Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-06-01

his expenses and spread them out so
they will just equal, he is not wise.
know working men who are in per-
feet fidget until they get rid Of their
last dollar.
The following circumstances came
under our observations: A young man
worked hard to earn his six or seven
hundred dollars yearly. Marriage day
came. The bride had inherited five
hundred dollars from her grandfather.
She spent every dollar of it on the
wedding dress. Then they rented two
rooms in the third story. Then the
young man took extra evening en-
ployment. 1t almost eXtinguished his
eyesight. Why did he add evening en-
ployment to the day employment? To
get money. Why did he want to get
money? TO lay up something for a
rainy day? No. To get his life in
sured, so that in case of his death his
wife would not be beggar? No. He
put the extra evening work to the day
work that he might get hundred and
fifty dollars to get his wife a sealskin
coat. The sister Of the bride heard of
this achievement, and was not to be
eclipsed. She was very poor, and she
sat up working nearly all the night
for a great while until she bought n
sealskin coat. / have not heard OF the
result on that street The street was
full Of those who are on small incomes,
i hn 1fn
and that everybody had a sealskin
coat, and that the people came out and
cried, practically, not literally:
Though the heavens fall, we must
have sealskin Coatv'
l was out west, and n minister OF
the Gospel told me, in Iowa. that his
church and neighborhood had been i'm
poverished by the fact that they put
mortgages on their farms in order to
send their families to the Philadelphia
Centennial. II was not respectable not
to go to the Centennial. Between such
evils and pauperism there is very
short step. The vast majority of chill
drcn in your aims houses are there be-
cause their parents are drunken, lazy,
or rechlessly improvident.
| have no sympathy for skinfint
saving, but l plead for Christian pru-
dencc. You say it is impossible now
to lay up anything for rainy day.
l krow it, but we are at the daybreak
of national prosperity. Some people
think it is mean to turn the gas low
when they go out of the parlor They
feel embarrassed if the door bell rings
before they have the hall lighted.
They apologize for the plain meal. If
you surprise them at the table. Well
it is mean ii it is only to pile up q
misery hoard. But IL it be to edu-
cate your children, if it be to give more
help 20 your wife when she does not
feel strong. if it be to keep your funer-
al day from being horrible beyond all
endurance, because ii is to be the dis
rup.ion and humiliation OF the do
nestle circle-if it be for that, then it
is magnificent.
God only knows what the drunkard
suffers. Pain files on every nerve, and
travels every muscle, and gnaws ev-
cry bone, and burns with every flame.
and stings with every poison, and pulls
at him with every torture. What rep
tiles crawl over his sleeping limbs!
VIVA: fiends stand by his midnight pill
low! What groans tear his ear! What
horrors shiver through his soul. Talk
of the rack, talk of the .InQuisition.
talk of the funeral pyre, talk of the
crushing Juggernaut-he feels them all
at once. Have you ever been in the
ward of the hospital where these in
ebriates are dying, the stencil OF their
wounds driving back the attendants,
their voices sounding through the
night? The keeper comes up and says.
flush, now be still! Stop making all
this noise" But it Is effectual only
for moment, for as soon as the keep
er is gone they begin again, 20 God!
o God! Help! Help! Drink! Give me
drink. help! Take them off me! Take
them eff me! o God" And then they
shrek, and they rave. and they pluck
out their hair by handouts, and bite
their nails into the quick. and then
they sioan. and they shrek, and they
blasphemc. and they ask the keepers to
kill them-"Stab me! Smother me!
Strangle me. Take the devils off me-"
Oh. it is no fancy sketch! That thing
is going on now all up and down the
land, and l tell you further that this
is going to be the death that some of
you will die. l know it. / see it COM
ing.
Again. the inebriate suffers through
the loss of home. l do not care how
much ne loves his wife and children
IL this passion for strong drink has
mastered him, he will do the most out
rageous things: and. il he could not get
drink in any other way. he would sell
his family into eternal bondage. How
many homes have been broken UP in
that way no one but God knows. Oh,
Is there anything that will SO destroy
man for this life, and damn him for
the life that Is TO come! Do not tell
me that man can be happy when he
knows that he Is breaking his wifes
heart and clothing his children with
rags. Why. there are on the roads and
streets of this land to-day little chill