The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-02-16
Respectable Drinking.

= ~
eyed girl, Of about sixteen years Of
age. She was not rich, but had en-
joyed most of the literary and social .
advantages that riches secure. Re
igiously, too, she was highly fav-
ored, for family prayer, the reading
Of Gods word and attendance upon .
church and Sunday school, were her |
continual benson. But ''sWeet six
teen" is very attractive, so that it
was not long before young man
came suspiciously often to this girls
home. Having been schoOlmates TO-
gether, friendship easily ripened into
love. He had been a markedly pro
missing boy, taking prizes in the Sun
day school and ranking uncOmmonly
high intellectually. Among their re-
creations during courtship were
trips in company with others to the
watering places of the Atlantic
Coast. There was the first [ heard
of this young mans loose ideas about
drinking liquor.
A German, in his company, who
was in the habit Of taking his glass,
remarked to him how surprised he
was at the quantity of liquor he was
so often ordering. This seeming in
! reference, though made by man
much his senior, was resented with
high dudgeon. Subsequently riding
with him and party of friends in
Kentucky, on the banks Of the Ohio
river, we stopped while to rest and
! get some refreshment. He took his
wine-the young lady took hers
and her mother did the same L be-
ieve [ was the only abstainer of the
company. Well, they only smiled
at my strange persistence-what in
the world could be the harm of a Sc
lect party like ourselves indulging
IN a simple glass of wine? [ think
they all voted me as too rigid
entirely. All, if that young lady
and her mother, instead of smil
ing so blandly over that wine
that summer day, had declined
to take the least drop of it (they need
only to have been positive about it,
not hatefully ostentatiOus), they
would most likely have saved much
of misery in that young wOman's
after life. Common sense tells us
that mother and daughter that time
gave that man the highest counter
ance in drinking respectfully. A
little wine was so enjOyable-and
that little occasionally, surely could
do no harm.
Time wore on-the marriage took
place. They settled in a pleasant
home, in a manufacturing district in
Connecticut, where he, as bOOkkeeper
of large cutlery establishment, re
ceived liberal salary. A boy was
born, and friends and relations
thought a happy life lay before this
young couple. Soon, however, our
friend, for some reason, thought b g
would study law, and for that pur-
pose removed to his old home, where
eventually he was admitted to the
bar, and would most likely have made
his mark in that line of great posi-
bilities to able men, had he not gone
off into politics, that very favorable
adjunct of rum. Why it should be
so, we know Motive only state a
very patent fact.
From that date drink got the better
OF him, till wife and children were
entirely neglected. Often since she
told me she would go with him on
his business errands to keep him
from the saloons, which her company
was capable of doing-for, of course;
he still loved her though he was So
fast going the downward road. Soon
the wife had to teach school, to keep
alive her four helpless children, who
feared their fathers step and hid
away at his home coming. Dear
little creatures, how sweet and pretty
they were, and how strange that
their own father could so brutaiize
himself as to become only an
object of terror to them! No
wonder they feared him, for drink
made him cruel and beastly. Many
times the accomplishing wife car
ried the marks Of his rough usage
for days upon her features.
This mans father was q hard
drinker, and no doubt heredity made
his state all the worse, so that ere
long his body showed marked evil
dence of failing under such hard
usage and exposure. Death came to
him sooner than it sometimes does to
runs victims. For his sake and his
wife's too, we rejoice that the mourn
full tragedy was ended-for there
seemed no prospect of reform. AS
that poor man, cut down by rum in
the prime of life, lay in his coffin,
the mother bade her boys stand by
him and pledge themselves never to
touch the 'accursed thing" God
help them that they be true to that
pledge, always.
The sequel of the true story is
hard, lonely work for the poor
mother for many years, and father
less children vainly reaching out all
their lives for true fathers pre-
cious love and care. How hard that
woman had worked none but herself
and God knows, but it has often been
a mystery to me how she has sur
vived it at all. But, oh, how differ
; ent it all might have been had there
not been that respectable" drinking
!. way at the first. And yet this is
only one case, among millions of
similar ones, that might be chroni-
cled, the world over, today. Yet,
, how very few realize 1t! Blind and