to the united
feelings OF parental affection and dis
tress. Neither can we pass over the
drunkard himself; we behold, perbaps.
Just arisen from the filthy gutter and
reellhg IN his steps hOmeward, his ewes
lnflamed, his face bruised, and his
whole appearance indicating wretched.
ness. lie knows and fully appreciates
his condition; he knows that he is de-
graded, and imagines that he never can
be again received in respectable society ::
he knows that through his folly the
wife OF his bosom and his children are
III state of starvation. and those
thoughts so haunt him that he hasrens
to the saloon to silence them, to bury
them IN the fiery demon called whisky,
everything abominable and dctestable
in the eyes of Him that ruleth all things
he will do. Perhaps he steals or mur-
ders or performs some crime which
will entail mark of shame upon him
and his through life. | would have you
visit his residence, everything betokens
poverty. There is hardly any furniture
in the house, the windows are all kick
ed or broken out by one of his drunken
sprees, and although the cold wintry
blasts are whistling and blowing
through the house, yet there is no
wood, nothing to enlighten the scene
or to appear comfortable. All is the
picture of extreme misery; the wife
who once saw better times is now with
scarcely clothing to appear decentlv,
much less comfortably. Perhaps bruis-
ed and swollen by the licks of "a drunk
Ell husband, and suffering intense pain.
now sits mute and fearless, for the
fountain of her tears has long since
dried up. She has done all that wife
and mother could do to reclaim her
partner tor life from sin and desrada-
ton. But it will not do; one thing af-
ter another goes tor rum, rum, rum
until the last vestige of support is gone.
and mother and children are left 70
drift for themselves. All this is drunk
hehess' j. L. l..