The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-18

and two ciphers. and four ciphers, and
that reinforcement of numerals will not
express the statistics of American rum
meries. Even if il were good healthy
business, supplying necessity, an article
superbly nutritious, it is a business might
lily overdone. and there are Three Tav-
ems where there ought TO be only one
The fact is, there are in another sense
Three Taverns now; the gorgeous Tavern
for the affiuent, the medium Tavern for
the working classes and the Tavern of the
sums, and they stand in line, and many
people beginning with the first come down
through the second and come ont at the
third. AT the first of the Three Tav-
erns, the wines are of celebrated vintage
and the Whistles are said to be pure. and
they are quaffed from cut-glass. at mar
BILE side-tables under pictures approach
ing masterpieces. The patrons pull off
their kid-gloves and hand their silk hats
to the walter and push back their hair
with hand on one finger of which Is
cameo. But those patrons are apt to
stop visiting thLL place. 1t is not the
money that a man pays for drinks, for
what are a few hundred or a few thousand
dollars TO man of large income?-but
their brain gets touched, and that I'M
balances their judgment, and they can
see fortunes in enterprises surcharged
with dlSaster,In longer or shorter time they
Tavern the second, where the pictures are
not quite SO scrupulous of suggestion, and
the small table is rougher, and the cas-
tor standing on il is of German silver,
and the air has been kept over from the
night before, and that which they sip
from the pewter mug has larger per-
centage of benZne, ambergris, creosote,
henbane, strychnine, prussic acid, coculus
indicus plaster of paris, copperas, and
nightshade The patron may be seen al
most every day, and perhaps many times
the same day at this tavern the second,
but he is preparing to graduate. Brain,
liver, heart, nerves, are rapidly giving
away. That Tavern the second has its
dismal echo in his business destroyed and
family scattered, and woes that choke
ones vocabulary. Time passes on, and he
enters Tavern the third; red light out
side; a hiccoughing and besotted group in
side. lie will be dragged out of doors
about o clock in the morning, and left
on the sidewalk, because the bartender
wants to shut up. The poor victim has
taken the regular course in the college Of
degradation. He has his diploma writ ten
on his swollen, bruised and blotched ply
siognomy. He is a regular graduate of
the Three Taverns. AS the police take
him up and put him in the ambulance,
the wheels seem to rumble with two rolls
of thunder, one of which says: Look
not upon the wine when 1t is red when
it moveth itself Alright in the cup, for at
the last it biteth like a serpent, and sting
eth like an adder" The other thunder
roll says: "All drunkards shall have their
place in the lake that burnenth fire and
with birthstone"
1 am glad to find in this scene of the
text, that there is such a thing as declin-
ing successfully great Tavernian tempta-
tons. l can see from what Paul said and
did after he had Travelled the following
seventeen miles of his journey, that he
had received no damage at the Three Tav-
ems. How much he was tempted, 1
know not. Do not suppose he was supe-
rier to temptation. That particular temp
tation has destroyed many of the grand
est, migEtest, noblest statesmen, phloso-
pliers, heroes, clergymen, apostles of law
and medicine and government and relig-
ion. Paul was not physically well under
any circumstances; it was not in mock
depreciation that he said he was "in bod
lily presence weak" 1t seems that his eye
sight was so poor that he did his writing
through an amanuensis, for he mentions
1t as something remarkable that his short
est epistle, the one TO Philemon, was in
his own penmanship, saying, 81, PAU
have written 1t with my own hand" He
had been thrown from his horse, he had
been stoned, he had been endungeoned,
he had had his nerves pulled on by
preaching at Athens to the most scholarly
audience of all the earth, and at Corinth
to the most brilliantly prohigate assem-
blage, and been howled upon by the
Ephesian worshippers of Diana, tried for
his life before Felix. charged by Festus
with being insane, had crawled up on the
beach, drenched in the shipwreck and
much of the time had an iron hand-cuff
on his wrist and if any man needed slim
illus, Paul needed it, but with all his phys.
zeal exhaustion, he got past the Three
Tow don cra1
Rome all ready for the tremendous ordeal
to which he was subjected. Oh! How
many mighty men feeling that they must
brace up after extraordinary service and
prepare themselves for other service have
called on the spirit of wine for inspirat ion
and in few years have been sacrificed
on the altar of a Moloch, who sits on a
throne of human carcasses. 1t would
not be wise, or kind, or Christian to call
their names in public, but you call them
out of your own memory. Oh! how many
splendid men could not get past the Three
TaVerns.
Notice that a profound mystery Is at
tached to these Italian obstetrics. No ho-
tel register tells the names of those who
stopped at those taverns; there is no old
account book as to how many drank there;
there is no broken challce or jug to sug-
gest what was the style of liquid which
these customers consumed. So an awful
mystery hangs about the barrooms of the
modern taverns OH if they would only
keep book upon the counter, or scroll
that could be unrolled from the wall. tell
ing how many homesteads they have des-
olated, and how many immortal souls they
have blasted. You say that would spoil
their business. Well, l suppose it would,
but a business that cannot plainly tell Its
effect upon its customers, is a business
that ought to be spoiled. All! you mys-
FERROUS barrooms, speak out and tell how
many suicides went out from you to hal
ter, or pistol, or knife or deadly leap
from fourth story window; how many
young men, started well in life, were halt
ed by you and turned on the wrong road,
dragging after them bleeding parental
hearts, how many people who promised
at the marriage altar fidelity until death
did them part, were brought by you TO
early and CHASTITY separations; how many
Warehouses; have you filled with maniacs;
how many graves have you dug and filled
In the cemeteries; how many ragged and
hungry children have you beggared
| through the fathers whom you destroyed.
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