St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-08-19

3. our homes. 1t fills our jails and pri.
ons and pauper asylums. 1t create
J. demands for armed police. 1t ill
many of our homes with miseries wors
:, than death. 1t has not one single re
. lief. 1t is felony of the deepest dye
. pure and simple. 1t must be treate
!, as such. The felon's dock, the felon'
: cell and if need be the felon's gibbet
J is the only remedy for such crime.
= A sentiment must be vocalized int
q organic expression which will cOmpe
, legislation. The sentiment exists.
must be expressed in the only effectua
way, until a rumseller will no more
dare to open his house of death among
, us than would dealer in deadly pes
thence until he must, like other mis-
creants-Of which there are none great
er-hide himself in the dens and cav.
ems of night from the vengeance o.
hot pursuit. Brand felOn on his brow
huddle him with -cO-fellOws in the
criminals dock; drive him with the
gang in striped garments. The bust
ness will then cease, and the earth VIII
be delivered from his devilish sOrcerles
No man in his senses can say that
there is any other remedy, or that this
is too severe. All that is demanded is
concert of action. 1t will come. 1t is
at the door. There are men enough
not hOpelessly debauched to vote such
laws. They will yet unite and rid tn e
earth of this foul monster. 1t lives,
not because it cannot be put to death,
but because we have not the will to
strangle it, Let Christendom arouse,
and in a single day of brave work the
land will be freed of this vilest gang of
criminals that have ever cursed it,
and the prisons will empty, and the
slums will dry up, and the vicious
classes will vanish, and the miseries
of poverty and Indebtedness will
cease If Christian nation so will, it
can be done in one day. If we will
not, the Moloch will devour our homes
and our children.
Moderation is counseled. MOdera
tioni Who counsels moderation l?
Have we not tried tempOrizing poll
cies with this wild beast of nameless
possession long enough /? Have we
not sought to tame him with moral
suasiOn, to melt him with the tears of
| broken hearted wOmanhOOd and child
hood, by appeals to any latent human
ity that might yet be in him, by the
homes he has desOlated, and the vic
tins, by millions, he has inundated {?
Have we not resOrted to measures of
mild repression only to see how futile
they areq Have we not bound him
with the withes of low license, and
high license, and hampered him with
local option and obstructive legisla
ton? Have we not worn ourselves
with crusades and petitions and re-
monstrances Have we not, despair
ing of any success with the beast him
self, exhausted all possible methods of
rescuing his victims, only to find him
at the end of hundred years of un
successful effort, still entrenched and
defiant 1t is seventy years since the
great Beecher stirred Boston and the
nation with his startling appeal. For
half century the impassioned Cough
has gone up and down the land, Great
ing, by his appeals that would move u
heart of stone, moral sentiment. Thou
sands of others have plead and wept
and prayed. For twenty years wO
men have knelt on curb stones and en-
treated. The state still pampers the
beast, and turns him loose to raven
and destroy. Where he had novels,
he has built palaces. The low grOg
gerry has lowered out into the gilded
saloon. The scurvy miscreant, once
despised but patronized, has become
the acknowledged gentleman of fash
ion. He has moved from his obscure
quarters into the streets where decent
citizens live, and is toasted and feted
by well bred men and women. He has
formed an OstentatiOus league, and
banks millions to defend his respect
able profession. He calls conventions,
and sits, with parade, in deliberations
of his rights and immunities, and the
public press bushes itself with reports
of his proceedings and speaks of him
with respect. Moderation, no! Who
talks of moderation in the coils of a
boa constructor? We have tempOrized
too long. 1t is time we talk and act
like men. A murderer, cold, heart
less, cruel, is among us. Not the as
sassin of one or of a family. His vic
tins count by millions. His butcheries
are progressing daily and nightly with
in sight of our dwellings. The screams
of his victims, if we would but listen,
would chase away sleep from our eyes.
He knows the fact; we know it. His
sole and only business for which he
lives, and by which he lives, is first to
debauch youth and innocence, and then
to hurry the dishOnOred hulk away in
to drunkard's grave, and pamper
himself and his family upon the price
Ofsshis villainies. The teOcalli of the
Aztec war god, upon which the quiv
ering hearts of thousands were laid, is
a shrine Of beauty compared with the
horrors of this modern demon of de-
structiOn - the rumhOle. We men
stand by and see it, and raise no hand;
kl,a -.
and take the assassin of virtue and life
by the hand and treat him as our
equal. The annals of human history
furnish no parallel of stupidity and
mOnstrOsity. Moderation No, no
There is but one way; it is plain and
simple. Treat the criminal as he de-
serves let criminal law do its func-
ton; put him in the culprit's dock,
which is the only place to which he is
entitled carry him from the dock, by
sentence of law, to the felOn's cell or
to the gang of striped cOnvicts, who
are his only fit associates. Let the
process be the most summary possible
let the Law take hold of the factor on
simple evidence of his business /; let
the evidence of. criminal intent be the
presence of the article ; put it under
ban of right of search when its pres
ence is suspected. Deal with it pre-
cisely as we deal with theft, murder,
abduction and classes of crime which
grade with it, but are far below it in
atrocity. In nation whose legisla-
ton is controlled by universal suffrage
and direct vote, if half the voters have
not sunk below the level of men, it
cannot be long until we are delivered
of this insufferable shame. = Bishop