Anti-prohibition; being an essay on the injustice of the prohibitory law, and the necessity for its repeal
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X<C< c «c c c,c< ««s:cc «." '*■ • <r«ccvrc CC j€^T< r <x c K C<i C_ K re < C C^C cc c << _C c C tc " c c c vJ ccc « ■ cc c ^ lec C^ 6^ ^c^ c| igc ^<c^ C CC cccxc j Cc c« c Xl CC ^C^ <c ccc CCC c<c t(CoC CCS ANTI-PROHIBITION ESSAY INJUSTICE OF THE PBOHIEITOKY LAW, NECESSITY FOR- ITS REPEAL. BY WILLIAM MONTAGUE PKICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. BOSTONV THE RICE, GODDARD & CO., PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 41 Milk Street. 1872. A NTI-PROHIBITION BEING AN ESSAY INJUSTICE OF THE PROHIBITOEY LAW, AND THE NECESSITY FOR ITS REPEAL. *■ s 5 BY WILLIAM MONTAG-UE PKICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. BOSTON: THE RICE, GODDARD & CO., PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 41 Milk Street. 1872. 50»0 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, By "William Montague, in the Office of the Librarian, at Washington. LEAF I. In opening this pamphlet of criticism on the Prohibitory Law now existent in these New-England States, we wish to assure the reader that it is a desire for justice and equity, more than a mer- cenary aim, that causes us to enter a protest against a tyrannous and more than imperial edict in the land of liberty. When any great event, moral, social, or political, happens in this world, we look naturally for the cause that has influenced it. Thus the great struggle of 1871 between France and Germany, in which the genius of the greatest statesman and the military skill of the greatest soldier of the last decade, won such immortal fame for Prussia and the newly-created German Empire, was caused by a futile desire of Napoleon to establish his imperial throne on a firmer footing, by a military triumph against a hated foe. Leopold and Spain were but the puppets that sufficed to set the monsters by the ears. In our own land the Great Rebellion was caused mainly by the advancement of the human mind, and it removed the curse of black slavery, — it would appear now, but to be replaced by while bondage : the victory was bought dearly, but it was worth the price. But we ask the thoughtful of mankind, — those who deem the world as something more than a place to eat, drink, and sleep in, — if there was any just cause for the originating of the present Maine law ? It has had a long existence, an existence which has been productive of much evil and little good. How many men are there at present in New England who with a clear conscience can swear that they have never drank liquor? How many of those who at present are delivering edifying moral lectures, with much rhetoric but little sense, can say, " I never drink, nor never place liquor of any nature on the table for my friends " ? Very, very few, and those few not gifted with the taste which God has been pleased to place within us. But, if we allow that every man who preaches temperance, practises temperance (we mean the bigoted temperance of " cold water only"), can we also attest that they are moral in every other way? By no means. Our acquaintance with advo- cates of temperance has proved that abstinence was by no means a promoter of other good qualities. " Dickens speaks with gusto of the punch-bowl," says a virtuous Boston clergyman, who bor- rows addresses and passes them off as the product of his own brain ; and we say, if the specimens of both classes that we have seen^are types of the whole, that Dickens was right. If drinking be a crime, there are worse crimes than drinking ; there is grasping avarice ; there is libertinism, there is want of honor, — these three and many more. An honest man may own his belief in a tem- perate use of liquor, may point to the record of centuries since and before the Christian era, may quote the greatest authority the world has ever known, the divine Jesus himself, and yet he is a criminal, particeps criminis ; no matter if he be in every respect honest and upright and true, he is a criminal, an aider and abet- ter in avoiding the law. What myriads of criminals have we in New England now : criminals of all classes ; great writers whose names are like household words among us ; wealthy merchants whom fortune and friends have flattered ; true philanthropists who spend their lives in doing good and making others happy ; noble- hearted, self-denying men, whose quiet lives are, though unnoticed, glorious, and who will reap a rich reward hereafter, — these with the myriads of others of bad criminals are offenders in the cross-eye of the New-England liquor law, not actually accessible to punish- ment, but, still, aiders and abetters. But the man of water, even if he is cowardly enough to indulge privately behind the door, is no criminal ; he may swindle his neighbor out of a few thousands, ruin his family, and bring his consumptive wife to the grave, but, if he has done it cleverly, and thereby become one of the frater- nity of Dives, he is entitled to the fawning of parasites, and