Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1889-04-20
Temperance Column.
EDITED BY W. G.LU. OF BLACKFOeT
Some Temperance Straws.

ting In steadily towards q peaceful
revolution in our mistaken ideas of
what constitutes liberty of personal
action and the individual response
bility of each member of society. The
temperance cause has become some,
thing more than the whining cry of a
few fanatics aud at least demands
respectful consideration where it can
not claim hearty support.
No where is this shown so plainly
as by the drifting straws of literature.
In no respect does the temperance
PRESTON show a more decided adj
vance into the thoughtful considera-
ton of the thinking people, than in
its treatment by our best authors.
The better class of fiction is, gener-
ally, mirror of the characters and
manners of the country and time in
which its plot is laid and the rise and
progress of the temperance reform
may be clearly traced by the attitude
towards it of the masters OF fiction.
Drunkenness has always had its
dramatic possibilities perhaps, though
no modern writer has worked the
drslnkaFd and his vice SO powerfully
as Dickens, and he, no where so terri
bly, and with such realistic force, as
in SOLVER Twist" whose pages hold
the horrors of besotted vice unspar-
ingly to our shuddering gaze; and
we know that every drink of the vile
liquor which "Sikes" takes increases
by so much his insane fury against
his drudge, the hapless Nancy"
Vicious criminal that he is even
when he is sober, he becomes such a
brutal monster when the liquor fires
his sodden brain and nerves his muir
derous hand that we know already
what awful deed is to be done in that
home of wickedness where unsteady
feet are tending.
But this is sintemperance in its
naked savageness Good people, re
fined people, Christian people, the
high minded philosophers and the
great majority, majority of sober,
quiet people could not take such a
deiineation home to themselves or
their friends. 1t remained for later
writers to show drunkenness as it ex-
lists among the more refined classes.
OF temperance serials by temper
ance specialists we have had many,
but until within the last five years no
distinguished author or aristocratic
Monthly Magazine would so much as
touch the subject with "forty rod
pen, unless to make the william or adj
ventures drink themselves to death,
and, taken that way, everyone was
disposed to bless rather than condemn
the agent of their taking off
But the truth is, it is not only the
villains who drink themselves to
death.
In annie Kilburn," by w. D.
Howells, we have the VIVID semblance
presentation of a man who, drunkard
though he is, has many lovable quail
tiles and appeals strongly to the
Divine element of pity that is "akin
to sorrow" not to condemn harshly
the stumbling of those weak and over
tempted feet, but rather to say hum
bly,, "God be merciful also to US,
sinners"
"Ralph Putney," as drawn by
Howells, is the type of one class of
drunkards; man having an appetite
which dominates the man so COM
pletely at times that he is as irrespon-
sible as a mailman. The contrast be-
tween his bright sober self and what
he is when drink has possession of him,
is most accurately drawn. No element
of sadness is wanting in the drama
of his life There is the wife, "the
woman who had suffered so much
with him and must suffer" There we
have the brief biography of unnumber
ed women. The child with its future
full of misery, the friends who hope
and fear for him; all these form ar
unbroken circle Of sorrow, a circle
and sorrow with which we are toe
sadly familiar,