Connecticut western news., 1893-05-18

darkness by turning on the hose pipe out by sowing weeds? I do not see how you can sweep out hell by flooding the earth with liquid damnation.
 IT MUST BE CRUSHED.
 The plea Is absurd. The saloon as an institution must be crushed and outlaw ed. Men will drinkr Yes. They will sneak round the corner and find it? Yes. But the weak and the young will be pro tected. The poor will be rescued from it's clutches. All that is necessary to bring this question home to the hearts of every citizen is for it to touch his own life. An old man, says the Chicago Journal, recently applied to peniten- tiary for the position of a guard. He was told that he was too old. He said that he had his second sight; that he had been a dead shot in his youth; that he was bet ter shot now than ever; that no convict could escape him. Finally after long argument he was given trial. He told the keeper that he had lost all his people; that he must have the job, or nothing opened before him. He was in despair. He was given a gun and pat on duty.
 The next day the convicts were taken across the fields to their work. Sudden ly convict leaped over 8 fence and rolled down an embankment and made break for liberty. The old man lifted his gun and shouted to the convict to halt. Three times he called to him to halt, but on the prisoner sped. Then came the crack of the old mans rife, and instantly the man fell. He was shot through the heart. The old guard came up, and with a sigh looked at the prostrate body, and when they turned the dead man over and his face came into view the old guard staggered back with cry of horror. He recognized his own son.
 We are ready to weep over such trag- edy. We are willing to support the laws which make 1t possible to shoot down a man at the stockade, provided 1t is some other mans child. We would not be able to perform the work the old guard d:d if we had to shoot our own boy, and yet the principle is the same. The broth erhood of man is great fact of the race. Some of us feel that 1t is none of our business if saloons destroy other peoples children. It is as much our business as if it were our own child. I repeat again this terrible indictment of the saloon. It should be made over and over again. It has never been controverted. It can- not be controverted:
 The saloon cuts down youth in its vigor man. hood in its strength and age in its weakness.
 It breaks the fathers heart, bereaves the fber ayt nfaha rlat tr1ra lafT conjugal love, blots out flial attachments and blasts parental hopes and brings down mourn ing age in sorrow to the grave.
 It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life.
 It makes wiyes widows; children, orphans; fathers, fends-and all of them paupers and beggars. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout. welcomes spidemics, invites cholera, fmparts pestilence and embraces consumption.
 It covers the land with idleness, misery and crime.
 It fills your jaile, supplies your almshouses and demands your asylums.
 It engenders controversies, fosters Quarrels and cheriShes riots.
 It crowds your penitentiaries and furnishes victims to your scaffolds.
 It is the lircblood of the gambler, the ele- ment of the Slrglar, the prop of the highway diery.
 It countenances the liar, respects the thief, esteems the blasphemer.
 It violates obligations, reverences fraud, hon. infamy.
 It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and islanders innocence
 It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, helps the husband to massacre his wife and the child to grind the parricidal ax.
 1t burns up men, consumes women, detests life, curses God and despises heaven.
 It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury box and stains the judicial ermine.
 1t degrades the citizen, debases the legisla- ture, dishonors the statesman and disarms the patriot.
 It brings shame not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope misery, not happiness, and with the malevolence of flend 1t calmly sur veys its frightful desolation, and unsatisaed with its havoc it kills peace, ruins morals bnghts confidence, stays reputation and wipes 1. out national honor, then curses the world and laughs at it's ruin.
 It does all that and more-it murders the soul 1t is the sum of all villaines, the father of all crimes, the mJther of all abominations, the devils best friend and Gods worst enemy.