Year: 1878

tends to it, and many immature minds
| succumb. Thus intemperance, gambling,
| lighting and reckless adventures of all
| kinds are induced.


Intemperance tends to crime, by the


effects of intoxication on the criminal


tendencies Of human nature. A drunken


man neither knows nor cares what he is


doing. But man frequently intoxicated


when sober is weak and nerveless, de-


pressed sensitive, and irritable-quicker


to take and quicker to give offense than


ordinarily he would be. Youth have


naturally less self-control than men,
| They are more easily intoxicated, and


the subsequent effects of intoxicatiou up


on them are greater and more perma-


nent. Youthful drinking is not solitary,
/ but social; and, as the tippler begins with


beer or wine and ends with gin or rum,


SO the youthful drinker begins with friv-


olus company and ends with vicious. 1t


is for this reason that drinking is so often


connected with gambling. The company


is favorable to it and unfavorable to ev-


cry thing else except obscene stories,
| reckless arguments, absurd emulations,


general wildness and revelry. That
gambling leads to crime the numerous


instances of money stolen from employ


ers and lost at gambling show as sadly as


conclusively. Intemperance leads to ex-


travagance, to the loss of situations, and


to the impossibility of procuring others;


and these to poverty and debt and en-


barrassment; and these to crime, wher-


ever fear or conscience does not restrain.


But intemperance deadens both fear and


conscience The intimate connection be-


tween intemperance and licentiousness


has been observed for ages. Thine eyes


shall behold strange women and thine


heart shall utter perverse things" Thus


many young men become licentious who


would not have done so if they had been


strictly temberate; and in many of the


cases that occur of dishonesty among
clerks it appears that much of the


amount stolen was spent upon abandoned


women. But there has been a marked
increase of drinking among the youth of
the country within few years. The
Temperance Reformation for while
checked it among the sons of religious
people. Only those among them who
threw off all restraint drank. But that
time has passed; and all the efforts made
do not stay the tide. False notions, i'm
ported from Europe and brought back by |
thoughtless travellers, who consult their
own tastes rather than the right and |
wrong, the tendencies of things, and the
welfare of others concerning beer and |
wine have done dreadful work. There
are, also, three things which have di-
rect tendency to stimulate drinking, es-
pecially among young men. The public
billiard saloon, of which it is enough to
say that the habit of the frequenters is
either to play for the drinks or to play
for the price of the game and drink af
terward. This is known from the testi-
mony of many who have frequented
them, of many who do still, of neighbors
who have observed those who enter and
the condition of many who depart, and
from the proximity of bar-rooms to these
and any one who chooses to
visit them can see for himself that the
young man who frequents billiard saloons
is in little or no danger of becoming
total sbstinence man and that he who re-
sorts to such places without being total
abstainer is in danger of becoming adj
dicted to drink.


The average drug tore is now the most
dangerous institution to young men in
all large cities and towns; for It affords
safety from suspicion to the respectable
young man in the neighborhood where
he lives. These places are open day and
night and on the Sabbath. The common
GROCERY must be closed but the drug
gist may sell liquor disguised in soda
The Apostle James says: Doth foun-
tain send forth at the same place sweet
water and bitter p Certainly the mod
ern soda-fountain in the average drug
store does this. A physician of note in
formed me that he saw a young man
drink brandy, disguised in soda, four
times in an hour on Sunday evening in a /
drugstore; while 1 have known the boy
sent for prescription for his sick mother
to be detained until men calling for
liquor could be served. There are hon
orable ceptions-druggists who sell {
alcohol as they sell other medicines and i
ooisons but their number in cities and
arge towns is not large and diminishes



The relation of salesmen to their Gus
;omers should be considered. The prac-
ice of visiting hotels and conversing with
buyers in the evening has become nearly ]
so that the leading hotels are
crowded every evening and the scene has
become feature of New York life. And
here is a steady stream from the halls to
The bar-rooms; while commercial travel
ers are exposed to constant temptation
both to drink and to ask others to drink
FOR the readiest way to obtain access to
many customers is to drink with them
Thus intemperance increases among
young men, and thus it con tributes to the
increase of crime. In another communi-
cation we will trace the operation of
causes which, if more subtle, are not less
deadly.