The Press., 1895-11-21


 after dissipating with these tissue anC
 brain-destroying clement"
 (From speech by John Willis Baer,)
 A story is current in the Orient of ( wise old sheik who gave to a young Arat prince, from whom he was about to mart list of crimes, and bade him choose the one which seemed least harmful. The young prince turned in horror from mur der, theft and loss of virtue, and told the patriarch that he would choose 'Intem. perance." "You have chosen, " said the wise old man, "that which will bring won all."
 Saloon-keepers, the point in that illus. tratlon is an awful condemnation on vour business. If intemperance brings mur- der, theft and loss of virtue, and it does, and your business brings intemperance if naturally follows that you are responsible for murder, theft and loss of virtue. Drunkenness is a sin, but not the only one. AS for myself, I would as soon stagger to the very gate of heaven drunk and in rage as to go there sober and rich ly dressed as an accomplice of the saloon.
 A drunken man was going down the street in Baltimore f1inging his hands right and left when one of his hands came across the nose of passer-by. The pass er-by 1nstinctively clenched his fist and sent the intruder sprawling to the ground. He got up, rubbing the place where he was hit, and said, ''I would like to know If this is not land of liberty ?" "It is :" said the other fellow, "but I want vou to understand that your liberty ends where my nose begins" This is a truth to be applied to the question of licensing the saloon. You have no more right to vote to establish a nuisance next door my home than have to vote to permit one to be located in your neighborhood. How would you like to live next door to one {? l have right to remind my friend who stands for "personal liberty" that his personal liberty ends where mine begins, and mine begins where his ends. You cannot measure that distance with q tape and line; lh requires the Golden Rule.
 Then there is the man that claims that mere liquor is sold under prohibition than under license, and talks about kitchen bar-rooms, etc. I don't deny that some liquor is sold, but declare emphatically that the quantity is much less and the public nuisances fewer. Let me correct misapprehension. Some people think that the law is man about six feet in height that walks our streets in a blue uniform with brass buttons, with helmet on his head club in his hand. That is not the law; that Is 8 policeman.
 Passing saloon door near my own home one day, not so very long since, you might have viewed scene that in itself was an object lesson, and would send you home, father or mother, wrapped in thought. A child's hearse was standing n front of the door empty. The driver, nonresident, was taking "wee drop" inside. Empty was this glass-paneled md white piece of funeral livery. Empty! More than one fond parent has heard the dick of similar glass door, as it has snapped upon little white casket in ront of his own door.
 God knows l know what it means. | Two years ago my oldest boy, at the age 't five, was carried by good neighbors in } little white casket through my front loor, and all that is mortal of that, boy low lies in Medford's cemetery. There re two more boys snugly tucked in bed | my home, one four, the other two. tod knows love them as I love my life. Bright, happy faces, see them now in heir innocence, sleeping unmindful of Vhat the battle of life is to be. God keep hem from all harm, is ny prayer, and i've them long and useful life. But ad rather that neither awake again in his world, and would sooner place them n one casket and let the glass door click 7ith it's sickening snap, and place their title bodies in the cold ground beside heir little brother, knowing that we 7ould all meet again in Heaven, than to ave them grow up and become regular atrOns of the saloon, or to know tonight hat they would walk the path and lead he life their father did for nearly five ears. Yes, l had rather fill that empty hild's hearse standing in front of the sa- 'On with my innocent children in their lnocency than to have that saloon or ny other saloon fill a. larger sized hearse ith my grown-up boys later.