LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF THE 
 
 STATE VITICULTURAL COMMISSION. 
 
 , January, 1896. 
 Accession No. (o I (0 3 (ft Class No. 
 
^STATE VITICULTURAL 
 Oe- 
 
THE 
 
 RAMROD BROKEN; 
 
 O R, 
 
 IN FAVOR OF 
 
 THE MODERATE USE 
 
 GOOD SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS 
 
 SHOWING THE ADVANTAGE OF A LICENSE SYSTEM IN 
 
 PREFERENCE TO PROHIBITION, AND "MORAL" 
 
 IN PREFERENCE TO "LEGAL SUASION." 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND JOURNALIST. 
 
 o** Of TOR 
 
 iUIXTlBSITY] 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ALBERT COLBY AND COMPANY, 
 
 No. 20 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1859. 
 
 TV 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
 
 ALBERT COLBY AND COMPANY, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 WE need not remind the reader that publishers are not expected 
 always to indorse the sentiments of their authors ; but, on the 
 contrary, it is quite frequent that books advocating entirely opposite 
 sentiments are published by the same parties. For instance, a book 
 is published upon some subject, and, in course of time, a reply is 
 written and offered to the same house, who, having known the course 
 of the circulation of the first book, can turn, the reply into the same 
 channels. In this country of ours, where free discussion and liberty 
 of speech are respected by all parties, this practice cannot be con- 
 sidered inconsistent. Let any subject be fairly discussed, and then, 
 and not till then, may we hope to arrive at truthful conclusions. 
 
 Among the books we publish is the following : 
 
 MAINE LAW TRIUMPHANT; or, the Mysterious Parchment 
 and Satanic License : showing the necessity of total abstinence and 
 stringent prohibitory laws to prevent the great and fearful evils of 
 intemperance. By Rev. JOEL WAKEMAN, Pastor of the First Pres- 
 byterian Church of Almond, New York." 
 
 This book has been before the public since 1853, and has been 
 favorably received. A reply to the same, and some other works 
 of a kindred nature, is now before you. It advocates different views 
 and sentiments from those advanced in the other book ; but knowing 
 the author as one of the most popular editors in New England, and a 
 man of unquestionable candor and honesty withal, we are confident 
 his book will receive due consideration from all true friends of 
 temperance and reform. 
 
 (3) 
 
 "[RSfTTl 
 
SIT - PKEFACE. 
 
 oar 
 
 mi 
 
 THIS book aims to be candid and entirely honest. If we 
 thought there was a page of cant in it, we would tear it out. 
 It treats of a subject that is never touched upon save with 
 prejudice, or in passion, or for partisan purposes, and endeav- 
 ors to treat of it in a direct and truthful way. The reader 
 need not be afraid of finding it full of hot and denunciatory 
 words, more than half of them blasphemous at that ; we leave 
 that sort of business to writers who labor to make proselytes 
 to their peculiar way of thinking, instead of laboring to make 
 all questions better understood. 
 
 This matter of Temperance, we conceive, has never yet 
 been taken hold of by the handle. The right sort of men 
 have not addressed themselves to its discussion. They have 
 been either men, on the one hand, who are above and be- 
 yond their business, mere theorizers, whose knowledge of 
 human nature is scanty, and whose great aim is to shape the 
 common heart to their notions, instead of the contrary ; or, on 
 the other hand, of men, who, from their very habits and ways 
 of life, could never have been at the trouble to form an opinion 
 of their own, even if they had the brains so to do drunkards 
 in the slow process of reformation, and men of corresponding 
 tastes and sympathies. 
 
 Now, it will be admitted that the world cannot afford to 
 1 * (5) 
 
D PREFACE. 
 
 follow the lead 01 either of these classes of individuals. There 
 is a spirit of progress ever to be consulted, and there is a spirit 
 of conservatism ; they are the centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces in nature ; but the happy medium to hit is that which 
 lies somewhere between the two. One thing;, at least, is self- 
 
 o" " 
 
 evident ; that in the work of planning reform movements the 
 safest way is, first, to understand the peculiarities of that hu- 
 man nature which you expect to reform. The Almighty did 
 not make us all to a particular mould, or measure ; and pro- 
 fessed reformers may as well remember that fact, and take a 
 hint from it. If it is best that wines and other stimulating 
 drinks should not be used at all, then there must have been 
 some radical fault in getting up the race, and that should be 
 attended to before we go about any thing else. 
 
 The " Ramrod " is the man who goes for stringent laws 
 so stringent that they cannot be executed ; for making liquor 
 contraband ; for punishing a man who buys and sells it, as he 
 would punish a criminal ; for having human nature something 
 different from what it is ; and, generally, for going the " straight 
 thing" clear through. He derived his name in the State 
 where his favorite law had its birth, and is every where known 
 by that name now. 
 
 This book will best speak for itself, without the help of 
 prefaces or commendations of any kind. It is addressed to 
 every man's common sense and common reason. It labors 
 only for Temperance, and seeks to do so in a temperate and 
 rational way; with intemperate men, whether zealots or drunk- 
 ards, it has no more sympathy than it. would freely extend 
 to every one who truly needs reformation. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. Introductory. 9 
 
 2. What the Bible has to say 14 
 
 3. The Good and the Evil 22 
 
 4. Pure and Impure 28 
 
 5. Our Third Article of Faith 34 
 
 6. The License System 43 
 
 7. In Moderation 51 
 
 8. Too Much 60 
 
 9. The Unconstitutionality of Prohibition 67 
 
 10. The Liquor Agencies 73 
 
 11. License and Agency 80 
 
 12. At the West 86 
 
 13. In a Nutshell 92 
 
 14. A Song of Burns 99 
 
 15. Newly Invented Crime 104 
 
 16. A Good Text 110 
 
 17. Our Best Intellects 117 
 
 18. Prohibition Bitters 124 
 
 19. John H. W. Hawkins 130 
 
 20. A Few Anecdotes 139 
 
 21. The Necessity of Stimulants 147 
 
 (7) 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 22. Laws against Stimulants 155 
 
 23. The Satanic License ; or, a Bad Cause badly Defended 161 
 
 24. The Maine Law 169 
 
 25. The Causes of Intemperance 177 
 
 26. A Thousand Dollars 185 
 
 27. American Wines. Part 1 195 
 
 28. American Wines. Part IE 204 
 
 29. Intoxicating Food 211 
 
 30. Neal Dow's Law executed by himself. 228 
 
 31. Receipts for Domestic Liquors 238 
 
 32. The Curse of Opium 251 
 
 33. Delirium Tremens 261 
 
 34. The Three. An Honest Ramrod, &c 267 
 
 35. The Use of Tobacco. .'. 279 
 
 36. Tea and Coffee 284 
 
 37. Moral Suasion 288 
 
 38. Conclusion 297 
 
THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 i. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE question of Temperance, in one form and 
 another, has, without doubt, caused as much excite- 
 ment in the past as it ever will in the future. From 
 occupying the position of a merely moral and reform- 
 atory question, it has, by passing into the hands of 
 selfish, ambitious, and designing men, so changed its 
 attitude and its merits together, of late years, that it is 
 in no sense the question it was, depending upon its 
 own intrinsic merits to insure for it a thorough discus- 
 sion, but has enlisted on its side, and into its service, 
 about all the passions that disfigure the soul of man 
 and the body of society. 
 
 There is evidently a turn in this state of things close 
 at hand. In truth, circumstances without number point 
 to this most conclusively. The old adage concerning 
 the long lane that has no turning applies very happily 
 to this very matter. There never yet was an extreme, 
 but an opposite extreme followed and corresponded 
 
 (9) 
 
10 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 with it. The principle is exactly that upon which the 
 pendulum of a clock swings. After excessive action 
 comes a reaction, and of necessity, in the very nature 
 of things. The human soul cannot bear to be screwed 
 lip to such a pitch, all the while, without desiring to 
 let itself down by the easiest and most instantaneous 
 methods. No human being can bear excitement with- 
 out end. And no cause known, whether that of Tem- 
 perance, of Religion, or any other, possesses vitality 
 and strength necessary to keep it long on its feet, if it 
 must be stimulated all the time by the aid of passion, 
 prejudice, wrangling, and contention. 
 
 These may sound to the casual reader like mere 
 truisms ; but the experience of the social state shows 
 us that, truisms though they may be, they constitute the 
 great underlying principles on which the permanency 
 of the social fabric rests. What men are apt to pass 
 by as comparatively unimportant, and of secondary 
 consequence, generally happens, after all, to be at the 
 bottom of all things. 
 
 We are perfectly safe in. saying that the day of gen- 
 eral and fanatical excitement over the Temperance 
 question has gone by forever. It is not possible again 
 to work up the public mind, by the appliances of cau- 
 cuses, and conventions, and stated preaching, and legis- 
 lative machinery, to such a pitch of frenzy as it has 
 suffered from, in certain localities, in the past. No 
 such thing can be done more than once, any more than 
 we may ever expect again to witness the crusades and 
 the quarrels about the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 Men are returning to their senses. They are fast 
 developing the wisdom principle within themselves. 
 They have become satisfied that nothing comes of loud 
 and angry discussion, and that temperance is nowise 
 promoted by the bigotry of intemperate and blind zeal- 
 ots. They find, on reflection, that society is not apt to 
 be moved by gunpowder explosions to adopt novel the- 
 ories of reform, and that it is no way at all to try to 
 make a man better to denounce him on account of his 
 present wickedness. They see, furthermore, that there 
 are certain customs and habits existing in the social 
 state that are rooted in human nature itself, and 
 which it is just as hopeless a task for them to attempt to 
 pull up with violence and haste, as it would be to drag 
 forth mountains and hills from their base and tumble 
 them into the sea. 
 
 And in addition to the discovery of these habits and 
 customs that have their root and existence in nature, 
 they have also discovered that there are certain inalien- 
 able rights belonging to man in his social state, with 
 which, on the one side or the other, he has never parted. 
 Commerce is generally considered to have some little 
 potency as yet in holding together and nourishing so- 
 cieties, and peoples, and nations ; and it acts as a 
 mighty and all-pervading agent in the several channels 
 through which it makes its own vitalizing waters flow. 
 Trade is not altogether a thing of the past, but works 
 as actively in the promotion and furtherance of the 
 final interests of the community as any other living 
 power. 
 
12 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 And these matters are not to be forgotten. The im- 
 pulse to make the world better by force, whether of law 
 or of the sword, has been exploded long ago, and we 
 can only wonder at the ignorance, and admire the 
 hardihood, of those would-be reformers and leading men 
 who propose to re-create the world by the potency of 
 their own hollow word. There are few, indeed, even 
 of the once ardent teetotalers and temperance-legisla- 
 tion men, who do not confess more than ever before to 
 the need of introducing " moral suasion " again into 
 their " prohibitory " undertakings ; and there are very 
 many who are quite disheartened with the prospects 
 under legislative processes alone, and begin openly to 
 express themselves of opinion that the cause of Tem- 
 perance can be helped along only by falling back upon 
 moral suasion altogether. 
 
 Such abundant evidences of the change that has oc- 
 curred, and is continually occurring, in the minds of 
 the leaders in relation to this matter, is by no means 
 to be slighted or passed over. It indicates plainly 
 enough that a better day is dawning; that however 
 much a man may desire the reform of the race, he can- 
 not hope to aid that reform in any way so rapidly and 
 effectually as by a purification of his own life, and a 
 perpetual watchfulness over his own thoughts and incli- 
 nations. In this matter, all reform begins -at home. 
 Personal example is more effective, a thousand times, 
 m producing converts, than all the high and hot words, 
 or all the long-jointed arguments, that were ever packed 
 into either discussions, or newspapers, or books. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 We propose, in this little volume, to state certain 
 propositions in relation to our belief on matters of tem- 
 perance, offering proofs of the same as we go along ; to 
 show that the moderate use not the abuse of good 
 spirituous liquors is hurtful to no man, but rather a ne- 
 cessity and a comfort to him ; to establish the fact that 
 the Bible every where favors the use of liquor, wine and 
 otherwise,- and so do the examples of History, and 
 so does common sense itself; to show the manifest ad- 
 vantages of a properly guarded license system over any 
 merely theoretical system of prohibition ; and, finally, 
 to argue as conclusively and lucidly as we can, that 
 moral suasion, in this matter, has in all respects the 
 preference over legal enactments. 
 
 And inasmuch as this is a subject in which all men 
 alike must feel an absorbing interest, and has been so 
 long held up for public discussion that it evidently 
 drifts forward on the current of popular opinion towards 
 a speedy decision, either one way or another, we feel 
 satisfied that the matter contained in the following 
 pages will challenge the reflecting and serious reader's 
 perusal. And we therefore offer it without further in- 
 vitation or comment ; merely adding, that no unpreju- 
 diced mind can successfully resist the continued appeals 
 to reason and good sense that are making every where, 
 day by day, by experience and by reflection, by per- 
 ception and by fact, to their consideration. 
 2 
 
14 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 n. 
 
 WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY. 
 
 OUR first proposition, then, is as follows : 
 
 We believe that the Bible teaches that a moderate 
 use of good spirituous liquors tends to health, happi- 
 ness, and length of days ; and that whoever denies 
 this doctrine, or the fact of these teachings, is an un- 
 believer both in the authenticity of the Bible and in 
 the doctrines it so plainly sets forth. 
 
 The Good Book, in fact, abounds with passages that 
 establish the above proposition. We can pick them 
 out alike from the pages of the Old and the New Tes- 
 taments. And we defy those who pretend to rely on 
 the Holy Scriptures for the evidence of the faith that is 
 in them, to show that these passages have any meaning 
 at all, unless it is directly and unmistakably in support 
 of the proposition thus stated. 
 
 Suppose, for example, we begin and cite a few : 
 
 In Proverbs, 31st chapter, 6th and 7th verses, the 
 wise Solomon says, " Give strong drink unto him 
 that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of 
 heavy hearts. 
 
 " Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remem- 
 ber his misery no more." 
 
 Good old Israel, too, after whom the church of God 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY. 15 
 
 is named, in his dying blessing says of Judah, the head 
 of that tribe out of which sprang all the glory of the 
 Hebrew race, and the Saviour of the world, in Gen- 
 esis, 49th chapter, 9th-12th verses, 
 
 " Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, 
 thou art gone up : he stooped down, he couched as a 
 lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up ? 
 
 " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
 lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and 
 unto him shall the gathering of the people be : 
 
 " Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt 
 unto the choice vine ; he washed his garments in wine, 
 and his clothes in the blood of grapes : 
 
 " His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white 
 with milk." 
 
 It is also written in 2 Samuel, 6th chapter, 14th 
 verse, 
 
 "And David danced before the Lord with all his 
 might ; and David was girded with a linen ephod." 
 
 And in the 19th verse, 
 
 " And he dealt among all the people, even among 
 the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as 
 men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of 
 flesh, and a flagon of ivine. So all the people departed, 
 every one to his house." 
 
 Further, in the 104th Psalm, David praises God, and 
 says in the 14th and 15th verses, 
 
 " He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
 herb for the service of man : that he may bring forth 
 food out of the earth ; 
 
16 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 " And wine that maketli glad the heart of man, and 
 oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strength- 
 eneth man's heart." 
 
 Now, if we turn forward to the pages of the New Tes- 
 tament, we shall meet with evidence that goes still 
 more strongly to establish and fortify our proposition. 
 
 As a crowning piece of testimony in favor of our 
 position, we produce what the Saviour himself said and 
 did on earth, " He that spake as never man spake," 
 -^He who says, " Before the world was, I AM," He 
 who came to earth working wonders and miracles, 
 and preached the blessed gospel of " Peace on earth, 
 good will to man." The very first miracle Jesus per- 
 formed was the well-known miracle at the wedding 
 feast in Cana of Galilee ; by which water was turned 
 into wine, not for medicinal, nor yet for mechanical 
 purposes, but simply for the festive purposes of that 
 particular occasion. 
 
 We quote the entire narrative, in all its simplicity 
 and beauty, from the 1st to the 12th verses of the 2d 
 chapter of St. John's Gospel, as follows : 
 
 " And the third day there was a marria'ge in Cana of 
 Galilee ; and the mother of Jesus was there. 
 
 " And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to 
 the marriage. 
 
 " And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus 
 saith unto him, They have no wine. 
 
 "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do 
 with thee ? mine hour is not yet c.ome. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY. 17 
 
 " His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he 
 saith unto you, do it. 
 
 " And there were set there six water-pots of stone, 
 after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, contain- 
 ing two or three firkins apiece. 
 
 u Jesus saith unto them, Pill the water-pots with 
 water. And they filled them up to the brim. 
 
 " And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear 
 unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 
 
 " When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water 
 that was made wine, and knew not whence it was, (but 
 the servants which drew the water knew,) the governor 
 of the feast called the bridegroom, 
 
 " And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning 
 doth set forth good wine ; and when men have well 
 drunk, then that which is worse ; but thou hast kept 
 the good wine until now. 
 
 " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of 
 Galilee, and manifested forth his glory ; and his disci- 
 ples believed on him." 
 
 Matthew and Mark narrate the same occurrence, as 
 may be readily seen by turning to their pages. 
 
 St. Paul likewise writes in his First Epistle to Tim- 
 othy, 5th chapter, 23d verse, 
 
 " Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for 
 thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." 
 
 Also in Colossians, chapter 2d, verse 16, he says : 
 
 " Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in 
 drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, 
 or of the Sabbath day." 
 
18 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 We are very well aware that the old objection or 
 quibble will be raised to this, that the wine spoken of 
 in the Old and New Testaments was not of the kind 
 that would intoxicate. That is very easily said, but it 
 will not be quite as easy to prove. But let us look 
 and see how it is. 
 
 Read St. Paul's advice, or rather caution, to the 
 churches, as regards the difference in eating and drink- 
 ing in one another's houses, and eating and drinking 
 the communion: 1st Corinthians, llth chapter, 20- 
 22d verses, 
 
 " When ye come together therefore into one place, 
 this is not to eat the Lord's supper. 
 
 " For in eating every one taketh before other his own 
 supper : and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 
 
 " What ? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in ? 
 or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that 
 have not ? What shall I say to you ? Shall I praise 
 you in this ? I praise you not." 
 
 This shows, if any thing can show it, that there was 
 a possibility, if not a probability, of the disciples drink- 
 ing a little to excess somewhere ; and Paul only cau- 
 tions them against doing it on the occasion of celebrating 
 the " Lord's Supper." 
 
 In his Epistle to the Ephesians he writes, chapter 
 5th, 18th verse, 
 
 " And be not drunk ivith wine, wherein is excess ; 
 but be filled with the Spirit." 
 
 It would not seem that any comment on that passage 
 was particularly required. 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY. 19 
 
 Or, to return to the Old Testament cases, the fact is 
 just as undeniable that the wine then used, otherwise 
 alluded to, was possessed of intoxicating qualities. See, 
 in proof of this, 1 Samuel, 1st chapter, 12th to 16th 
 verses : 
 
 " And it came to pass, as she continued praying be- 
 fore the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. 
 
 " Now Hannah, she spake in her heart ; only her lips 
 moved, but her voice was not heard ; therefore Eli 
 thought she had been drunken. 
 
 " And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be 
 drunken ? Put away thy wine from thee. 
 
 " And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord ; I 
 am a woman of a sorrowful spirit : I have drunk nei- 
 ther wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my 
 soul before the Lord." 
 
 Then read in Genesis, chapter 9, 20th and 21st 
 verses : 
 
 "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he 
 planted a vineyard ; 
 
 " And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and 
 he was uncovered within his tent." 
 
 And so we might cite passage after passage, from this 
 part of the sacred Book and from that, under the old 
 dispensation and under the new, all going to prove the 
 assertion with which we set out, and which it has been 
 the aim of the present chapter to establish. The case, 
 we consider, is already made out. There is no room 
 whatever for disputation, or even for cavil. If a man 
 accepts the Bible as an inspired volume, and professes 
 
20 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 to find within its pages such texts, and passages, and 
 teachings, and examples, as enable him to fix and build 
 up his spiritual faith, then he must concede full as 
 much authority to the volume as evidence on this point, 
 as on any of the leading points of his doctrines and 
 faith. You are not at liberty to torture the Scriptures 
 to your own personal use in certain instances, and then 
 deny their significance in certain other instances. If 
 they stand, they must of necessity stand together ; but 
 if you refuse to others the right of quoting fairly and 
 properly from them, you must utter no syllable of 
 complaint if you are told that you are debarred the 
 privilege of quoting from them too. Truth is as much 
 truth for one side, and one party, as it is for another ; 
 when it is at all partial, in the very nature of things it 
 ceases to be truth. 
 
 And what, therefore, does the testimony of the Bible 
 appear to uphold in this matter ? That the use of 
 wine in moderation not only does no harm, but even 
 conduces to physical good ; that it denounces the im- 
 moderate use of wine without stint, deprecating its 
 influence upon all whose loss of self-control drags them 
 down into a condition of degradation ; and, finally, 
 that the wine drank in the times embraced within the 
 scriptural narrative, was as likely to intoxicate those 
 who took it in excess, as any of the wines that are sold 
 and drank in these days of their unfortunate deterio- 
 ration. 
 
 We must, in this view of the evidence before us, 
 enough of which we have produced to make the whole 
 
WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY. 21 
 
 matter conclusive to any rational mind, reassert the 
 statement with which we set out, that whoever denies 
 that the Bible teaches in favor of a moderate use of 
 good spirituous liquors, wines in particular, is an open 
 unbeliever both in the authenticity of the Book, and in 
 the doctrines, on this, as well as on other subjects, 
 which it so plainly sets forth. 
 Let anybody refute this position who can. 
 
22 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE GOOD AND THE EVIL. 
 
 OUR second proposition is this : 
 
 "We believe it pleased God, in the creation of all 
 things, to place before man good and evil, and to make 
 him a free moral agent to choose between the two ; 
 knowing, in His infinite wisdom, that in the fulness of 
 time man would be led to choose the good alone, and 
 so the evil would have wrought successfully for his 
 discipline. 
 
 We believe, further, that a moderate use of pure 
 and unadulterated spirits may be fairly set down as 
 one of the comforts of the present life, given by the 
 Creator himself, to whom we are to be thankful ac- 
 cordingly ; but that even a moderate use of bad and 
 impure liquors is an evil of a decided character, 
 which, like the tree of knowledge in the garden of 
 Eden, should be abstained from. 
 
 We also believe not only that we must permit evil 
 to grow up with the good, even as tares will grow with 
 the wheat, but that, even if we try ever so much, 
 we cannot prevent it ; since God alone permits temp- 
 tations of all sorts to exist, as tests and trials of men's 
 virtue, the result to lie between them and their Maker. 
 
 Let us show this by citations from Scripture history : 
 
THE GOOD AND THE EVIL. 23 
 
 In Genesis, 1st chapter, 12th verse, it is narrated 
 that God, after creating the vegetable world, saw that 
 it was good : 
 
 " And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yield- 
 ing seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, 
 whose seed was in itself, after his kind ; and God saw 
 that it was good." 
 
 In the 2d chapter, 15-17th verses, it reads, 
 
 " And the Lord God took the man, and put him into 
 the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. 
 
 " And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 
 Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; 
 
 " But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
 thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die." 
 
 Now, here it is shown as plainly as it can be, that 
 there were certain indulgences to which man was not 
 permitted to give the rein. God had made every thing 
 that was made, and he had pronounced it " good ; " 
 and yet there was one thing a tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil which man was not to approach. 
 Why he was thus prohibited from plucking and eating 
 the fruit of it, does not appear ; but the fact stands out 
 clearly enough that one thing' he was to have nothing 
 at all to do with ; and that one thing had been cre- 
 ated, too, by the same God who had created all other 
 things ; and that same God, furthermore, had pro- 
 nounced it " good." 
 
 So that it is undeniable, even looking no further 
 into the Scriptures for testimony, that evil was per- 
 
24 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 mitted from the beginning, and is permitted till this 
 our day. What the divine purposes are in permitting 
 the existence of this agent in human progress are best 
 known to the All-wise Creator. It is enough for us to 
 accept the fact, with humility and trust, as we find it, 
 using it as a means of growth, but never as an excuse 
 with which to hide our own deformities. 
 
 Again, let us read further : 
 
 In the 16th chapter of Proverbs, 4th verse, the in- 
 spired writer says, 
 
 " The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, 
 even the wicked for the day of evil." 
 
 In the 45th chapter of Isaiah, 6th and 7th verses, 
 we read, 
 
 " That they may know from the rising of the sun, 
 and from the west, that there is none beside me : I am 
 the Lord, and there is none else. 
 
 " I form the light, and create darkness : I make 
 peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." 
 
 Here, in this last verse, the Lord himself confesses, 
 through the inspired writer, that he creates evil. The 
 purpose we must be content to let slumber within the 
 bosom of the infinite Jehovah. How evil is finally to 
 work out the ends of good, He best knows, for it was 
 his plan from everlasting. 
 
 It is written also in the 24th chapter of Joshua, 
 15th and 16th verses, 
 
 "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, 
 choose you this day whom ye will serve ; whether the 
 gods which your fathers served that were on the other 
 
THE GOOD AND THE EVIL, 25 
 
 side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose 
 land ye dwell : but as for me and my house, we will 
 serve the Lord. 
 
 " And the people answered and said, God forbid that 
 we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods." 
 
 Showing very distinctly and conclusively, that in 
 those ancient times even there was as much of a choice 
 to be had between the true and the false, the good and 
 the evil, as in these times of ours : and that the false 
 and the evil were just as much permitted, in the plan 
 of the Infinite One, as were the true and good, we 
 have the word of Jehovah himself, given through the 
 pens of his inspired servants. 
 
 The New Testament publishes a new dispensation, 
 it is true ; in that, old things are become new ; the 
 Mosaic creed has worn its force and energy away ; and 
 a better scheme, or plan, has been offered in its place. 
 Many, therefore, would naturally look there to find 
 some new announcement in relation to the creation 
 of evil. But will they find it ? We think not. In- 
 deed, we know not. For all along from the first Gos- 
 pel to the Revelation, the injunction is persisted in, 
 over and over again, to resist the evil ; to overcome 
 evil with good ; to be perfect, in contradistinction to 
 imperfectnesss. 
 
 Jesus enjoins it upon his followers, in his beautiful 
 Sermon on the Mount, " Be ye therefore perfect, 
 even as your Father in heaven is perfect." And this 
 same Jesus was the descendant of the ancient order 
 of God's chosen servants, traced directly down from 
 3 
 
26 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 David. See the 22d chapter of Revelation, verses 16 
 and 17 : 
 
 " I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you 
 these things in the churches. I am the root and the 
 offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. 
 
 " And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let 
 him that heareth say. Come. And let him that is 
 athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the 
 water of life freely." 
 
 So that this, after all, is but the natural progress 
 and procedure of a single plan ; which plan, of creat- 
 ing evil to offset against the good temporarily, was the 
 work of Almighty God alone. 
 
 The Scriptures, therefore, are our abundant warrant, 
 we think, for saying that God permits evil in the world 
 for his own wise purposes; and that so far as our 
 intemperate use of liquor is concerned, it is an evil 
 which is allowed of His own infinite wisdom. We may 
 overcome it in our own cases, and we plainly should ; 
 but no sweeping acts of legislation can hope to outroot 
 it from the earth, for the same reason that no mere 
 acts of legislation can in a moment effect the reforma- 
 tion of the race. This must be done by themselves 
 alone. It was for this very object that evil was thrown 
 in their path ; and they hope and pray in vain, if they 
 hope and pray that some external power will come 
 miraculously, and on a sudden, to their rescue. It is 
 in this way of self-conflict, and self-discipline, waging 
 on his own part a perpetual warfare with evil, and 
 teaching himself daily to love more and more the good, 
 
THE GOOD AND THE EVIL. 27 
 
 that man is to be redeemed from the clutches of sin ; 
 not by the interposition of arbitrary legislative enact- 
 ments, that have no root in life or society, but through 
 his own continued effort, God helping him to the tri- 
 umphant end. 
 