respect of his equals. He may lead a shameless and abandoned life in private, employing his leisure hours in breaking female hearts, and satisfying all other appetites but that of drink, and the law ignores, while society shuts its eyes at Dives' peccadilloes. What a mon- strous reflection it is in the glaring injustice of the law, and the stupidity that conceived and executed it, that while a man may ruin a woman for life, and, perhaps, untimely drive her to her grave, without punishment for the foul deed, if he enters the liquor trade he is liable at any time to be treated like a felon, and cast into jail with wretches of every degree of crime. Whoever thought first of the scheme well deserved the thanks of the community ; but it should have further been a vote of the entire people upon the question of liquor or no liquor ; in a country where the people are supposed to rule, this were surely the best plan. The question was Beer or no Beer, and the cities, towns, and villages of Massachusetts were to vote. We are curious to know what the result would have been, if the world was not deceit- ful. If every man had gone to the ballot box and deposited his vote, not only according to his wishes, but his firm conviction also, there is no doubt that beer would be sold universally in Massachu- setts. But the opinion of the world is something to be looked upon with dread, and the world's opinion undoubtedly influenced those places which voted No Beer. There were other influences at work, of course, underhand, secret influences such as generally may be found in the dirtiest of all human games — politics ; but of that, those who have sold their consciences for gain ought to know best, and like Judas, undoubtedly, they ere now repent of Ihe price of blood. However, the majority of the Beerites was large enough to satisfy the advocates of malt liquor, even if they knew not how next to impossible it was to get an unprejudiced, honest vote. We have an imaginary learned friend, a prohibitionist, with whom as we pro- ceed on our tour of explanation, we will occasionally hold converse, so as further to elucidate our opinions. He interrupts us now, and sagely remarks : — u You appear to have forgotten, my noble friend (we are not noble, but he does us the honor to consider us so), that those laws which you deem so unjust and ridiculous, are framed by legislators elected by the people, under the magnificent ballot system of our noble, free, and unequalled country." " We are well aware, sir, of this, we are aware of many of those blessed privileges of freedom which we enjoy, and we shall but need a few improvements to make our system perfect. Let us introduce a bill into the national senate, through some of our worthy friends, decreeing that we must pay a tax on the air we breathe. We pay now for houses, our clothes, our horses, our dogs, our watches, our everything. If we travel in Maine we might as well be at the mercy of the Spanish inquisition of old ; we are liable at any time to be knocked down and robbed ; our persons, sacred even in the worst despotisms of Europe, searched, and our lives, if we are cursed with delicate nerves, endangered ; if we are of stout heart, like Sir John Falstaff, and resist boldly, we are arrested for assault and battery ; if we be of a revengeful disposi- tion, and lay a complaint against our molesters, we are informed it is the benevolent liquor law of Maine. . Again, if we travel (having been accustomed in other and happier climes to do as we would, if we had the necessary funds) with a flask in our pocket, meet an old friend, and invite him cheerily to take a horn, we are liable to be arrested and cast into jail, — for what? for being a liquor drum- mer,— that is, a man whose misfortune it is to understand the bus- iness of selling liquor. Well, now for our other privileges, the glorious privilege of electing the man we think will be honest in his endeavors for the public good ; we have that privilege with thousands of others ; we use it, thousands abuse it. The man with brains drives round in an attractive turn-out to the man without brains, and tries first the strength of specious flattery, which is almost sure to succeed with that class of gentlemen who think they were born to be admired, and that the world does not contain others as noble as themselves ; but, where flattery fails to influence, money will corrupt. The unthinking laborer cares little whether he elect Grant or Davis, Greeley or Adams, his ideas on the subject being at best but a reflection of the news^of whatever newspaper he happens to read Hence the great power of the press ; but if an inducement of five dollars or treble that be offered, — for it is on record that one hundred dollars gained a vote in New Hampshire at the last elec- tion,— he readily votes, unless he be an uncommonly honest man, the way he is wished to, hence the wire-pullers and the wires. That these wire-pullers use despicable meanness to elect their candidate is not to be denied, but, dear me, sir, they are virtuous, if they only