The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-03-30
FEARFULLY DEBASING.

tellect Confused, the stomach Diseased
and the Will-Power Destroyed.
1t is not alone in a business OF spir-
itual way that the rum habit is terri
BILE. Among the most frightful evils
connected with it are it's effects upon
its victims social habits and moral
nature. He who has become the slave
OF the rum devil can no longer find re-
Taxation in quiet and pleasant social
intercourse, because it is too tame for
him. The fire that is burning within
him requires fercer fuel. There is
something brutalizing in rum, which
requires quite different surroundings
from the pleasant home freside and
the smooth. even enjoyments of the
family circle around the evening lamp
No confirmed drunkard can be salts
fled with the pure society of his wife
and family; the gleeful prattle of his
children has no music for him. He
wants coarse, impure crowd of boon
| companions, and if it contains fe-
male element, she is taken from the
shameless sisterhood who sell their
bodies. and their souls at the same
time, for gold.
Such men weary of their homes.
There is no home for them but the
rum-hole, gambling hell. or the resorts
of vice-and if they can combine all
three, they like it better. The earthly
paradise of such man is a gambling
game in the society of similar men and
lost women, with sideboard, loaded
with rum in various forms, at his right
hand. He then has his entire hell with
in reach. The hours are spent in vul-
gar jest and ribald song, in vice and
drunkenness, until exhausted Nature
will bear no more, and the WORKOUT
physical system finds sort of feverish
relief, which is of use only because it
is a cessation of still more feverish
wakefulness.
Not only does rum debase its VIC
TINS morals, but it deadens the intel
lectual taste and destroys the purer
pleasures of the mind. Such a man
finds no enjoyment in literature. 1t is
impossible for him, with rum-soaked
brain, to sit down quietly and read
pure literary works. What, to the
confirmed drunkard, even though he
be an educated man are the pages of
Ihackeray, or the wizard work of Sir
Walter Scott? Can such a man revel
in tho litora,.1y boo,,+;oe % NT;I@au,z
Paradise Lost" the placid numbers
of Thomson's Seasons, or the cheer
full pages of Young's might
ThoughtsP" Can he find any solace
in the perusal of religious books or any
instruction from volume of natural
scienceP His taste is fearfully de-
PRAYED, and only the licentious vol
umes of such high-priests of literary
nastiness as lola for instance, can
tempt him to an attentive perusal.
For pure literature he has lost all
taste. You shall find no red noses in
a public library, any more than at
a prayer-meeting. Rum and good taste
are incongruous. They can no more
mix than oil and water.
This utter deterioration of the moral
and intellectual qualities, due to the
rum habit, is paralleled, too, by the
utter destruction of the will-power.
Rum sears the brain, confuses the in
tellect, and destroys all purity of
taste, all strength of will. From the
time that the drinking of rum is a
pleasure, till the bloated and dis
eased body loses its hold on life, this
fearful weakening of the will goes on.
The beginnings of the drunkard's ca
reer are pleasant. The introduction
of this demon into the physical sys-
tenn produces a pleasurable exhilara-
ton. The experiment is repeated
again and again, until the pleasure
which at first attended the swallow.
ing of the poison disappears. Then
the claws come through the velvet,
and the victim finds himself in the
clutches of merciless tyrant instead
of in the hands of laughing friend.
The stomach, infamed and dis
eased, which was before soothed and
titillated by rum, now inexorably de-
mands supply. 1t is no longer
question of pleasure at all No mat
ter how much the system may loathe
the taste of rum, it must have it. If
the craving is not supplied, there is
depression following the excess (and
the drinking of any alcoholic liquor is
an excess), and the poor drinker, sick
from the reaction, knows of but one
way to raise himself from the pit of
his own digging into which he has
fallen. The depression is SO great,
the craving so strong, that he flies to
rum again, and is temporarily raised
from out the earthly hell caused by his
own excess.
Under the renewed stimulus, life
puts on a new face, and the world is
again full of JOY. The depression is
thus followed by new citation, just in
proportion to the amount swallowed.
To illustrate: If the man is in debt, he
is sure to worry over it when in the
depressed stage. One drink makes
payment possible to his Imagination;
two makes it probable, three assure it,
four give him the feeling of having
surplus in bank. five the ownership of
wealth, and so ON in the ascending
scale. OF course, when the intoxicat-
ing effect Of the rum dies out Of his
brain, the stage Of depression follows