28 THE EAMBOD BROKEN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 PURE AND IMPURE. 
 
 IN the previous chapter, we said that pure wines and 
 spirits, when properly used, were in no sense harmful, 
 and in no way tended to the degradation of the soul. 
 We stated that wine when it was wine, and noth- 
 ing more is one of the God-given comforts of life, 
 to be used as all other blessings are used, and to be ac- 
 cepted with sincere expressions of gratitude. 
 
 It will, of course, startle canting moralists and Phar- 
 isees, who themselves understand best how to distrust 
 all statements from knowing the hollowness of their 
 own, it will startle such, we say, to hear sentiments 
 of this character openly and sincerely avowed ; but if 
 we were not sincere in them, believing them to be 
 really tenable in the long run of human experience, 
 we certainly should not now give them public expres- 
 sion. 
 
 It is high time, in our opinion, that men said what 
 they thought, and left off this wretchedly mean habit of 
 deferring to others, and especially to the clamors of 
 nothing but popular prejudice, for fear of putting their 
 own business, or their own standing, or their own social 
 position, in peril. Were this constitutional timidity to 
 be overcome, and were men to utter frankly and ear- 
 
PURE AND IMPURE. 29 
 
 nestly just what their honest convictions were, especially 
 upon this long-vexed subject, we should hear a very 
 different story from that which now fills the public ear, 
 and catch every where the tone of a much higher, and 
 truer, and healthier public opinion. "What can so-called 
 public opinion amount to, if they who are supposed to 
 create it stand in jeopardy all the time, unless they 
 think and speak as they are bidden to speak? Of 
 what material, worth mentioning, does it consist, if it 
 is already made up for the mass obsequiously to sub- 
 scribe to ? How is it an opinion at all, if it amounts to 
 nothing but the rehearsal of the prejudices of a few 
 prominent men, styling themselves leaders, but in re- 
 ality acting the parts of tyrants ? 
 
 If, therefore, our opinion about wine and its uses is 
 to be scouted, and scoffed at, and hooted out of pop- 
 ular consideration, because it is an entirely new, if 
 not indeed a very bold thing for any one to express 
 such an opinion in these latter days, it only demon- 
 strates the fact that, after all, it is not public opinion 
 that is opposed to us and our position, but nothing 
 more than a tyrannical public prejudice ; and as between 
 the tyranny of such a prejudice, and such a tyranny 
 as that exercised over free expression by the Louis Na- 
 poleons and King Bombas of the world, we confess we 
 discern very little indeed to choose. 
 
 They who are not ready and willing therefore to re- 
 spect the utterance of convictions opposed in the most 
 radical senses to their own, should see that they are 
 not yet well grounded in their own, else they could pa- 
 3* 
 
30 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 tiently hear every thing that was to be said on the 
 other side, knowing that the whole had already been 
 thoroughly and finally considered by them. For no 
 problem is carried forward to a successful solution, that 
 has not already been subjected to every twist and turn 
 that could arise in the process ; and no opinion has 
 been really established, even for the time being, unless 
 it has fought its way successfully through the smoke 
 and fire of conflict. And if we hear a man abusing 
 another simply because that other one takes the liberty 
 to disagree with him, and to candidly state the points 
 and terms of that disagreement, we feel very confident 
 that he is, in the first place, in training for a bully, and, 
 in the second place, quite destitute of any individual 
 convictions on his own part. For abuse may be thrown 
 to and fro till the sun goes down on the wrath of the 
 two parties ; but reason, and persuasion, and argu- 
 ment, and facts, and reflection, these are invariably 
 brought out into use only by those whose opinions 
 were built upon their reliable basis in the first place. 
 
 We assert, then, what is only true, at least in our 
 own judgment, when we repeat that a moderate and 
 proper use of good and pure spirits is not harmful, but, 
 on the contrary, both serviceable and a blessing. It 
 has been so from the earliest days of recorded history ; 
 and since those days, human nature has not so much 
 changed as to put the use of wine and spirits out of 
 the limitations either of comfort or necessity. Man is 
 not materially better now than in the days of the pa- 
 triarchs and prophets, when David and Solomon drank 
 
PURE AND IMPURE. 31 
 
 wine, sometimes even to excess. And they who con- 
 tinually refer to the Old Testament records for the de- 
 fence of certain other doctrines, ought to be the very 
 last ones to decline the use of the same records for aid 
 in the establishment of our opinion. 
 
 Jesus turned water into wine. Every body remem- 
 bers the beautiful line, 
 
 "The conscious water saw its God, and blushed." 
 
 Paul every where enjoins it upon the brethren not to 
 drink wine to excess, and especially not to turn their 
 communion feasts into revellings ; proof sufficient, one 
 would suppose, that wine was used, and that it was 
 abused, just as now. It is the abuse that Paul warned 
 others against ; it is the abuse which we sincerely de- 
 plore now. And we conclude that we may be perfectly 
 truthful and consistent in thus deploring such a wide- 
 spread evil, and still believe in both the possibility and 
 the propriety of using what leads to the evil in moder- 
 ation. All positive evil is only an excess ; the trouble 
 is, we are not yet become masters of ourselves, and so 
 are led away by powers which we ought either to repel 
 or control, each one should best know for himself 
 which. 
 
 Wine is a blessing, in itself. The universal use of 
 it by the race shows at least as much as that. The 
 ancients deified it, worshipping it under the name of 
 Bacchus. All along in history, the history of the 
 church and of the people, wine has been freely and 
 openly used. The culture of the vine has for a long 
 
32 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 time formed one of the most important items of indus- 
 try with several nations. God has given his rains to 
 descend and his suns to shine upon such a work as this ; 
 and at no time do we hear that he pronounced any 
 curse upon the occupation, like that which was hurled 
 against the people of Noah's generation, or the wicked 
 and abandoned cities of the plain. Priests have drank 
 it, even as the patriarchs and prophets of old drank it. 
 It lias strengthened the hearts and cheered the hopes 
 of wearied men every where. It has proved a blessing 
 to many, even if it has been a curse to others. But 
 shall the blessing be destroyed, be rooted out, be en- 
 tirely cast away and trampled upon, because its abuse 
 becomes a curse ? Shall we morosely refuse to see the 
 sun shine in the morning, because the west may be lurid 
 with terrific lightnings before night ? Are we never to 
 learn how to distinguish between the good and the 
 evil ? and to love the good for its own sake, and to hate 
 the evil for its own sake also? Must we put every 
 thing that is desirable in life beneath our feet, spurning 
 the good gifts of God in a spirit of morosest piety, be- 
 cause those good gifts are capable of perversion ? Are 
 we so ready to confess that we have neither the power 
 nor the inclination to prefer the good to the evil, the 
 pure and true to the bad and false, and therefore insist 
 on a style of goodness and purity whose condition is, 
 that evil arid falsehood shall not be suffered to come 
 into competition with it ? 
 
 What a sad state of morals is that, to be sure, which 
 requires to be fenced off by itself, lest it cannot with- 
 
PURE AND IMPURE. 33 
 
 stand the wiles of temptation, nor overcome, in an open 
 contest, the opposing powers of evil ! Such purity 
 stands not upon its own established character, but 
 merely upon the protection of worldly authority and 
 force ; and that authority, in turn, rests upon such 
 worthless foundations as are composed of ambition, of 
 desire for power, and of personal vanity and conceit. 
 If purity can exist on such terms, it must be the purity 
 of ice, that glitters only to repel the soul of the ob- 
 server. 
 
 Recollect, too, that we said good wine, as well as 
 wine in moderation. Not logwood wine, nor wine with 
 the fruity flavor imparted by burned cockroaches, nor 
 yet whiskey wine, nor doctored wine of any sort, but 
 the good, pure juice of the grape, pulpy and juicy, 
 luscious and sparkling, an inspirer as well as a consoler 
 and comforter, a friend to cheer one and to warm his 
 soul with big thoughts and sentiments. Such wines 
 can be made even now ; they are made by the millions 
 of gallons on the sunny banks of our great western 
 rivers. And the more of them there are made, the bet- 
 ter will be the result for the nation at large. They 
 will help to drive out stupefying and brutalizing excess 
 faster than any other means. Their manufacture, in 
 fact, is but the first step in purification where purifica- 
 tion is chiefly needed ; and out of that self-same step 
 proceeds reform of the most hopeful, because thorough 
 and substantial, character. 
 
34 THE KAMEOD BROKEN. 
 
 V. 
 
 OUE TRIED ARTICLE OF FAITH. 
 
 WE entertain still further ideas upon this subject, 
 and proceed to submit them thus : 
 
 We believe human beings to be at least capable of 
 self-government ; and that, as a necessary consequence, 
 the less legislation one can get along with, the better ; 
 and that, if even one tenth part of the time and money 
 had been devoted to the thorough and much-needed 
 purification of spirits, that has been spent in the vain 
 endeavors to destroy it as an article either of use or 
 commerce, we should have vastly more real, true, reli- 
 able, and consistent temperance men about us than 
 we have at the present day. 
 
 Now, there is a great deal more in this than we sup- 
 pose any mere fanatics, or credulous partisans, who 
 follow their leaders blindly through hedge and through 
 ditch, will be gracious enough to allow. But we 
 care little enough whether such men are willing to 
 admit there is sense in an opponent's statements and 
 arguments, or not. Truth, thank God, does not de- 
 pend upon the present condition of this or that man's 
 prejudices ; it is self-sustaining, relying on itself alone. 
 And whether we are ready to come over to the side of 
 the truth to-day, or are determined obstinately to hold 
 
OUR THIRD ARTICLE OF FAITH. 35 
 
 out till to-morrow, it makes no difference ; the truth 
 does not suffer, only ourselves. 
 
 Let us look at the first branch of our proposition. 
 Are human beings capable of self-government, or are 
 they not ? If not, then say so at once, and resolve 
 government back into its elements of aristocracy, mon- 
 archy, and despotism. Tear away your banners, and 
 badges, and false emblazonments, that proclaim this 
 land to be, in any sense, a land of freedom, and this 
 people a free people. Run down your flags, stars, 
 stripes, and all. Let us at least not pretend to be free, 
 while we are crouching, trembling slaves. Let us no 
 longer play at freedom, like mere children, while we 
 are all the time afraid to take the charge of our own 
 personal liberties. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, men are capable of self- 
 government, then we ask that the theory be thoroughly 
 tried. It is time that ambitious and wrong-headed 
 reformers so called by themselves should give 
 place to the people themselves ; that they should cease 
 trying to blindfold that people, and lead them around 
 by the nose. We say not a syllable against their giving 
 the masses all the instruction they are competent and 
 qualified to give ; but to attempt to force the masses 
 by any thumb-screw process, as they used to do in the 
 days of the devilish Inquisition, is a great deal more 
 than merely preposterous. 
 
 There are two sorts of tyranny in a free country, or 
 a country nominally free the tyranny of a bigotry, 
 or fanaticism, that means only to carry out its own 
 
36 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 purposes, and those purposes the moulding, and shap- 
 ing, and directing public sentiment, even against its 
 own wish and will, and when it amounts to nothing 
 higher than offensive prejudice; and that other tyr- 
 anny, not more odious or fearful, nor any more dan- 
 gerous to the liberties and general well-being of the 
 masses, the tyranny of a howling mob ; set on to 
 their blind work, too, by men who affect purity, and 
 sobriety, and goodness, and who employ these hollow 
 and temporary professions only to excite the masses to 
 do their own selfish work. The one kind of tyranny 
 is cold-blooded, soulless, chilling, and killing to any 
 nation ; the other is a fiery tempest, a perpetual erup- 
 tion of volcanic flames, revolution without end, a 
 never-ending overturning without a purpose. Bigots 
 control and shape the one, and ambitious men the 
 other. It is well for the people to see to it that neither 
 gains a permanent ascendency. 
 
 Now, if it be admitted that, in this country at least, 
 men are capable of what is generally thought to be 
 self-government, we insist, on behalf of the people to 
 whom this concession is granted, that they be permit- 
 ted to practise a little upon their rights. We declare, 
 on their behalf, and in their name, that neither bigots 
 nor tricky legislators neither self-opinionated and 
 narrow-minded fanatics, nor selfish and plotting poli- 
 ticians shall be allowed to take this right of self-gov- 
 ernment out of their hands. The first seek to do it 
 by telling the people, in solemn phrase and melancholy 
 voice, that they know better than every body else ; that 
 
OUR THIRD ARTICLE OF FAITH. 37 
 
 they have gone farther into the matter, have thought 
 more about it, and have been able to arrive at better 
 conclusions, than themselves ; the last seek to do it 
 by getting control of the government machinery, at 
 first in towns and villages, and then in entire States ; 
 using their heartless professions on behalf of straight 
 morality as a lever, by which to pry up the forces of 
 government, and advance nothing but their own per- 
 sonal aims and ends. Hence, were the former to have 
 their own way without check or curtailment, they 
 would very soon destroy their power by its very im- 
 practicability ; they would prove palpably enough the 
 indescribable folly of intrusting power to the hands of 
 mere theorizers, and idle dreamers, and talking vaga- 
 rists. And it is seen, too, that as soon as the latter 
 obtain control of the government, and are in full pos- 
 session of the machinery whose use is what they were 
 in quest of, they readily forget all their zeal and loud- 
 sounding professions on behalf of certain grand moral 
 principles, and become as dead to the further operation 
 of those principles as if they had never heard that they 
 existed. 
 
 Almost every body admits that we are legislated 
 nearly to death. It is the easiest thing in the world to 
 go to the " General Court," for intellectual capital is 
 not the article chiefly in demand when candidates are 
 hunted after, or selected from. Collect a body of sev- 
 eral hundred uneasy, blindly aspiring, notoriety-seek- 
 ing, uninstructed, and unreflecting men into a single 
 legislature, and the likelihood is, that if they are 
 4 
 
38 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 cooped up together long enough, they will begin to do 
 mischief. They must go to tinkering ; and not finding 
 the tools to work with, which are to be had at their 
 hand at home, they work with such as the State fur- 
 nishes them. Ambitious leaders, themselves acted on 
 by another influence, and not seeing either calmly or 
 clearly, begin to manipulate them ; tell them what the 
 " awakened moral sense " of the community demands 
 at this epoch of time, and in the middle of this much 
 abused nineteenth century ; declare to them that all 
 moral reforms, to be thorough and permanent, must 
 be supported by the force and authority of the laws, 
 which is an open and designed untruth, since public 
 morality has ever made its way above law, without the 
 assistance of legal authority, and entirely clear of the 
 spirit that gives to laws their only vitality and char- 
 acter. 
 
 So the would-be honest, half-blind, and altogether 
 unreflecting body of our legislators have allowed them- 
 selves to be used by these leaders, who, in their turn, 
 affect to represent and speak for the higher moral 
 sentiment of the community ; and it is to be thought- 
 fully observed, too, that the more earnestly they claim 
 to be the peculiar friends and defenders of morality, 
 the more rigorous, bigoted, uncharitable, tyrannical, 
 and thoroughly fm-moral become the statutes with 
 which they experiment from year to year upon the 
 public temper. 
 
 If our legislators knew better for what they are 
 summoned every year to the State capitols, they would 
 
OUR THIRD ARTICLE OP FAITH. 39 
 
 be a great deal less likely to occupy their time with 
 these odious, impracticable, fanatical, and bigoted laws 
 that now encumber the statute book, set whole com- 
 munities by the ears that were hitherto at peace, and 
 materially retard the real progress of the reforms of 
 the time. Satan, as in the old hymn we learned in 
 our youth, still finds some mischief for " idle hands to 
 do." If it is not one thing, it is another. If it is not 
 in Church, it is in State. And since the constitutions 
 of our several States, as well as of our common coun- 
 try, interdict the interference of legislatures with mat- 
 ters of religion, the latter vent their spite on the inter- 
 diction by meddling with the morals. Matters of 
 conscience are presumed to be untouched, so far as 
 worshipping God is concerned ; but when it comes to 
 what one thinks he ought, or ought not, to drink , 
 ah, it is an altogether different affair. 
 
 The less legislation we have, the better for us. No- 
 body, who has ever observed and reflected much on 
 this subject, will pretend to dispute it. The fact is, 
 we require little more than great principles to respect, 
 as citizens of a single commonwealth ; a multiplicity 
 of rules, in the form of statutes, perplexes, confuses, 
 begets contradictions, and engenders disrespect. Over- 
 government is full as bad as no-government. Where 
 you have your statute books crammed and stuffed with 
 enactments, they necessarily require tinkering and 
 cobbling every successive year ; the execution of any 
 of them is rendered so precarious and uncertain as to 
 subject them all to a species of contempt, which, in its 
 
40 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 turn, grows bolder and more open every year. Then 
 one statute varies with another, or contradicts it out- 
 right ; or one clause of one act militates with another 
 clause of another act ; and between two such stools, 
 the original purpose and intent of the framers falls 
 squat upon the floor. And again, the more legislation 
 there is had, the more there must be ; the more need- 
 less excitement there is in the community, for the 
 one body acts upon the other ; and the less likely are 
 the people at large to understand the spirit, the prin- 
 ciples, or the true purposes of the statutes with which 
 their willing backs are saddled. 
 
 Temperance legislation, to the extent to which it has 
 of recent years been pushed by designing and reckless 
 men, has shown itself a perfect failure. We make the 
 assertion with a full knowledge of its meaning. We 
 point to the failure of temperance laws to diminish the 
 consumption of the article, to secure their own impar- 
 tial execution, to win the solid respect of the commu- 
 nity for either their intrinsic wisdom or practicability, 
 to help the cause of temperance itself, or to aid the 
 progress of reform and personal purification. We 
 point to the confessions of candid temperance legisla- 
 tors themselves, to those who have looked deep and 
 seen far into the subject, who now admit with perfect 
 freedom that the law can do nothing to help on a moral 
 cause with its rigid authority, against which all men 
 alike are given by nature to protest, but that re- 
 course must be had once more to suasion and argu- 
 ment, to instruction and sympathy, to example and to 
 
OUR THIRD ARTICLE OP FAITH. 41 
 
 precept. In fact, they even agree that ground has 
 been lost by the hazardous and unadvised experiment, 
 which it will take a long time, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, for them to recover. 
 
 What we are going to add to these remarks is simply 
 this : that if as much time, and labor, and expense had 
 been given to the purification of wines and spirits, and 
 to securing the proper and licensed sale of only those 
 wines and spirits that were purified, as has been given 
 to wrangling, and confusion, and heated passions, and 
 selfish plans and projects, and fanatical denunciation, 
 a vast deal more would have been done for the cause 
 of temperance and morals than has been done already, 
 and a larger measure of charity and love would have 
 existed to sweeten the present character of society. 
 This is even so. Poor liquors have raised up enemies 
 even to the cause of temperance, where, had the liquors 
 used been pure and unadulterated, the same enemies 
 would have been consistent and determined friends. 
 
 Suppose theorists begin and test the value of their 
 theories by well-ascertained facts like these. "What 
 would be the possible harm, if they came out of their 
 card houses and tried the rough airs of common life ? 
 Even if they do not yet fully know the foregoing to be 
 facts, is there not reason enough for their pausing to 
 soberly investigate for themselves whether they are, or 
 not ? If, however, they still persist in refusing, they 
 place themselves in the position of persons who think 
 to, first, erect their pet theory, and then force the rest 
 of the world to jam and squeeze themselves into it. 
 4* 
 
42 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 If the truth is all they want, and their desire is only to 
 advance the highest interests of society and the human 
 race, they will not refuse first to investigate and estab- 
 lish facts, let them support their preconceived theories 
 or not. And that is all we ask of them. They ask 
 as much of us, and we are ready to answer to their 
 appeal. 
 
THE LICENSE SYSTEM. 43 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE LICENSE SYSTEM. 
 
 WE entertain another idea about this business, an 
 idea that is based upon nothing but the experience of 
 society in reference to the sale and use of ardent spirits, 
 and upon what, all things considered, is the only prac- 
 tical system that can be put' and kept in operation. 
 That idea is just this : 
 
 That since it has been shown, and admitted on all 
 sides, to be an impossibility to prevent the manufac- 
 ture, sale, and use of spirituous liquors, it is proper 
 and prudent that their sale be intrusted to the respon- 
 sibility of any good men, who shall be authorized and 
 privileged to sell only such productions as are pure 
 and unadulterated, and to only such persons as will 
 make a proper use of them. 
 
 This plan, of course, includes and provides for all 
 the necessary restrictions ; such as that, for example, 
 of furnishing sufficient bonds for the proper use of the 
 privilege, which is the first general restriction which 
 any community would be likely to impose. We under- 
 stand at once with what sort of nap-worn objections 
 this license plan is met, such as, that it only proves 
 the right to prohibit by the same arguments that it 
 claims the right to license, and others of equal force 
 
44 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 and consistency. But those objections have every one 
 of them been answered, long ago. It is easy to reca- 
 pitulate the replies, rejoinders, and rebutters ; but to 
 what end ? If a case is but fairly stated, especially 
 a case of this character, all argument upon it seems 
 to be thrown away ; it is ammunition wasted ; the rea- 
 sons proffered possess no sort of living force, let them 
 be ever so conclusive, but are as dead as hay. 
 
 A traffic may be licensed and regulated with perfect 
 consistency, and yet be protected from the assaults of 
 those who demand its absolute prohibition. That is 
 plain to every one. It is nowise inconsistent for legis- 
 lative bodies to set about regulating a traffic in articles 
 which they have no authority or right to prohibit. 
 They who argue from the one to the other, argue with- 
 out a proper understanding of the subject. To set 
 limits to any kind of trade is perfectly legitimate and 
 proper, on the part of legislatures ; but to positively 
 prohibit a trade that has its foundations in the inalien- 
 able rights of persons, rights that are every where 
 recognized, too, by the laws, being no less than the 
 rights of property, is pushing the theory considerably 
 farther than it will fairly go. And so it will at all 
 times be found. It has been so in the past, and will 
 continue to be so in the future. Much as the world 
 acknowledges its need of reformation and purification, 
 it will never consent to sacrifice a single one of its fun- 
 damental rights to secure such reforms, on the basis 
 proposed by mere theorizers. It will unequivocally re- 
 fuse to place its dearest interests and inalienable privi- 
 
THE LICENSE SYSTEM. 45 
 
 leges in the hands of a few men, not better qualified 
 than the mass, who pretend that with themselves alone 
 rests the progress, or salvation, of the community. 
 
 That spirits, of one kind and another, will continue 
 to be manufactured, nobody, who has a head on his 
 shoulders and knows at the same time what is in it, 
 will presume to question. Spirits have always been an 
 article of commerce, within and between nations, and 
 it is very probable they always will be ; at least, so long 
 as our generation lasts, and the one that is likely to 
 come after ; -and since they form a staple of trade and 
 commerce, they will be produced by the vine-grower 
 and the distiller ; just as long as there is a demand for 
 them on the part of the community, just so long they 
 will continue to be manufactured. The law of demand 
 and supply holds as steadily in this matter as in all 
 others. 
 
 Now, there may be one way by which it is possible 
 to cut off the production, and but a single one that we 
 can think of; and that is, by cutting off the demand. 
 Once destroy that, and the problem is solved in no 
 time. Only put a stop to the taste, thirst, desire or 
 whatever you choose to style it for wines, spirits, and 
 liquors of the various sorts, and you have overset the 
 entire system of manufacture, together with its broad- 
 spreading ramifications of purchase and sale, which 
 visibly assist in the aggregate of trade and commerce. 
 But how are you going to stop the demand ? That is 
 the question ; and it pinches as hard as any other ques- 
 tion that a professed reformer could have put to him. 
 
46 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Well, he directly answers, we will stop it by cutting 
 off the supply. Ah ! but this is the wrong way to go 
 to work ! This is only attempting, and attempting in 
 vain, too, a reversal of the laws of nature. You begin 
 at the wrong end, sir ! The plan will not be found to 
 work. The thing cannot be done. If, however, you 
 insist in carrying forward your attempt, convinced of 
 the final efficacy of a theory which, of all others, looks 
 most impracticable and unpromising even on paper, 
 there is but one resort left you by which you are to 
 accomplish it ; and that is by actual, naked, unqualified 
 force. In the first place, you will be obliged to tell 
 people that they must change their, tastes ; must make 
 up their minds not to drink wine or spirits at all ; must 
 agree to confess themselves fools and drunkards here- 
 tofore, and timid converts to your particular theory 
 now. You must make them turn a short corner in 
 their lives, such as they never turned before, and cannot, 
 and will not, turn even now. You must effect such a 
 radical change in their physical, yes, and in their spir- 
 itual natures, too, that they will scarcely be conscious 
 afterwards of their own identity. You must, in fact, 
 teach them what they do not now know, and what they 
 will be very certain to forget just as soon as they do 
 know it, that the use of spirits and wines is hurtful 
 to them in even moderate quantities, and that to taste 
 is contamination. 
 
 And then, after you have succeeded in setting up 
 such a theory in the prejudices and fears, rather than 
 in the intelligent minds, of men, you are compelled to 
 
THE LICENSE SYSTEM. 47 
 
 sustain and support it by stringent, irrational, vindic- 
 tive, and thoroughly hateful legislative enactments. 
 In other words, your ideas of the crime and sin of using 
 liquor in any shape are to be backed up, and put in 
 operation, by the sheer force of law, acting alone, op- 
 posed both to the instinctive and traditionary convic- 
 tions of the human mind, generating a class of spies, 
 and eaves-droppers, and men of mean malice, to assist 
 in carrying it out into even imperfect execution. 
 
 And this is the only solitary method by which the 
 sale and supply of liquors can hope to be stopped, 
 by cutting off the demand. And the success of attempts 
 of this character in certain localities, in the past, may 
 be taken as a basis on which to predicate the probable 
 success of similar attempts in the future. Let those 
 who have enjoyed a not over-promising experience in 
 this direction come forward now and say what, in their 
 candid estimation, are the chances of success for similar 
 attempts hereafter. 
 
 Granting, therefore, as it must be granted by those 
 who pretend to any practical knowledge of the subject, 
 that spirits are, and always will be, one object of de- 
 mand and use by the community, to whatsoever state 
 of religious exaltation and civilized refinement they 
 may have arrived, it is only necessary that we should 
 consult common sense in a matter of so general inter- 
 est, and pursue such a course as that always safe and 
 wholesome adviser would suggest. And what does 
 common sense direct us to do ? Why, nothing more 
 nor less than this ; that since spirits are an article of 
 
48 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 universal use, and are likely always to be such an ar- 
 ticle, their sale may be restricted within proper limits, 
 but not entirely prohibited.. This last is more than 
 the sense of the community is willing to endure. No* 
 body wants to be made a teetotaller by violence, any 
 more than he is ready to subscribe to any particular 
 creed in consequence of compulsion. 
 
 Regulate and restrict, but do not try to prohibit. 
 You may safely hope to do the first, because the moral 
 sense of the community will sustain you in it ; but as 
 for the other, it is like kicking against the pricks, 
 It is too sweeping an operation for human nature tc 
 submit to. 
 
