Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-10-23

effect upon it's customers ls business
that ought to be spoiled All, you mys-
terious barrooms, speak out and tell
how many suicides went out from you
to halter or pistol or knife or deadly
leap from fourth story window; how
many young men. started well in life,
were halted by you and turned on the
wrong road, dragging after them bleed
ing parental hearts; how many people
who promised ut the marriage altar
fidelity until death did them part were
brought by you to early and CHASTITY sep
aration; how many madhouses have you
filled with maniacs; how many graves
have you dug and filled in the cemeter-
les; how many ragged and hungry chill
dren have you beggared through the ia
theirs whom you destroyed. If the skel-
etons of all those whom you have slain
were piled up on top Of each other, how
high would the mountain be? If the
tears of all the orphanage and widow
hood that you have pressed out were
gathered together, how wide would be
the lake or how long the river? All,
they make no answer. On this subject
the modern taverns are as silent as the
oriental three taverns, but there are
millions of hearts that throb with most
vehement condemnation, and many Of
them would go as far as the mother in
Oxford, Mass, whose son had been
long absent from home and was return
ing, and at the tavern on the way he
was persuaded to drink, and that one
drink aroused former habit, and again
and again he drank, and he was found
tho next morning dead in the barn OF
tho tavern. The owner of the tavern
who gave him the rum helped carry
his body home, and his broken hearted
mother. afterward telling about it, said:
1T was wrong, but cursed him. did
it. Heaven forgive him and ME. "
The Rock of Safety.
But what a glad time when the world
comes to its last three taverns for the
sale of intoxicantsl Now there are so
many of them that statistics are only a
more or less accurate guess as to their
number. We sit with half closed eyes
and undisturbed nerves and hear that
in 1872 in the United States there were
1864 breweries, 4, 349 distilleries and
III, GGy retail Dealers and that possibly
by this time these figures may be truth
fully doubled The fact is that these es-
Establishments are innumerable, and the
discussion is always disheartening and
the impression is abroad that the plague
is so mighty and universal it can never
be cured and the most of sermons on
this subject close with the book OF LAM
entations and not with the book OF
Revelation. Excuse me from adopting
any such infdel theory. The Bible re-
iterates it until there is no more power
in inspiration to make it palmer that
the earth is to be not half or three
quarters, but wholly redeemed. On that
rocl, take my triumphant stand and
Join i'll the chorus of hosannas
One of the most advantageous move
ments in the right direction is taking
this whole subject into the education Of
the young On the same school desk
with the grammar, the geography, the
arithmetic, are books telling the lads
and lasses of 10 and IL and 10 years of
age what are the physiological effects
of strong drink, what it does with the
tissue of the liver and the ventricles OF
the brain, and whereas other genera
lions did not realize the evil until their
own bodies were blasted we are to have
a generation taught what the viper is
before it stings them, what the hyena
is before it rends them, how deep is the
abyss before it swallows them. Oh,
boards of education, teachers in schools,
professors in colleges, legislatures and
congresses, widen and augment that
work, and you hasten the complete over
throw of this evil! 1t will go down. |
have the word of Almighty God for that
in the assured extirpation of all sin
But shall we have share in the uni
versal victory? The liquor saloons will
drop from the hundreds Of thousands
into the score of thousands, and then
from the thousands into the hundreds
and then from the hundreds into the
tens, and from the tens to three.
The first of these last three taverns
will be where the educated and philo-
sophie and the high up will take their
dram, but that class, aware of the pow
CT of the example they have been set
ting, will turn their back upon the evil
custom and be satisfied with the two
natural beverages that God intended
for the stimulus of the race-the Java
coffee plantations furnishing the best OF
the Que and the Chinese teaields the
best of the other And some day the
barroom will be crowded with people at
the vendue and the auctioneer' mallet
will pound at the sale of all the appur-
tenances. The second of these last three
taverns will take down its flaming sign
and extinguish its red light and close
it's DOORS for the working classes will
have concluded to buy their own horses
and furnish their own beautiful homes
and replenish finely the wardrobe OF
their own wives and daughters instead
of providing the distillers, the brewers
and liquor sellers with wardrobes and
mirrors and carriages And the next
time that second tavern is opened it
will be a drug store, or bakery, or
dry goods establishment, or school.
Then there will be only one more of
the three dissipating taverns left. l
don't know in what country or city or
neighborhood it will be, but look at it,
for it is the very last. The last inebri-
ate will have staggered up to its coun-
ter and put down his pennies for his
dram. Its last horrible adulteration
will be mixed and Quaffed to eat out
the vitals and inhame the brain. The
last drunkard will have stumbled down
its front steps. The last spasn Of delir-
ium tremens caused by it will be strug-
gled through The old rookery will be
torn down, and with its demolition will
close the long and awful reign Of the
mightiest of earth denominations. The
1o.4 30 +bo J;eeip tino threp tovnrOS Of