The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-10-21
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF INTEMPsRANcE.


Place Where Diseased Bodies, Ruined
Homes and Crowded Juils and Aims
houses Arc Dispensed.
I have lately seen in an English news
paper the announcement that pubic
house is for sale, and the advertisement
contains the following sentence: These
manufactories, employing thousands of
well-paid hands, who inhabit numberless
dwellings in this dense neighborhood. The
trade is large, full priced, and mostly
done at the counter, approaching $1,000
f4O0) per month"
This coldblooded announcement smells
of the pit. Beelzebub himself could not
one, in which the dram dealer tells how
cunningly he has planted his death trap
between those laborers' wages and all their
needy wives and children. He has reared
his toll gate right in the very track OF
these well paid hands, so that he may
levy on them at the rate of 5000 per
month! For this sum he retails to these
operatives disease. poverty, oyer u, disgrace asas ana
instinctively twitching to get such scoun-
drel by the ,jugular. and gripping it until
he is as purple in the countenance as any
of his victims.
But why spend our righteous indigna-
ton upon foreign liquor seller, when
this same conspiracy against the wages
and honor and lives of workingmen is
being carried on in our land? Precisely
the crime which that ,Englishman so
shamelessiy advertised is being perpetrat-.
ed here in all our factory towns, in all
our cities, and in a great majority of our
villages. At this time the labor question
is one of the foremost questions of the
hour Discussions about labor. about
wages, and about the needs of the laboring
classes are engaging the pens eand the
tongues of the ablest writers of the coun-
try B9th patriotism s, and philanthrSSpXX ISIX
the laborer be elevated?" and "How shalt
the inequalities in a degree be remedied%'
After all, the chief problem, to my mind.
is to teach the laborer how to save and
how to use Alright the money which he
earns. High wages are not always bless
ing. They are often a curse. Master me
chanics tell me that. in the imitation
times" when they paid their hands high
wages, the increased pay was terrible
larger traffic in tobacco and rum was "done
at the counter" when wages are low,
and work is scarce, he is tempted to
drink, in order to drown worry and soP-
row. All winds seem to blow towards
the dram shop. This traffic in intoxi-
cants is sometimes tremendous. How else
could high rents be paid on so many cor
keppt,.gp kept, up in tn fashi0nab, saloons ana ,
Multitudes of the humber classes may
be rescued from, the clutch of the dram
shop by personal effort. This is the line
of effort in which the Sawyers, Moodys,
Murphys, Reynolds, Coughs and WilliaTds
did their best service. Father Mathew
saved thousands Of his fellow-countrymen
from the whisky shop by his own personal
touch whisky even as medicine when he
was sick. He belonged to a: Father Ma
thew Abstinence Society" The dead hand
of the Irish apostle held him back. There
is an immense field for this Christian
temperance propaganda among the work.
ing classes, and the educated Christian
class ought to 60 into it. Horace Greeley
told me that none of his work paid better
than this-.to open temperance coffee
It is a vast boon to the poorer classs
who have been done at the counter OF
the dram dens.
Many of even the better grade Of la
boring people are pitiably ignorant as to
the very nature and effect of alcoholic
stinulants. Patrick or Sandy really be
! live that a glass Of whisky gives warmth
ana strength. InlS error S Deln8 COrTeCt-
ed in the public schools by teaching every
child the principles Of true temperance.
If the commonwealth suffers by the pow
erty. crime and decentralization caused by
the bottle, then the commonwealth is as
much bound to save its children from
the bottle as to teach them to read and
! write.
All attempts to break down the counters
are baked as long as costly bars are sus-
, tanned by the upper classes. The drink
ing usage of workingmen will continue
just as long as their employers practice
the same. Social influences work down.
ward. And in the highest tier of society
the decanter is Staying its thousands, too.
Alcohol is no respecter of persons.
Perhaps some of my readers, who viii
redden with indignation at that English
rumseller's advertisement, will themselves
offer wine at their own tables! They set
out LIQUORS at weddings and on New Years
day. Practically, they put their own tables
on a par with the dram shop countert
Fashion tempts them to do what avarice
tempts the liquor seller to do. Are they
any less guilty? Before they warm into
indignation at the temptation set before
the poor laborer, let their cheeks GRIM
son with shame at the example they them
selves are setsing.-The Rev. Theodore L.
Cuyler, D. D., in the National Advocate.