 Then there should be a thorough and efficient license 
 system. That we subscribe to with all our heart, be- 
 cause it is, first, practicable, and, secondly, right ; and 
 better reasons cannot be had for the asking. Construct 
 a license law that will, in the first place, so fairly and 
 fully embody the moral sentiment of the people, and, 
 in the next place, so perfectly harmonize with the co- 
 related rights of individuals and the community at 
 large, that its execution becomes perfectly possible and 
 practicable. Let it be what the public, in the first 
 place, demands ; what will truly express its sense of 
 justice, its progressive tendencies, its reformatory incli- 
 nations. Then see to it that such a law is duly exe- 
 cuted, as it very easily can be. Clothe only respectable 
 and responsible men in the community with the privi- 
 leges which the license confers. Subject them to se- 
 vere penalties for breach of any one of the conditions 
 
THE LICENSE SYSTEM. 49 
 
 on which their license is held by them. Require them 
 to give ample, and more than ample, bonds for the safe 
 and proper use of the privilege thus intrusted to them. 
 Mulct them in heavy, and even exemplary damages, if 
 they should happen to so far forget their responsibility 
 as to sell to improper persons, or in improper quanti- 
 ties, or under improper circumstances. Require them, 
 also, to keep for sale none but the piirest and best of 
 liquors, and to sell those of any other description at 
 their peril. And then, give the system the convenient 
 form of a general law, or enactment, like the free bank- 
 ing laws of some of the States, so that they who are 
 willing to comply with the specific conditions of the 
 same, are not denied the corresponding privileges. Let 
 any town of a State license any number of its citizens 
 or not, as it sees fit for itself; it may thus be a matter 
 for the people themselves directly to settle, as it mani- 
 festly should be. 
 
 This plan, so simple and direct, while it does not in 
 any way invade or even impair the rights of individuals 
 to such property as the laws every where recognize, 
 and tax, and protect, or did protect until recently, 
 likewise has tender regard for the spirit of reform that 
 pervades the body of the people, and goes forward with 
 that noble spirit just as fast as it can go. It does violence 
 to no right or healthy and well-grounded interest of 
 the individual ; and yet it does assist, and in the most 
 effectual manner, too, in carrying forward those proper 
 reforms that serve to mark the steady advance of the 
 race. By its very moderation it makes friends and 
 5 
 
50 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 inspires general confidence. It is so firm, while it is so 
 just ; it is so thorough, while it is also so considerate. 
 Experience abundantly shows that nothing more than 
 this need be attempted in this generation, if those who 
 project it desire rather the sure and steady exaltation 
 of the people, than the building up of a reckless partisan 
 power for ends purely selfish, and full of mischief to 
 the community. 
 
IN MODERATION, 51 
 
 VII. 
 
 IN MODERATION. 
 
 THERE are more drunkards to-day, with all the anti- 
 license, Maine Law, prohibitory feeling, than there were 
 before stringent legislative enactments were mistakenly 
 supposed to be the cure-all for drunkenness. As Gov- 
 ernor Seymour, of New York, expressed it, when the 
 Maine Law came into operation, rum became of neces- 
 sity a " pocket institution." Every body had it about 
 them ; if not in their pockets literally, then in their 
 houses, or their offices, or in sly and out-of-the-way 
 places. We know of many and many a man who 
 thought it necessary to lay in a stock before the law 
 went into operation, and who became a confirmed 
 drunkard not a very long while afterwards, filling a 
 drunkard's grave. 
 
 They laid in a liberal store, for the fear that they 
 were to have no opportunities of getting more ; and 
 not being accustomed to the use of it, self-restraint was 
 very soon broken over, and they went down. It was 
 one of the most natural results of the operation of 
 such a law. To be sure, its friends and advocates 
 plead for a fair trial of it, saying that these early ex- 
 cesses and misfortunes were to be expected ; but if any 
 law whatever is to put in jeopardy the health or hap- 
 
52 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 piness of even a single human being, merely for the 
 sake of testing itself as an experiment, it is not enti- 
 tled to a moment's consideration. It is to be con- 
 demned and denounced on that one ground alone ; 
 and that is ground enough. 
 
 Spirits may be used in moderation, and with perfect 
 safety ; and it is nonsense to harp on the old string, 
 that to taste, ever so prudently, is certain ruin. It 
 never was so, and it never will be so. Such deplora- 
 ble consequences come not of the use of good liquors 
 and a healthy public sentiment respecting their use ; 
 but only from the destroying adulterations that are 
 sold for good liquors, and from that wrong-headed 
 public opinion that drives a man to the practice of 
 hypocrisy in order to do what it is perfectly proper for 
 him to do, and persecutes him with all imaginable bit- 
 terness and virulence if he dares defy the tyranny of 
 such a shallow pretension. It is not the fault of the 
 spirits at all, but of the poisoned stuff called spirits, 
 and the insanity of public prejudice that refuses to 
 look at things as they should be. 
 
 It appears, if we are at the pains to consider it care- 
 fully, that most of the first minds and noblest spirits 
 of the country are in the habit of using spirits and 
 wines moderately ; but such has latterly been the 
 rabies of the community on the subject, lashed up as 
 the public mind has been by aspiring leaders and fren- 
 zied monomaniacs, that they have been compelled, in 
 pure self-defence, to keep their own secret, and liter- 
 ally drink behind the door ! They are good enough 
 
IN MODERATION. 53 
 
 men till it is known they " drink," and then, nothing 
 is bad enough to say about them. 
 
 Let us give examples, here and there. 
 
 The " New York Tribune " is a strong arguer for 
 prohibition, and always has been ; yet it is well known, 
 to those at least who know any thing about it, that the 
 majority of its writers make an habitual use of stimu- 
 lants. We charge it not against them at all, for we 
 consider it entirely their own business, not ours ; but 
 we state it simply as a fact, from which those who fall 
 down at the feet of the advocates of prohibition may 
 be able to make some inferences of their own. 
 
 Dr. Holmes, the immortal " Autocrat of the Break- 
 fast Table," says in an article in the February number 
 of the "Atlantic Monthly," while discoursing most 
 genially and most philosophically, too, on the subject 
 of wine, as follows : 
 
 " Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or dis- 
 advantages of wine and I, for one, except for certain 
 particular ends, believe in water, and, I blush to say 
 it, in black tea there is no doubt about its being the 
 grand specific against dull dinners. A score of people 
 come together in all moods of mind and body. The 
 problem is, in the space of one hour, more or less, to 
 bring them all into the same condition of slightly ex- 
 alted life. Food alone is enough for one person, per- 
 haps talk, alone, for another ; but the grand equal- 
 izer and fraternizer, which works up the radiators to 
 their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their 
 maximum receptivity, is now just where it was when 
 5* 
 
54 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 ' The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed,* 
 
 when six great vessels containing water, which 
 seems to have been carefully purified, so as to be ready 
 for the marriage feast, were changed into the best of 
 wine. I once wrote a song about wine, in which I 
 spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraid some would 
 think it was written inter pocula ; whereas it was com- 
 posed in the bosom of my family, under the most tran- 
 quillizing domestic influences. 
 
 " The divinity student turned towards me, looking 
 mischievous. ' Can you tell me,' he said, 6 who wrote 
 a song for a temperance celebration once, of which the 
 following is a verse ? 
 
 Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair 
 The joys of the banquet to chasten and share ! 
 Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, 
 And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine ! ' " 
 
 " 4 1 did,' I answered. < What are you going to do 
 about it ? I will tell you another line I wrote long 
 ago 
 
 Don't be " consistent" but be simply true. 9 " 
 
 The " Autocrat " is perfectly right. He is a man 
 who has a deep insight into the mysteries of human 
 nature, too. Our half-fledged legislators, who under- 
 stand no more of the workings of the human heart 
 than they do of comets' tails, think man is like a mul- 
 tiplication table, square all round, and readily ciphered 
 out by any patent process ; they only display their 
 own mixed ignorance and presumption, and these 
 
IN MODERATION. 55 
 
 two things are almost always found to go together, 
 when they try their ill-considered experiments upon 
 the community. The community are a very patient 
 body, however, and are perfectly willing to give the 
 fledgling legislators a chance ; by-and-by, however, 
 they will take these things into their own hands, as 
 they manifestly should have done long ago. 
 
 Mr. J. G. Holland, one of the editors of the " Spring- 
 field Republican," and the author of " Timothy Tit- 
 comb's Letters," "The Bay Path," and a writer of 
 most genial and engaging qualities, in a lecture recent- 
 ly spoken before the Lyceums of our principal cities, 
 alludes in this way to the natural effect of wine as an 
 opener of men's hearts, a potent mollifier of their 
 prejudices, a cement of friendships, and a prolific 
 producer of beautiful thoughts : 
 
 " Go to a dinner party. You find every one con- 
 strained, and evidently feeling awkward. The crack 
 of the wine-bottle is heard, and when the Heidsick has 
 completed the grand tour, every tongue is loosed. A 
 social atmosphere has been created by artificial means. 
 The northern and north-eastern portions of our coun- 
 try have lost much of their sociability, and, I regret to 
 say, said Dr. Holland, that I think it is because liquors 
 have been banished from the sideboard and the tavern. 
 But I do not speak of these changes to advocate rum 
 drinking by no means." 
 
 We will append in this place the song of Dr. 
 Holmes, the same with whose authorship the " divin- 
 ity student " taunted him, as described above by him- 
 
56 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 self. It is entitled " A Song of Other Times," and is 
 as follows : 
 
 " As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet 
 
 Breathes soft the Alpine rose, 
 So through life's desert, springing sweet, 
 
 The flower of friendship grows ; 
 And as, where'er the roses grow, 
 
 Some rain or dew descends, 
 Tis Nature's law that wine should flow 
 
 To wet the lips of friends. 
 
 Then once again, before we part, 
 
 My empty glass shall ring ; 
 And he that has the warmest heart 
 
 Shall loudest laugh and sing. 
 
 " They say we were not born to eat ; 
 
 But gray-haired sages think 
 It means Be moderate in your meat, 
 
 And partly live to drink ; 
 For baser tribes the rivers flow, 
 
 That know not wine or song ; 
 Man wants but little drink below, 
 
 But wants that little strong. 
 
 "If one bright drop is like the gem 
 
 That decks a monarch's crown, 
 One goblet holds a diadem 
 
 Of rubies melted down ! 
 A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, 
 
 But, like the Egyptian queen, 
 Bid each dissolving jewel glow 
 
 My thirsty lips between. 
 
 " The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, 
 
 Are silent when we call, 
 Yet still the purple grapes return 
 To cluster on the wall ; 
 
IN MODERATION. 57 
 
 It was a bright immortal's head 
 
 They circled with the vine, 
 And o'er their best and bravest dead 
 
 They poured the dark-red wine. 
 
 " Methinks o'er every sparkling glass 
 
 Young Eros waves his wings, 
 And echoes o'er its dimples pass 
 
 From dead Ana cr eon's strings ; 
 And, tossing round its beaded brim 
 
 Their locks of floating gold, 
 With bacchant dance and choral hymn 
 
 Return the nymphs of old. 
 
 " A welcome, then, to joy and mirth, 
 
 From hearts as fresh as ours, 
 To scatter o'er the dust of earth 
 
 Their sweetly-mingled flowers ; 
 'Tis Wisdom's self the cup that fills, 
 
 In spite of Folly's frown, 
 And Nature from her vine- clad hills 
 
 That rains her life-blood down ! 
 
 Then once again, before we part, 
 
 My empty glass shall ring ; 
 And he that has the warmest heart 
 
 Shall loudest laugh and sing." 
 
 A single passage in the above beautiful song of Dr. 
 Holmes will naturally excite in the reader's mind the 
 reflection that he has unconsciously fallen into the 
 same strain of thought with another poet, no less 
 an one than the noble King David. That passage is 
 this : 
 
 " For baser tribes the rivers flow, 
 That know not wine or song," &c. 
 
58 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 David, who was a poet as well as Dr. Holmes, sang 
 in the 104th Psalm, from the 10th to the 15th verse, 
 in the following fine strain : 
 
 " He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run 
 among the hills. 
 
 " They give drink to every beast of the field ; the 
 wild asses quench their thirst. 
 
 " By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their 
 habitation, which sing among the branches. 
 
 " He watereth the hills from his chambers ; the earth 
 is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. 
 
 " He cause th the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
 herb for the service of man ; that he may bring forth 
 food out of the earth ; 
 
 " And wine, that maketh glad the heart of man, and 
 oil, to make his face to shine, and bread, which strength- 
 eneth man's heart." 
 
 According to King David, therefore, water was made 
 chiefly for " wild asses," but wine was made to " make 
 glad the heart of man" We seriously ask bigoted 
 water-drinkers to consider into what company their 
 habits are likely to take them. 
 
 And in this place it may not be inappropriate to 
 allude to a fling that has frequently been indulged in 
 by abstinence stump speakers against those who choose 
 to use wine and spirits, and say nothing about it. 
 The argument is, that no animal will drink, or can be 
 made to drink, any kind of liquor ; from this they 
 take the liberty to charge that those who do use liquor 
 of any kind are worse than brutes. Now, their logic 
 
IN MODERATION. 59 
 
 takes them, properly, to a very different conclusion, 
 which is this : if it proves any thing, it only proves that 
 those who do not drink are like animals ; while those 
 who do, are essentially a different and distinct order 
 of beings ! Is not this even so ? 
 
60 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 TOO MUCH. 
 
 WE make a few extracts from one of the Boston daily 
 papers, expressing every reflecting man's sentiments 
 on the subject of drunkenness. This sin cannot be re- 
 buked in too strong language, nor held up in too vivid 
 coloring to warn the young against its approaching 
 dangers. We only take exception to the position as- 
 sumed by those who think they have discovered a patent 
 process of their own by which drunkenness is to be 
 cured and extirpated from the land, and tell them they 
 never can succeed in their plan by the way they have 
 set about it. 
 
 The newspaper quotations are as follows : 
 " When man revolted against his Maker, his passions 
 rebelled against himself, and became the worst enemy 
 of the soul. If there be any fertile source of mischief to 
 human life, it is, beyond doubt, the misrule of passion. 
 It is drunken passion which poisons the peace and hap- 
 piness of the family circle, overturns the order of 
 society, and strews the path of life with so many mis- 
 eries as to render it indeed the vale of tears. It has 
 pointed the assassin's dagger and overspread the earth 
 with bloodshed. The black and fierce passions, such 
 as envy, jealousy, and revenge, take their worst influ- 
 
TOO MUCH. 61 
 
 ences from the poisoned bowl. The inordinate use of 
 this soul-destroying beverage has opened the flood- 
 gates of every species of vice and immorality, and has 
 wasted the produce of honest industry a thousand fold 
 more than all other vices combined. Nothing chaste 
 or holy has ever been connected with the unrestrained 
 use of intoxicating liquors. It makes a maiden lay by 
 her veil and robe, which modesty and becoming shame 
 made her keep close about her, and in an evil and un- 
 guarded hour her virtue and chastity are gone forever. 
 Under the influence of intoxicating liquor many excel- 
 lent personages have suffered great calamities. In- 
 stances of this are frequent in the Bible, and in profane 
 
 history. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Drunkenness is ind,eed the agency of hell, as 
 through its influence the arch fiend, the declared en- 
 emy of God and man, is to a greater extent more suc- 
 cessful in frustrating the plan of universal redemption, 
 by bringing about the- destruction of the greatest num- 
 ber of souls. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Sobriety is the bridle of the passion of desire, and 
 temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle. Glut- 
 tony is the twin relative of drunkenness, and produces 
 the pain of watching and choler. Gluttony is more 
 uncharitable to the body, and drunkenness to the soul, 
 or the understanding part of man. c Take heed to 
 yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged 
 with surfeiting and drunkenness.' Surfeiting, that is 
 6 
 
62 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 the evil effects, the sottislmess and remaining stupidity 
 of habitual or last night's drunkenness. ' While men 
 think themselves wise they become fools.' They think 
 they shall taste the aconite, and not die ; or crown 
 their heads with the juice of poppy and not be drowsy ; 
 and if they drink off the whole vintage,' still think they 
 can swallow another goblet. 
 
 " In all ages of the world drunkenness has been de- 
 tested by every class of people under heaven. All 
 nations, however sunk in barbarism, have ever been 
 unanimous in striving to foot out from among them this 
 detestable vice. The faith of the Mahometans forbids 
 them to drink wine, and they abstain religiously as the 
 sons of Rechab. The rulers of the Athenians were ac- 
 customed to place a drunken person in the midst of 
 their young men, that, by his disgraceful conduct and 
 foolish behavior, they might forever after loathe and 
 detest such a shameless sin. And the faith of Christ 
 forbids drunkenness to us, and therefore is infinitely 
 more powerful to suppress this vice, when we consider 
 that iv e are Christians , and that drunkards can never 
 inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 " The evil consequences of drunkenness are in this 
 sense reckoned by writers of Holy Scripture and other 
 wise personages of the world. It causeth woes and 
 mischief, wounds, sorrow, sin, and shame ; it maketh 
 bitterness of spirit, brawling, and quarrelling ; it in- 
 creaseth rage and lesseneth strength ; it particularly ad- 
 ministereth to lust, and yet disablcth the body ; it maketh 
 red eyes, a red face, and a loose and babbling tongue ; 
 
TOO MUCH. 63 
 
 and Solomon, in enumerating the evils of this vice, 
 adds this to the account: 'Thine eyes shall behold 
 strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse 
 things.' It besots and hinders the actions of the un- 
 derstanding, maketh a man brutish in his passions and 
 a fool in his reason, and differs nothing from madness 
 but that it is voluntary, and so is an equal evil in na- 
 ture, and worse in manners. It extinguisheth and 
 quenches the Spirit of God, for no man can be filled 
 witli the Spirit of God and with wine at the same time, 
 and therefore St. Paul makes them exclusive of each 
 other. 6 Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but 
 be filled with the Spirit.' It opens all the sanctuaries 
 of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the soul, all 
 its weaknesses and follies ; it multiplies sins and dis- 
 covers them, makes a man incapable of being a private 
 friend or a public counsellor, and disqualifies him from 
 any situation of trust or responsibility. It taketh a 
 man's soul into slavery and imprisonment more than 
 any other vice whatsoever, because it disarms a man 
 of all his reason and his wisdom, whereby he might 
 be cured, and therefore it commonly grows upon him 
 with age ; a drunkard being still more a fool and 
 less a man. I need not add any more sad examples, 
 since all history of all ages has but too many of 
 them." 
 
 The writer speaks earnestly and with perfect truth. 
 It is impossible to paint the vice of drunkenness in too 
 frightful colors. It is a terrible infliction indeed, and 
 comes of lack of self-restraint, of partaking too statedly, 
 
64 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 and of too much. No man should surrender his self- 
 control. But because men do, and perhaps in this 
 matter in great numbers, does it therefore follow that 
 the fault is in the liquor rather than in themselves ? 
 Is this pretended reform movement to be conducted on 
 the principle that a man is a nothing, capable of no 
 self-control, and with no character, no manhood, when 
 temptation is by ? and hence, that in order to reform 
 and renovate the man, the temptation is to be removed, 
 rather than the man taught to set himself above the 
 temptation ? What sort of a reform is that in which 
 the individual undergoes no change, only the temp- 
 tations are taken away from him, and he is free from 
 vice because he cannot put vicious instruments under 
 contribution ? Is this life ? Is it not rather making 
 live men over into dead men ? paralyzing the force of 
 their will, weakening their powers of resistance, 
 and taking away from them every motive for a more 
 perfect self-control ? So it looks to us, certainly ; and 
 so we are willing to prophesy the public will come in 
 time to confess it, however tightly that public may be 
 bound up in the iron bands of prejudice and vicious 
 self-will, just at this present time. 
 
 We desire the reader to mark our prediction. 
 
 Better refuse utterly to taste spirits of any sort, than 
 drink immoderately. Every man can tell what his 
 own temperament is for himself. Nobody else has a 
 license to set up authority over him. In fact, the mo- 
 ment you abridge a man's freedom, even to pursue evil 
 if he likes, and abridge it by throwing around him 
 
TOO MUCH. 65 
 
 restraints of this sort and that, or by taking every thing 
 that bears the name of temptation out of his way, 
 that moment you make a moral cripple of him, and in 
 no sense a better and a stronger man. The Almighty 
 himself has, as we have shown from the Scripture 
 record, left the choice entirely open to all alike, and 
 out of the conflict alone can finally proceed the victory. 
 He pretends to make no man virtuous by compulsion, 
 or yet by placing him beyond the reach of vice ; for 
 that would imply the possession of such negative virtue 
 as, we fear, would give an individual but a very nar- 
 row claim to positive goodness. 
 
 We might, at least, take a hint from the arrange- 
 ments of Providence, and the harmonious laws of 
 Nature, in the shaping and coloring of our own laws ; 
 neither being at the pains, on the one hand, to force 
 such a state of purity upon the world as would compel 
 men to be virtuous because they are not allowed to 
 know what vice means, nor, on the other, to invade 
 in any way those rights of property and person which, 
 from time immemorial, have been esteemed sacred be- 
 yond disturbance. 
 
 But, as we said before, the sin of drunkenness is one 
 so great and terrible as to call forth naturally the most 
 profound sympathies of mankind for those who are the 
 sad sufferers by it, and excite men to put forth concen- 
 trated exertions, exertions made almost with a " bloody 
 sweat," for its effectual removal. Scarcely any of us 
 all, but, if he or she were to make the confession aloud, 
 would certify to the melancholy truth that gome friend, 
 6* 
 
66 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 or possibly some dear and near relative, has fallen power- 
 less beneath the assaults of the fiend. There is enough, 
 and ten thousand times ten thousand times enough, to 
 appeal to the profoundest sympathies that lie unused 
 in the human heart ; and are we so very certain, then, 
 while the exercise and daily use of these sympathies, 
 these protestations, these pleadings, these warnings, 
 and this final punishment of public scorn and contempt, 
 would be so potent if properly called out into open 
 action, that it is better, and more effective, and pro- 
 ductive of a more stable reform, to call in the force of 
 law, and the authority and violence of statutes conceived 
 in the heat of partisan passion, and so supersede the 
 employment of the diviner qualities, the sympathies 
 and the pleadings, the higher culture and the tender 
 love, altogether? In truth, can drunkenness be 
 cured, effectually cured, by society in any such super- 
 ficial way ? 
 
THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF PROHIBITION. 67 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF PROHIBITION. 
 
 IT has been generally supposed that a free govern- 
 ment expressed freedom from all sorts of tyranny 
 not less from tyrannical men than tyrannical laws; 
 that such laws as characterized free States must of ne- 
 cessity be pervaded with the spirit of the largest liberty ; 
 that all forms of legislation, in fact, in free States, were 
 capable of containing the widest liberty, without degen- 
 erating into wild license. There are other betrayals 
 of tyranny than those which are made by the " one 
 man power," sitting on a throne and holding a sceptre. 
 A legal enactment, framed and indorsed by a profess- 
 edly free people, may contain the real essence of tyran- 
 ny as much as any edict of an autocrat or an emperor. 
 The test is to be found in the spirit of the enactment, 
 rather than in either its origin or form. 
 
 The so-styled "Maine Law," which looks at nothing 
 short of downright, violent, and defiant prohibition both 
 of the sale and use of liquors, is, in our judgment, the 
 very representative of the spirit of tyranny. It was 
 conceived in ideas of authority, and power, and force, 
 and by force, and power, and authority alone it must 
 hope to be executed. One would suppose any such law 
 ought at least to secure the respect of the whole com- 
 
68 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 munity, however much it might militate with the weak- 
 ness and delinquencies of a portion ; but it has proved 
 that it fails even of that. No law was ever written on 
 the pages of the statute books, that called out such a 
 furious excitement of opposition, that generated such 
 animosity and bad blood. It has made, we presume to 
 say, more outright rebels against all forms of law, than 
 it has ever done good ; and this statement of course 
 fails to include the cases of deceit and hypocrisy, the 
 acts of spying, and lying, and eaves-dropping, that have 
 shown themselves to be its legitimate fruit and result. 
 
 A prohibitory statute, like this, is directly in the face 
 of all sound and true constitutional principles ; we 
 mean the organic principles of that constitution upon 
 which rests the fabric of our entire political and social 
 system. For if a despotism like this is to be the con- 
 fessed groundwork of the State, then it must needs 
 follow that the State itself must partake of a similar 
 character. You cannot lay your foundations in a spirit 
 and temper of tyranny, which ceases to regard the 
 rights of others with tenderness and care, and expect 
 the superstructure to offer a free*, and broad, and lib- 
 eral pattern. 
 
 And if the underlying spirit and fundamental prin- 
 ciple of this government of ours, and of the government 
 of each one of the States, is essentially that of freedom, 
 a freedom which allows to every individual citizen 
 the largest latitude for accumulating his own fortune, 
 and progressing step by step to his own widest develop- 
 ment, is it not, we seriously inquire, in direct antag- 
 
THE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY OF PROHIBITION. 69 
 
 onism to that spirit to place laws on the statute books 
 that excite the strongest repulsion on the part of citi- 
 zens of every walk and class, and force them, both 
 openly and by resort, to shifting expedients to set such 
 laws at defiance ? It most assuredly is ; and so all 
 thoughtful and reflecting legislators will in time come 
 to acknowledge. 
 
 If the spirit of our Constitution is in any real sense 
 a free spirit, then such tyrannical enactments are con- 
 fessedly ^^-constitutional ; and this is the sum total of 
 the argument. Under our Constitutions, it is claimed 
 that a man is perfectly free to enjoy himself in his own 
 way ; to eat, drink, and wear exactly what he chooses, 
 just so long as he interferes with none of the rights and 
 jttivileges of any one else. Now, how a man, consist- 
 ently with a doctrine, or principle, like this, is to be 
 told that he shall not buy arid drink wine or spirits at 
 all, so long as he infringes by the act in no way upon 
 the rights of the mass, or of even a single one of 
 the mass, passes our comprehension. And again, and 
 more particularly, how the curtailment by law of an 
 indvidual's power over his own appetites, and only a 
 curtailment in the public eye at that, is going to 
 effect the man's moral reform, or secure any greater 
 rapidity of progress in morals for him, we confess we 
 are not at all able to see. There are those, of course, 
 who can see a great way farther into a millstone than 
 we can ; and we would be glad if such strangely-gifted 
 individuals would give the world the benefit of their 
 superior vision. 
 
70 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 We set ourselves about the quotation of no phrases, 
 such as are to be picked out of the several State Con- 
 stitutions, all, however, only showing the inconsistency 
 between the open guarantees of individual rights set 
 forth in those instruments, and the open defiance offered 
 them by these prohibitory enactments ; that were an 
 altogether needless task. But we plant ourselves upon 
 the position that such laws are in open violation of the 
 vitalizing spirit, the fundamental principle, of these 
 Constitutions ; and that we have shown them to be. 
 Instead of securing to the individual citizen the "largest 
 liberty," of course compatible with the largest lib- 
 erty of others, these statutes deprive him of his liberty 
 altogether. In the case in hand, the individual is not 
 permitted to purchase liquor, lest he may abuse the 
 privilege; and this is what they style, and delude 
 themselves into believing, the freedom of all ! A man's 
 faculties are at first clapped into jail, and then he is 
 told that none are so free as himself! If it were not 
 such a palpable, unmistakable, unendurable tyranny, 
 in itself, it would be the veriest satire on what is com- 
 monly called Free Government the world ever beheld. 
 To make men free from their appetites, it would make 
 them slaves to Law ; and if slaves to Law, then how in 
 any real sense Free ? 
 
 Haste in legislation, especially in mere legislative 
 theories, is always detrimental in the highest degree to 
 the efficiency of the laws enacted. And it is particu- 
 larly true, that it is not safe for legislators to go faster 
 than the state of public sentiment will warrant. For 
 
THE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY OF PROHIBITION. 71 
 
 unless a statute has the ready support of popular opin- 
 ion, it must become either a tyranny, if sought to be 
 put into execution, or a perfectly dead letter. But 
 when the people are assured that a law, like the Maine 
 Law, is in all its essential features an unconstitutional 
 affair, and got up by a pressure of exciting circum- 
 stances, operating upon the minds of well-meaning but 
 really unreflecting men, they will, as a matter of course, 
 be very loth to pay it either obedience or respect. 
 They must needs feel convinced that a law any law 
 has its foundations in the principles of justice, or it 
 of necessity can have no claims upon them. 
 
