Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-12

SOhoN"hb ~ 10 eAAAPAg "ONA
full that the nation still lives. The
tariff question will never be settled
because of the fact, which have never
heard any one recognize, but, neverthe-
less the fact, that high tariff is best
for some people and free trade
is best for others. This tar
iffic controversy keeps business
struck through with uncer-
tainty, and that uncertainty results in
poverty and wretchedness for vast
multitude of people. If the eternal
CAB on this subject could have been
fashioned into loaves of bread, there
would not be hungry man or woman
or child on all the planet. TO the end
of time, the words of the text will be
kept true by the tariffic controversy,
''Ye have the poor always with you"
Another cause of perpetual poverty
is the cause alcoholic. The victim does
not last long He soon crouches into
the drunkard' S grave. But what about
his wife and children? She takes in
washing, when she can get it, or goes
out working on small wages, because
sorrow and privation have left her in
capacitated to do a strong woman's
work. The children are thin-blooded
and gaunt and pale and weak, stand
ing around in cold rooms, or pitching
pennies on the street corner, and
munching a slice of unbuttered bread
when they can get it, sworn at by pass
ers-by because they do not get out of
L., L..
hood or womanhood, for which they
have no preparation, except depraved
appetite and frail constitution, candi-
dates for alms-house and penitentiary.
Whatever other causes of poverty
may fail, the saloon may be de-
pended on to furnish an ever-increasing
throng of paupers. Oh, We grog-shops
of Brooklyn and New York and of all
the cities! Ye mouths of hell! when
will We cease to craunch and devour?
There is no danger of this liquor bust
ness failing. All other styles of bust
ness at times fail Dry goods stores
go under. Hardware stores go under.
makers fail, druggists fail, bankers
fail, butchers fail, bakers fail, confec-
TONERS fail, but the liquor dealers
never. 1t is the only secure business
know of. Why the permanence of
the alcoholic trade? Because, in the
first place, the men in that business
if tight up for money, only have to put
into large quantities of water more
strychnine and logwood and nux
vomica and vitriol and other con-
genial concomitants for adulteration.
One quart of the real genuine pam
demoniac elixir will do TO mix up with
several gallons of milder damnation.
Beside that, these dealers can depend
on an increase of demand on the part
of their customers. The more of that
stuff they drink, the thirstier they are.
Hard times, which stop other bust
nesses, only increase that business, for
men go there to drown their troubles.
They take the spirits down TO keep
their spirits up. There is an inclined
plane down which alcoholism slides its
victims. Claret, champagne, port,
cognac, whisky, Tom and Jerry, sour
mash, on and down until it is a
sort of mixture of kerosene oil,
/ turpentine, toadstools, swill, essence
/ of the horse blankets and
general nastiness With its red sword
of flame, that liquor power marshals
its procession, and they move on in
ranks long enough to girdle the earth,
and the procession is headed by the
nose blotched. nerve-shattered, rheum-
eyed, lip bloated, soul-scorched inebri-
ates, followed by the women, who
though brought up in comfortable
hopNa, now go limping past with aches
and pains and pallor and hunger and
woe, followed by their children, bare
foot, uncombed, freezing, and with q
Indebtedness of time and eternity
seemingly compressed in their agonizeG
features. Forward, march," cries the
liquor business to that army without
banners. Keep that influence moving
on and you will have the poor always
with you. Report comes from one o.
the cities, where the majority of the
inhabitants are out of work and de
pendent on charity, yet last year they
spent more in that city for rum thar
they did for clothing and groceries.
Another warranty that my text viii
prove true in the perpetual poverty o,
the world is the wicked spirit of i'm
providence. A vast number of peopl,
have such small income that they car
not lay by in savings bank or life in
surance one cent year. 1t take,
every farthing they can earn to spread
the table and clothe the family anC
educate the children, and if you blam,
such people for improvidence, you en-
act a cruelty. On such salary al
many clerks and employees and many
ministers of religion live, and on sucl
wages as many worllmen receive, they
can not, in twenty years, lay NJ
twenty cents. But you know and
know many who have competent in
come and could provide somewhat fol-
the future, who live up every dollar
and when they die, their children go t.
the poor house or on the street. BY the
time the wife gets the husband buried
she is in debt to she undertaken anc