do not drink. Thus are elections gained, and universal male suffrage proved nothing better than a humbug ; there are much fewer honest voters, we think, than bought voters, and that party which can command the most money and influence is sure to gain the day, no matter how much stronger in numbers their adversaries originally were ; hence the late Republican victories in New Eng- land. We are not politicians, have no personal interest at stake in the success of either party, think both have great faults and great virtues, but a blind man could see that the late elec- tions were gained by the republicans, only through barefaced fraud. " Why, then," says my republican and prohibitory acquaintance, " if the number of drinking men so far exceeds the disciples of cold water, is it not noble in the republicans to espouse the cause of the weaker party, and thus lose many votes ? " " On the contrary, .my friend, the democrats being avowed cham- pions of license, the republican party could not easily become champions also ; but could they have done so, we doubt not they would have deemed it expedient to adopt the patronage of the n moral side " apparently, while aiding the liquor dealers by wink- ing at the law, thus killing two birds with one stone, and discom- fiting the democrats in each case." But Governor Perham being probably a just man as regards his prohibitory ideas, has shown the inhabitants of Maine that he can and will execute the law, even if in so doing he ruins the State. We are accustomed to make favorable comparisons between the state of affairs in our enlightened New England and the European monar- chies,but leaving England out of the question, as far too free a nation for us at present even to dare to hope for, let us select Russia and state our solemn conviction, that it is quite as agreeable and pleas- ant now to be a member of the great Russian nation as to dwell in enlightened Maine. It is true that the Emperor's fiat may decide the fate of any unlucky individual who may have offended his dig- nity, but if he strives not to irritate his sovereign, or to break 8 just laws, his person is safe from the desecrating touch of any wretch who takes a fancy to search him. Let us turn now to the press ; it is the reflex of public opinion, and the greatest adjunct to liberty ; indeed without the press true liberty could not exist. This powerful betrayer of public senti- ment is almost unanimous in denunciation of the present prohibi- tory law. Boston has nine daily newspapers ; of these, one is supported by a clique of prohibitionists, and is edited by a clergy- man, which fact does not prevent it from being the most watery specimen of journalism we have ever witnessed. The arguments in favor of prohibition prove that however much its editor may be acquainted with celestial matters, he is deplorably ignorant of the terrestrial events daily passing under his nose. He is a sort of double Major Jones (the Massachusetts Chief of Police), with no open bars in Boston, decrease of villany, etc., as if we had not eyes to see with, and our ears for the purpose of hearing. Another larger sheet professes temperance and ap- plauds prohibition, but its remarks are so contradictory, and the views of its various editors differ, so greatly, that we do not esteem its opinions of great value ; we may see a statement in one issue and a direct contradiction in the next ; yet as the paper is a good advertising medium ; and has once in a while some pleasant knowledge from Hazewell's vigorous pen, besides being ably con- ducted as a general thing, it is very popular. But the other seven, the strongly democratic old " Post," with its magnificent leaders on all subjects, and its cheery wit, humor, and sarca.sm ; the pon- derous " Advertiser," with its ponderous articles, and the best musical and dramatic critic of our city ; the dashing " Globe," with its columns of fine print, and its excellent foreign intelligence columns ; the watery " Transcript," the personal and ambiguous " Herald," and the spirited little " Times," — all form a strong majority in favor of a sound license system, and against the pres- ent unreasonable and impossible law. They are willing to acknowl- edge that men must drink ; that it is impossible to prohibit a part of a man's nature ; that prohibition can only lead to seclusion, disguise, and concealment, and that liquor drinking is not an evil, if moderation be observed. It is time that we should cast off the shackles of slavery, which are slowty yet surely binding us in their iron claws, and proclaim with trumpet tongue -our sentiments. The day must come and soon, for a social revolution, if no better laws can be devised than those at present existent on our statute books. We have fearful warnings from France, where anarchy and horror have resulted from the desire of the people to be truly free. The men who in the hour of danger will not assist to repeal an unjust, tyrannous, anl scandalous law, should beware of the smothered vengeance of a patient people tried too long. I/EAF II. Thirty years of trial, and utter failure : such is the record of prohibition. Many of us can recall the miracles that were to be performed when the first genius of cold water exploded his grand idea. New England was to be regenerated, cold water universally established, and hand-shaking become the fashion, instead of fisti- cuffs. Twenty years of trial, and what is the result? Do we be- hold a peaceful, loving community, striving to surpass each other in acts of generosity aiid kindness? 