Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-10-26

needed rum to enable me to do my
duty. l will order two cups of coffee
to each man at two o'clock in the morn
ing, and at eight o'clock will pipe all
hands to breakfast in Mobile Bay.
The Three Taverns of my text were
too near the Mediterranean shipplng.
But notice the multiplicity. What
could that Italian village. so small that
history makes but one mention of it,
want with more than one tavern? There
were not enough travellers coming
through that Insignificant town to sup
port more than one house of lodg-
ment. That would have furnished
enough pillows and enough breakfasts.
No. the worlds appetite is diseased.
and the subsequent draughts must be
taken to slack the thirst created by the
preceding draughts. Strong drink kim
dies the fires OF thirst faster than it
puts them out. There were three tav-
ems. That which cursed that italian
village curses all Christendom today
too many taverns. There are streets
IN some of our cities where there are
three or four taverns in every block;
aye, where every other house is tav-
ern. You can take the Arabic numeral
or 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 rum
meries. Even if it were a good, healthy
business. supplying necessity, an arti-
Gle sHperbly nutritious. il 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 affiuent, the medium Ia
vern 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
celebrated vintage, and the WHISTLES
are said to be pure, and they are
quaffed from cut glass, at marble side
ee1ASos uhbSi P'StulSo
masterpieces. The patrons pull off
their kind gloves, and hand their silk
hats to the waiter, and push back their
hair with hand on one finger Of
which is cameo. But those patrons
are apt to stop visiting that place. 1t
is not the money that a man pays for
drinks. for what are few hundred or
n faty fhOpconH toll 10 -
large income--but their brain gets
touched, and that unbalances their
judgment, and they can see fortunes
in enterprises surcharged with disas-
ter. In longer or shorter time they
change Taverns, and they come down
to Tavern the second, where the pic
lures are not quite SO scrupulous of sug-
gestion, and the small table is rougher,
and the castor standing on it is of Ger
man silver. and the air has been kept
over from the night before, and that
which they sip from the pewter mug
has a larger percentage of benzine, am
bergris, creosote, henbane, strychnine,
prussic acid, coculus indicus, plaster of
paris, copperas, and nightshade The
DC SSSI dlulOSl every udy,
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 destroyed and fam.
lily scattered, and woes that choke ones
vocabulary. Time passes on, and he
enters Tavern the third; red light
outside; a hiccoughing and besotted
group inside. He will be dragged out
of doors about two o'clock in the morn
ing 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 written on his swollen,
bruised and blotched physiognomy. He
is regular graduate Of the Three
Taverns. AS the police take him in
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 it is red, when
it moveth itself Alright in the cup, for
at last 1t biteth like serpent. and
stingeth like an adder" The other
thunder roll says, All drunkards shall
have their place in the lake that burn
eth with fire and birthstone.
With these thoughts cheer Christian
reformers in their work, and what re-
ioicing on earth and heaven there will
be over the consummation Within a
few days one of the greatest of the
leaders in this cause went up to en-
thronement. The world never had but
one Neal Dow, and may never have
another. He has been an illumination
to the century. The stand he took has
directly and indirectly saved hundreds
of thousands from drunkards' graves.
Seeing the wharves of Portland, Maine.
covered with casks of West Indian
rum (nearly an acre Of it at one time),
and the city smoking with seven dis
tilleries, he began the warfare against
drunkenness more than half century
ago. The good he has done, the homes
he has kept inviolate, the high moral
sense with which he has infused ten
generations, is story that neither
earth nor heaven can afford to let die.
Derided, belittled, caricatured, malign-
ed. for quarter Of a century as few