The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-20

"In 170S, the legislature forbade unlicensed houses selling beer, ale, cyder, perry, metheglin wine, rum and other liquors. No innkeeper, re- taller or taverper was to suffer mems sons, apprentices or negroes to sitt l drinking in his or her house, or have any manner of drinks. under penalty Of g. fine of five shillings.' Such ac- ton seemed to be called for, because as the law said, drinking tended to the ruination and impoverishment of families, and all vices, impieties and debauCheTies' Those were the Good Old Times of pure liquors and license. Legislation failed for in 1716, 1t 1 was ordered that 8 fine of five pounds
 be imposed for unlicensed retailing, ten for second ofTense, twenty for the
 third, and so on. In 1719, the drink habit had so increased that there was a great tendency to idleness and de- | bauchery,' 1t was ordered that the civil authority should every Jan uary nominate a person to keep and sell liquors, and license no one else. ! Rn 1725, a fine of five shrIings was 1 ordered for all who sold liquors on Sunday night. In 1755, 1t was voted that licensed persons should give bond not to sell less than quart at a time, and that no unlicened dealer could sell less than thirty gallons to one person at a time
 The Revolution interrupted Iegfs- lation on the subject, but there was l vast drunkeness in all the conmunI- ties. Dr. Nathan Strong, minister st l the Center church, Hartford, from 1I74 to 1816, one of the ablest and most devout ministers that church f- his son-in-law in distinery. not 50 rods from the meetinghouse The firm did an extensive business as record show In his Life in Ameri- ca One Hundred Years Ago, Gaillard Hunt says that men were hard drink CTS everywhere. They seemed per petually athirst. Soldiers, sailors, la borers, drank brandy, rum or whis- ky every day. They seemed perpet- ually athirst Liquors were served in prisons and jails. It was the cus- tom to take a dram before breakfast, drink through the day, and swallow night-cap at bedtime
 Rum sold in Salem at twenty eight cents a gallon in IT'S. A meet | lns-house was built in Medfeld in 17S9. and the raising required four barrels of beer, twenty-five gallons
 of rum, thirty-four pounds of loaf
 sugar, twenty-five pounds of brown 1 sugar and thirty-eight dozen lemons ! There was a meeting of grand jurors 1 deacons and seIectmen near the close of the eighteenth century to expeI a member of a Congregational church
 for drunkenness; the general opinion
 was in favor of expulsion, but one deacon rose and said, I cannot vote for expelItng this man, because | sometimes get drunk myself and yop
 and you, we all get drunk, therefoS
 if the Lord will to have a society on earth, He must take us with such as we are.'
 The lack of rum in a house was considered a calamity. In 1913, d minister was calling on a poor family in Antrim, N. H. The woman said, We're out of wool, out of meat out of meal and we have but plaguey little rum At funerals, decanters and glasses were placed at the head of the coffin, sometimes on the cof- fin, mourners went so profusely they were thirsty, and drank before the service, after q prayer, and went back from the grave for another drink
 Dr. POrter's Testimony.
 III HIS LlLtlell GiIlulN NGTSc1TY sermon in Pennington in 1858. Dr. Noah Por- ter said; A man is living among us. l who, less than fifty years since, sold at retail a hogshead of rum in e sing le day; and although he did not measure out the same quantity to his customers every day, nor was it all sold to the people of the town, 1 yet when we consider that there were eight or ten other retailers In this village, who on the average sold as much as he, we have some Idea of the enormous quantity of ardent spirits that was drunken pr. Porter says that in 1887, 1t was found that there were in town at least 100 per sons who drank freely; at least sev- enty-fve families in poverty from drink; and that of one hundred and 1 twenty families living near the center ! of the town from 1877 to 1897, more i than one-half had lost one member 1 or more from Intemperance, and 1 some families had been completely l swept away.
 Hartford in Oldcn Time
 Tn 181S Hartford had a popuI- | ton of $500, and there were eight l distiueries. twenty-one taverns and i eighteen ale-houses Many men were | engaged in recdfying cider, which | farmers brought from a distance; the | basement of the South Congreg gationI 1 church being used for storage. Of sol articles offered for sale in the store of Sanford and Robbins in Pittsfeld.
 Mass, the first sixteen advertised n
 the papers were: Spanish brandy, raspberry brandy, Holland gin, mo-
 Iasses, soap, lump and brown sugar,
 wines Further on in the list were | 'Cordials Stoughton's Bitters and | London Porter
 After the Revolution.
 Soon after the Revolution, there | began the evolution of prohibition. 1 As early as 1788, the newspapers be- | gan to publish the celebrated essay | of Dr. Benjamin Rush, entitled, An | inquiry into the Effect of Ardent | Spirits on the Human Body He de- | piored the use of distilled spirits, but he advocated the use of beer and | wine as very wholesome liquors.' He | eulogized beer as both cordial and |