 And this the Maine Law, as we have both said and 
 shown, has not. It is unconstitutional because it is 
 unjust, and it is unjust because it is unconstitutional. 
 It violates, both in its spirit and its provisions, the 
 principles that lie at the bottom of all free society, or 
 any society that so styles itself. For, to be free, a peo- 
 ple must have individual liberty in all directions, save 
 that alone which trenches on the ground of another ; 
 and if entire curtailment of that personal liberty is 
 called freedom, it strikes us that we have hitherto been 
 all in the dark in reference to the whole subject. Why, 
 let us ask, too, should the morals of a man be profess- 
 edly thought of before his liberty, his freedom ? In- 
 deed, what do his morals amount to, if they never have, 
 and never can stand any test such as temptation has to 
 offer ? And besides, by what patented process shall 
 one set of men, as legislators, tell another set of men, 
 as fellow-citizens of the same Commonwealth, that 
 
72 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 they, the legislators, understand better what is moral 
 than all the rest put together ? Who, after all, has 
 the keeping of the public morals, or of individual mo- 
 rality, that he shall be allowed to say whether it is, or 
 is not, an act of immorality nay, a crime outright 
 for a man to drink a glass of stimulus once, or twice, 
 or three times a day ? 
 
 The truth is, this matter has not yet been looked 
 into as it should be. There are certain radical points 
 about it that have not yet been investigated ; points 
 not merely of constitutionality, but of freedom and of 
 morals. It is not every quack doctor of laws that un- 
 derstands the magnitude or mystery of legislative prin- 
 ciples, any more than it is every quack doctor of medi- 
 cine who understands the principles of the human 
 system. 
 
THE LIQUOR AGENCIES. 73 
 
 X. 
 
 THE LIQUOR AGENCIES. 
 
 IT looks not a little strange, not to say inconsistent, 
 to see men who originally advocated straight-out pro- 
 hibition, now defending the practice of establishing 
 State and Town Agencies for the sale of liquors. They 
 once argued that it was as wrong to sell in one way as 
 in another, and they ridiculed the idea of a " respecta- 
 ble rumseller." On all occasions they contended that 
 it was not the way in which a thing was sold, so much 
 as the thing sold itself. They used to say the sin was 
 in the rum and not in the act of selling, no matter 
 whether it was sold at the Parker House, or in Patrick 
 Murphy's little grocery down in the city cellar. They 
 called all spirituous liquors " devil's broth," making 
 out that our Saviour was in league with the devil and 
 doing the devil's work when he turned water into wine 
 at Cana of .Galilee. They claimed that no one would 
 advocate the use of spirits even for sickness, unless they 
 themselves wanted it to drink on the sly. But a change 
 has taken place, and they say nothing against an 
 "Agency" now. By their own mouths let them be 
 judged and they are proved guilty of taking liquor on 
 the sly. Truly consistency would be a jewel in these 
 times with the advocates of temperance. Now we 
 7 
 
74 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 claim that it is just as wrong to license an agent, 
 whether State or town, as it would be to place a gen- 
 eral enactment on the pages of the statute book, by 
 virtue of which a dozen proper men might be allowed 
 to sell in any town of sufficient size to warrant it. If 
 licensing is to be opposed, so are agencies. There is 
 no material or practical difference. Both mean the 
 same thing. They unite in fact and form, but vary 
 only in degree. A man may be just as respectable 
 while standing behind his own counter and selling 
 liquors to customers that happen in, as if he were 
 transacting the same business on behalf of the State, 
 or town, and receiving his commission from another 
 source. 
 
 We have often stood and looked at these duly-ap- 
 pointed liquor agents, in different places, watching tlie 
 eminent satisfaction and air of authority with which 
 they seemed to be invested, as they dealt out the 
 " liquid damnation " to their eager customers ; and 
 thought to ourselves how differently they would have 
 felt about their business, had they been transacting 
 the business on their own account. It makes great 
 odds whether # man is selling rum for his own account 
 or on account of the State, or town. And why ? Sim- 
 ply because the mind is wont to lift the act into the 
 appearance of respectability when the law authorizes 
 or protects it, showing what moral majesty the law 
 really enjoys among a law-abiding people. 
 
 Now, we argue, if the agency system can thus be 
 made respectable and above reproach by the assistance 
 
THE LIQUOR AGENCIES. 75 
 
 of the State, then a general and proper license system 
 can likewise. Why not ? The prohibitionists are only 
 arguing the matter for us beforehand. Every " origi- 
 nal- package " of liquors these agents sell is but an 
 argument for the sale of similar packages, or even of 
 other packages, by other persons similarly licensed. 
 Who will deny it ? If any body, upon what ground ? 
 Let the ground, then, be stated, and we shall be ready 
 and willing to hear or read all that can be said or 
 written in its support. The fact is, those who have 
 allowed themselves to be carried away with this excite- 
 ment of temperance reform, this mania for making 
 men good whether they would or no, have not stopped 
 to think of this ; they never before saw that all that 
 can be said by them against a proper license system 
 can be said with quite as much force, and even more, 
 against their agency system. But it is even so, and it 
 furnishes another striking proof that men's zeal often- 
 times leads them, by a roundabout course, into the 
 very practices which they set out to denounce and con- 
 demn ! 
 
 But look at the present agency system, as it is op- 
 erated under the Maine Law machinery for making 
 moral men more moral, and saints out of yesterday- 
 drunkards. Look at the Massachusetts agency as a 
 fair and complete illustration. We say nothing of the 
 individual who controls it ; he has said all that even 
 his worst enemy could wish respecting himself, in the 
 little book of personal confessions, called " The Hen 
 Fever." Possibly the Executive of Massachusetts 
 
76 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 considered, in making such an appointment, that he 
 had at last, and for once in his life, succeeded in see- 
 ing " the right man" put into " the right place." 
 
 Do any of the readers of this book remember the 
 complaints that were made against this agent for the 
 sale of liquors in Massachusetts, by a certain town 
 agent in the hither part of Maine, which complaints 
 were made public in the newspapers at the time ? Do 
 our readers recollect, too, the letters of the Massachu- 
 setts agent in reply, in which he stated, in a sort of 
 begging and semi-confidential way, that what was not 
 good out of the lot of champagne sent down from 
 Boston, might be returned, and it should be replaced 
 with better ? Every one who is in the habit of reading 
 the papers will readily recall this spicy correspondence 
 between the Maine town agent and the Massachusetts 
 State agent. From which it plainly appeared that an 
 inferior quality of champagne nothing more harm- 
 ful, probably, than Newark cider had been acciden- 
 tally or otherwise sent to a Maine gentleman, who was 
 himself too good a judge of wine of that stamp to 
 suffer himself to be imposed upon, and who took the 
 earliest opportunity to prevent a fraud upon the com- 
 munity whose agent he was, by refusing to sell them 
 that inferior, if not valueless article. 
 
 The Massachusetts agent came out of the dispute 
 with no new laurels on his head, but, speaking some- 
 what personally, and after his own fashion, perhaps, 
 with his feathers pretty well plucked out. We know 
 very well, from personal observation, what a feeling of 
 
THE LIQUOR AGENCIES. 77 
 
 mortification passed through the ranks of those men 
 who really endeavor to be rational and consistent pro- 
 hibitionists at this unexpected disclosure, and what a 
 general expression of indignation there was that a 
 State agency could, in the hands of big and little poli- 
 ticians, be made the instrument to disgrace the princi- 
 ples they profess to hold dear. But there were the 
 facts ; they stood openly confessed, on the face of the 
 correspondence itself ; and what was to be done next ? 
 Remove the agent? Ah, but "our party" might 
 have something to say about that ! and unless you let 
 us "our party" folks, we mean, make the most 
 out of the emoluments the office of State agent may 
 be made to produce, we won't stand by you prohibi- 
 tionists in trying to fly your particular kite ! In fact, 
 we are the tail to your prohibition kite ; and you know 
 as well as we do, that you can no more go up without 
 a tail than a comet could sweep the heavens without 
 the same appurtenance ! 
 
 Abuses, and deceits, and impositions must go on. 
 And so they will go on until the time will come when 
 they have made head enough to break down all the 
 barriers of little politicians and men seeking power, 
 and correct themselves. But the agencies are just as 
 open to abuse as the license system ever was. Why 
 not ? If the truth was published as it ought to be, it 
 would show this fact in unmistakable colors. If the 
 books of the town agents, who are authorized to retail 
 liquors in certain quantities and for certain purposes, 
 could be made clear to the eye of the general reader, 
 7* 
 
78 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 their pages would make a confession such as not every 
 opponent even of the Maine Law is prepared to receive. 
 But why, you ask us, is not this thing done ? For two 
 very good and substantial reasons. First, because there 
 is no power that can compel the publication of any 
 such statistics ; and, second, because it is unwise for 
 the interests of the cause of prohibition that such a 
 thing should be done. 
 
 Yet, inasmuch as the prohibitionists have always 
 stood out so stoutly for open and aboveboard opera- 
 tions in this matter, and have been especially indus- 
 trious in collecting their columns and pages of statis- 
 tics from every conceivable and inconceivable quarter, 
 which they believed would fatally tell against a license 
 system, or, indeed, against any system but their own, 
 - it is now no more than what the public have a perfect 
 right to demand of them, since they have at last got 
 the system they asked for, to give up every item of 
 information they have in their possession, that shall 
 throw any light upon the operation of that system. 
 Why would not this be right ? Why is it not a fair 
 demand to make upon them ? Certainly, if the morals 
 of the people are all they care for, they will raise no 
 objections to enlightening the people in respect to the 
 progress of those morals, just in whatever way they 
 may have the power. 
 
 We challenge the production of such items, of such 
 minute and complete testimony, as shall most properly 
 set the practical workings of this Maine Law in its new 
 light. Let the public go behind the scenes. Let them 
 
THE LIQUOR AGENCIES. 79 
 
 see, if they ask to see, to what class of persons town 
 agents habitually sell liquor, and in what quantities, 
 how often, and for what purposes. Such a record, 
 if accurately and impartially made up, would tell a 
 straighter story than all the empty praises of the law 
 itself in State and county conventions. It would lay 
 the whole matter bare, strip it of its externals, 
 pull the scales off the eyes of sentimentally-moral peo- 
 ple, give a practical turn to theories and theoriz- 
 ers, and enable the community to take the proper 
 bearings of their present position. Such a plan has 
 been attempted in some cases, but never completely 
 carried out. It carries the war too far into Africa 
 and exposes too much hypocrisy to suit the so-called 
 temperance party. 
 
80 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XI. 
 
 LICENSE AND AGENCY. 
 
 IF, now, Liquor Agencies are right, a proper license 
 system will stand. The arguments that underlie the 
 one, underlie the other also. In fact, it is not more 
 presumptuous than it is inconsistent, that they who 
 deny the right and propriety of licensing should be 
 willing, and even eager, to favor the right and propri- 
 ety of establishing agencies. The inconsistency only 
 shows to what a pitch of infatuation even honestly in- 
 clined persons may insensibly be led, if they are not 
 careful how they surrender up their individual opin- 
 ions to the control of others. 
 
 The license system is said to be liable to abuse ; so 
 is the agency system. And whereas the former does 
 not tend to make every man a spy upon his neighbor, 
 the latter certainly does ; and whereas the former does 
 not underrate the honesty and truth of the buyer and 
 consumer, making him the miserable knave and hypo- 
 crite he secretly, if not openly, confesses himself, the 
 latter does ; . and whereas the former is not likely to 
 increase the ranks of immoderate consumers and even 
 drunkards, because such a system would, in itself, 
 guard both the consumer and the community, so far as 
 any system could, against the liability of such an evil, 
 
LICENSE AND AGENCY. 81 
 
 the latter is likely, and even very certain, to sow the 
 seeds that will in due time yield as wretched a crop of 
 disease and distress, both physical and moral, as ever 
 afflicted any community that aspired to the name of 
 civilization. 
 
 It is charged that impure liquors may easily be sold 
 under a license system, while the agency machinery 
 prevents all that. Prevents it, indeed ! How prevent 
 it ? Was the indignant town agent in Maine so very 
 sure of having had good champagne in his possession, 
 even after the State agent of Massachusetts assured 
 him that the cheap and wretched stuff was imported, 
 and the genuine article ? Agents are just as likely to 
 be imposed upon as men who sell under a license ; and 
 if they are men who profess never to taste liquor them- 
 selves, as you will find they generally are in these 
 piping Maine Law times, then they are even more like- 
 ly to suffer from imposition. And agents are just as 
 apt to lay in with certain manufacturers of liquors, too, 
 who know how to doctor and to reduce with great skill, 
 and who are ready enough to share whatever profits 
 the agents are likely afterwards to make. Why not ? 
 The thing has been done ; and it may be done again, 
 and with impunity. Is there any thing in the charac- 
 ter of a State or a town liquor agent that specially 
 clears him of such influences as reach other men, and 
 keeps him, above other sellers of liquor, free from the 
 contaminating influences of a trade that madmen are 
 eager to denounce as villany in all its parts, points, 
 and relations ? 
 
82 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 This style of argument against the sale of liquor in 
 any form, or through any instrumentality, has been 
 pushed a little farther than it will cleverly go ; and 
 they who have used it most freely begin to feel that 
 they have unconsciously been handling a two-edged 
 sword. It cuts both ways. For if selling spirits in any 
 form, and under the authority and protection of law, 
 is a crime and an unpardonable sin, it is so just as 
 much in one case as in another ; if the argument can 
 be made to apply to a license system, it bears with just 
 the same force upon the system of selling through 
 agencies. Sale is sale ; and if it is iniquitous to sell 
 rum any way, there is an end of further disputation ; 
 but if the business may be made " respectable " by an 
 agency law, what is there, pray let us know, to hinder 
 its being " respectable " under a general license law ? 
 No mind accustomed to reasoning can find any essen- 
 tial difference in the cases ; and yet an inflamed popu- 
 lar prejudice persists in refusing to look at this matter 
 just as it is. 
 
 People fall into the way so naturally, or, rather, so 
 readily, of supposing that what the law authorizes and 
 supports must of course be reputable and proper. 
 Well, we agree it ought to be so, although we fail 
 always to find it is so. Therefore, if the law says an 
 agency is reputable and proper, men consent to throw 
 around the agency system their esteem and respect ; 
 albeit it is, considered in itself, open to just the same 
 charges that are made by prohibitionists against " rum- 
 selling," that the license system is ; that, at least, no 
 
LICENSE AND AGENCY. 83 
 
 one can deny. Now, what we wish to know is, and 
 we shall continue to put the inquiry till at least one 
 candid mind somewhere has fcmnd an answer for it 
 within its own reasoning capacity, why cannot the 
 license law bring up, if you so please, the traffic in 
 spirits to as high a standard of respectability as the 
 agency law ? Why not ? sure enough. The virtue of 
 the deed, as is generally admitted by prohibitionists, 
 exists only by virtue of the law ; and we argue from 
 that point, that the law, when framed in a prudent and 
 proper spirit, and taking cognizance of the habits and 
 needs of men as they are, is as capable of giving char- 
 acter and weight to one system of selling spirits as to 
 another. This ground, we feel very well satisfied, can- 
 not be undermined by the currents of any prejudice or 
 fanaticism. It is real ; and will stand, because it has 
 a substantial rock-bottom. 
 
 But temperance legislators or, rather, those 
 strongly-biassed leaders who have hitherto assumed the 
 control of temperance legislation have become some- 
 how possessed of an idea that they must needs make 
 laws only according to their .own theories and abstrac- 
 tions, regardless of the wants and habits of those for 
 whom such legislation is undertaken, and in a spirit 
 even of open hostility to things as they at present exist 
 all around us. Now, if these theorists could but find 
 men just as they want them, possibly their crude and 
 inconclusive plans might be made to apply ; but taking 
 men as they are, it seems the height of folly to seek to 
 make laws for them which are not at all applicable to 
 
84 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 their wants, against which even their better and freer 
 instincts rebel, and which, even if they were carried 
 out in execution to the very last letter, would produce 
 at the best but a forced and unnatural public morality, 
 underneath which would flow in boiling currents the 
 whole lava-tide of human passions and vicious inclina- 
 tions. 
 
 A healthy and hearty state of public morals is not 
 to be secured by any such mere gloss and patchwork as 
 a Maine Law proposes ; for in such a state as that, all 
 men are supposed to be, firstly, free to do as they 
 choose, within certain restraining limits which are set 
 for the protection of others, and, secondly, to be 
 capable of exercising that continued self-control which 
 alone can lead both to individual and public morality. 
 Now, if your Maine Laws, or any other laws, operate 
 to clap a man's individual freedom into jail, as it were, 
 he is in no sense whatever a moral person, but only 
 apparently moral, because the law will not give him a 
 chance publicly to be otherwise. 
 
 But our thoughts have led us a little wide from the 
 topic immediately in hand. We were speaking simply 
 of the advantages of a license law over an agency law, 
 and showing how, in the first place, the former was much 
 more safe and proper than the other, and, second- 
 ly, how the latter was not a whit more " respectable," 
 in point of fact, or through the aid of the statute book, 
 than the former. Our readers will be likely to agree 
 with us in this matter entirely. We ask no one to 
 admit what is not true both in nature and in reason ; 
 
LICENSE AND AGENCY. 85 
 
 but we do insist that what is perfectly true in both, 
 shall be admitted to that high place in public esteem, 
 and public legislation, to which its own permanent 
 worth really entitles it. 
 8 
 
86 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XII. 
 
 AT THE WEST. 
 
 "A ' LIQUOR LAW' has passed the Indiana House, 
 fixing licenses at from fifty to one thousand dollars, at 
 the discretion of the county commissioners ; assessing 
 a fine, not less than five nor more than fifty dollars, for 
 every instance of selling without license ; prohibiting 
 selling on the Sabbath, or on State, county, town, town- 
 ship, or municipal election day, where the same may be 
 held ; prohibiting the selling to persons in the habit of 
 being intoxicated, or to minors, under heavy penalties, 
 with other stringent features." 
 
 "We take the above paragraph, in relation to a license 
 law, from the news columns of the New York Tribune. 
 It is needless for us to say that, in its essential features, 
 it embodies what is practically necessary for the con- 
 venience of the community, and what, at the same 
 time, seems jealously to guard the rights and interests 
 of that community. 
 
 Such a movement as the one indicated above is in 
 the right direction. It certainly accepts the existing 
 customs, habits, needs, and desires of the people, as 
 something fixed and unalterable ; and then it simply 
 proceeds to throw around the community the protec- 
 tion which the existence of such habits, customs, needs, 
 and desires naturally suggests ; that while the individ- 
 
AT THE WEST. 87 
 
 ual shall not be shorn in any way of his individuality, 
 the public shall in no sense be the sufferers. 
 
 This single movement in the Indiana legislature 
 does but go to prove the truth of what we stated in the 
 first chapter of this book ; namely, that the unnatural 
 and fanatical excitement about teetotalism and prohibi- 
 tion was fast coming to its natural termination, and 
 that the day of candid, calm, and thorough discussion, 
 with a view to the ascertainment of true principles and 
 the best modes of action, had just begun to dawn. 
 
 Now let us look at the several suggestions contained 
 in the paragraph extracted above. In the first place, 
 the price of a license is to be fixed high enough by the 
 county commissioners, who are thus made directly 
 responsible to the people for the proper execution of 
 their trust, to allow none but proper men, as near as 
 may be found in any community, to sell spirits at all ; 
 the prices ranging all the way from fifty dollars to a 
 thousand. This naturally puts the matter on pretty 
 safe ground, to begin with. 
 
 Next, a fine of from five dollars to fifty is liable 
 to be imposed for every instance of selling without a 
 license thus regularly obtained. Very few persons, of a 
 character likely to lead them to violate a proper license 
 law, could well afford to subject themselves to penalties 
 of this magnitude, or, in default of paying these, to 
 punishment by another process. 
 
 Then there are other provisions, all stringent and 
 proper, and every one a formidable safeguard against 
 the irruptions of cupidity and passion upon society; 
 
88 THE EAMEOD BROKEN. 
 
 such as the prohibition of selling at all upon the Sab- 
 bath, or on any election day ; of selling at all to such 
 persons as are known to make improper uses of liquor, 
 and are habitually intoxicated ; and of selling at all to 
 minors, or, in fact, to any other equally improper and 
 irresponsible persons. 
 
 Such a law evidently was not framed by " rum-drink- 
 ers," nor by men who love the interests of " rum-sell- 
 ers " above other men's interests ; but by men who 
 have closely and philosophically observed the radical 
 elements of our common nature ; who understand what 
 man is, what are the sole objects and purposes of gov- 
 ernment, and what is the real meaning of the term 
 " freedom," as applied to the plan of a government ; 
 and who are just as deeply concerned for the highest 
 welfare of the people as they are for any merely per- 
 sonal and selfish projects that may be charged against 
 them. It is easy to call them by hard names, but that 
 practice has about had its day ; if it has any effect, it is 
 only to weaken the cause of those who follow it, and 
 not of those who have no remedy but to submit to the 
 abuse. For why may it not be supposed that the 
 friends and supporters of a stringent license system are, 
 in their hearts, as sincere men, and as ardent workers 
 for public morality, as they who set out with assuming 
 that they have all the virtue and all the purity on their 
 side ? It is preposterous to give way to these idle clam- 
 orers and name-callers any longer. It is full time they 
 were openly confronted, argued down, and put to pub- 
 lic shame. 
 
AT THE WEST. 89 
 
 What if, now, every State legislature in the country 
 were to take up this most important subject right where 
 it is ? Suppose they were to establish such a general 
 license system as the Indiana legislature is engaged in 
 perfecting to-day, affixing to it all the penalties public 
 sentiment would fairly and reasonably demand as needed 
 for its own protection. "Would there be any great risk 
 in such an undertaking as this? Certainly, a good, 
 practical license law, that stands a chance of being lit- 
 erally executed, is much better than a theoretically 
 strict prohibitory law, whose execution is laughed at all 
 over the State as an utter impossibility. 
 
 Then just look, for a moment, at the character of 
 these town agents, as regards their practical acquaint- 
 ance with the business they have been intrusted with. 
 What do they ordinarily know about it ? Most of them 
 will tell you they cannot tell a glass of brandy from 
 another glass of Newark cider ; and perhaps they can- 
 not. It is at least charitable to suppose they are fully 
 as ignorant as they confess themselves to be. These 
 agents are certainly not safe or proper men to intrust 
 with dealing out liquors only for mechanical, medicinal, 
 and sacramental purposes, for they see no visible differ- 
 ence between French brandy and aquafortis, and would 
 be as likely to poison their customers with the latter as 
 make them over-joyful with the former. 
 
 Zealots and bigots have succeeded in warping the 
 
 public judgment in a most fearful manner; and when 
 
 the time comes in which the public will see how the 
 
 thing has been done, by appeals Alternately to their 
 
 8* 
 
90 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 sympathies and their partisan passions, they will be 
 lost in wonder at thinking of the readiness with which 
 they were made to call black white, and white black. 
 Just as if the expressed juice of the grape and the 
 apple was not as much property to-day as it was thirty 
 years ago ! and as if other pure liquors were not prop- 
 erty after the same principle ! Absurd in the extreme ! 
 Preposterous beyond expression ! Now, this very mode 
 of rating all liquors has led to this practice to be 
 condemned and scouted by all honest men, of adul- 
 terating and poisoning them. Being held in little and 
 low esteem by law-makers, they were more liable than 
 ever to abuse in manufacture ; for since the traffic had 
 lost the protection it had the original right to claim for 
 itself, the objects of that traffic naturally became the 
 instruments of vicious and abandoned men, who saw 
 nothing in them better than a chance, first, to deprave 
 the appetites of consumers, and, secondly, to employ 
 that very result for their own purely selfish advantage. 
 As a consequence, the destruction to health and life 
 has been fearful to contemplate ; and stump-speakers 
 for prohibition have employed this fearful fact as the 
 strongest argument they could advance for violently 
 rooting out the system of selling liquor at all. But the 
 argument can be made to apply only to the vitiated sys- 
 tem - to the entire prevention of the sale of poisoned 
 liquors. When they seek to apply it to the sale of any 
 liquors, those" even that are pure, they go beyond what 
 prudence, or reason, or common sense will permit them. 
 It is not pure liquors, the real juice of the apple and 
 
AT THE WEST. 91 
 
 the grape, that shatters human constitutions, and de- 
 stroys human life almost with the rapidity of a virulent 
 disease ; but it is these poisoned, adulterated, " doc- 
 tored " drugs, eating their slow way into the very soul 
 of the infatuated consumer itself. It is not such wine 
 as is spoken of in the Book of Judges, that " cheereth 
 God and man ; " but it is their villanous substitutes, 
 compounds such as disgrace our civilization, and that 
 no civilized laws ought for a day to tolerate the sale of. 
 Now fling all your schemes of " ramrod " prohibi- 
 tions behind 'your back. Look this matter square in 
 the face. Understand, to start with, that you cannot 
 eradicate the desire for fermented beverages from the 
 human race, and then settle down into the sensible and 
 wholly tenable opinion, that you may at least enact 
 such legal provisions as will insure the sale of pure 
 liquors, and likewise secure their sale in proper quan- 
 tities to suitable persons. All the rest you must leave 
 to the average public sentiment or personal habits, 
 to individual exertion, to moral suasion, as it is 
 called, to work out. 
 
92 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 IN A NUTSHELL. 
 
 THE statement of this question, that so long has ex- 
 cited the passions and prejudices rather than the minds 
 of the community, is an exceedingly simple one, and 
 the arguments are direct and few. There is no need 
 of their being mixed up with foreign matter, or being 
 discussed with haste and heat. If they who are eager 
 to be thought reformers would regard rather the spirit 
 and end of their proposed reforms than the mere 
 ambition they possess to become in some way noted, 
 they would far better help on the cause in which they 
 so earnestly protest they have embarked. 
 
 Let us look at this matter of manufacturing, selling, 
 and using wines and spirituous liquors, just as it stands 
 in the calm light of common sense. 
 
 In the first place, these beverages have always been 
 made and used, and no doubt always will be. We 
 have abundant authority from the Scriptures, which 
 we have already furnished in these pages, to show that 
 the use of fermented liquors, at least, is as old as man's 
 own t recorded existence ; and to show, likewise, that 
 the wise and good of all time have indulged in that 
 use, many of them even immoderately and to their own 
 shame, as Noah and others, and that our Saviour 
 
IN A NUTSHELL. 93 
 
 himself set an example of using wine at public festivals, 
 which cannot be put aside. So much for fermented 
 liquors. 
 
 As for those that are distilled, by modern processes, 
 we have the testimony of all medical men whose opin- 
 ions are not infected with the mania of teetotal parti- 
 sanship, that the use of pure liquors, thus distilled, is 
 beneficial to the human system, and that there are nu- 
 merous instances in which it is absolutely necessary that 
 such liquors should be used. Even those who condemn 
 their use altogether, are constrained by the heavy hand 
 of disease and physical disaster to impress them into 
 their own service, and are very apt, even then, to con- 
 tinue their use, under cover of medicinal reasons, even 
 after the actual calls of the disease become only imagi- 
 nary. But let all that pass. What we merely wish to 
 deduce from this is, that inasmuch as liquor is thus 
 made necessary to the race, its manufacture and sale 
 are both necessary and right also. 
 
