The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-02-15
THE DEADLY DAMNING LIQUOR
TRAFFIC" WHAT II DOES
DR.. kingsbury Writes 'FfOtCll PotCl1,'' Taking in
Child Labor Question, Southern Poets
and New Books.

potch today,-a little about several
things-a kind of "mixtry," as a Louis
burg dealer in the long ago said to me as
to the character of his stock he dealt in.
1t is not wonderful that the better
people-the best people in fact, in North
Carolina, are so much stirred now over
the deadly, damning liquor traffic. Can
there possibly be anything more obnoxi-
Gus to criticism, more destructive to life,
more appallingly degrading than drunk
ennesS? What a calling that is which
seeks success by human depravity and
suffering, and which literally deals out
liquid damnation to the young and the
old. Think of conditions, and the beastly
traffic that costs in Yadkin county s., 300
more from criminal expenses in courts
than the county paid to the State in
taxes. Wilkes county, by reason of it's
detestable distilleries, Jared worse and
cost even more for courts-given at S., 900
for year above the sum paid in taxes
to the State. Then read what Mr. Henry
A. Page said in the Anti-SaIoon League
that met at Raleigh. The Charlotte Pres
byterian Standard said that he made
terrific arraignment of the country dis
tillery as he had seen it in Moore county,
how the peace and thrift of happy val
ley had been destroyed, murders and sui
cides committed and the people, their
farms mortgaged TO the distiller, all
terrorized so effectually that they were
unwilling to inform on him for his vio-
lations Of the law"
1t is to be hoped for and prayed for
that this great ball now set in motion
will never cease to roll in North Carolina
until the last distillery and hellish grog-
shop shall be crushed forever under the
overwhelming power of high, imperri-
Gus, invincible, healthful public moral
sentiment. May Excelsior" be written
upon the banners of reform. y
The two greatest Christian denomina-
tons in our State arc indeed powerful
and progressive. The Methodists in the
two North Carolina Conferences of the
Southern NJ. E. Church, number g., 900 for
the North Carolina Conference, and 75,-
600 members for the Western North
Carolina Conference total of 142 000
Probably the ministers in the two bodies
number nearly 400. The Baptists have
113.000 members, and it's number of
preachers is given at 1000. Counting the
local preachers in the two Conferences
named, the total number of both classes
may reach $50 or 600. l do not know
the number of Baptist ministers who have
had regular training in theological SEM
inaries. but 1 have seen it stated that
there We're 100 in this State. Great pro-
gress in the education of Baptist preach
ers has been made in North Carolina in
the last twenty years. It's superior in
stitution of learning, Wake Forest Col
lege. has now 300 or more students. 1t is
doing a great work for the State and it's
denomination.
The Northern newspapers-specially in
New England-berate the South for it's
criminal treatment of little children I'M
der factory barbarities. No doubt in
North Carolina, and in other Southern
States. great offenses in this direction
have been perpetrated and tolerated. but
the time for suppression and cure is at
hand. But the North is culprit at the
bar, and can not escape public censure
and reprobation. The child labor laws
''up there" are insufficient, and the out
RACES great and unbearable. The New
York Literary Digest, weekly OF
standard merit says:
"There has been great cutlery of late
in the North against child labor in the
South, particularly in the Southern cot
ton mills; but it now appears, according
to the New York Tribune, that we need
to turn our attention homeward' 1t has
been found that about 16 900 children I'M
der fourteen years are employed in New
York City in spite of the law. and it
has hppO p1aimad hv UorI.arc onopor +bo
poor that more child labor exists in New
York than in all the States of the South
combined, which The Tribune calls "a
remarkable revelation
The extinction of outrages upon poor
little children is a necessity. and must
come at once to those in North Carolina.
1t will be inhuman to farther allow the
oppression of the helpless. Do not con-
sumo 'the seed-corn''
Harvard University has reached vast
dimensions. Its number of attending
students now is given at 4,261. The
smaller universities and colleges can
doubtless render more efficiency and
watch-care.
The caustic and able editor of the
Charlotte Standard gets off weekly many
keen ana some tunes inspiring paragraphs.
/ avail myself of two in his issue of the
4th inst:
Jesse G.. Trimble, of Nashville, Tenn,
colored man, has divided the second
honor in the Medical Department al Har-
ward University. The report is untrue
however, that he has been appointed resi-
dent physician at the White House
THE news comes from Japan that Mrs.
Roosevelt kept the President from inter-
fering in the Boer war. Since recent oc-
currences at the White House We are
not surprised. We hope he will not vol
unteer as a private under President
Castro
There are a few Southern poets who
have been heard of in the North. and
three or four have been even praised. If
Poe can be classed as Southern, Che was
born in Boston,, and he may be by rea-
son of kinship, education, sympathy and
antipathy, he is greater than any North
ern poet. England and France being the
judges. Paul II. Hayne was once recog-