Year: 1878

Among our eStlnaDle 1ellOW-cltlZenS


who regard every beverage stronger than
spring water as ''rum" there was a Gus


tom of carrying terrible example of the


ravages of intemperance to give point to


the fierce denunciations of their speak


ers. The miserable creature mounted
the platform with the orator, and when
Ieloquence had kindled the imagination
of the audience the wreck snatched from
| the tumultuous waves of the vast ocean


of ''rum" which deluges the land, hurry


ing away in its angry torrents so many
struggling human beings and ruins OF


homes and fortunes, was brought forward
and exhibited. This method of exciting
the popular horror has been abandoned
| for long time,b the temperance agitators
partly because it was difficult to procure


''terrible examples" willing to be used to
point moral and adorn a tale who would
in Difference to the eloquence of the lee
turer make proclamation of their COM
plete reformation and stick to their
pledges, and partly because the people
became aware after while that there
was fallacy in the argument from a


hibition principle, although they were at
first greatly taken by it. The production


of single sot merely proved that the


habit of drinking to excess had reduced


one man to degradation, and the inference


from several terrible examples that the


unwise use of liquor would always tend


to the same evil results was not unfair,


considering the known effects of alcohol


upon the system. The tick lay in sud


denly transferring all the indignation and


horror excited by the contemplation of


the sot to the discredit of the classes who


sold liquor or made it, or used it in any


form or with any degree of discretion.


The whole thing was an example of that


absurd but popular form of sophistry by


which the passions of an audience are


reused legitimately and their whole fury


turned illegitimately upon an innocent
victim.


The torsaken contrivance of the tenn
perance agitators has been taken up in
less worthy cause and applied to rouse
the pre- judices of the people of San Fran
cisco against the Chinese. There is some
thing SO ridiculous about the whole pro-
cess adopted that nothing but the thought
of the evil that 1t may work enables us to
speak of it with sobriety. An orator of
the stripe of Denis Kearney named
O'Donnell recently hired an express wag-
on and drove through the streets with


"moon-eyed leper' as his companion.
"The patients face was exceedingly re-
pulsive,, says a San Francisco paper,
tsbeipg covered with blotches, wrinkles
"and tuberbles. O'Donnell exhibited


"the Chinaman as one phase ofthe Mon


"golian curse with which the Paclhc
, scoast is afflicted, and at short intervals


"along the line of travel he would stop,
| "command the Chinaman to stand up,and


othen proceed to harangue the multitude


(which promptly gathered on the chi


"nese question, directing special atten-
| "tion to the living illustration represent
"ed." The agitator was soon arrested
for exhibiting a deceased and deformed
person and for obstructing the puDilc
thoroughfare, $50 that the disgraceiul
spectacle so ingeniously contrlved 10
work mischief was brought to an END
He had less logical excuse for the sxhioi-
ton of his "terrible example" than the
temperance lecturer, unless he couiu
show that being Chinaman tended 10
leprosy, as being drunkard tended 10
DEGRADATION, His exhibition was more
brutal than that of temperance fanatic,
and his purpose mean, narrow, sellsh,
where that of his forerunner in method
was noble. disinterested, philantrophlc.
We would be glad to believe lhat the
wild orators parade with leper Wouiu
have no effect in heaplng lgnominy on
the thousands Of healthy CelesIiais oh
the Pacific coast; but these appeais 70
the eye have powerful effect upon lne