The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-10-29


created by the preceding draughts. Sc
strong drink kindles the fires of thirst
faster than it puts them out. There
were three taverns. That which cursed
the Italian village curses all Christen.
dom to-day - too many taverns
| There are streets in some of oul
cities where there are three Oh
four taverns on every block; aye,
where every other house is a tavern.
You can take the Arabic numeral Oh
my text, the three. and put on the
right-hand side of it one cipher, and
two ciphers, and four ciphers, and
that reinforcement of numerals will
not express the statistics of American
rummeries. Even if it were a good
healthy business, supplying necessity,
an article superbly nutritious, it is a
business nightly overdone, and there
are three taverns where there ought to
be only one.
! The fact is, there are 10 another
sense three tavernS now; the gorgeous
tavern for the aftluent, the medium
tavern for the working classes, and the
tavern of the slums, and they stand in
line, and many people beginning with
the first come down through the Sec
Ond and come out at the third. At the
| first of the three taverns. the wines are
OF celebrated vintage, and the whis-
kies are said to be pure, and they are
quaffed from cut glass, at marble side
| tables, under pictures approaching
masterpieces. The patrons pull off
their kid gloves, and hand their silk
| hats to the waiter, and push back their
hair with a hand on one finger of
which is a cameo. But those patrons
are apt to stop visiting at that place.
1t is not the money that a man pays
for drinks, for what are a few hum
dred or a few thousand dollars
to man OF large income
but their brain gets touched, and
that unbalances their judgment, and
they can see fortunes in enterprises
surcharged with disaster. In longer
or shorter time they change taverns,
and they come down to tavern the sec
Ond, whe.A the pictures are not quite
SO scrupulous of suggestion, and the
small table is rougher, and the castor
standing on it 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-
tentage of benZine, ambergis, creosote,
hen bane, strychnine, prussic acid, CO.
culus indicus plaster of paris, copperas
and nightshade. The patron may be
seen almost every day, and perhaps
many times the same day, at this tav-
ern the second, but he is preparing to
graduate. Brain, liver, heart, nerves
are rapidly giving away. The tavern
the second has its dismal echo in his
business destroyed and family scat
tered, and woes that choke ones
vocabulary. Time passes on, and he
enters tavern the third; a red light out
side; hiccoughing and besotted group
inside. He will be dragged out of doors
about two o'clock in the morning, and
left on the sidewalk. because the bar
tender wants to shut up. The poor
victim has taken the regular course in
the college of degradation. He has
his diploma written on his swollen,
bruised and blotched physiognomy. He
is a regular graduate of the three
taverns. As the police take him
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 is is red,
when it moveth itself Alright in the
cup, for at the last it biteth like ser
pent and stingeth like an add en-"
The other thunder roll says: "AlI
drunkards shall have their place in
the lake that burneth fire and with
birthstone"
am glad to find in this scene of the
text that there is such thing as de-
Ginning successfully great tavernian
temptations. l can see from what Paul
said and did after he had travelled the
following II miles of his journey, that
he had received no damage at the three
taverns. How much he was tempted L
know not. Do not suppose he was SUI
perior to temptation. That particu
lar temptation has destroyed many of
the grandest, nigh test, noblest states
men, philosophers, heroes, clergymen,
apostles of law and medicine and gov
eminent and religion. Paul was not
well under any circum-
stances; it was not in mock deprecia-
ton that he said he was IN bodily
presence weak" 1t seems that his
eyesight was SO poor that he did his
writing through an amanuensis, for he
mentions it as something remarkable
that his shortest epistle, the one to
Philemon, was in his own penmanship,
saying: Il, Paul, Lave written it with
nv 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 pro1igate assemblage,
and been howled upon by the Ephesian
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 stimulus, Paul needed it, bat
with all his physical exhaustion. he
got past the three taverns unchanged,
and stepped into 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 pre-
pare themselves for other service, have
called on the spirit of wine for inspira-
ton, and in few years have been sac
rificed on the altar of Moloch, who
sits on a throne of human carcasses. 1t
would not be wise, or kind, or Chris
tian, 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
to these Italian hostelries.
No hotel register tells the names of
those who stopped at those taverns;