 But the liquor, we insist, must be only pure liquor. 
 The community, as purchasers and consumers of it, 
 have a right to demand this much, and to assert and 
 maintain that it shall be proved to be pure to their own 
 complete satisfaction. Here is just where all the trouble 
 arises. This is the head and front of the whole offend- 
 ing. The stream is poisoned now at its source, and 
 there is where its purification must of necessity begin. 
 
 Pure liquors do not generate a brood of loathsome 
 drunkards, and it cannot be proved against them. We 
 simply assert what any one either knows, or can readily 
 
94 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 acquaint himself with. It is the arbitrary disposition 
 of certain men and certain parties that has forced the 
 pure liquors out of their open and proper use, driven 
 their sale into dark and out-of-the-way corners and 
 dens, and thus put it in the power of back-door sellers 
 to doctor and adulterate them at their own pleasure 
 which of course means only their own pecuniary inter- 
 est. First making it a stimulating excitement to run 
 the gantlet of public prejudice in order to get a glass 
 of liquor, it naturally enough follows that liquor thus 
 surreptitiously obtained becomes in itself a double stim- 
 ulus, and is drank in at least double quantities, and 
 with double the natural excitement, first, for its own 
 sake, and second, on account of the success of achieving 
 its difficult possession. So that, in fact, the very means 
 that have been employed by fanatical reformers, seek- 
 ing power and notoriety rather than the thorough and 
 permanent good of the race, to banish spirituous liquors 
 from general use, and drive them to those back corners 
 and out-of-the-way places where they are made to wear 
 the aspect of criminality and degradation, these very 
 means, we say, are the ones that have, more than any 
 thing else, caused the adulteration and poisoning of good 
 liquors, and produced a crop of hard drinkers and 
 wretched drunkards, whose vice will be transmitted al- 
 most to their latest posterity. Let teetotalers look at 
 this in any other light if they can ; we tell them these 
 statements are true to the letter, and statistics, as well 
 as personal observation and reflection, are at all times 
 ready to verify them abundantly. 
 
IN A NUTSHELL. 95 
 
 The use of a pure article, then, being conceded as 
 a necessity, no abuse of an impure article will war- 
 rant arbitrary legislation as against the article that is 
 pure ; for this would be resting the principles of legis- 
 lation iipon a most insecure basis, and opening the way 
 for the free working of the most unjust and tyrannical 
 motives in all popular enactments. Right legislation 
 can only be done on a right basis ; and that, of neces- 
 sity, must be permanent and stable. The moment 
 prejudice, or mere policy, comes in and usurps the 
 place of principle, the whole structure of government 
 institutions totters ; there is no security any where ; 
 the same motive that is applied for a party to-day may 
 be applied with tenfold power against it to-morrow. 
 Hence any reflecting mind can see at once, that the 
 use of pure liquors ought not in justice to be con- 
 trolled, or even modified, by the abuse of impure ones. 
 The two things have no sort of relationship with one 
 another. 
 
 To protect the community against even the worst 
 consequences of excess, legislators cannot go to work 
 to cut off all supplies ; that is folly itself, and worse 
 than folly. As well might it be argued that, to protect 
 the body of the public against the excesses of a few 
 men's passions, the legislators have a right to deprive 
 them of their lives, as the surest way of quelling their 
 riotous passions ! that is, that any proposed end and 
 only a theoretic, and in no sense a practical end, at 
 that may be made to secure any sort of means for its 
 successful attainment ! Such reasoning, we had sup- 
 
96 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 posed, had been blown to the four winds long ago. 
 No ; as the passions of men must undergo proper 
 restraint, either at the hands of the individual or of 
 society, so must the abuses of liquor consumption be 
 restrained, and either by each individual for himself, 
 or else by the strong and united hands of society. If 
 the use of liquor tends to inflame passions, so as to 
 make the work of self-control still more difficult, then 
 the individual must needs forego the use of liquors 
 altogether ; for he owes as much as that to society, and 
 a good deal more to himself. 
 
 It is thus the simple power to control the sale of 
 liquors that legislators possess, and not beyond that ; to 
 the total prohibition of such sale, they cannot properly 
 and safely go. They presume too much, and under- 
 take too much, when they get upon this track ; to at- 
 tempt by any mere legislative coup de grace to expel, 
 or outroot, the desire of spirits and wine from man as 
 he happens in these times to be constituted, is about 
 as rational a business, and as likely to prove successful, 
 as a tilt in full feather against the ancient institution 
 of windmills. 
 
 Then if a person has a right to use (not abuse) 
 pure (not impure) liquors, the right to manufacture 
 and sell may be not the more disputed ; for one goes 
 along with the other. And the purchaser, whether 
 at first hand or second hand, has a right to be secured 
 against the possibility of fraud and adulteration in 
 his purchases. The law protects him against fraud in 
 other articles of manufacture and commerce, and is 
 
IN A NUTSHELL. 97 
 
 manifestly just as able to protect him here. And this 
 much both consumer and seller have a right to demand 
 of the law-makers ; who, while they are careering off 
 against the natural appetites and instincts of human 
 nature, betray the wrong spirit that moves them by 
 suffering the rights of persons all around them to go 
 unprotected. This shows plainly enough that it is not 
 so much the practical protection and benefit of the 
 community at which they aim, as the wish for noto- 
 riety, for power, or to marry their names for a brief 
 day to a thoroughly impractical reform in the public 
 morals. 
 
 We insist, therefore, that there is but one course left 
 open, by which to approach this matter through the 
 authority of legislation ; and that is, by limiting and 
 restraining all liabilities to abuse either the sale or use 
 of liquors, and confining the work of the law to that 
 alone ; by appointing only proper men to sell spirits, 
 and they to sell only to those who are certain to use 
 them properly ; to surround both the manufacture and 
 the sale with such all-sufficient safeguards as shall pro- 
 tect the community abundantly ; and afterwards to let 
 the power of moral suasion have free course, and do 
 its work most thoroughly and permanently. 
 
 Here are the leading points of the case, and the sug- 
 gestions of such measures as any free community has 
 an undisputed right to adopt for its own safety and 
 progress. But for society to go beyond the power 
 properly delegated to it, though tacitly, it may be, by 
 the individual, and trample down individual rights and 
 9 
 
98 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 liberties, is plainly enough to set up its authority as a 
 laughing-stock, and to court the jeers and ridicule, in- 
 stead of the respect and obedience, of the great body 
 of men of which that society is composed. 
 
A SONG OF BURNS. 99 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A SONG OF BURNS. 
 
 THE public festivals recently held all over the land, 
 in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the birthday 
 of Robert Burns, the world-beloved poet of Scotland, 
 certify in no common manner to the estimation in 
 which he is held ; not merely by those who affect a 
 love of literature, but by all humanity ; by poor men 
 as well as studious scholars ; by those who wear " hod- 
 den gray " as well as royal purple ; by rich and hum- 
 ble alike ; by known and unknown. Philosophers and 
 politicians, clergymen and men of letters, vied with one 
 another to celebrate his deserved praise. They pro- 
 fessed to admire the man, as well as the poet, and to 
 subscribe in toto to his large and generous sentiments 
 concerning all things that pertain to the happiness of 
 human nature. 
 
 Well, we propose in this place simply to quote one of 
 this same Robert Burns' popular songs. It came di- 
 rectly from the ploughman-poet's heart, as, indeed, 
 all his songs did, and is therefore of all the more 
 intensity and truth. Here it is. 
 
100 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 THE CURE FOE, ALL CARE. 
 
 i. 
 
 " No churchman am I for to rail and to write, 
 No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, 
 No sly man of business, contriving a snare 
 For a big-bellied bottle's the whole of my care. 
 
 ii. 
 
 " The peer I don't envy I give him his bow ; 
 I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low ; 
 But a club of good fellows, like those that are here, 
 And a bottle like this, are my glory and care. 
 
 in. 
 
 " Here passes the squire on his brother his horse ; 
 There centum per centum, the cit with his purse ; 
 But see you the Crown, how it waves in the air ! 
 There a big-bellied bottle still eases my care. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did die ; 
 For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; 
 I found that old Solomon proved it fair, 
 That a big-bellied bottle's a cure for all care. 
 
 v. 
 
 " I once was persuaded a venture to make ; 
 A letter informed me that all was to wreck 
 But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs, 
 With a glorious bottle that ended my cares. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Life's cares they are comforts,' a maxim laid down 
 By the bard what d'ye call him ? that wore the black 
 
 gown ; 
 
 And faith I agree with th' old prig to a hair ; 
 For a big-bellied bottle's a heaven of care ! " 
 
A SONG OP BURNS. 101 
 
 [A Stanza added in a Masonic Lodge.] 
 
 " Then fill up a bumper, and make it o'erflow, 
 And honors masonic prepare for to throw ; 
 May every true brother of the compass and square 
 Have a big-bellied bottle when harassed with care ! " 
 
 The immortal song of King Solomon is in the same 
 strain with this of Burns ; for he was a poet as well as 
 the Scottish cottager. And though the exquisite beau- 
 ty of the Hebrew poetry is nearly lost in the process of 
 translation, yet you will find this same sentiment of 
 Burns in Proverbs, chapter 31, verses 6 and 7, as fol- 
 lows : " Give strong drink unto him that is ready to 
 perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. 
 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember 
 his misery no more." 
 
 In Burns' time, not only did good and accepted 
 Masons indulge in the use of liquor without disparage- 
 ment or disgrace, but good Christians likewise. It is 
 within the ready recollection of many and many a per- 
 son now living among us, that it was once the custom 
 for clergymen to keep good spirits constantly on hand. 
 They had them on their sideboards ; and whenever 
 they went about in their parish, the first and last thing 
 they would be invited to do was, to take spirits. They 
 invariably imbibed on the occasion of funerals and wed- 
 dings ; then it was considered an indispensable article. 
 And lecturers will reply to this, " 0, but the moral 
 sentiment of the community has changed wonderfully 
 since that time!" " Yes," we reply " and be- 
 cause the rum has become so bad, and generally for no 
 
102 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 other reason ! " The effects of adulterated liquors 
 actually drove decent men into total abstinence. 
 
 In those old times to which we allude, spirit was a 
 soother of sorrow, and, as Burns sings along with Solo- 
 mon, it was a " cure for all care." It was naturally 
 expected that the man who possessed pure religious 
 sentiments, possessed pure liquors likewise; and the 
 expectation was rarely disappointed in those days. 
 Lord Byron says, in one of his most popular poems, 
 
 " There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms 
 As rum and true religion." 
 
 Now, we admit, that, as the present generation have 
 been educated to think and believe, these lines of By- 
 ron sound profanely in the ears of many, and especially 
 in the ears of fanatics ; but the man of a philosophic 
 turn of mind understands their true meaning, and lets 
 the light, of real life fall upon them as it should. They 
 were the reflection of the sentiment of the age in which 
 Byron lived. In Matthew, chapter llth, verse 19th, 
 we read, " The Son of man came eating and drink- 
 ing, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous and a 
 wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." For 
 doing just as our Saviour did, excellent Christian men 
 subject themselves, even now, to the same indignities 
 which were cast upon him. The same spirit of perse- 
 cution and detraction lives- in this day, that lived in 
 his. Human nature has undergone little or no change ; 
 it is fully as bad now as it was then. And it is like- 
 wise no worse for men to use wine now in moderate 
 
A SONG OF BURNS. 103 
 
 and proper quantities than it was then. The change 
 that public sentiment has undergone since his time 
 does not change the absolute character of the practice. 
 The fault is now, as it was then, in excess ; and it is 
 made to appear more vicious and glaring than ever, by 
 the base adulterations to which all originally pure and 
 good liquors have since been subjected. 
 
104 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XV. 
 
 NEWLY INVENTED CRIME. 
 
 THE most preposterous and presumptuous point 
 about this prohibitory Maine Law business is, that 
 what was never before considered a crime by common 
 law, that is, by common sense, and the commonly 
 accepted moral sense of the community, is suddenly 
 legislated into a new form and character, with penal- 
 ties attached to the same that bear no sort of relation 
 to it, and such as no self-governed community of men 
 will ever allow or submit to. If one legislature can 
 resolve that selling liquor is a crime, we mean pure 
 liquor, of course, then a subsequent legislature can 
 resolve that such an act is no crime ; and where is the 
 definition ? Once depart from the platform of common 
 law and common sense in such a matter, whether for 
 party purposes or for professedly moral purposes, and 
 we are all at sea ; there is no stability whatever in the 
 administration of justice, because it ceases to commend 
 itself as common and equal justice to the moral sense 
 of the public. 
 
 Indeed, we can think of few illustrations of the ten- 
 dency on the part of ambitious men to establish a tyr- 
 anny, in case they see the chance of obtaining power 
 at all, more pointed and noticeable than this very fact 
 
NEWLY INVENTED CRIME. 105 
 
 furnishes. They are not content with employing the 
 legislative functions for their proper and limited pur- 
 poses, but must needs try to choke rigid and austere 
 morals clown the throats of the community, whose, 
 throats would not be one half as much harmed by be- 
 ing asked to swallow good wine or spirit in their stead ; 
 for it would be infinitely better that men swallowed 
 proper quantities of good liquor, which find a proper 
 receptacle in the stomach, than that they belch up 
 fiery curses more fiery than even the "blue ruin" 
 that is now so freely, though slyly, sold for a beverage. 
 Now, we openly defy any body of men, whether re- 
 formers or not reformers, to prove that the act of selling 
 pure liquor is a crime, in any possible and natural 
 sense ; or that to thus stigmatize it is any other than 
 the most arbitrary act which could be undertaken by 
 legislators. For crimes are, in their very nature, read- 
 ily defined and easy of apprehension ; they cannot be 
 this thing to-day and that thing to-morrow ; their spirit 
 and character must of necessity be always one and the 
 same, betraying the most decided and unmistakable 
 intent of evil, and evil against others ; and their lim- 
 itations are fixed in every enlightened mind by the 
 legislation and precepts of the past. And, what is still 
 more than all, it is to be considered that the spirit of 
 advancing civilization is not given to adding to the list 
 of recognized crimes by special and forced legislation, 
 but that it is disposed rather to shorten the list ; and 
 not so much, either, by yielding to any applications of 
 pseudo-philanthropy or mock sentimentality, as by pre- 
 
106 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 ferring to rely upon those deep and boundless moral 
 resources that lie imbedded in the very nature of every 
 society that pretends to true progress in civilization. 
 
 There is great crudeness and haste of thought among 
 new and inexperienced lawgivers on this point, and it 
 would be well to get the better of the fault at as early 
 a day as may be. The sooner men are divested of such 
 an idea, baseless and vicious as it is in every aspect, as 
 that a mere legislative act, secured by no matter what 
 severity and steadiness of external pressure, can put a 
 new face upon the moral sense of society, converting 
 innocent acts of a sudden into acts of criminality, and 
 dooming men who are protected in a traffic to-day 
 by the law, to degradation to-morrow because this law 
 refuses any longer to protect them, the better will it 
 be found for the health and stability of the entire social 
 system. 
 
 To a certain extent, and only to a certain extent, we 
 concede that the sale of liquors may be called criminal ; 
 and that is, when the sale goes to betray fraud and 
 vicious intent. First, remember that liquors are de- 
 manded by the community, and always will be, in con- 
 sequence of the desire for their use, which is inherent 
 in, and instinctive with, human nature ; then we sub- 
 mit, that in attempting to supply this demand, the law 
 has a perfect and indefeasible right to step in and take 
 cognizance of all attempts at fraud and improprieties 
 of sale, and to stamp such attempts with the brand of 
 criminality, affixing penalties to correspond. 
 
 It is at exactly this point that we ask for legal inter- 
 
NEWLY INVENTED CRIME. 107 
 
 vention, to furnish protection for the consumers, and, 
 incidentally, to prevent by this very method any harms 
 coming to the body of society. Here is just where the 
 law may be useful and effective ; and it is here that 
 we demand it shall be applied. Law is for protection 
 against crime and wrong ; not for the mere purpose of 
 impressing the community with a sense of the power 
 and strength of the dominant party ; when it comes to 
 this last pitch, it abandons all its claims of relationship 
 to the eternal and immutable principles of justice, and 
 becomes the mere mouthpiece of an excited rabble, 
 temporarily organized with leaders and catch-words, 
 and presuming to take the very name of Progress and 
 Purity in vain. This deserves to be remembered. 
 
 We agree, as the logic of the other side would at- 
 tempt to prove, that a crime is an open infraction of 
 the law ; but it is not, therefore, to be argued that all 
 infractions of every law, or even of every criminal law, 
 technically speaking, are criminal. Because, if 
 that were so, as we showed only a little way back in 
 this chapter, legislatures have but to say each year 
 what shall and what shall not be crimes for that year, 
 and, their resolutions being law, of course every thing 
 that contradicts their arbitrariness at once becomes 
 criminal. This is absurd, not to say extremely dan- 
 gerous ; indeed, it is needless to say that no civilized 
 society could exist, as a civilized society, upon such a 
 basis as this from one year's end to another. Any man 
 of good sense can readily see that all power, and all 
 permanency, would rest in the hands of a few men, 
 
108 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 called legislators ; and every one knows that the same 
 machinery that made these men legislators in the first 
 place, for a specific purpose, would continue to be the 
 controlling power of the State always. And what, 
 pray, is this but the rankest and most unmitigated tyr- 
 anny ? Who would not as soon and as fervently pray 
 to be delivered from this, as from that of a Louis 
 Napoleon, or of a Ferdinand II., or of any Austrian 
 monarch that ever made his subjects both fear and 
 hate him ? 
 
 We must keep the great fact continually in mind, 
 that with the advance of civilization the list of crimes, 
 and especially of flagrant crimes, diminishes. That is, 
 a man would not now, as formerly, be hung for theft, 
 or some other equally trifling fault ; the apparent dis- 
 proportion between the offence and the penalty is in 
 this case so great as to render the act of administering 
 the punishment an absolute injustice ; which, in an age 
 when moral sentiment is very much awakened, would 
 amount to as great a fault as the unpunished crime 
 itself. If civilization conceals a living definition within 
 its name, that definition must be that it adjusts the 
 scales of justice more delicately than they were ever 
 adjusted before ; not that it dives into the forests of 
 barbaric days again, and drags out bloody and base 
 modes of punishment from their hiding places, in order 
 to apply them to deeds with which they have no rela- 
 tion. 
 
 Our ideas of justice must rest upon stability, or they 
 are good for nothing. As Truth is said to bo " eter- 
 
NEWLY INVENTED CRIME. 109 
 
 nal," so must Justice be eternal ; if less, it can only 
 be vacillating', unsettled, shifting, and unreliable. And 
 the attempt to found great nations, and build up great 
 states upon a foundation like this, is as preposterous 
 and idle as it was, according to Scripture history, to 
 order the over-burdened Israelites to make bricks with- 
 out straw. There can be no society, except it rests on 
 stable and permanent foundations ; and those must be 
 nothing less than living ideas and principles. Not no- 
 tions and wild theories ; not changeful prejudices and 
 whimsical passions; but principles, that include all 
 theories possible to be spun, and try them at last by 
 the laws of their own stern and impartial judicature. 
 10 
 
110 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A GOOD TEXT. 
 
 " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also 
 to them likewise." 
 
 This is the text to which we refer, and we style it a 
 " good one ; " good for practical use and service ; not 
 something merely to hang a discourse upon, but some- 
 thing out of which to extract an excellent rule of liv- 
 ing. Considered thus, AVC think we may sincerely rec- 
 ommend it to every reader of this present volume. 
 
 Since the different chapters of this book have been 
 passing through the press, we took the liberty, one day, 
 to show the proof sheets of a part of the chapter which 
 treats of what the Bible has to say about the use of 
 wine, to a well-known abstinence man, and a friend of 
 our own besides. Our object was simply to be set right 
 on any point where we might happen to be wrong, and 
 to draw out from one who, we knew, would oppose 
 our views with great earnestness, the very hardest ar- 
 guments and objections that could be adduced from that 
 side. On reading the sheets alluded to, our teetotal 
 friend at once answered that the wine mentioned in the 
 Scripture was not intoxicating. That we almost ex- 
 pected him to say, just as we expect many others to 
 answer, in their first impulse, on reading the first of that 
 
A GOOD TEXT. Ill 
 
 same chapter. But we were prepared for our friend, 
 and rejoined by asking him to read the whole chap- 
 ter, which most conclusively proves that the Scripture 
 wines were intoxicating. To this, after giving it his 
 thoughtful perusal, he could make no sufficient answer ; 
 he certainly could not think of denying what, upon its 
 very face, was so apparent, and what is so well sup- 
 ported besides. There was no resource left him, there- 
 fore, but to admit our two main arguments; viz., that 
 the Scriptures do openly countenance and approve the 
 use of wine in proper quantities, and that that same 
 wine was capable of producing intoxication. We re- 
 joiced not over this compelled admission of our teetotal 
 friend as any merely personal victory of our own, but 
 as additional evidence that we had, in conscientious- 
 ly searching for the truth, actually found it. That 
 was all. 
 
 But still, even with this admission on his tongue, our 
 friend was compelled to offer some sort of a reply to our 
 position ; he thought it his duty, as he certainly seemed 
 to feel it within his power, to destroy the force of that 
 position ; and so he stated that there was one passage 
 of Scripture which would cut down our entire argu- 
 ment, overthrow the whole superstructure by under- 
 mining its foundations. That passage of Scripture was 
 the one with which this present chapter begins ; and is 
 to be found in the 31st verse of the 6th chapter of 
 Luke's Gospel : " As ye would that men should do to 
 you, do ye also to them likewise." 
 
 By this quotation he meant as follows : If you would 
 
112 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 like to have another man lead you into drunkenness by 
 selling you wines and liquors, then go and lead him 
 into drunkenness by selling them to him ; otherwise, 
 not. That was his whole and his final argument. 
 
 Now, let us not omit to look even at this, and look at 
 it, too, with all the care and candor we have endeavored 
 to bestow upon the rest of the texts that have been the 
 subject of our investigation. Is not this text, in fact, 
 a better argument, and a much stronger one, for us 
 than for him ? We conscientiously think it is. It does 
 go most directly to fortify our own position, as we have 
 already taken it on this question. For what man, we 
 ask, would wish, or be willing, to have his own indi- 
 vidual morals, or his religious belief, cut and dried for 
 him by any process of law ? Not a single one that we 
 know of, or ever expect to know. If there is such a 
 one, then we take the liberty to tell him that his mo- 
 rality is not morality, because it does not spring' from 
 himself, but proceeds from the external pressure of law 
 and legal surroundings. A man, to be a good man, 
 must needs be such, of and because of himself; not 
 because he cannot find a chance to be a bad man with 
 safety. It is the heart, the thought, the steady inclina- 
 tion, that gives character to the individual ; not his 
 outward acts alone, which may easily be covered up 
 under the garb of hypocrisy, and which he may even 
 be compelled to conceal on account of the severity of 
 the law. 
 
 No, no ; it is never for himself that a man wants a 
 law written on the pages of the statute book, but only 
 
A GOOD TEXT. 113 
 
 for his neighbor, for somebody else, at any rate. 
 And all legislation that has for its object the attempt 
 to control human conscience, is travelling on the 
 straight road to despotism, at which point it will be 
 certain to arrive iri no very long time. And all those 
 reformers, and classes of reformers, who seek to call in 
 the aid of law and authority to perform their work for 
 them, are much more apt to betray zeal than knowl- 
 edge ; they certainly do show that they have miscon- 
 ceived the idea of reform in any true and proper sense, 
 and are vainly seeking for something else which they 
 think may be made to come in and supply its legiti- 
 mate place. And time will not fail both to disappoint 
 and undeceive them. 
 
 Our Saviour was the promulgator of a Gospel of 
 Peace. He employed no force whatever in his endeav- 
 ors to reform the world, because he did not aim to 
 bring about that reformation from without, but alto- 
 gether from within. We remember that on a certain 
 occasion he said he had power to summon a legion of 
 angels to assist him ; but he did no such thing. He 
 never thought to overcome violence by violence, but by 
 love. He preached only " peace on earth, good will 
 towards men." His wonderful power was the power of 
 Love, not of Hate. But alas ! where stand his pro. 
 fessed followers to-day ? What has become of the faith 
 of that minister of the gospel who disobeys the com- 
 mands of the blessed Redeemer, and, disregarding his 
 example of love and gentleness, as well as his plainest 
 and most pointed precepts, demands the application of 
 10* 
 
114 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 a revengeful law and brute force itself to accomplish 
 what he vainly considers will be the moral reform of 
 the race ? Well indeed may we seriously ask one an- 
 other such questions, when even those who preach 
 Christ are gone frantic to seize the power that, in their 
 crazy judgments, shall make all men Christians, wheth- 
 er they will or not. 
 
 " But," says the teetotal preacher and lecturer, 
 " I believe in moral suasion for the drinker, but legal 
 suasion for the seller ! " Is that so ? Then see here. 
 By your own statement then, sir, if you first go to work 
 and apply proper moral suasion to the consumer, or 
 drinker, do you not see that, with only limited provis- 
 ions, the seller will need no reforming ? because, by 
 thus decreasing the demand, you naturally cut off the 
 supply ? The seller will come, then, at last to have 
 none to whom to sell ; and even what he does sell, we 
 insist, as we have in previous pages, shall be none but 
 pure and unadulterated spirits. 
 
 Now, we ask the most zealous total abstinent man 
 going, to ask himself, whom, in case he finds he has been 
 guilty of immorality, he would prefer for his judge ? 
 Into whose hands would he soonest intrust the power 
 of administering the punishment ? If he will answer 
 our question from his heart, would he not cry out even 
 with King David, 
 
 " Let us fall now into the hands of THE LORD ; (for 
 his mercies are great ;) and let me not fall into the 
 hand of man." 
 
 That day was indeed a dark and gloomy one for the 
 
A GOOD TEXT. 115 
 
 cause of true temperance, that saw the introduction of 
 what goes by the name of the Maine Law into the halls 
 of legislation. For on that day the whole matter 
 changed front. Its friends chose new weapons, which, 
 as they have since found to their cost and sorrow, can 
 cut in more than one direction. Temperance ceased 
 then to be a Reform, and became a Warfare ; stirring 
 up communities, hitherto peaceful, with all the passions 
 that rage among open enemies ; distracting churches, 
 and driving out the spirit of love from the same ; even 
 dividing families, and setting father against son, and 
 son against father. 
 
 Like the old Spanish Inquisition, this new Maine 
 Law institution might compel men to be moral and 
 decent on the surface, might in fact make them ap- 
 pear to be what they really are not ; but we ask, in the 
 name of Heaven, is this the first great object and aim of 
 society ? Is it for so mean a purpose as this that we 
 consent to select men to make our statutes ? Do we 
 agree that the highest and noblest, the first and the last, 
 object of society is to appear clean and white on the 
 outside, like the platter spoken of in the New Testa- 
 ment, while all within is foulness and corruption? 
 Nay, we tell the advocates of this Inquisition plan that 
 force never did and never will reform any person liv- 
 ing ; he may profess to be reformed, and his friends 
 may profess it all over for him again ; but the work 
 never has been done, because it cannot thus be per- 
 formed. A man must first be convinced of error from 
 within ; no conversion can begin until this quickening 
 process has begun beforehand. 
 
116 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Understand, we object in no possible way to 
 any individual's abstaining from the use of spirituous 
 liquors, even for medicinal purposes, if so it appears 
 right and proper to that individual. Let that be his 
 own affair, and be suffered to rest entirely with himself. 
 We believe for ourselves, however, that History, the 
 Bible, and Common Sense, all three allow and approve 
 the moderate and proper use of good wines and spirits, 
 on the part of those who choose so to use them. And 
 we would only repeat, for the benefit solely of Moham- 
 medans, Rechabites, or disciples of Dr. Alcott, the gen- 
 tle and beautiful words with which the present chapter 
 opened " As ye would that men should do to you, 
 do ye also to them likewise." 
 