0, no, horrors upon horrors of every description are multiplying daily. Do we find the State, that twenty years ago was prosperous and happy, still, owing to prohibition, increasing in prosperity ? No ; on the contrary, we 10 look with sadness on a ruined state, and ruined too by the mis- taken doctrine of prohibition : it requires but a few years more of prohibition and Maine may become but a name, a desert such as it was hundreds of 3-ears ago. Till lately and for years past in Maine, the law has lain torpid, a farce unexecuted and laughed at, a law as much obeyed as is that forbidding prostitution or beggary ; but the new governor of the State, assisted by democrats and republi- cans alike, but for different reasons, has managed to pass the most outrageous law that ever disgraced any civilized nation on the face of the earth. A law that makes every man a spy on his neighbor, that renders deceit a duty, and revenge an easy task ; that permits officers of justice to search a defenceless woman, and take what lib- erties they will with her person, if they conceive that she has liquor concealed about her ; a law which drains the capital of the State, and robs the farmer even of his hard-earned gains ; a law, in short, that tramples on and blots out the last fragment of liberty left to our suffering people : and this vile product of mistaken leg- islation is to stop the sale of liquors in the State of Maine. We have lately passed through Portland, and instituted in- quiries ; the law has been enforced there and each man is a spy on his neighbors ; the liquor-dealers stand at the street corners with lowering faces and determined looks, ready to detect any culprit who strives to make an honest penny. " Why," you ask them, u do you turn on your neighbor"? — " Why? why to crush the law." To crush the law, we have to arouse all the worst passions of a man's heart ; to crush the law, we have to become hypocrites and cowards. We pass through the silent streets : great heavens ! can this be the nourishing city of twenty years ago? Twenty-six thousand inhab- itants, a fine well-built town, but where are the people? The streets are deserted, dead, and silent, except when some listless indi- vidual saunters by, evidently with no fixed idea what to do next ; the very dogs lay drowsily on the door steps, and the proprietors of the stores stand with lugubrious faces, and their hands in their pockets, waiting, like Micawber, for something to turn up. We step into this great hotel, a seeming sign of prosperity, and ad- dress the landlord, — " Well, how is business, my friend? " u Nothing doing, sir ; the prohibitory law has ruined Portland, and will ruin Maine." We were told that a stranger alighted at the '.' Falmouth " the other|day , and conceiving that a u horn " would be advisable before tea, ordered a cocktail ; he was informed that 11 the Maine law was not only in vogue, but enforced, that they dare not obey him ; he immediately called back the cab, and left the city. Thus, after a time, strangers will shun Maine, as much too virtuous an abiding place for this good j^ear of grace 1872. We inquired of some influential liquor men, as intelligent, able, and courteous gentlemen as ever graced any trade, what the}T were going to do. " Going West," was the reply. " If Governor Perham is anxious to ruin the State, we must only assist him." A large amount of. capital, of course, is in the possession of these gentlemen, and it will be invested elsewhere. The farmers, not allowed to deal in cider, will probably not content themselves with grumbling, but exhibit their dissatisfaction in some tangible shape ; the present operation of the prohibitory law in short, if it be strictly enforced, must in a few months ruin the State. In Bangor the case is different : the law is just as strin- gent, but the liquor dealers are more daring than in Portland, and have numerous contrivances, some very ingenious, too, to defeat the myrmidons of the law. Ah, you say, my virtuous friend, that even poison is sometimes administered to sick people, and that liquor is often necessary in cases of sickness ; without admitting this, we beg to remark on the awful state of disease that must have prevailed in Maine last year, when tens of thousands of dollars worth of liquor was sold for medicinal purposes. Nor is the liquor sold at this agency in the slightest degree purer than that sold by the great liquor firms of Boston and New York. It is a disgrace to allow this agency to remain, while honest men are cast out in the streets for the same offence, and deprived, in some