Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1889-06-27
The Growth OF Temperance.

! he Growth OF Temperance.
There are, beyond doubt, thousands
Of sincere people, of the best in the
commonwealth, who arc to-day deeply
discouraged by the result of the cleo
ton on the prohibitory amendment
| The cultivation OF statistics showing
the extent of the abuse of alcohol and
| the proportion of crime which is due to
1t has led very many TO impute intem-
! perance TO the whole body OF the ma
ton. They have been led 60 adopt the
reasoning Of those who maintain that
drunkenness has become "A vice of the
state, felt not by a single class of the
people, but by the whole, and that
! therefore the state may rightly inter-
! fere with peoples drinking customs.
If this imputation of individual vices
to the entire body of the community
were we'll founded, the failure of the
radical means of cure TO obtain, after
an active and able canvass, vote of
more than 80, 900 out OF IL total vote of
! $50, 900, might well be dishearteuing to
the friends of temperance and good or
| der. But is it true that tho vice of ex-
| cessive drinking has become SO much
more general nowadays than in the past
as TO warrant the consideration of it as
a general vice, under which circum-
stance only would it be justifiable tO
attempt the suppression of the drink
! ing of liquor as beverage?
1t is perie lily evident TO any student
of our own time and of past genera
tions that this is not the case. On the
contrary, any one who remembers the
drinking habits of thirty or forty years
ago, or any one who has studied the
record of social customs in New Eng
land since the settlement of the coun-
try, must be aware that steady and
immense gain in the direction of tenn
pcrance has been made, which has en-
tended TO all classes of society except
possibly TO the very most unfortunate.
The drinking customs of the past gen.
GRAFTON are we'll known. Scenes at the
tables OF the wealthy and cultivated
were toler ted, and in f.ct expected,
which would now irreclaimably dis
grace respectable people. The clergy
man had his pitcher of rum on the pull
pit, with which TO moisten his lips us
he discoursed upon the moral virtues.
There are still eXtant bills for quanti-
"raisings" OF church buildings, and
paid for by the parish, which
show an astonishing consumption
of intoXicants and an absolute
liberation OF their use. The pail of
rum stood upon the counter of the
country store, and customers helped
themselves with dipper. The re-
suits Of all this were what were to be
expected. In the pgriSh records of
de lths, a hundred years ago, the words
alcoholism or "drinkn placed oppo-
site certain names as the cause OF death,
figure with startling frequency. 1t was
not merely the case in this country.
The drinking habit had been brought
to the country from Great ritain. In
1870 Sir Mathew Hale, whose situation
and experience fully qualified him TO
judge. estimated the proportion OF
crime caused by drunkenness at 80 per
cent, and few venture to put it higher
than - per cent.
The fact is that tho general commit
nifty has advanced in u most marked
degree in point of temperance. The
change has been so radical that it has
entered into the life and habits of the
people; and it has been brought about,
not by prohibitory enactments, but by
the influence OF individual opinion and
the growth of individual conscience.
At the s1me time we have become in
tensely aware of the abuses of alco-
hol. 1t is the age OF statistics, and of
q minute consciousness Of social evils.
We are concerned, and very properly,
about symptoms which gave our ances-
tors no uneasiness at all. No one
with trace of public spirit would
deny the evils of alcoholism which
face us on every hand, but it is simply
a question of the most effective means
OF meeting them. While 'be general
! community has grown in temperance,
certain social influences, such as in
dustrial congestion, overcrowding in
wretched tenement quarters, and the
wide separation Of the rich from the
poor, have driven thousands into in
temperance and stimulated the growth
of that mischievous institution, the
low rumshop. 1t is emphatically the
duty of society to grapple with this
evil; and yesterdays result in this
state, by clearing the fell for some
time to come of an impracticablc
remedy, will, we are convinced, prove
rather an aid than IL hiudrance TO re-
form. Boston Transcript.