OUE BEST INTELLECTS. 117 
 
 XVII. 
 
 OUR BEST INTELLECTS. 
 
 WE gave a few instances, some chapters back, of the 
 use of liquor by men, who, prohibitionists are kindly 
 wont to think, never use it at all, and add to that list the 
 name of still another no less than the distinguished 
 historian, Prescott. We do this from none but the 
 best intentions, and in no sense from a spirit of boast- 
 ing or brag. Such a spirit, in truth, is the very one 
 with which we feel ourselves chiefly forced to contend, 
 in the discussion of this entire subject. 
 
 It is so true that our greatest scholars and men of 
 intellect are in the custom of taking a glass of wine, 
 or spirits, whenever their physical resources show symp- 
 toms of failing them, or for the sake of cheering them 
 under the burden of exhausting labors and protracted 
 exertions. Such men feel that they require the aid of 
 stimulus to recruit the powers that are tasked with 
 such severity. And they use it accordingly. It is 
 their own affair, and they make it that, and nothing 
 more. 
 
 But such a state of bigotry exists at the present time 
 in the community, or has existed until now, regarding 
 the subject of using wine as a beverage at all, that even 
 these first and best men have been forced to practise 
 
118 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 unworthy shifts some of them to conceal the habit, 
 lest their very names might be dragged forth into the 
 columns of violent and virulent newspapers, there to 
 be held up for public scorn and detestation. And by 
 means like this, the friends and advocates of a Maine 
 Law have flattered themselves they could work out the 
 knotty and intricate problem of moral reform. 
 
 So secret, we repeat, have been the practices of our 
 intellectual men in using liquors of one sort and 
 another, that it would even be thought libellous by 
 many to charge them with the use of them at all ; in 
 other words, nobody would say he believed you, if you 
 should tell him that any living man of eminence and 
 excellent moral character is a moderate drinker. Yet 
 when these same men of distinction come to die, the 
 pen that records their virtues loves also to dwell upon 
 their social habits ; and it is then that even the bigots 
 will bear to read of their proper and daily use of liquor. 
 
 In another place we have referred to David and Sol- 
 omon, and other great men of the ancient times ; in 
 this place we may allow ourselves to speak of the illus- 
 trious dead of our own time. We alluded to the his- 
 torian Prescott. Such a man, of all other men, thus 
 tasking mind and body together, and giving his days 
 and years entirely to the service of the world, requires 
 the constant stimulus which is only to be found in gen- 
 erous and abundant diet. Bloodless men make but 
 indifferent writers, and challenge in but a slight de- 
 gree the sympathies of the race. What they want to 
 operate with is rich and healthy blood, and enough of 
 
OUR BEST INTELLECTS. 119 
 
 it ; and this is not to be got from eating bran or drink- 
 ing cold slops. It stands both to reason and to nature, 
 that as we use our bodies, so will our bodies make re- 
 turn to us. If we starve them, we must expect them 
 to contain miserable tenants in the way of souls. If 
 we pinch, and stint, and cramp, and dwarf, and mor- 
 tify them, they will be very sure to pay it all back to 
 us again, with interest added. Nature will certainly 
 have her revenge. She utterly refuses to be cheated 
 out of what belongs to her. We cannot expect long to 
 draw for rich and plentiful stores upon that mysterious 
 workman, the brain, and yet not give back that same 
 wonderful and generous brain something in return. 
 Give and take, is the law in this as in other matters. 
 It is on exactly the same simple principle on which the 
 farmer goes to work to get a crop off his land ; he soon 
 learns for himself that the better he treats his land, the 
 better his land treats him. And that is the law every 
 where. 
 
 There appeared in the columns of the New York 
 Tribune, not long after the death of Mr. Prescott, a long 
 and interesting memorial of the man from the pen of 
 his former private secretary, Mr. Robert Carter, 
 himself at the time a Washington correspondent of the 
 Tribune. It related to Mr. Prescott's private life and 
 habits, and was in all respects one of the most thor- 
 oughly interesting accounts that were written of the 
 lamented historian. In the course of that memorial 
 occurs the following passage respecting the use Mr. 
 Prescott made of wine and cigars : 
 
120 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 " Mr. Prescott usually worked hard at Nahant, the 
 air of which refreshed and exhilarated him. He was 
 now going to begin his history of Philip II. ' Let 
 us begin with Robertson,' said he. I took down the 
 first volume of the History of Charles V., the father of 
 Philip, and read for an hour and a half, till dinner 
 time. He invited me to dine with him, to test, as he 
 laughingly said, the extent and completeness of Na- 
 than's arrangements, for whose skill, as a major domo, 
 I had expressed some admiration. Nothing was want- 
 ing. The dinner was perfectly served. He drank, as 
 usual, two moderate glasses of sherry, and then said 
 that in honor of Nahant he would indulge in a glass of 
 champagne. He remarked that in the damp atmos- 
 phere of Nahant, as that of England, he could drink 
 twice the same quantity of wine, without injury, that 
 he could in the dry interior of our country. He sat 
 long at the table, eating very moderately, and chatting 
 and joking with his invincible cheerfulness, exerting 
 himself to induce every one present to take a due share 
 in the conversation. He was a good listener, and had 
 much tact in leading those around him to talk, inva- 
 riably paying the most patient attention to whatever 
 was said, skilfully avoiding disputation, though he was 
 remarkably fond of good-natured, animated discussion. 
 When the ladies withdrew, we lighted our cigars, of 
 which he gave me a handful, saying I should probabfy 
 not find any so good at the hotel, and we adjourned to 
 the veranda, where he walked about for some time, 
 talking of Nahant, pointing out to me the peculiarities 
 
OUR BEST INTELLECTS. 121 
 
 of the scenery, and dwelling with interest on the par- 
 ticulars of a dreadful shipwreck which had taken place 
 on a reef that lay almost beneath the windows of his 
 house. By the time his single cigar was smoked, his 
 hour for exercise had arrived, and I left him." 
 
 Now, what, we would ask the most strenuous pro- 
 hibitionist and teetotaler, is there wrong in all this ? 
 What harm is there done ? Who is injured ? On the 
 contrary, who is not benefited by the continued ruddy 
 health of the hard-working historian ? Ah, but it is 
 setting such an evil example ! whines some one. Prove 
 that what you say is true, sir. Who says it is an evil 
 example ? What ! an example of cheerfulness, of tem- 
 perance, of perfect self-poise and self-restraint, to be 
 called an evil example ? Forbid it, common sense ! 
 Forbid it, reason ! If this be evil example, then have 
 our morals gone up to a most unsupportable pitch in- 
 deed. We fear they will soon be out of the reach of 
 people altogether. It is the cynic and meddler that talks 
 about evil examples, and calls every thing such that 
 does not follow his own directions, and do exactly as 
 he does. What does he know of evil examples, being 
 himself one of the last who is able to see the effect pro- 
 duced by his own case ? 
 
 If we should be at pains to look, we should find that 
 all our men of note and mark the men who do the 
 hard work, and great work for the generations are 
 obliged to have regular recourse to the stimulus fur- 
 nished by wine and liquor, and that the result amply 
 justifies the practice. There is a fixed principle about 
 11 
 
122 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 the matter, which, sooner or later, they find they are 
 obliged to obey. And obey they do. They find they 
 cannot task their best powers without humoring those 
 powers in return. They require recreation, cheerful- 
 ness, sociability, stimulus, as much as other men, and 
 even more ; and an examination into their personal 
 habits, if proper and allowable, would not fail to dis- 
 close just such practices in abundance as are brought 
 to the light by the narrative of the secretary of Mr. 
 Prescott. 
 
 This matter of food and drink, too, is not so clearly 
 established as these sciolists in morals would have us 
 suppose. You cannot draw such a straight line for 
 every one between what is good for him and what is 
 not good for him, as you think for. What feeds one 
 man poisons another. All temperaments are not alike ; 
 and all digestive apparatuses are not made on exactly 
 the same principle. A series of papers has recently 
 been published in Blackwood's Magazine on this im- 
 portant subject, that deserve general perusal. They 
 stoutly controvert certain favorite theories of chemists 
 in regard to articles of food and drink, as well as all 
 other special theories, in fact, concerning what should, 
 or what should not, be eaten or drunk by mankind. 
 According to the writer, chemistry may determine the 
 precise nature of whatever men consume as food ; but 
 it can never fix any laws by which to determine the 
 amount or kind of food best adapted for human suste- 
 nance, because the influences which operate upon food 
 in the human system are beyond the reach of chemistry. 
 
OUR BEST INTELLECTS. 123 
 
 These influences are also so various in different indi- 
 viduals, and in the same individuals at different periods 
 of life, that no specific rules can, it is argued, ever be 
 laid down by the physiologist for general guidance. 
 
 Alimentary substances, it is further observed, are 
 substances which serve as nourishment ; but a great 
 mistake is made when it is imagined that their nutri- 
 tive value can chiefly reside in the amounts of carbon, 
 nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and salts, which they con- 
 tain ; it resides in the relation which the several sub- 
 stances bear to the organism they are to nourish. The 
 substance which nourishes one animal affords no nour- 
 ishment to another, nor can any table of nutritive 
 equivalent, however precise, prove that a substance 
 ought to nourish in virtue of its composition, when ex- 
 perience shows that it does not nourish, in virtue of 
 some defective relation between it and the organism. 
 
 This is worth remembering. It contains matter 
 enough to overthrow all these patent processes of mak- 
 ing men moral and temperate by telling them what 
 they shall eat and what they shall not eat, what they 
 shall drink and what they shall not drink. It only 
 goes to prove that Nature forever keeps her own se- 
 crets, and that we cannot hope to coop her up within 
 any of the restrictions and hedge-fences of our meddle- 
 some little laws. Let little legislators take a hint from 
 the same, and bid adieu to their officiousness without 
 ay more words. 
 
124 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PROHIBITION BITTERS. 
 
 THE time was, and not very long ago, either, 
 when it was thought by very clever and respectable peo- 
 ple that he who was licensed to sell liquor for medicinal 
 and mechanical purposes only, would of course offer 
 the community nothing but the very best quality of 
 spirits, and sell them, too, to none but that class whose 
 character was a guarantee that it would be put to a 
 proper use. Those were innocent days, even like those 
 in which the pastoral poets lived, and piped their soft 
 lays to delighted lambs and ladies. But, unfortunate- 
 ly, these present times are not those times. There is, 
 in fact, no resemblance between them. 
 
 For just listen to what our honest friend Josh has to 
 say on this matter of prohibition rum. He has had an 
 experience with it, and knows very well what he is 
 talking about. Josh tells us in all candor, and with a 
 horribly distorted countenance while he gives up his 
 story, that whenever he is forced to make up his mind 
 to " smile " on prohibition rum, the taste is as that of 
 antiquated eggs, and the fragrance rises like the fra- 
 grance of a downright " hen fever " ! As Josh speaks 
 so entirely from experience, we are not the individuals 
 to call his statement in question. He declares, with 
 
PROHIBITION BITTERS. 125 
 
 lamentations upon his tongue, that you can place no 
 earthly reliance upon temperance bitters ; and that, in 
 fact, you had better make up your mind not to touch 
 them at all, unless, as is now and then the actual case, 
 a man is an open enemy to the peace of his own 
 bowels ! 
 
 This relates, however, only to the matter of quality ; 
 in point of quantity, there are other things to be said. 
 And one of those things is this ; that whatever restric- 
 tions may be thrown around the sale of liquors by 
 stringent prohibitory laws, declaring that only so much 
 shall be sold to this man, and only so much to that 
 man, and for a specific purpose in each instance, 
 money will nevertheless buy all that is wanted of these 
 agents, as a general thing. It is even so. There are 
 people enough who, if they chose, could come forward 
 and verify this statement. We know of more than in- 
 stances enough ourselves to permit us to put forth the 
 statement in the form we have. 
 
 A noted temperance lecturer, not long ago, told a 
 little anecdote like the following : " A young lad, 
 named Billy, once called at the store of a temperance 
 liquor agent, and asked for a quart of rum. Says the 
 agent to the little fellow, < This is for sickness in the 
 family, isn't it, Billy ?' < 0, no, sir,' answered the boy, 
 in all honesty and truth ; ' but old Uncle Toby is over 
 to our house, and he's he's makin' an ox-yoke, 
 and and ' ' Well, well ; never mind about the rest, 
 Billy,' spoke up the faithful and far-seeing agent ; ' it's 
 for mechanical purposes, my little fellow ! All the 
 11* 
 
126 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 same, exactly ! ' And of course lie let the boy have the 
 rum. For do you suppose that such an agent as that 
 couldn't see the value of liquor in works of a mechan- 
 ical nature, like the bending of an ox-bow ? " Now, 
 without doubt, that individual was himself interested 
 in making the profits ; either altogether to himself, or 
 else by watering his liquor and so saving 1 the profit, 
 which is quite as short and easy a way as earning it. 
 At all events, he showed himself, as a public agent, 
 quite willing to sell. 
 
 The very same men, too, that seek to place the sale 
 of liquor in such hands exclusively, will go to work, 
 for a great many of them have been guilty of doing 
 such wicked things, and cut down handsome apple 
 orchards, just to show more plainly the extent of their 
 fanaticism. Such conduct is always the characteristic 
 of insane persons, and proves conclusively of itself that 
 to them should never be intrusted the making of our 
 laws. If they cannot have a better care for their own 
 property, they are manifestly not the ones with whom 
 to intrust the property, much less the morals, of others. 
 
 Cut down an orchard with the hope of preventing 
 drunkenness ! It is preposterous ; nay, it is too child- 
 ish to rise to an act such as reasonable men would like 
 to visit with their hearty and outspoken contempt. It 
 can be compared to nothing but the folly of wrong- 
 headed boys, who, because they stub their toes while 
 they are at play, let off their passionate irritation by 
 dashing their playthings upon the ground, as if the 
 playthings were in fault ! And so it is ; the small boys 
 
PROHIBITION BITTERS. 127 
 
 in this way make work for the industrious toy-maker 
 and shopkeeper, while the old boys make work for the 
 nurseryman and the distiller. The small boys deserve 
 to be soundly whipped and put to bed, and the old boys 
 to be shut up in an insane asylum. 
 
 But since the days of liquor agencies set in, since 
 the reign of rumselling for medicinal and mechanical 
 purposes alone, it is melancholy to think of the count- 
 less cases of sickness that have been brought to the 
 light. A sicker people, as a general tiling, it is hardly 
 possible to conceive of. And yet we continue, through 
 the whole trial of such a chronic sickness, to keep up 
 our old boasts about being the smartest nation under 
 the face of the heavens, and capable of doing the most 
 active work in any single day or generation. There is, 
 of course, no inconsistency in it all ; nothing more than 
 a sickly sort of pleasantry ; nothing worse than a stale 
 practical joke. We could be sick easily enough, that 
 is, about sick enough for purposes of agency medicine ; 
 but we were never so ill as to forfeit our standing as 
 a muscular, vigorous, highly nervous, and excessively 
 self-willed people. It was a roguish boy who wished it 
 would rain rain hard enough to keep him from 
 going to school, yet not so hard but that he might go a 
 fishing ; and we think the advocates and patrons of the 
 liquor agency system are in about the same ridiculous 
 position ; they are not really sick, that is, not sick 
 enough to be laid up, yet they are just about sick 
 enough to want to take agency medicine ! That is the 
 way it stands. 
 
128 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 And tinder this most plausible guise of taking pre- 
 scriptions, generally ordered by their own inclinations 
 rather than by regular physicians, a vast deal of rum 
 has been drunk within the past few years, and very 
 poor rum the most of it at that. Thousands have 
 been ailing and complaining, who never bestowed a 
 serious thought upon their health before ; and many 
 of those thousands who have not become regular tip- 
 plers by the means, have become what is almost, if not 
 quite, as bad, confirmed hypochondriacs. Considered 
 firstly as a domestic, and next as a social evil, this 
 really amounts to a great deal more than appears on 
 the face of it. A race of whining, complaining, ever- 
 lastingly sick men and women, drones and dumps, and 
 made so through the natural operations of certain laws 
 that interfere with private and personal habits, it is not 
 very desirable to contemplate ; and certainly it will not 
 be claimed by any one who possesses a healthy liver 
 and tolerably sound digestion, that such a generation 
 would either do credit to the great and high-sounding 
 pretensions they put forth, or in fact be of much service 
 to the earth they only cumber. 
 
 But the main feature of the case is, the wretched 
 stuff that we find generally sold at these agencies as a 
 pure article of liquor. Any almost indifferent judge 
 of liquors will tell you, on testing and tasting these 
 assortments, that they are at best but poor stuff, and 
 in very rare instances worth any thing like the money 
 that is asked for them 4 that they are great cheats, per- 
 fect frauds, as decided and as wicked impostures as any 
 
PROHIBITION BITTERS. 129 
 
 that were ever practised under the odious free grog- 
 shop system itself. Witness the numerous instances 
 where agents in the interior have returned their sup- 
 plies to the State general agent, with complaints of 
 inability to sell because of their manifest impurity and 
 inferiority. And how many men, themselves fair 
 judges of good liquors, absolutely make wry faces as 
 they choke down the doses they have purchased at 
 these agencies under the name and title of a pure arti- 
 cle ! How many have again and again been driven to 
 profanity, on tasting brandy for which they paid at the 
 agency at the rate of seven and eight dollars per gallon, 
 when they knew without further telling that it was 
 originally cooked up into its present market shape at a 
 cost of not more than one dollar and a half! 
 
 It is idle to seek to execute laws by lies and frauds 
 of this character. The law, being in the first place 
 offensive and tyrannical because of its sumptuary char- 
 acter, is bad enough as it stands ; but when to the law 
 itself is superadded the deceitful manner of carrying 
 it out, is it not asking rather too much of an intelli- 
 gent community, quite capable of self-restraint, to 
 solicit its aid and countenance in the execution of such 
 a statute in such a way ? We seriously submit that it 
 is. Human nature will put up with almost every thing 
 but hypocrisy in those who assume to instruct them 
 according to the principles of purity and truth. 
 
130 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 JOHN H. W. HAWKINS. 
 
 THIS well-known and recently deceased preacher of 
 total abstinence did a glorious thing for himself, and set 
 up a noble example for others, when he came out from 
 the great army of the gutter drunkards of his time, 
 and became a sober, respectable man. It was a high 
 step for Mr. Hawkins, for which he both deserved and 
 received the applause of all sober and good persons. 
 And the use to which he at once began to put the tal- 
 ents he had rescued from the depths of degradation, 
 only placed him still higher in the esteem of those 
 whose respect is a part of the great rewards of life. 
 
 After his striking reformation, after he thus came 
 up out of the mire and filth of drunkenness, in which, 
 by his own confession, he had been so long wallowing, 
 he went forward in a generous spirit, and began to 
 exert a powerful influence in securing the reform of 
 other inebriates also. As long as he kept up his bold, 
 passionate, and eloquent appeals to the drunkard's 
 manhood, the good work of conversion from degrada- 
 tion went on with the hearty God-speed of almost every 
 sober and intelligent person in the community ; but 
 when he was at length prevailed upon by interested 
 parties, who had wires and secret strings of their own 
 
JOHN H. W. HAWKINS. 131 
 
 to pull, to advocate the substitution of legal authority 
 for moral suasion, from that unfortunate day his influ- 
 ence for good over the mind and heart of the drunkard 
 was gone forever. 
 
 The ." Life of Hawkins " has recently been laid before 
 the public, compiled at the hands of his son ; and in 
 that volume we find, on cursorily running it through, 
 the following account of the power of moral suasion, in 
 a case that occurred in Newport, Rhode Island. It is 
 extracted from a letter written from that place to the 
 secretary of the American Temperance Union by Ed- 
 ward W. Lawton, Esq., a " dear friend of Mr. Haw- 
 kins." The letter, which is dated Newport, January 
 8th, 1842, says, 
 
 " On the 3d, Mr. Hawkins arrived here in the evening, 
 and commenced lecturing in little more than an hour 
 after, and from that time until this morning it has 
 been a perfect jubilee. The whole public mind has 
 been engrossed and absorbed by this one question. 
 Immense meetings every evening, and continual visits 
 through the day; constant applications to sign the 
 pledge left the friends of the cause but little time to 
 spare for other avocations. Mr. Hawkins several times 
 expressed the opinion that it exceeded any movement 
 he had yet seen, even that of the celebrated reforma- 
 tion in Springfield, Massachusetts. Our pledge roll 
 now numbers upwards of two thousand five hundred, 
 many of whom were drunkards, or hard drinkers, not 
 one of whom has yet broken his pledge. Rumsellers 
 in all directions are giving' up their business ! Several 
 
132 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 bars have been taken down this day, since Mr. Hawkins 
 went away. Townsend's Coffee-house, (so miscalled,) 
 that has been a great drinking-house for nearly a cen- 
 tury, this evening closed its bar ; several have thrown 
 their liquors into the street; some into the back yards. 
 I called on one man to-day, who had signed the pledge, 
 and told him there was a feeling of uneasiness among 
 the friends from a report that he had some liquors left. 
 He thanked me most cordially, and said if he had been 
 ahvays thus kindly treated, he should have been a tem- 
 perance man two years sooner, and added, ' What 
 shall I do ? I have but one cask, and that I have de- 
 termined not to sell.' I replied that if he would throw 
 it away, he would get rid of the poison and the impu- 
 tation both together. He said immediately if I would 
 help him to get it out, it should go. It was accord- 
 ingly set to running in the back yard ; his family lived 
 in the same house, and his children, discovering what 
 was doing, came out and danced round it for joy. 
 Believe me, sir, I do not state this circumstance to cel- 
 ebrate my own part in it, but only to add my testimony 
 to many others as to the efficacy of kindness in con- 
 ducting this enterprise. It has been a general feeling 
 among us, and has evidently been productive of the 
 best results ; under its influence the utmost unanimity 
 has prevailed among us, ' the eye has been single, (to 
 the object,) and the whole body (seemingly) full of 
 light.' I would not be understood as taking any credit 
 to ourselves in this matter ; the hand of God is evidently 
 in it, and if his servants are but faithful, it will prosper 
 
JOHN H. W. HAWKINS. 133 
 
 to their everlasting benefit. Mr. Hawkins, during the 
 few days he staid among us, got a strong and most 
 affectionate hold upon our feelings, and I trust we have 
 imparted something of the same to him." 
 
 To show still further the good effects of moral sua- 
 sion, of argument, and reason, a tract that appeared in 
 Boston about the first of January in the same year, 
 (1842,) entitled " The New Impulse ; or, Hawkins 
 and Reform," sums up the results of Mr. Hawkins's 
 moral suasion labors to that date, as follows : 
 
 " The whole number who have signed the pledge 
 and joined the Washington Total Abstinence Societies 
 in the principal cities, and in various parts of the coun- 
 try, is surprisingly great ; the exact number cannot 
 be ascertained, but is estimated in round numbers, by 
 those best acquainted with the facts, to be in Balti- 
 more, about 12,000 ; New York, 10,000 ; Boston, 5000 ; 
 all other places in New England, 73,000 ; other North- 
 ern States, 100,000 ; total, 200,000. A majority of 
 these are supposed to have been hard drinkers, and a 
 large proportion hardened drunkards ; all reformed 
 from the example and exertions of one man ! " 
 
 This is indeed a wonderful statement to make, yet 
 we see no good reason to doubt it in any particular ; 
 we readily accept it in all its possible bearings, and 
 hold it up triumphantly as a refutation, thorough and 
 complete, of the idea that men are no longer open to 
 reason and argument, but that nothing less than the 
 force of law will reach them. If, now, the appeals of 
 a single man could, in so short a time, accomplish the 
 12 
 
134 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 rescue even though temporary in many cases of 
 nearly a quarter of a million of men, what a grand and 
 almost incalculable result might not be expected from 
 all the united and harmonious forces of society in the 
 same direction, making a movement that was inspired 
 by love and sympathy, and betraying at all points that 
 feeling of fraternity, as well as charity, which testifies 
 that at best the whole world is kin ! 
 
 Where, throughout the whole country, we ask, has 
 Law done a work to be compared with this work of 
 Mr. Hawkins at Newport ? Where, and when, has the 
 Law induced a rumseller to roll out his casks with his 
 own hand, and empty them of his own free will into 
 the public streets ? Where, on the contrary, instead 
 of doing any sort of permanent and abiding good, has 
 not Law at all times done evil ? We all know from 
 personal observation that it has succeeded in dividing 
 neighborhoods, churches, and families. It has engen- 
 dered every where discord instead of harmony, and 
 war instead of peace. It lias begotten crimination and 
 recrimination. It has caused bloodshed and murder. 
 Nay, even the originator of the Maine Law himself has 
 the blood of a fellow-mortal on his hands, shed in his 
 attempt to defend liquors which his own law protected ! 
 Property has been destroyed from motives of the mean- 
 est conceivable malice, and in modes the most dastardly 
 and aggravating. Woman has been led to unsex her- 
 self before the world, and head vulgar and passion- 
 fired mobs for the violent destruction of the product 
 of the grape and the apple. Private dwellings them- 
 
JOHN H. W. HAWKINS. 135 
 
 selves have not been altogether exempt from invasion. 
 Horses have been sheared and cruelly hamstrung ; 
 cattle have been barbarously mutilated and killed ; 
 valuable trees have been girdled and ruthlessly cut 
 down ; houses have been burned by the torch of the 
 infuriated incendiary ; the worst possible blood has 
 been aroused in all quarters, and in almost every lo- 
 cality ; and civil war has raged, with more or less 
 violence, all over the land. Because a law that ap- 
 peals solely to force is sure to excite force, and all the 
 mean and vicious allies of force, in opposition to it, to 
 attempt the execution of a law of such a character, is 
 only to challenge and defy the power of the worst pas- 
 sions that slumber in the hidden crater of human 
 nature. 
 
 For what, we inquire, was the cause of Temperance 
 originally dragged into politics, when reason and ap- 
 peals to common sense were exercising such a powerful 
 influence without the aid of law ? Alas, there was a 
 reason for the movement, and it was a purely selfish 
 one, too. It was because some few men, in this party, 
 and that party, had got an idea in their heads that some- 
 thing was to be made by it; and, in fact, because they 
 felt that, in their political emergencies, there was noth- 
 ing to be made in any other way. Not only these 
 leaders, but the temperance lecturers, including Mr. 
 Hawkins himself, were convinced that only by the new 
 alliance could they secure their living. They were in 
 the condition of the up-country minister in New Hamp- 
 shire, of whom Daniel Webster used to tell the following 
 
136 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 story in his own inimitable way: In a poor town, 
 situated in the upper corner of New Hampshire, where 
 the hard-working people raise barely enough off their 
 farms to keep soul and body together through the long 
 winters, they had a custom of raising by subscription, 
 every autumn, a few bushels of rye, by the payment of 
 which they might secure regular preaching during the 
 next winter. A committee having been duly appointed 
 to take charge of the business, an itinerant preacher 
 soon presented himself, and made his proposals to per- 
 form the required amount of preaching for the rye. 
 He gave them one sermon as a specimen of what he 
 could do for them ; and after the discourse the com- 
 mittee retired to deliberate on the comparative value 
 of the rye and the sermon. They happened to be out 
 rather a longer time than usual in their deliberations, 
 and the preacher began to grow nervous in conse- 
 quence. Finally he found he could stand it no longer ; 
 and, fearing lest they might conclude to report ad- 
 versely to his proposal, he bolted straight in among 
 them, and argued his case for himself. " Gentlemen," 
 said he, in a fever of anxiety, " if I didn't preach to 
 suit you that time, just tell me how I shall preach, and 
 I will be certain to do better next time ; for, gentle- 
 men, I tell you I must have the rye ! " 
 
 And it has been about so with the temperance lec- 
 turers ; they have changed their ground because they 
 have felt just as the itinerant New Hampshire preacher 
 did, that they must have the rye ! Mr. Hawkins was 
 only a poor mechanic previous to his reform ; he found 
 
JOHN H. W. HAWKINS. 137 
 
 he could make more " rye " by speaking than by work- 
 ing at his trade, and therefore he was willing to con- 
 tinu in his new calling, even though it took him 
 entirely out of the course in which he had originally 
 started. This, on his part, was only his blindness and 
 his misfortune ; shrewder men were determined to use 
 his talents for their own purposes, as instruments with 
 which to obtain political power. They made him their 
 cat's-paw, with which to pull chestnuts out of the fire. 
 They insisted now on his preaching force and law ; 
 and force and law he was compelled to preach, because 
 he had rather take their " rye " than go back to steady 
 and tasking work at his trade. 
 
