Connecticut western news., 1897-10-21

and that enforcement of numerals will not express the statistics of Ameri- can rummeries. Even if it were good, healthy business, supplying necessity, an article superbly nutritious, it Is business nightly overdone, and there are three taverns where there ought to be only one.
 The fact is, there are in another sense three taverns now-the gorgeous tavern for the affluent, 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 second and come out at the third. At the first of the three taverns the wines are of cele- brated vintage, and the whiskies are said to be pure, and they are quaffed from cut glass at marble side tables, under pictures approaching master pieces. 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 cameo. But those patrons are apt to stop visiting that place. It is not the money that man pays for drinks-for what are few hundred or few thou sand dollars to man of large income but their brain gets touched, and that unbalances their judgment, and they can see fortunes in enterprises sur charged with disaster. In longer or shorter time they change taverns, and they come down to tavern the second, where the pictures are not quite so scru- pulous of suggestion, and the small ta ble is rougher, and the caster 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 pew ter mug has larger percentage of benzine, ambergris, creosote, henbane, strychnine, prussic acid, coculus indi- GUS, plaster of paris, copperas and nightshade. The patron may be seen almost 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 way. That tavern the second has its dismal echo in his business de- stroyed and family scattered and woes that choke one's vocabulary. Time pass es on, and he enters tavern the third; a red light outside, hiccoughing and be- sotted group inside He will be drag ged out of doors about o'clock in the morning and left on the sidewalk, be- cause the bartender wants to shut up. The poor victim has taken the regular course in the college of degradation. He has his diploma written on his swol- h,-,, of 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 thun- der, one of which says, "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it mov- eth itself aright in the cup, for at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder" The other thunder roll says, "All drunkards shall have their place in the lake that burneth fire and with birthstone. !"
 Temptation.
 am glad to find in this scene of the text that there is such thing as de- clining successfully great tavernian temptations. can see from what Paul
 
 following IF miles of his journey that he had received no damage at the three taverns. How much he was tempted I know not. Do not suppose he was su- perior to temptation. That particular temptation has destroyed many of the grandest, mightiest, noblest statesmen, philosophers, heroes, clergymen, apos- ties of law and medicine and govern ment and religion. Paul was not phys ical1y we'll under any circumstances. It was not in mock depreciation that he said he was "in bodily presence weak. :" It seems that his eyesight was so poor that he did his writing through an amanuensis, for he mentions it as some- thing remarkable that his shortest epis- tie, the one to Philemon, was in his own penmanship, saying, II, Paul, have written it with my own hard" 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 schol- arly audience of all the earth, and at Corinth to the most brilliantly profigate assemblage and been howled upon by the Ephesian worshipers of Diana, tried for his life before Felix, charged by Festus with being insane, had crawl ed up on the beach, drenched in the ship wreck, and much of the time had an iron handcuff on his wrist, and if any man needed stimulus Paul needed it, but with all his physical exhaustion he got past the three taverns undamaged and stepped into Rome all ready for the Geniendous ordeal to which he was sub- jected. Oh, how many mighty men, feeling that they must brace up after extraordinary service and prepare.them- selves for other service, have called on the spirit of wine for inspiration, and in few years have been sacrificed on the altar of 8 Moloch who sits on throne of human carcasses It 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 tavernsl
 Notice that a profound mystery is att tached to these Italian hostelries. No hotel 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 chalice or jug to suggest 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 unroll- ed from the wall telling how many homesteads they have desolated and how many immortal souls they have blasted You say that would spoil their business. We'll, suppose it would, but a business that cannot plainly tell it's effect upon it's customers is business that ought to be spoiled. An, 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