Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

You think I love it? If this nerveless hand

Could gain immortal strength, this very hour
I'd sweep the whole hellish traffic from the land,

And crush its blighting, maddening, nightmare power.

Yes, now, with my latest, dying breath,

I'll curse the thing that drags me down to death.

Love it? I loathe it! Yet I drink and drink,
And hate my bondage with a loathing hate,
And hate myself as through the town I link.
The pledge? No, no! Too late-Too late!
No pledge! I've tried it twice-a waste of breath!
Too late! There's no relief for me but death.

The Bondage of Drink.

It's bad enough to drink; but not to drink

Doth such a train of ghastly horrors wake As in one hour would leave me dead, I think.

Ah, keep away, ye fiends, for pity's sake, The very thought of them affects my brain; My end will be when they shall come again.

Love rum?

I'd love to hold my head up high,
And breathe God's air, a free and fearless man,
And look with undimmed eyes on earth and sky,
With steady nerve to do, and head to plan;
I'd love to grapple trials as they come

In manly fashion, brave and strong. Love rum?

If only I could come into some land

Where no drink is, God knows how willingly
I'd fight these dreadful torments of the damned
That clutch the soul of him that would be free!
But marshal up those grizzly shapes of woe
To fall again as twice before? No, no!

Ah, if I might have known how it would be
In those old college days, so wild and gay,
When first I drank in youthful revelry!

How easy then to put the cup away!
A mother's hope and joy I was till then;
Now see me trembling-ah! Those eyes again!

Back, fiery eyes, to hell, where you belong,

I'll drink you down-what, blood? Drink blood? Help! Help! They come, a hideous, devilish throng! Back, get ye back! They'll toss me in the flood! Long, crooked hands are crawling in my hair!

Is this the end? Ha, ha! Too late for prayer.

19

20

Facts About an Old Foe.

FACTS ABOUT AN OLD FOE.

THIS enemy of our people-strong drink, with its hydra heads -is strongly intrenched. How can we meet it and conquer? We pick up a few poor, worn-out victims, and help them, but it only makes the enemy laugh in scorn. He recruits his forces from our precious families; from our splendid schools and colleges; from our Sabbath teachings and church organizations; he gets behind all our pressing necessities, and binds us, as a people, hand and foot. For example—our public debt is enormous; we must pay it, and consequently tax the whisky, the brandy, and the wine-for the people will have these things at any price. The tax becomes the principal source of income. There is, in the United States license, a grand charter of respectability. We must, as a Government, encourage distilleries, and gin-mills of every description, for they increase the public revenue. I need only hint at it; we are making of the vicious appetites of our children—appetites, which, indulged, will cause their temporal, if not their eternal ruin—we are making of them "ways and means to defray our honest debts.

[ocr errors]

If this is true, what have you and I got to say to the poor bartender, who simply supports his family out of the bread and clothing of a few wives and children of drunkards in his neighborhood? "My business," he may well say, "has Government sanction; my object is as high as that of Uncle Sam ; for it is not that I like the business, but it enables me to get a private revenue."

It will be said that the true remedy is with the children; correct public sentiment through them. Yet it is not wise, when you see that the ocean is daily washing away your very foundations, to postpone too long the dikes and barriers. Intemperance comes in like a flood, and it seems now to sweep us all into helpless struggles in the maelstrom of its destroying power. May God in His mercy show our people how to build the barriers -in the family, in the school, in the church, and in the Stateagainst this fell destroyer, that develops dishonesty and crime,

[blocks in formation]

and fills our prisons; that poisons the very sources of existence, and peoples the world with morbid longings for the poison; that, in short, seems to have Satanic power to wound, and to destroy the very subjects of divine compassion and love! Oh! let the Holy Spirit expel and replace this intemperate desire, that causeth evil, and only evil, continually, in the hearts of the children of

men.

GEN. O. O. HOWARD.

DOES IT PAY?

COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER.

DOES IT PAY to have scores of workingmen poor, ragged, and financially ruined, in order that one saloon-keeper may be dressed in broadcloth, and flush of money?

DOES IT PAY to have fifty workingmen live on bone-soup and half rations, in order that one saloon-keeper may flourish on roast turkey and champagne?

DOES IT PAY to have the mothers and children of twenty families dressed in rags, starved into the semblance of emaciated scarecrows, and living in hovels, in order that the saloon-keeper's wife may dress in satin, and her children grow fat and hearty, and live in a bay-window parlor?

DOES IT PAY to have a citizen in jail to be supported at the public expense, because another citizen sells him liquor?

DOES IT PAY to have one citizen supported by the tax-payers of the county, in the lunatic asylum, because another citizen makes him crazy by selling him liquor?

DOES IT PAY to arrest, try, convict, and punish a man at a cost of thousands of dollars to the tax-payers of the county, because another man sold him liquor, under the influence of which he committed murder?

DOES IT PAY to have ten of our smart, active, and intelligent boys turned into vagabonds and criminals to enable one man to lead an easy life by selling them liquor?

DOES IT PAY, for a paltry license to allow John Doe to sell

22

An Honest Rum Seller's Advertisement.

Richard Roe whisky, and then spend thousands of dollars of the tax-payers' money in prosecuting Richard Roe for a crime committed while crazed by the whisky?

DOFS IT PAY to have one thousand homes blasted, ruined, defiled, and turned into hells of discord and misery, in order that one wholesale liquor-dealer may amass a large fortune?

DOES IT PAY to keep 5,000 men in the penitentiaries, and prisons, and hospitals, 1,000 in the lunatic asylum, and 10,000 men, women, and children in the poor-houses, at the expense of the honest, industrious tax-payers, in order that a few capitalists may grow richer by the manufacture and sale of whisky?

DOES IT PAY to permit the existence of a traffic which only results in crime, poverty, misery, and death, and which never did, never does, never can, and never will do any good?

IT NEVER PAYS TO DO WRONG; your sin will find you out; whether others find it out or not, the sin knows where you are, and will always keep you posted of that fact. It does not pay.

AN HONEST RUM-SELLER'S ADVERTISEMENT. ALL hail, friends and neighbors, I've opened a shop, At which I invite you, politely, to stop.

I keep liquid fire to sell to you all,

I therefore beseech you to give me a call.

I've purchased indulgence from Court, and begin
Dealing out to my neighbors rum, brandy, and gin.
I expect to make paupers for you to support,
And to help on the business your custom I court.
I'll also make drunkards and beggars likewise,
But then I am honest and need no disguise.
I shall deal in foul spirits, and hope to excite
Men to rob and to murder, by day and by night.
I shall drive away comfort, expenses augment,
I shall stir up contention, on this I'm intent.
At a very short notice and for a small sum,
By the wonderful magic of brandy and rum,

« ПретходнаНастави »