 We once heard of a story to this effect: A snarl 
 of farmer's children had broken a lot of eggs, and the 
 farmer talked it up seriously with their mother whether 
 he had not best administer a severe flogging all round. 
 His wife pleaded for the children, as most mothers are 
 very apt to do. " Don't punish them," said she, " for 
 they are little creatures, and did not know any better." 
 So the flogging for that particular offence was remitted. 
 But after a time they fell into other mischief; and now 
 the resolute farmer was bound to give them what they 
 deserved. " No, no ! " the young rascals cried out in 
 concert, remembering too well the effective plea that 
 had been made for them before " no, no ! we are only 
 little creatures ! we don't know any better, father I " 
 It is just so with the drunkards. Treat them like hu- 
 man beings, lay their sins and follies at their own 
 door, make them responsible for their own acts, 
 12* 
 
138 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 and it is possible to reform them ; but impiously find 
 fault with Heaven for permitting the beautiful process 
 of fermentation to go on, blame our Saviour for hav- 
 ing turned water into wine, blame the farmer for 
 raising apples and grapes, and the merchants for sell- 
 ing their juice, and drunkards will not reform. 
 They will cry out with the children, " We are only 
 little creatures ! we don't know any better ! " The 
 laws of the ancient Hebrews allowed drunkards to be 
 stoned to death ; but what scriptural law, we wish to 
 know, forbids a man to sell pure and unadulterated 
 liquors ? Suppose some ardent friend of prohibition, 
 some exceedingly strait ramrod man, undertakes to 
 answer our question. 
 
A PEW ANECDOTES. 139 
 
 XX. 
 
 A FEW ANECDOTES. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN of our acquaintance tells us a story of 
 a young man named John, who, for good and sufficient 
 reasons, saw fit to join a temperance society. Not 
 long after becoming a member, John rose in the meet- 
 ing and delivered himself of a speech. Said he to his 
 attentive audience, " Henceforth and forever I am a 
 temperance man, for I have been nearly ruined by 
 rum. It has been a curse to me from the beginning. 
 It has made a beast of me. Night after night have I 
 suffered disgrace by publicly lying drunk in the ditch ; 
 but now, thank God ! I am a free man. I have burst 
 my fetters ! I am reformed! " And so on in the same 
 strain to any extent. John's address produced an 
 electric effect upon his listeners, for he was young still, 
 and he challenged their profoundest sympathies. It 
 was such a terrible thing to think of, that he, so good 
 and so generous, so impulsive and so noble, should 
 have been lying upon the very brink of the great pre- 
 cipice, and was finally plucked from the destruction 
 that seemed so certain for him ! It thrilled his audi- 
 ence to hear that he had been snatched from ruin in 
 such a signal manner. They saw, too, plainly, that the 
 hand of Providence was in it, working through this 
 
140 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 unfortunate young man another miracle. And, hav- 
 ing thus worked up their feelings, he was made a lion 
 of without further notice. 
 
 When he went home to his mother again, she had 
 heard of the wonderful effect produced by her son 
 John's speech, and proceeded to put him a few ques- 
 tions on the matter. " Now, John, my son," said she, 
 in all possible maternal tenderness, " do pray tell me 
 ivhen you ever got drunk as you said, and lay helpless 
 in the gutter ? I am sure / never heard of it before, 
 and it surprised me greatly. When did all this hap- 
 pen ? " " Ah, mother," answered the dutiful son, 
 " don't you know it's not a word of it true ? Don't 
 you understand that I got up and told that yarn in the 
 meeting just for effect ? The rest of the speakers talk 
 so, and I had to do the same, or they wouldn't have 
 listened to me a minute ! That was the reason, moth- 
 er. But as for being drunk and lying in the ditch, 1 
 never did such a thing in all my life ! " 
 
 Bum has a great many things to answer for, which 
 it is not really the cause of. It has done quite harm 
 and mischief enough, from its adulteration and abuse, 
 we allow ; but yet it is not right to saddle it with a 
 load that some other cause ought to be made to carry. 
 If a man insists on publicly making a fool of himself,- 
 if a man insults and so loses a valued friend, if he 
 suffers himself to be led away into the commission of a 
 crime of any description, the fault is always ascribed 
 to rum. Of course rum is answerable for every thing 
 that is wicked and mean, even to a person's natural 
 
A FEW ANECDOTES. 141 
 
 shiftlessness, and lazy and improvident habits. If an 
 individual fails to control his temper, and flies in a pas- 
 sion with another, he is generally suspected of, if not 
 openly charged with, having been drinking ; whereas 
 he may never have tasted so much as a glass of wine 
 in all his life. It has come to that pass, where, if a 
 person thus unfortunate will only consent to say that 
 he was excited with liquor, he is readily excused ; or, 
 at least, his offence is not esteemed of that magnitude 
 which it would otherwise have reached. 
 
 Very many of the temperance stories that are nar- 
 rated by teetotal lecturers are mere fables, and, like 
 our friend John's story, told merely for the effect they 
 are expected to produce. We once heard a story of a 
 sailor's falling from the mast-head, and thus meeting 
 his death. His body dropped overboard. It was sub- 
 sequently recovered, and deposited for a brief time in 
 a warehouse until a jury of inquest could be summoned. 
 While lying thus exposed in the warehouse, the weath- 
 er being very cold, the body froze stiff, and the rats got 
 at it besides, mangling it somewhat in places. The 
 jury of inquest proceeded to perform the duty required 
 of them on the next day, and, after a long and patient 
 examination into the circumstances attending the death 
 of the poor sailor, finally brought in the following lucid 
 and intelligent verdict: " We find," said they, "that 
 he fell from the mast-head and was killed ; he then 
 tumbled overboard and was drowned ; he floated ashore 
 and froze to death ; and finally, the rats ate him up 
 alive ! " 
 
142 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 It is about so with the multiplied charges that are 
 brought against rum. Some ass, who never possessed 
 brains at all, perhaps died a drunkard, and he is 
 straightway, by supposition, made a saint of. 0, but 
 if it had not been for rum, he might have been such a 
 great man, such a wise man, such a wonderful man ! 
 He had a brilliant intellect, they say, but what a vast 
 pity that rum ruined him ! He could have been any 
 thing, and done any thing he chose, but for accursed 
 rum! That destroyed him, and the bright hopes of 
 his friends along with him ! 0, if only this rum could 
 be banished from the world, then, perhaps, every man 
 of bright parts might shine as he was born to shine ! 
 
 Now, after all is said and done, what has rum really 
 been guilty of in this case ? Of depriving society and 
 his family of a man of high promise ? Not at all ; 
 farthest from that possible. But this fool's lack of 
 brains, and consequent failure to accomplish any thing 
 in life, has been conveniently laid at rum's door. It is 
 a capital scape-goat to bear the mortification of his 
 friends at his own natural lack of mother-wit. It 
 merely causes, in this instance, a mule to bray a little 
 louder than he would if he had fed only on thistles and 
 water ; that is all. But what a fuss about a fool ! 
 
 We once heard, or read, a story of a young fellow, a 
 native of the Green Mountain State, who returned 
 home among his relatives, one summer, from New Or- 
 leans. It was in the piping times when the prohibition 
 scheme first laid its heavy hand on all social arrange- 
 ments, and of course the contrast presented to his mind 
 
A FEW ANECDOTES. 143 
 
 between the style of things in the gay capital of the 
 south-west and the quiet rural districts of his native 
 state, was decidedly striking and impressive. To come 
 irom New Orleans to the heart of Vermont was a 
 change indeed. 
 
 The young man's early friends and relatives were 
 delighted to see him, wherever he went. They made 
 it a particular point as they generally do in all the 
 country towns of New England to treat him to the 
 best the land afforded. He was not allowed to go either 
 hungry or thirsty ; there was hardly an hour of the 
 day when his digestive apparatus was not kept in in- 
 dustrious operation. He arrived, one day, at the house 
 of a worthy uncle, a diligent farmer and a most excel- 
 lent man, whose two boys, already men grown, were 
 quite as glad to see their stranger cousin as their father 
 was. The boys' names were James and Jirah. It was 
 right in the season of haying, and father and sons were 
 hard at it every day. 
 
 The forenoon after the arrival of our New Orleans 
 friend at their house, he thought he would prick up 
 and take a stroll in the hay-field, where his uncle and 
 cousins were at work. As we remarked previously, it 
 was hot and high temperance times, and of course 
 nothing in the way of stimulus not even the pure, 
 old-fashioned cider brandy was to be had for love or 
 money. Before going out into the field, however, his 
 thoughtful aunt took him aside into her buttery, and 
 said, "You see,. Tom, we have to keep these things 
 very private up here, nowadays ; I s'pose you are in 
 
144 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 the habit of taking c a little something ' every forenoon, 
 down in New Orleans, and I thought mebbe you'd like 
 a drop, or so, before you went into the field ! There's 
 some gin that I keep for my own private use ; I don't 
 let any body in the house know that I've got any such 
 thing; but you're welcome, Tom; help yourself!" 
 And as he naturally supposed it was such a hard mat- 
 ter to get a drink up in Vermont, and that he would 
 have to go thirsty for the rest of the day, he did help 
 himself, and to a pretty " stiff horn," too. Wiping his 
 lips with great satisfaction, he sallied forth in improved 
 spirits in quest of his uncle and cousins in the hay-field. 
 He found them, and in the company of one and another 
 the time wore away very pleasantly. 
 
 After a little while, happening to be off with the old 
 man alone, said the latter to him, " Tom, I s'pose 
 you're used to taking a little somethiri* every forenoon, 
 out where you've been a-livin' ; haven't you? Wai, I've 
 got a drop or two of right good gin in a bottle under 
 the wall, yonder, it's right where my jacket lays, 
 and if you'll go out there sort o' carelessly with me, 
 we'll take somethin' ; but I have to keep it very sly ; I 
 don't let the boys know any thing about it ! So keep it 
 to yourself, Tom, will you ? " 0, yes ; he would cer. 
 tainly keep it to himself; he would never tell of it in 
 the world. And supposing it likely that this was the 
 last horn he would get that forenoon, he took as stiff 
 an one as before, if not, perhaps, a little more so ! The 
 result was, his liquor began just a trifle to affect him. 
 Considering that the day was warm, he was growing a 
 little mellow ! 
 
A FEW ANECDOTES. 145 
 
 By and by, Tom got round to that part of the field 
 where his cousin Jirah was tossing and turning the 
 wilted grass with his pitchfork. " I'll tell you what it 
 is, Tom," said Jirah, wiping the perspiration from his 
 brow, " Pm getting pesky dry. I've got something in 
 a little flask that I carry in my pocket, and if you'll go 
 with me sort o' slyly round to the spring, just over in 
 the next field, I'll give you something that you'll call 
 pretty good. Come ! " Tom was rather delighted than 
 otherwise with his prospects, and crept round to the 
 spring with his cousin Jirah, where he took yet another 
 substantial horn. This made three, and three pretty 
 stiff ones, all of them, too ! " But, by the way," whis- 
 pered his cousin, before they left the spring, " I keep 
 all this from the old man, and so must you ; don't say 
 any thing about it, nor let him think you've had such 
 a thing as a drink from me ! " 0, no ; Tom knew 
 enough to keep a secret, and he guessed he could keep 
 this. 
 
 When noon came, his younger cousin, Jim, winked 
 to him, as they reached the barn on the way home to 
 dinner, to follow him in. Tom mistrusted there was 
 something afoot, and proceeded to obey the sly sugges- 
 tion. " I've got a little good gin here under the hay," 
 said Jim, after he felt sure they were safe from obser- 
 vation, " and I want you to have a drink before you 
 go in to dinner ; but you mustn't lisp a word of it to 
 old folks, no, nor to my brother Jirah, neither ! 
 
 lon't let him know any thing about these little ar- 
 rangements of mine, any more than I do my father. 
 13 
 
146 * THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Ah, there's the little treasure, safe and sound ! " and, 
 taking it up and shaking it well, he passed it over to 
 his cousin to help himself. Tom had by this time got 
 so in the habit of it, that he could not well forbear 
 indulging even once more in a very generous pull ; 
 and he instantly acknowledged the virtue of the arti- 
 cle that he had just incorporated with his system. 
 
 Here were four stout drinks, all in a single forenoon, 
 and all obtained on the sly, and from the several mem- 
 bers of a professedly teetotal family, living in the very 
 focus and heart of a total abstinence community ! It 
 was a grand illustration of the rank hypocrisy engen- 
 dered of the rigid law of prohibition ; making men 
 moral and abstemious outwardly, but forcing them into 
 the most despicable practices of hypocrisy in secret. 
 
 Our friend Tom remarked, and rightly enough, 
 too, we think, for free drinking through the day, old 
 Vermont, with its stringent prohibition law, was a great 
 deal to be preferred to any thing he ever had the for- 
 tune to see in New Orleans ! 
 
THE NECESSITY OF STIMULANTS. 147 
 
 XXL 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF STIMULANTS. 
 
 So loud has been the outcry against liquors and their 
 use, that a great many, if not the majority, of persons 
 have succumbed to the prevailing prejudice J and, with- 
 out pretending to understand the why or the wherefore, 
 have really believed that it was sinful to use a glass of 
 wine, gin, brandy, or any other sort of stimulus in 
 their families. This curious fact does but show how 
 liable the best intentioned people are to be overborne 
 in their own sentiments, and with what servile readi- 
 ness they give in to the loud and persistent shouts of 
 those not one half as competent to arrive at proper 
 opinions as themselves. 
 
 Now, we know that, to some persons, stimulus is 
 absolutely necessary ; as much so as the food they eat 
 or the air they breathe. The great business of life 
 is to live ; not to hurry away to what we think may 
 offer us something better in another state of existence, 
 but to stay right where we are, and get the greatest 
 amount of good possible out of it. In a normal, that 
 is, natural condition, both of mind and body, there is a 
 perpetual struggle going on between the opposing forces 
 of existence and decay an everlasting resistance on 
 ae part of the individual to that principle which 
 
148 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 gradually wears him away. In other words, to employ 
 the language of a well-known chemist, to provide 
 against the tendency of our bodies to oxidation, has 
 required all the time, and labor, and talent of a very 
 large class in every country and in every age. 
 
 Now, we have each of us been furnished by the 
 Almighty with those instincts that lead us to seek out 
 those articles best adapted to the sustenance and pres- 
 ervation of our bodies, and also with the ingenuity to 
 make those articles apply to our actual necessities. 
 All this, as we can see for ourselves, is God-given. 
 And the leading and noticeable fact that stands out in 
 history is this, that all nations, whatever the state 
 of their barbarism or civilization, have invariably found 
 out for themselves some substance that yields them 
 the required stimulant. This is a much more signifi- 
 cant fact than is generally thought of, even if it is 
 thought of at all. Some nations have employed vege- 
 table, and some animal substances, in order to effect 
 their purpose. It is supposed that, in all, a list of 
 more than a hundred articles could be named, and 
 generally of the most opposite description, out of which 
 the element that causes intoxication has been pro- 
 duced. Now, we would be glad to have some one, 
 who is not himself averse to reason on these things, 
 tell us how and why it is that the instincts of the en- 
 tire race, scattered all over the world, and antipodes to 
 one another, have led them, first, to seek such a sub- 
 stance as would yield for them the intoxicating ele- 
 ment, and, secondly, to apply their highest ingenuity 
 
THE NECESSITY OF STIMULANTS. 149 
 
 to the production of that element in order to subserve 
 their necessities. There certainly can be no witchcraft, 
 or magic, in it ; it must be nothing but nature. The 
 idea is, that some stimulus of an intoxicating nature 
 must of necessity be provided ; and provided it has 
 been, and probably always will be, until humanity is 
 clothed with a different body, that shall feel the influ- 
 ence of entirely different instincts. Even in the Bible, 
 it can nowhere be found that the use jof wine is 
 charged, or even thought, to be wrong ; only its ex- 
 cessive use, its abuse, is deprecated. We have already 
 quoted abundantly in support of our position, and we 
 will now merely add the sincere injunction of the 
 apostle, "Add to your faith, virtue ; and to virtue, 
 knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance" not 
 teetotalism, but nothing more than a temperate use 
 of the good gifts which, properly employed, serve to 
 " cheer the heart of man." 
 
 Now, we say, there are certain classes of people in 
 this our modern society, to whom the use of stimulants 
 is an absolute necessity. In the Bibliotheca Sacra of 
 the year 1855, a distinguished medical writer says, 
 " In the present state of public sentiment, there is little 
 danger of the abuse of stimulants by educated men 
 who desire to set an example of temperance ; we are 
 not sure that so far as the health of the individual is 
 concerned, the error is not on the other side." Again, 
 the same writer continues as follows : " We acknowl- 
 edge that, with most physicians, we feel very often a 
 reluctance to advise the use of stimulants, for fear of 
 13* 
 
150 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 the possible formation of a bad habit. But we have 
 too often seen their good effects, when ordered by a 
 practitioner bolder or less scrupulous than the greater 
 number of the physicians of the present day, not to 
 feel strongly persuaded that there are many in our 
 community who would be better for an occasional stim- 
 ulant. It is true that one in perfect health does not 
 need it, cannot be made better, and cannot but be made 
 worse by it. But this is the condition of not so large a 
 number as is generally supposed" 
 
 These are plain truths, and plainly stated. An emi- 
 nent physician thus testifies, too, to the mortifying fact 
 that there are plenty of men belonging to his own pro- 
 fession, who would not dare prescribe what they feel 
 assured would be for the benefit of their patients, out 
 of fear alone to the riotous and tyrannical prejudices 
 of the community whom interested and unreflecting 
 leaders have lashed into such a state of excitement. 
 He also testifies that a great many persons require 
 stimulus as much as they do food ; and that while it is 
 sometimes injurious, it may more frequently be bene- 
 ficial. It is seriously worth while to pause and reflect 
 what such a sort of public sentiment amounts to, and 
 how far it deserves to be respected, when those who 
 are popularly esteemed the most respectable in our 
 midst, are forced to make confessions of such a nature 
 in respect to their fear of it ! 
 
 It may be true, as the physician above quoted says, 
 that persons in perfect health do not require stimu- 
 lants ; yet it is riot less certain that the multitudes 
 
THE NECESSITY OP STIMULANTS. 151 
 
 whose health is not all they could wish it, would as- 
 suredly receive a benefit from their use. Who are the 
 really well ones, and how many do they number ? 
 How many are there about us, whose very pores reek 
 with exuding health and vitality, whose eyes are keen 
 and bright, whose step is quick and elastic, and whose 
 spirits are far above the clouds and fogs of partial and 
 temporary despondency ? Surely, let us have that ques- 
 tion answered before we proceed to stigmatize any who 
 use spirits because of the exhaustion of their physical 
 system. We are told by pretty nearly all foreigners 
 that we are a lean, lank race of mortals, and it may 
 be, in a large degree, true ; yet not so strikingly so, 
 on the whole, in comparison with themselves, as might 
 be imagined. Still, it is sadly enough true for our 
 present purpose. We are old and decrepit long before 
 our time ; but for what reason ? Because we wear our- 
 selves out with making, and trying to make, fortunes 
 in a few years; and those few who accomplish what 
 they aim at within the time prescribed, find themselves 
 obliged ever afterwards to be occupied in nursing 
 and doctoring their broken-down systems. And the 
 many who do not succeed in their exertions, are 
 but doubly broken ; we see them around us every 
 where, giving evidence in abundance that they are 
 broken in ambition and spirits, and thoroughly ruined 
 in health. 
 
 So we show a generation of lean, pale-faced, round- 
 backed men, whose condition has been made a thou- 
 sand times worse by dosing, year after year, with quack 
 
152 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 medicines, hoping to patch up the decaying system, 
 and make it last until the projected schemes are car- 
 ried out, or unfortunately fail. Quack medicines com- 
 plete the work that over-exertion begins. Then the 
 mind is made to labor with a swiftness and intensity 
 calculated to wear out any frame ; as if all that was 
 before us to do in the world must needs be done within 
 a very limited time, or not at all ! "We hardly give 
 the time to eating, drinking, and sleeping, which nature 
 imperatively demands ; and as for recreations,, we do 
 not know what the term practically means. We hurry 
 through with every thing ; it is hurrying on our clothes 
 in the morning, and hurrying them off at night ; hur- 
 rying to dinner, and hurrying back to business again. 
 We snatch sleep, rather than take it as necessary to us, 
 and really our own blessed possession. 
 
 And what is to be inferred from such lamentable 
 habits respecting the physical health of those who per- 
 sistently follow them up, year after year ? That they 
 can possibly be a well race, that is, possessors of 
 ruddy health and vigorous strength ? The farthest 
 from it in the world. Every body is feeble. Nobody 
 can stand up, stretch out his arms, and say that he is 
 really well. All are ailing. All consult the doctors. 
 All run to and from the apothecaries. All read the 
 flaming advertisements of the nostrums in the news- 
 papers. From early youth till the time when affection 
 closes the eyes of the dying one, it is a weary life of 
 complaining and inexpressible desires for a something 
 which he has not ; he hardly knows what that some- 
 
THE NECESSITY OP STIMULANTS. 153 
 
 thing is, but it is nothing but ruddy and blessed 
 health. 
 
 Now, what is to be done in a state of things like this ? 
 Evidently, until a better educated public opinion shall 
 compel the next generation to commence a work of 
 practical reform, nothing can be done except to tinker 
 and patch up our present constitutions the best way we 
 can. And that is all that can be done. And we leave 
 it to intelligent and unprejudiced physicians to say 
 whether, for this purpose, quack medicines are worse 
 or better than pure liquors, properly taken into an en- 
 feebled and impoverished system. Their answer we 
 have already. Such systems must have a tonic to in- 
 vigorate and keep them up. They cannot subsist 
 without it. 
 
 And even those persons who, being at present in 
 robust health, are forced by circumstances, and the 
 nature and exigencies of their calling, to undergo pro- 
 tracted and exhausting labor, require stimulus at cer- 
 tain times, and must employ it, if they would preserve 
 to themselves their own constitutions and faculties. 
 Excess of labor, whether of body or mind, which every 
 one is liable at certain times to be called upon to per- 
 form, requires the immediate application of a repairing' 
 process. The tissues must be made as whole as they 
 were before the labor was undertaken. And to effect 
 this, a certain kind of stimulus must be used. The 
 natural instincts of the race have long ago sought out 
 and applied these stimulants, and they will continue 
 to use them so long as they shall be required for the 
 
154 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 service in hand. And not all the laws of all of the 
 states of Christendom can put down this general use 
 of such stimulants, simply because they cannot eradi- 
 cate those native instincts of which the stimulants 
 themselves are the legitimate product. 
 
LAWS AGAINST STIMULANTS. 155 
 
 XXII. 
 
 LAWS AGAINST STIMULANTS. 
 
 LAWS against intoxication are a great deal older than 
 people generally think for. And still people have in- 
 dulged, more or less, in intoxication. It is human 
 nature to desire to taste of forbidden pleasures ; the 
 desire must, we think, have been an inheritance from 
 Adam. As early as twenty-one hundred years before 
 the Christian era, a History of China shows that a law 
 against intoxication was enacted by the emperor of 
 the Chinese, far more stringent than was ever proposed 
 in these days of ours. All lawyers, and persons in 
 certain other classes of society, were at once con- 
 demned to death if found in a state of intoxication. 
 The palm was destroyed, and all other plants uprooted, 
 from which the intoxicating element could be extracted. 
 And yet, says the historian, in spite of all these most 
 strict precautions, that same generation proved to be 
 one remarkably addicted to intemperance. 
 
 In Persia, too, such laws were passed at a very early 
 day. In Rome, likewise, under the rule of Romulus, 
 there was an exceedingly rigid law. Temperance so- 
 cieties were also quite popular in the early history of 
 Greece. Both the Spartans and the Carthaginians 
 had severe laws against the vice of intemperance, and 
 
156 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 followed extreme measures in their execution. Lycur- 
 gus, King of Thrace, enacted a " Maine Law," to carry 
 out which he caused not only the wines to be destroyed, 
 but even the vines that bore them. About seven hun- 
 dred years after Christ, Terbaldus, a Bulgarian prince, 
 did the same thing. Charlemagne made stringent 
 laws against grog-shops, drinking healths, and other 
 incentives to intemperance. Constantine banished 
 rum-sellers, and levelled their houses with the ground. 
 The Chinese law went so far in its war against intoxi- 
 cating liquors, that every tiling from which such drinks 
 could be produced was destroyed, until the rice plant 
 and the palm tree, although extremely abundant be- 
 fore, were altogether extirpated, and became unknown 
 productions. And yet the ingenuity of the Celestials 
 opened methods to them by which they could obtain a 
 drink that would produce the desired intoxication ; 
 showing that any and every law can be eluded in some 
 way, if it becomes too severe for the silent endurance 
 of the people. 
 
 A similar enactment was made by Mahomet, and the 
 followers of the Crescent at once became remarkable 
 for their effeminate habits and the destroying indul- 
 gence of their sensual appetites. They excited their 
 nervous systems with coffee and tobacco, until they 
 became physically unfitted for any thing like manly 
 exertion ; and thus they frittered away their brief lives 
 in wild delirium or stupefied indulgence. In this way 
 they have lost their characteristics as a distinct race, 
 and would have been wiped off the map of nations, but 
 
LAWS AGAINST STIMULANTS. 157 
 
 for foreign aid and interference, long ago. Since the 
 year 1688, there have been placed upon the statute 
 books of the State of New Jersey not less than forty- 
 eight enactments against intemperance ; and some of 
 the other states have even a longer record than this to 
 show for the same period of time. In our Eastern 
 States, a search among the statutes would astonish 
 those who fancy that every thing desirable in this 
 world can be secured by naked legislation. 
 