instances, of the means of support for their families. It was but a few days since that a man in one of our prohibitory towns died in prison from shame ; he was ljonest, hard working, and industrious, and he was twice or thrice seized, and at last sent to jail, for attempting to make a livelihood. He died from shame, and the men who framed the law that killed him, are surely little better than murderers ; guilty men never die from shame, it is the innocent victims who cannot survive the shock. " But," says the advocate of prohibition, " why did he not adopt a just and legal trade?" — "Because, my honest friend, in the first place his trade should be honest and legal if it is not ; and in the second, the shoemaker finds a difficulty in becoming a tailor, the grocer in selling dry goods. The liquor trade requires appren- ticeship as well as another, and it is as hard to excel in it as any. ' — " Well, why did he not close up ? " Because he could not starve, and for the same reason that the thousand liquor shops of Boston to-day are not closed. He had looked on the law as one of those political schemes which are the curse of the country at the present day, and, knowing that the law had not been executed, deemed him- self safe. Why do they not close the liquor shops in Boston ? Because they dare not. Because such a step would either stir the smoul- dering embers "into a fearful blaze, or if resistance should prove at last unavailable, a migration to New York would ensue, which 13 would ruin Boston, as Portland has been ruined, and the other Maine cities will be, if the law continues. " But what is your remedy?" asks our impatient and imaginary acquaintance, the prohibitionist. " You surely will acknowledge the harm that proceeds from the low groggeries which have made New York such a den of wickedness." Friend, we are glad to agree with you ; we do want a sound license system, a system granting the right to sell liquor, only to good, responsible men, whose very respectability would prevent them from giving liquors to a man already intoxicated ; we want a law, punishing by imprison- ment with no resource to fine, the dealer who gives liquor to a man in a state of inebriation ; prohibiting the retail sale of liquor to minors ; and finding a sufficient number of officers to execute it ; with such a law we are sure that drinking could do no harm. "While there is no proof, nor can be afforded any proof, that liquor in mod- eration is deleterious either physically or morally, there is much to be said to show that it is useful in promoting health. How often do we hear the hackneyed assertion of the ruin of the poor Indian by the introduction of " fire-water in their domain?" What a pity thus to basely ruin him. We gave them what they owned, so generously, took such care not to intrude on their hunt- ing grounds, taught them such beautiful lessons of faith, hope, and charity, observed so strictly the sanctity of their women, did every- thing to multiply their race, but gave them " fire-water." Look at the consequence of the " fire-water " ; the American nation, with others of lesser note, have parcelled out the poor Indians' territory, they are driven hither and thither by the cruel shepherd Uncle Sam (who is anj^thing but a good shepherd who kgives his life for his sheep), they are dwindling rapidly, and now only number a few thousands to the millions of old ; all on account of " fire- water." When America and the Indians were discovered, both in their primitive innocence, especially as regards clothing, the copper- colored were a peaceful generation of braves employed principally in sallying forth and scalping each other, and in generally imitat- ing the manners of dogs. At that time they did not know of the fire- water ; these ferocious scalpers are yet extant, and occasionally carry terror into the hearts of the whites, yet they have not tasted " fire-water." What a change now ; the greater majority of the Indians are peaceful, clothed, educated, useful, and happy, all on account of " fire-water " ; a very sad change, truly ! We have not yet learnt at what eminent medical college the 14 fraraers and prosecutors of the present law were educated ; their knowledge of the cause of all the crimes of the day is contained in so small a compass — the one word drink, in fact — that they must be as extraordinarily learned surgeons, as was Bunsby a specimen of moving wisdom. We have not only enjoyed ( ?) some little experience in medicine ourselves, but have had the pleasure of hearing the opinion of one of Boston's greatest physicians, a man whose skill is a marvel to all who know him (if any aquatic brother doubts this, we are ready and willing to forward name and address, Box — , Boston P. " Ay/' says my friend, " let us teach our babies not to drink, and there will be no difficulty." " Very true ; but, first, we come then to ' moral suasion,' which we commend strongly ; and, secondly, children are endowed with wonderful powers of imitation, which render them perpetual tor- ments to a nervous person ; now it