The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-10-09
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
MORALITY AND ALCOHOLISM.
4 Potential Qualify ortho state of Drunl-

Potential Qualify ortho State of Drunk-
enneSS.
DR. r. Wright, in considering the in
iucnce of alcohol on the moral consti-
utiOn of man, remarks:
1.-The manners of men as they relate
% questions of duty, obligation, sym
oathy. and the movements of personal
ty, either for good or evil, are usually
Known as morals. Manners are much
involved with considerations of in
.entive, motive, design, intent and pur-
pose, and they are thereby materially
solored and modified. The influence
ST alcohol on morals is immediate 1t
IS pcrceptible to observation quickly
lfter alcohol is taken into the system;
out it varies greatly, both in kind and
intensity, with the stage of drinking.
In general terms it may be said
that no instance has been recorded
where the influence of alcohol upon
good man, when carried to its full eX-
tent, has failed to faint his moral
nature. Nor has an instance evcEbeen
anOWn of a character so base so bcstial
and inhUman that alcohol could not
sink it still lower. 1t seems, in fact,
rue, as far as the worlds experience
extends, that the depths of drpravity
INTO which alcohol may plunge the
human soul have never yet been
sounded. In its position as a wrecller
of good morals, alcohol stands proud
Y eminent Few things are so bad as
% have no good in them: but, aside
from certain properties available in
therapeutics, alcohol seems. in its i'm
orct,ions on the human organism, to
De ,ingularly bad. In all its long and
ireary history, it has never been known
% add anything whatever to mans
zeal character for picty, or sympathy,
or love to his family, or kindness to
his fellow-man.
alcohol dcadens the conscience of
anyone who partakes of it, let his mo-
tives in drinking be what they may. The
casual drinl<cr often partallcs of alcohol
without any clcarly-dctinc purpose.
certainly without the slightest intent Of
committing an unlawful act. Yet the
poison affects him as it does others; it
paralyZeS his cons fence, the acutcncss
of his sensbilitics is bluntcd and he is
peculiarly liable to be led into improper
and unlawful conduct. The drinllcr is
deprived of intellectual soundness, as
well as moral capacity; and yet the
law says drunkenness is no excuse for
crime.
Shakespeare knew the deadly spell
that alcohol casts on morality:
IF can fasten but one cup upon him
With that which he hath drunk tonight al
ready,
He'll be as full Of quarrel and offcnse
As my young mistress dog
saith honest lago.'
sit appears to be potential quality
of drunkenness to dcprcss the moral ca
pacitics, and thus foster the assaults Of
temptation, whether it comes in the
guise of folly or of criminality. The
corruption of the moral system may be
observed in the small vices of drunken
ness as we'll as in the surprising turpi-
tude of its conspicuous outrages. The
crimes of drunkenness are not com
monty the outcome of generalization
and brooding malevolence. The natural
Otfense against their exhibition and
activity, the nervous basis of the moral
constitution, is disabled. While this
nerve defect in drunkenness may, to
some extent, be consistent with pre-
and malice in the commits
sion of crime, yet the very defect is the
more dangerous to society from the
fact that it is withdrawn from the
of the rational mind.
"A person intoxicated will commit
offenses in thought, in speech and in
conduct which in his sober moods he
would view with adherence. The ten
dency of drunkenness is inevitably TO-
ward crime"
Such are the effects resulting from
the use of alcohol. And the man who
INDUCES in it or hampers with it ak
poses himself to these dangers. lie is
liable to become raving maniac or a
ferocious brute, making his home a
hell and his existence a curse to all
around him.
AS John Bright justly says:
"To drink decply-to be drunk-is a
sin; this is not denied. At what point
does the taking of strong drink become
q sin? We suppose Il man perfectly
sober; one glass eXcites him, and to
some extent disturbs the state of so
briefly, and so far destroys it; another
glass eXcites him still more; q third
fires his eye, loosens his tongue, in
flames his passions; a fourth increases
all this; ifth makes him foolish and
partially insane; sixth makes him
savage; seventh or eighth makes him
stupid-a scnscless, degraded man. But
when does the sin begin? At the first
step toward complete intoXication or
at the sixth, seventh or eighth? Is not
every step from the natural state of
the system toward the state of stupid
an advance in sin and Il
yielding to the unwearicd temptar of
the soul?"-Alienist and Necrologi5t.
THE DRINKING HABIT.
1t Is Not Respectable, and business Men