Connecticut western news., 1894-01-11

can get it, sworn at by passersby be- cause they do not get out of the way, kicked onward toward manhood or womanhood, for which they have no preparation, except depraved appetite and frail constitution, candidates for almhouse and penitentiary. Whatever other cause of poverty may fail, the sa- loon may be depended on to furnish an ever increasing throng of paupers. Oh, ye grogshops of Brooklyn and New York and of all the cities; ye mouths of hell, when will ye cease to craunch and devour? There is no danger of this liquor business failing. All other styles of business at times fail. Dry goods stores go under. Hardware stores go under. Grocery stores go under. Harness makers fail, druggists fail, bankers fail, butchers fail, bakers fail, confectioners fail. but the liquor deal- CTS never. It 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 mp for money, only have to put into large quantities of water more strychnine and logwood and nux vomica and vitriol and other congenial concom- mitants for adulteration. One quart of the real genuine pandemoniac elixir will do to mix up with several gallons of milder damnation. Besides that, these dealers can depend on an increase of demand on the part of their custom CTS. The more of that stuff they drink. the thirstier they are. Hard times, which stop other business, 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 it's victims-claret, champagne, port. cognac, whisky. tom and jerry, sour mash, on and down un- til it is a sort of mixture of kerosene oil, turpentine, toadstools, swill, es- sence of the horse blankets and general nastiness. With it's red sword of flame, that liquor power marshals its process sion, and they move on in ranks long enough 10 girdle the earth, and the pro- cession is headed by the nose blotched, nerve shattered, rheum eyed, lip bloat- ed, soul scorched inebriates, followed by the women, who, though brought up in comfortable homes, now go limping past with aches and pains and pallor and hunger and woe, followed by their children, barefoot, uncombed, freezing, and with wretchedness of time and eternity seemingly compressed in their agonized features. Forward, marcho' 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 of 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 than they did for clothing and groceries.
 THE MPRovIDENCE or woRKMEN.
 Another warranty that my text will prove true in the perpetual poverty of the world IS the wicked spirit of inn providence. A vast number of people have such small incomes that they can not lay by in savings bank or life in surance one cent year. It takes every farthing they can earn to spread the table and clothe the family and educate
 
 people for impovidence you enact a cruelty. On such salary as many clerks and employees and many minis ters of religion live, and on such wages as many workmen receive, they cannot, in 90 years, lay up 90 cents. But you know and know many who have com potent incomes, and could provide some what for the future, who live up to every dollar, and when they die their chill street. By the time the wife gets the husband buried, she is in debt to the undertaken and gravedigger for that which she can never pay. While the man lived he had his wins parties and fairly sunk with tobacco, and then ex- pired, leaving his family upon the char ities of the world. Do not send for me to come and conduct the obsequies and read over such a carcass the beautiful litugy, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for, instead of that, l will turn over the leaves of the Bible to Timothy V, 18, where it says: "If any provide not for his own, and espe- cially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel, ? or will turn to Jere- miah xxi, 19, where it says, He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
 cannot imagine any more unfair or meanei thing than for man to get his sins pardoned at the last minute, and then go to heaven, and live in a man. sion, and go riding about in golden chariot over the golden streets, while his wife and children, whom he might have provided for, are begging for cold victnals at the basement door of an earthly city. It seems to me there ought to be poorhouse somewhere on the outskirts of heaven, where those guilty of such improvidence should be kept for awhile on thin soup and gristle instead of sitting down at the Kings banquet. It is said that the church is a divine institution, and I believe it. Just as certainly are the savings banks and the life insurance companies divine institutions. As out of evil good often comes SO out of the doctrine of proba- bilities, calculated by Professor Hugens and Professor Pascal for games of chance, came the calculation of the probabilities of human life as used by lite insurance companies, and no busi- ness on earth is more stable or honor able, and no mightier mercy for the human race has been born since Christ was born. Bored beyond endurance for my signature to papers of all sorts, there is one style of paper that always sign with feeling of gladness and triumph, and that IS paper which the life insurance company requires from the clergyman after a decease in his congregation, in order to the payment of the policy to the bereft household. I always write my name then so they can read it. I cannot help but say to my self: "Good for that man to have look ed after his wife and children after earthly departure. May he have one of the best seats in heavenr' Young ho4