is the scissors, now papa's razor, and now mamma's needle ; so, if we set the example, they aie sure to follow it, and, if we do not (as you would not, of course) , if baby should fail very ill, and be near unto death, brandy is needed to revive the little spark of life, and this is the first tasting, but rarely the last." It will be generally found, we think, that men fond of naught in the bibulous line but cold water, are of such a temperament as to render liquor disagreeable to their senses. Let us look around now on the world in general, my friends, and see what evil or what good liquor is doing there ; bringing people to drunkards' graves, my immaculate friend would say ; perhaps a few, but we will prove, satisfactorily we trust, in a com- ing chapter, that there are a few more destructive passions in the world, beside that of liquor. A great amount of liquor is sold in Canada ; we think people drink more generally there than in this country ; yet we hear little of drunkards' graves, but see a magni- ficent, hardy race of men, worthy of their ancestry, brave, cour- ageous, and noble, and forming a favorable contrast to some of our patrons of typical Eden, who, perhaps from the fact of their absorbing love of Mammon, are generally endowed with sallow 15 countenances, tobacco-infected breath (some persist that tobacco is more injurious to mind, body, and brains than liquor), and stooping forms. We glance at England, and behold another people noted for their consumption of every description of liquors, from the cheap and harmless lager to the bright and foaming cham- pagne : the lords and peasants of the country are alike in this respect — they both drink liquor. Do we see millions cast into drunkards' graves?! On the contrary, we behold a wonderful nation, with a marine equal to that of the world combined, and colonies embracing the earth ; a nation of heroes, and one that for centuries has supplied us with immortal names, which have made its literature the greatest of all time. A country that from a small island parcelled among many kings, has become an empire far sur- passing that of ancient Rome. Southward to France, the land of brandy, though not of drink. The French do not drink as earnestly as the English, Americans, or Germans ; their volatile nature betrays itself in this as in other things, and the French have ever been a remarkably temperate nation. We regret, however, that it has not bred other virtues far more important ; religion is but a name in France, a matter of crime, confession, and absolution, and of absolution, confession, and crime. The theatres keep open on Sundays, and the French theatres are the wickedest in the world ; the ladies promenade on Sundays, and the French ladies are the wickedest in the world ; the gentlemen peruse French novels, and they (the novels) are the wickedest in the world, Sunday in France, indeed, is a day of idle amusement and unthinking pleas- ure, and the French may tamper with time by even worse recre- ations than drinking. To Germany, the empire which through the political power of Bismark and the military genius of Von Moltke, has, of late, become so mighty ; the country which has produced Goethe and Schiller ; which is notable for the sober-minded, plodding, industrious character of its inhabitants ; which contains, perhaps, the jolliest, roundest, and most happy people on earth, and which yet is pre-eminent in those two supposed vices which are so much decried, viz., drinking and smoking. The Germans drink and smoke universally, in all places and at all times. How quickly, if Congress were to pass a general prohibitory law, would the powerful German element of the United States return to their dearly-loved Vater-land ! Lager has become a standard beverage throughout the States, and it is as easy to get intoxicated on lager as on brandy, if one takes enough ; sensible men, however, do not 16 wish to get intoxicated ; there is always something wrong about the habitual drinker.; idleness, sottishness, loss of fortune,loss of friends, savageness, etc., and these qualities and misfortunes would only be exhibited in some worse aspect, if they did not drink. Italy and Spain are temperate countries, but it would be hard to show what good it has clone them ; of them more anon. They have a prohibitory law in Turkey, but it is influenced by religion, the prophet Maho- met having forbidden wine, and if we were Mahometans and not Christians, we would esteem the prohibitionists correct in aiding and abetting religious doctrines, instead of ignoring them. While Portland and Augusta, Me. (the only places we know of at present where the liquor law is absolutely enforced and obeyed), are about the most forlorn and miserable places imaginable, though one is the capital, and the other the largest city in the State, the rest of Maine and the United States show daily proof of the enter- prise, energy and pluck of the great American people ; especially in the great west is liquor universal, and especially in the west are the men most enterprising and courageous among us. * Let us, then, extinguish drunkenness and immorality if we can, but not perpetrate the great and shameful injustice of visiting on the heads of the deserving many, the sins of the undeserving few. LEAP III. There can exist no greater error in the treatment of any subject than that of fanaticism ; to come to a proper understanding of any great moral, social, or political question, it is necessary to divest one's mind of all prejudice and preconceived ideas, and to accept different theories as at least tenable. The ardent prohi- 17 bitionists are the most hardened of fanatics ; it is in vain to beg that they may open their resolute eyes, or hearken with their reso- lute ears : the calm, sober-minded tourist, bent on exploration, is astounded to perceive with what dogged obstinacy they will adhere to but one idea. " Liquor is the father of crime," they will say ; " prevent the sale of it, and crime will cease." And if we reply iu astonish- ment : — " Surely, my dear sir, you must acknowledge that at least three fourths of the offences committed nowadays, are performed with- out the assistance of any intoxicating fluid," he will shake his head gravely, and sagely remark, that liquor is the root of all evil. We do not defend drunkenness, heaven forbid ! but it is a fact that, if we take a dozen men in different stages of intoxication, we are likely to find eleven of them either incapable of committing a crime, or in a state of good-humored imbecility, more amusing than frightful to behold. The monstrous injustice of the present law is shown by the fact that the moderate drinkers (who regard wines and liquors merely as a delicacy or refreshment, and not as a means of loss of sense) are compelled to suffer, while the habit- ual drunkard can obtain the true poison as before, and wink at the tyrannical and unjust law. If the sale of liquor were an evil, which we cannot conscientiously allow, we woild pronounce it one of those necessary evils which must remain till the Millennium. The Sabine women were all prostitutes ; they were regarded merely as articles of merchandise to be cast from hand to hand, till death relieved them from the strange existence they knew as life. Of course we hold up our hands in that virtuous horror which it is so agreeable to exercise if there be no inconvenience attached to it. " What a nation ! " we exclaim, " what brutalized and degraded specimens of that noble and perfect animal, man ; no fate surely was too bad for them ! " We wonder how many of our thousands of nineteenth century saints are sincere, and truly unaware of the awful state of moral cancer, with which our present society is impregnated. It is a legal crime to drink a glass of wine after dinner, ay, or help a suffering brother who begs a little liquor to strengthen him, on his way ; it is no legal crime to go out in the health and strength of manhood, and in the pride of wealth, and with fallacious promises to seduce some struggling, wretched creature, left to choose be- 2 18 tween shame and the river. In the small hours of morning, my immaculate brethren of cold water, the virtue of our cities sleeps, and vice puts on her beauteous seeming, and stalks rampant o'er the land. These bagnios with their crowds of shameless women ready to barter their souls for gold ; the wretches who stream into them, and the innocent youths who learn their first step in crime through the medium of some elderly instructor, who has taught them that innocence and virtue are fit but to be laughed and jeered at in this fast age, all form a vast picture of nightly crime. From that polluted atmosphere, and those more polluted living frames, steal in the gray twilight all ages, classes, ranks, and sta- tions ; many on whom the clutch of foul disease has already laid its indelible mark. Is it bad training, early temptation, want of re- ligion, jeers of comrades, and premature passions that has caused this ? No, it is drink ! The extent and character of most of these bagnios is probably not known to the immaculate few in the small cities of Maine and the other New England States, as in the great Bay State metropolis itself; if we wish to learn for our own edification the fearful increase of immorality, we can behold it almost everywhere. Close to the mansions of the wealthy and virtuous (not that we wish to class the adjectives together by any means) may be seen palaces of sin and crime, where the scions of the pe- culiar American aristocracy (monied-ocrsicy more properly) pass their leisure hours, while the fond parents picture to themselves the innocent pleasures in which their boys indulge. It is not manly to drink ; everybody knows (and everybody is a many-headed monster) what a degrading spectacle either a chronic or an occa- sional drunkard presents ; but it is manly to boast of femimine conquests, and achievements in the pursuit of lust, to become men (and brutes it might be added) before our time. As there is no more pure and tender influence for good than that of a true and perfect woman, so is there nothing so completely demoralizing as the injurious effect of a false woman's society " ; and we venture to assert that a great majority of the horrors with which the news- papers have teemed of late years, can be traced to the influence of that part of the gentler portion of mankind, who with powerful minds and bad hearts can wield such a terrible influence by means of their charms. It would be a sad calculation indeed, if we were to plunge into the dismal records of criminality, and ascertain the misery, disaster, and crime that has resulted from the society of evil women. Can we prohibit women of evil tendencies, orj those 19 fallen through circumstance and desire? No. Can we prohibit the sale of liquor? No. We may act in the same manner with each ; enact stringent reg- ulations, crowd our streets with officers of justice, and transform our cities into a second revolutionary Paris in our efforts to pre- vent the sale of liquor and of women ; but though we may drive it into secret places and curious devices, and may cause men and women, through the sheer spirit of obstinacy with which humanity is blessed, to plunge deeper into drink and crime, we can never attain our millennium through any prohibitory statutes, no matter how ardently enforced. Throw off all restrictions, punish the drunkard as before, and let men and women join in the noble work of moral suasion for all evils, and we may still work wonders in the great vineyard. There is much written in support of, and against, the morality of the stage, and both sides of the question admit of a good deal of argument. The greatest writer who ever lived was an actor, and yet that wonderful and melodious master of song was both a sot and a libertine ; as he wrote for all time, so did he write for the present emergency, in the lament of Cassio, " Oh, that men should put'an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" The master of novelists, the cheery, genial Dickens, the man whom all true lovers of the best of fiction held so near and dear, was a great amateur actor, and could have gained almost any height, had he wished, on the ladder of theatrical fame ; yet we hear now dark hints of his manner of living, and the gusto with which, in his beautiful prose-poem, " A Christmas Carol," he speaks of the punch bowl. To the stage, it must be acknowledged by all not blinded by fanaticism, we owe much. But at the present day we are retrograding so fast that we will soon arrive at the theatrical customs of the Roman emperors from Caesar till Nero, when stage pageants were but a name for the grossest immorality and licen- tiousness. Simpering misses of thirteen and boys of twelve, with those delightful new dresses which everybody must admire, and those conquering faces, which they are so well aware, alas ! how to adorn to the best advantage, sit unblushingly through performances which a hundred years ago old men would have blushed to see. Brazen and half-nude females, stuffed, painted, and bedizened, too abandoned to care for aught but the ruin of others, comprise for the most part what is known as " ladies of the ballet " at the pres- ent day. The dress in which they appear at such spectacles as the 20 '•Black Crook" must be disgusting to all minds with the least sentiment of refinement, and possessing the least particle of shame. Why, if Henry VIII was alive, it must bring a blush to the hoary old sinner's cheek. Yet our immaculate sons and daughters can visit these entertainments (innocent amusements,youknow ; poor things, they know nothing of right and wrong). That is the trouble, they do not ; if they did, they would probably know how to choose the good and refuse the bad, and then we would not see Master Somebody, the son of the well known millionnaire, and hardly turned seventeen, steal surreptitiously behind the scenes and emerge therefrom, shortly afterwards, with a magnificently dressed lady, who, if our eyes were not mistaken, we had before observed, in tights, span- gles, and brazenness, dancing a pas-de-seul. Weil, this, according to our worthy friend, the impossible idealist, does not proceed from the influence of the trashy drama, but from drink. " Depend on it, sir," our friend says, " that boy's first step in crime was drink ; he has learnt the use of liquor (perhaps the abuse), and it has ruined him." Of course ; he has seen the woman in the wine! A person may be perfectly innocent of smoking and drinking, and yet descend to a very low ebb of morality. We wonder which causes the most deaths on earth, jealousy or liquor? we do not mean jealousy diluted with liquor, but jealousy pure. Among the laziest, most useless, and yet fiercest people on earth are the Italians and Spaniards, — the one a nation distinguished for its music, its Tasso, and its statuary ; the other for the stiletto, law- lessness, and the danger of travel. Sojourning in either country, one is liable at any moment to become acquainted with the Great Mystery. It is a curious comment on the denunciation of liquor that these countries are the most temperate on the face of the globe. 