 The evils of intemperance that is, of the immod- 
 erate and excessive use of wines and spirits have been 
 deplored by Christian men of every age and generation. 
 As a thoughtful writer in one of our popular magazines 
 has well expressed it, " Politicians and governments 
 have devised many remedies to obviate and prevent 
 the enormous expenses of pauperism and crime, in 
 consequence of excessive indulgence in stimulants. 
 Such indulgence not only debases the body, mind, and 
 soul of man, but an appetite is thereby created, which 
 virtually hands over the wretch to the keeping of a 
 fiend, who changes his whole nature, destroys his 
 natural affections, and induces him willingly to sacri- 
 fice home, wealth, fame, prospects, hope, and heaven. 
 Who that has seen a moral wreck produced by this 
 cause, and has, perhaps, endeavored to stay the mono- 
 maniac, whose downward course none could arrest ; 
 who that has seen the good wife mourn over the lapse 
 of her husband, and endeavor to lure him to virtue ; 
 who that has seen the orphan children needing bread 
 and suffering for the want of education and employment, 
 14 
 
158 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 but has longed for a cure for the moral pestilence,' and 
 has cursed the conscienceless retailer, who was willing 
 to fatten on all this misery? None have witnessed 
 these things without wishing for some law that should 
 effectually prevent such outrages, and suitably punish 
 the ^ordid wretch wh^w<ould rob the innocent and rob 
 his nti&hbor." i t " t 
 
 And the writer goes on : " It is the fashion ,to exalt 
 the present $ge. We call things by new names, and 
 believe that wej&ave reached a new era of experience 
 and discovery/ It is unquestionaby true of it, how- 
 ever, that none have equalled it in moral ^strength, 
 and in the prevalence of Christian principles. The 
 great law of Scripture ' Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself and the principle of St. Paul, who w r ould 
 not eat meat if it made his brother to offend, never 
 before operated practically on so many minds. The 
 moral energy and Christian excellence of our social 
 system is evidenced in the prevailing determination to 
 prevent and cure, by legislative enactments, the evils 
 of intemperance. The people, by a general uprising, 
 have pressed their determination upon politicians and 
 legislators, forcing them in several States to jjfQrio the 
 statute book a law more stringent than aiiy Before en- 
 acted in this country. Thfs remarkable movement is, 
 in its aims, altogether worthy, of sympathy ; and, if it 
 could succeed in producing* (T serious and permanent 
 diminution in the amount o!^ intemperance, pauperism, 
 and crime, it would merit the earnest cooperation of 
 every honest man." 
 
LAWS AGAINST STIMULANTS. 159 
 
 Yes ; if it could succeed in producing a serious and 
 permanent diminution in the amount of intemperance, 
 it would be a very good thing indeed ; but that prob- 
 lem has been worked out. It has been satisfactorily 
 proved, that the people's rising in obedience to the ex- 
 citing appeals of lecturers to for^ce legislation on behalf 
 of reform, has accomplished no " serious and perma- 
 nent diminution of intemperance " whatever. Because 
 the old instincts of human nature come in at this point, 
 and demand that room and scope for free play which 
 belong to them. They refuse to have bits put in their 
 mouths'and then to be driven by men of "like pas- 
 sions " and instincts. And such an honest, deep-rooted 
 element of our common nature it will ever be found 
 idle to hope to eradicate. 
 
 Speaking of this very matter, the New York Inde- 
 pendent a religious paper says, "We must not 
 be blind to the facts that already exist, nor to those 
 difficulties which the carrying into effect of the Maine 
 Law will inevitably breed and cherish. By the en- 
 forcement of that law, thousands of men in our city 
 will be deprived of an habitual stimulus and source of 
 pleasure,* What is to take the place of the lager bier 
 saloons, and the hundreds of dens for drinking and 
 gambling which infest -OUT city? Are these men to 
 have nothing supplied to them for that which is taken 
 away ? Truly, if this is to be so, it may well be doubted 
 if the law is wholly a gatfT or not ! Some amusement 
 they must have, some recreation they will have ; if you 
 take away their drink^they will seek lower pleasures 
 
160 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 still, such as are untouched by law, unless they are 
 provided with means whereby they may improve and 
 elevate their lives." 
 
 This is as true as gospel. We heard Wendell Phil- 
 lips say, not long ago, in a most eloquent and well- 
 reasoned lecture on Temperance, that this idea of 
 taking away a source of amusement, or gratification, 
 and not supplying another, and especially a higher one, 
 in its place, was the mark of the folly that had re- 
 duced modern legislation on the subject of temperance 
 to its present anomalous condition. In fact, it is hardly 
 better than an abortion, and will have to be aban- 
 doned, first or last, by all who have embarked in it. 
 
 Speaking on this subject, an English writer says, 
 " France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Germany have 
 no restrictions with regard to intoxicating drinks ; 
 still, very little intemperance is seen in those coun- 
 tries, while our statute books are filled with laws, and 
 intemperance is the national vice of the British Islands, 
 for the want of education and improvement in the 
 moral tone of society." Such facts tell very hard 
 upon these latter-day theories of mere sentimentalists, 
 who look at sturdy, rough, and robust human nature 
 through the rose-coloring of their own atmosphere. 
 Statistics and facts are worth every thing in new move- 
 ments that are likely to be dubious in their operations, 
 for they are the only sure and reliable basis on which 
 theories can hope to be built. 
 
THE SATANIC LICENSE. 161 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE SATANIC LICENSE; OR, A BAD CAUSE BADLY 
 DEFENDED. 
 
 ZEAL is a great thing in any cause ; but where it is 
 applied to a cause radically wrong, it works incalcula- 
 ble mischief. " Zeal without knowledge " w^as warned 
 against by the apostle. 
 
 The friends of prohibition have certainly displayed a 
 zeal in their operations truly worthy of something 
 better than what they have yet accomplished. Sea and 
 land have they compassed, to make a single proselyte 
 more ; after which it appears that they have only forced 
 him to drink worse rum, and more of it, than ever 
 before ; just according to the account to be found in 
 St. Matthew's Gospel. They have alternately used 
 truth or suppressed it, as best suited their own taste 
 and convenience. Jesuit-like they have consented to 
 do evil, in order, as they claim, that good might come 
 out of it ; but so late in the day as this, they are dis- 
 covering that an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, 
 neither can figs be begotten of thistles. Of course we 
 speak only of those ignorant, self-opinionated, and 
 thoroughly uncharitable men, who are wrongly suffered 
 to take and keep the lead in such an important matter 
 as temperance reform. 
 14* 
 
 (raff JVfcRSI'TVH 
 
162 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Not long since, we were reading over again, and with 
 somewhat more of a critical eye than when we first 
 read it, a little thin volume, illustrated with a diabol- 
 ical cut, that is, having a picture of the devil in the 
 frontispiece, called " The Mysterious Parchment, or 
 the Satanic License." The author is the Rev. Joel 
 Wakeman, and the book has long been a text-book 
 with the leaders and magnates and officials of the pro- 
 hibition party. Neal Dow swears upon it, and Dr. 
 Jcwett quotes and indorses it. It is from the prolific 
 press of those eminent publishers, Messrs. John P. Jew- 
 ett & Co., who have, in their day, probably published 
 as many books in support of the temperance cause as 
 any other men. " The Mysterious Parchment, or the 
 Satanic License," is a simple little tale, and its author 
 sincerely avers that it is based on nothing but facts. 
 
 Now, we conceive that this book if any single book 
 can be is a personification of error, combined with 
 exaggeration and untruth, so strangely mixed that it 
 would be hard to say which was the accidental, and 
 which was the deliberate falsehood. But as it has been 
 so generally indorsed by the leaders in the Maine Law 
 movement, and its sentiments have been so often 
 quoted by them in one place and another, and its au- 
 thor has been so highly lauded by them on all occasions, 
 we deem it no more than our duty, as we likewise know 
 it must be an acceptable work to its truth-loving 
 friends, to examine into some of its more palpable 
 errors. 
 
 In his preface, the author sets out with the state- 
 
THE SATANIC LICENSE. 163 
 
 ment that the book is merely a story, but founded alto- 
 gether on fact. The scene of this story is laid in a 
 town which he calls Harwood, in the State of New 
 York. In one place he represents a person going be- 
 fore the Board of Excise, and arguing against granting 
 any person in the whole town a license for the coming 
 year. This same fictitious person is made to state, in 
 the course of his argument, that there are fifty habitu- 
 al drunkards in the town, twenty or thirty occasional 
 drunkards, and more than three hundred moderate 
 drinkers ; and he further says there are not more than 
 two or three young men in town who are not in the 
 habit of using intoxicating drinks. All very well till 
 you follow him along a little way farther. There the 
 same speaker before the Excise committee is made by 
 the author to say, that about four hundred voters of 
 the same town petition for the authorities to refuse 
 another license ! This strange discrepancy may be 
 found by turning first to page 103, and afterwards to 
 page 106, of the volume. The amount of his story, 
 therefore, is, that there are about four hundred drunk- 
 ards in town, and the same number of voters ; and that 
 all the voters, which of course comprises all the drunk- 
 ards, have petitioned to have the sale of liquor under 
 the license law stopped ! 
 
 Inasmuch as he is a clergyman, the writer is of 
 course obliged to quote Scripture for the purpose of 
 backing up his arguments ; but we cannot see that he 
 finds any passages in the Bible against either the sale 
 or the use of spirituous liquors, provided the same are 
 
164 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 pure and are used in a proper manner. He is, to be 
 sure, guilty of cutting and slicing up passages of Scrip- 
 ture to suit the case in hand, and always to make them 
 appear to mean something different from their original 
 and natural signification. In this respect, he reminds 
 us of a well-known anecdote of the famous English 
 preacher, Rowland Hill. Mr. Hill was of the Metho- 
 dist persuasion, and in his day was accounted a great 
 revivalist. The fashion of that day seemed at one time 
 to run into an enormous height and expansion of head- 
 dresses, or, as they were called, " top-knots." He felt 
 that it was rapidly becoming cause of scandal that so 
 many of the ladies of his congregation should have 
 given way to the influence of the fashion, and for a 
 long time was puzzled how to proceed. It was evident 
 that the practice must be rebuked, and that sharply 
 and openly. If matters w r ere allowed to go on at this 
 rate, there would soon be an end of vital religion among 
 his people. So up rose Mr. Hill, one pleasant Sunday 
 morning, with the church filled with the enormous 
 " top-knots " of the ladies, and presenting a sight cal- 
 culated to startle the most careless beholder, and com- 
 menced with the following bold and striking text: 
 "Top not, come down!" The words of the text, he 
 remarked, were to be found in the 17th verse of the 
 24th chapter of Matthew ; which was really the case ; 
 for the whole verse reads thus : " Let him which is on 
 the house-fop not come down to take any thing out of 
 his house." 
 
 Just so with the manner in which the Rev. Joel 
 
THE SATANIC LICENSE. 165 
 
 Wakeman chooses to quote Scripture texts in his " Sa- 
 tanic License." They have no more logical or reason- 
 able connection with the subject he has before him, 
 than this text in Matthew naturally had with the " top- 
 knots " that were worn by the ladies of Rowland Hill's 
 congregation ; no more relation to rum-selling, or rum- 
 drinking, than these words of our Saviour, when prop- 
 erly quoted, had to the exaggerated head-dresses of 
 those ladies who flourished before the days of our grand- 
 mothers. 
 
 But there is one distinguishing feature about this 
 anti-license book, thus illustrated with a wood-cut of 
 his Satanic majesty, which we desire in particular to 
 notice ; and it is where this mighty prohibition advo- 
 cate and wonderful story writer we were going to 
 say prophet, too blunders so fatally for his cause by 
 telling the naked truth ! The avowed purpose of his 
 book is to overthrow and break up the whole system of 
 licensing ; but, like Balaam, who was hired by Balak 
 to prophesy against the armies of Israel, but after all 
 prophesied the other way, (see Joshua, 24th chapter, 
 9th verse,) the Rev. Joel Wakeman, in his attempt to 
 destroy the license system, uses an argument like this 
 in its favor. We quote from page 277 of the " Satanic 
 License," where he is making one of his fictitious char- 
 acters answer another who had asked him what he 
 thought about adulterating liquors with poisons : " 0, it 
 must have a very injurious effect upon the health of 
 those who use the liquors. The drugs which are now 
 used is the reason why men become drunkards so soon. 
 
166 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Since my remembrance, it was a common thing for men 
 to use pure liquors through life without inebriation. 
 We have no such cases now. It is a common thing 
 now to see young men of seventeen reeling in the 
 streets as common drunkards. All this, I think, is in 
 consequence of drugged liquors. Thirty years ago, also, 
 delirium tremens was a rare disease. Now, it is so 
 common that almost every drunkard has its symptoms, 
 if not the disease, in some of its fearful forms. This, 
 I have no doubt, is to be charged to the adulteration of 
 liquors" 
 
 Well and truly said. It is exactly what we have 
 been arguing from the beginning of this volume. Here 
 the Rev. Joel Wakeman admits that people used to 
 drink moderately for a whole lifetime, without becom- 
 ing drunkards, or being in any way injured thereby. 
 Now, Reverend Joel, we have got you just where we 
 want you ; and all who quote your writings with such 
 evident satisfaction, are in the same tight corner. You 
 admit that good and pure liquor, when used in proper 
 quantities, hurts no one, even though a man takes it 
 for the length of a long life. And you say what every 
 body, who knows any thing about it, knows to be true. 
 Tell it not in Portland, let it not reach the ears of 
 Neal Dow, but, brother Joel, like Balaam of old, you 
 have been prophesying in our favor ! We could have 
 asked no better things of you, even if we had had the 
 first choice. If one tenth part of the money and time 
 and labor had been spent to purify spirituous liquors 
 that have been wasted, and worse than merely wasted, 
 
THE SATANIC LICENSE. 167 
 
 in the vain attempts to destroy them altogether, we 
 should now have real temperance men where drunken- 
 ness abounds, and honest and consistent friends of the 
 temperance reform where now we have only outside 
 pretenders and knavish hypocrites. But what have you 
 frantic anti-license men been doing to purify rum? 
 You have only succeeded in putting the author of the 
 " Hen Fever " at the head of your system, and where 
 is the first temperance paper or orator that ever dared 
 raise an objection to the measure ? 
 
 It would be tenfold more easy to go about the work 
 of purifying liquors, than it now is to prevent the issue 
 of counterfeit money ; and yet people have -not stopped 
 to think of such a thing, because the prohibition lead- 
 ers have kept them in such a state of excitement over 
 the plan to exterminate liquors altogether. Once re- 
 store and improve the license system, and secure the 
 appointment of competent and faithful inspectors of 
 liquors, just as we do the appointment of weighers of 
 hay, and measurers of wood, and sealers of measures, 
 and then make every rum-seller responsible for all 
 damage done by the sale of his rum, whether accruing 
 to the individual, to the individual's family, or to the 
 community, and establish it that every dealer in 
 liquors who is not thus responsible is a nuisance, to be 
 abated after the style of nuisances generally, and we 
 should be troubled with very little more strychnine 
 whiskey and dead-shot for bedbugs, retailed by the 
 glass for the purpose of murdering such persons as can 
 get nothing better to drink. Those who truly love the 
 
168 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 human race would be apt to take such steps as would 
 first of all extirpate the destroying influences that are 
 now felt with such fatal effect on every side. If, too, 
 they would spend their energies on proper and practi- 
 cable objects, they would try to understand, first, the 
 instincts and hereditary habits of the human family, 
 and, secondly, seek to apply only those remedies to ex- 
 isting faults that would be likely to reach and remove 
 them. 
 
 The " Satanic License " affords us no encouragement 
 that its author knows himself either what ought to be 
 done, or how to do it. Such books do little good, for 
 they only serve to make passionate partisans where 
 they ought to encourage men to use their perceptions 
 and their reason. 
 
THE MAINE LAW. 169 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE MAINE LAW. 
 
 THIS is a statute different in all important respects 
 from other statutes ; because, instead of taking things 
 as they now are, and applying its operations to them 
 after a perfectly natural method, it unmakes what has 
 been already established, calls that a crime which nei- 
 ther the common law nor common sentiment agrees to 
 call such, raises opposition where only general assent 
 should exist, and excites the passions where it should 
 only excite the respect of the community. Those who 
 framed it did so in the mistaken belief that a tempo- 
 rary inflammation of popular feeling, or inordinate 
 excitement of popular sentiment, was a true and per- 
 manent condition of the public mind; that aroused 
 passion and sympathy was an enduring form of public 
 opinion, whereas it had no logical connection with 
 public opinion at all. For what men think in a state 
 of passionate excitement, they do not think ; reason 
 does not guide or control in such a condition of the 
 human mind. 
 
 The Maine Law is so called from the fact that it had 
 
 its practical origin in this country, in Maine ; still, that 
 
 State cannot rightly lay claim to having produced it. 
 
 It was the fruit borne of the labors of men like the 
 
 15 
 
170 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 .elder Beecher and Dr. Hewitt, and not of those of Neal 
 Dow. It frequently happens, however, that some new 
 man starts up to usurp the honor which other men 
 deserve to wear, merely because it so fell out that he 
 was a willing instrument in consummating a work 
 which others before him had spent their lives in carry- 
 ing forward. We may say, in fact, that the Maine Law 
 is the remote offspring of the old alliance known as the 
 " American Temperance Union." 
 
 The immediate manner in which this law came into 
 being has been so well described by another, that we 
 prefer to quote from him, to attempting the description 
 ourselves : " Philanthropists and Christians, who had 
 expended much zeal and effort in favor of temperance 
 reform, while they saw very great improvement ; 
 while intoxicating drinks had been banished from the 
 sideboards of most families ; while those who took the 
 lead in moral influence abstained from their use ; and 
 the principles of temperance, which, a quarter of a 
 century before, were scoffed at, had now become uni- 
 versally received by the good and virtuous, and it was 
 no longer an opprobrium to be a teetotaler, still, as 
 we say, philanthropists and Christians were impressed 
 with a conviction that there yet remained much in the 
 habits of the community which needed reformation. 
 
 " Dram-shops abounded. The young men were pre- 
 sented with the intoxicating cup at public dinners ; and 
 festival occasions were not regarded as complete with- 
 out their use. The tavern was the rallying point in 
 many communities, and furnished the place of meeting 
 
THE MAINE LAW. 171 
 
 on any occasion which called the people together. 
 Youth associated in military and fire companies, and 
 those who desired to be regarded as fashionable were 
 peculiarly exposed to temptation. Temperance was 
 growing less popular ; there was an apparent disposition 
 in the community to relapse into habits of excess ; yet 
 there seemed to be nothing more that the advocates of 
 temperance could do." 
 
 So, of course, they must needs go to work and undo 
 what they had already done. They were impatient 
 because the world would not be reformed as fast as 
 they wished to reform it ! therefore, says the writer 
 from whom we quote, 
 
 " At this juncture," although we confess ive can- 
 not see exactly what that "juncture" was, "the 
 experiment of a prohibitory law was conceived. It 
 was eagerly regarded as the ' Eureka,' by means of 
 which this giant evil could be effectually vanquished. 
 But it is to be feared that this law, with all its strin- 
 gent provisions, loses sight of the operations of human 
 nature. The word 6 prohibitory ' would seem to imply 
 the possibility of forbidding effectually the use, in any 
 form, of intoxicating drinks. The feature of that strin- 
 gent law of Maine, which imprisons the traveller who 
 has a vial of brandy among his baggage, or the porter 
 ho leaves a bottle at a dwelling, or fines the physician 
 who furnishes it, seems to suppose the possibility of 
 legislators making dietetic regulations which shall be 
 regarded as binding upon the community." 
 
 And upon this point, our author speaks so well that 
 
172 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 we shall allow him to continue : " There is no prin- 
 ciple with regard to which men are so sensitive as that 
 of personal liberty. A small community might be will- 
 ing, for the sake of those whose idiosyncrasy drew them 
 into intemperance, to relinquish the use of stimulants. 
 But it is Utopian to expect that the majority of our citi- 
 zens will consent to a law that shall decide for them 
 questions relating to their diet and regimen, which it is 
 eminently their province and right to decide for them- 
 selves ! By attempting too much, there is danger of 
 losing vantage ground, and of failing to obtain, such 
 wise enactments as can be effectively enforced." 
 
 The case is well and truly stated. The great point 
 is only this, that human nature will not consent to be 
 reformed in this patent way, but insists on doing the 
 work itself, if it is done at all. And the prohibitionists 
 are only kicking against the pricks, when they persist 
 in their futile attempts, and snarl and snap because 
 human nature does not happen to be something differ- 
 ent from what it is. They will be obliged, we fear, to 
 begin and do the work all over again, making man 
 something quite different from what he is now. 
 
 There is another point to be considered. The Amer- 
 ican mind is ever prone to extremes. Public opinion 
 is any thing but steadfast in this country. To-day it is 
 for, and to-morrow it is against. Now it is up, and 
 now it is down. We always want to overdo matters 
 cannot be satisfied unless we get more than what was 
 at first proposed. We insist on crossing the line that 
 limits temperance and moderation, even when we aim 
 
THE MAINE LAW. 173 
 
 to preach moderation itself. It is all a great mistake, 
 and a fatal one. 
 
 If we wish to enact a law that shall put a stop to 
 tippling practices, shut up dram-shops, and purify in 
 this way the public morals, we must be careful at the 
 same time not to make such a law as will both em- 
 barrass and insult the temperate and law-respecting 
 portion of the community. Here is where the danger 
 lies ; in seeking to avoid one extreme, another has been 
 run into. Then, again, people are so eager to run after 
 cliques and factions, as if one must needs enroll his 
 name among them, or he is nobody. But of this grows 
 that excessive and weak desire to appear consistent in 
 one's opinions, which shows a greater regard for the 
 opinions themselves than for their effect. And on no 
 one subject has cliquism been more rampant than on 
 that of temperance. It has had recourse to all intem- 
 perate practices, for the sake of carrying temporarily 
 its own end. It raged so high at one time, that no man 
 was esteemed worth listening to in a temperance meet- 
 ing unless he had come up out of a gutter, and could 
 narrate the most disgusting experiences. Hence the 
 poor, ragged, and thoroughly worthless rascal, who had 
 hung about the greater number of years in filthy bar- 
 rooms, was infinitely preferred as a speaker to those 
 who really had observed and seriously thought upon 
 the matter of temperance reform. And the style of 
 oratory was, of course, to correspond. It did not bring 
 a blush to a man's cheek, to get up before a large audi- 
 ence and confess what an ignorant beast he had taken 
 15* 
 
174 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 delight in being all his past life, how many times a 
 week he had been dead drunk, how often he had 
 been carried home on a board, or a shutter, and tum- 
 bled into his bed, or trundled along to the same 
 place in a handcart or a wheelbarrow. 
 
 And the same spirit rules to-day ; and it is this spirit 
 that we are laboring to show up as exactly the wrong 
 S pi r it ? as that which works more mischief than it can 
 ever work good. It betrays itself in every possible way 
 now. It calls on a man to enroll his name among some 
 order of self-styled temperance men ; rigs him up in a 
 gaudy coat of regalia ; and acquaints him with certain 
 secret winks, nods, and signs, by the favor of which he 
 may gain access to up-stair lodges, back-door caucuses, 
 and purposeless fraternities. It demands further of 
 him, that he shall join in the general cry for stringent 
 laws, no matter whether there is a likelihood of their 
 ever being carried into operation or not, and obedi- 
 ently vote for every man who is proposed as a candidate 
 through whose aid such laws are to be enacted. 
 
 And so comes this wild shout, which we have all 
 heard so long, for statutes that shall declare liquors to 
 be poisons, and constitute it a criminal offence to be 
 connected with the traffic in them ; for statutes that 
 shall put liquor on the same footing with strychnine 
 and arsenic, and prohibit their sale under any circum- 
 stances except for certain prescribed purposes. And 
 the Maine Law has been enacted in certain States, al- 
 though its execution is more an impossibility to-day 
 than it ever was. It has been pronounced unconstitti- 
 
THE MAINE LAW. 175 
 
 tional by some of the State courts, and therefore 
 amended and otherwise tinkered so as to cover the 
 emergency. Few or no convictions have as yet fol- 
 lowed its enactment in Massachusetts or in Maine, 
 while in New York and the States farther west, it has 
 been confessed to be utterly impracticable. 
 
 Still there are a few men who cling to the infatua- 
 tion of believing that such a law can as well be executed 
 to-day as any other law. Neal Dow believes it, or at 
 least pretends to believe it ; and if he could have only 
 his own autocratic way about it, he would make of 
 Maine the same sort of a state that one will find in 
 many parts of over-governed Europe in every little 
 town a sort of custom-house, at which the traveller's 
 baggage, or clothing, would be inspected by an igno- 
 rant and insolent guard. For this must certainly be 
 the result of it. And this is the kind of liberty which 
 such forcible intermeddlers with popular morals would 
 fain establish all over the land ; if people will not be- 
 come moral of themselves, then they shall be made 
 moral by the application of law ! They shall become 
 better, at all events ! 
 
 Mr. Delavan, the great teetotal apostle of Albany, 
 predicted that in a short time after the passage of this 
 law in New York, that vast emporium of commerce 
 would become pure and clean of every thing like liquor 
 and liquor influences ; the very sale of rum by the glass 
 was to be prohibited without any mistake. And the 
 twenty, thirty, and forty thousand drinking places to 
 be found open, and doing a good business, too, in New 
 

 
 176 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 York, are the best, or worst, possible commentary on 
 his vain and ill-digested opinions. 
 
 The fact literally is, this Maine Law has as yet ac- 
 complished nothing, and can accomplish nothing. Be- 
 cause it aims at too much ; it travels entirely out of the 
 record ; it has become a mere engine in the hands of 
 ambitious men, who seek for power only, and the pop- 
 ular sentiment cannot offer such a creature its sympa- 
 thy or support. Not until these pretended reformers 
 good men, some of them return to the paths of 
 common sense again, can they hope to make any prog- 
 ress in purging tire world of this giant evil that is 
 called Intemperance. Of one thing, at least, must they 
 rest satisfied ; and that is, that no such progress as they 
 count on can be made under the aiispices of any so- 
 called " Maine Law." 
 
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE. 177 
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 IN the excitement and fury incident to getting up 
 parties on the inefficient and impracticable Maine Law, 
 scarcely any attention has been paid to the leading 
 point in all this controversy, which is, the causes of in- 
 temperance. It is to this point that we all need to come 
 back, and take our bearings again upon this matter ; 
 for it is certain that no disease, and no evil, is ever to 
 , be cured or eradicated, unless its character and the 
 laws of its operation are first well understood, and so 
 the best method is made known after which it may be 
 treated. 
 
 We find that vast numbers are addicted to iiltemper- 
 ance ; not wretches and vagabonds all of them, but many 
 among those whom we all know, and whom the world 
 otherwise delights to honor. How comes this about ? 
 Why is one man intemperate in his habits, and another 
 right the contrary ? And is there no allowance to be 
 made in this estimate for differences in circumstances, 
 situation, surroundings, and temperament? Can all 
 men be measured by an absolute standard, all laid 
 on the same bed, and stretched or trimmed off to suit 
 only the length of the bed ? If it is upon such an 
 ignorant assumption as this that the temperance reform 
 
178 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 proceeds, then all hope of making more out of it than 
 a piece of unmitigated folly may as well be abandoned. 
 
 Look, first, at the weakness of our common nature 
 on different occasions, and when subjected to different 
 moods, and then at the temptations that beset that 
 nature at every turn, ever ready to take advantage of 
 its weakness and its despondent moods. Here is a 
 poor man who finds no relaxation from his tasking 
 labor from one week's end to another ; and just at this 
 critical juncture the dram-shop or the cheerful bar- 
 room presents itself, well lighted, filled with chatty 
 acquaintances, and always accessible ; where, too, all 
 who frequent it meet on terms of perfect equality, if 
 not fraternity. Do you say there are no naturally 
 strong enticements for that man in such a place as this, 
 especially when the whole of his home is embraced 
 within four dreary walls, or at most in a cellar-like 
 tenement, whose light often enough comes down 
 through *& trap-door, if at all ? Such a man would not 
 be a human being, as God originally made human be- 
 ings, if he did not prefer the cheerful bar-room, or 
 dram-shop, to his own ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, and 
 thoroughly squalid quarters. In a climate like this 
 of ours, especially where alcoholic stimulus has so long 
 usurped the place of milder and safer beverages, the 
 bar-room of course becomes a powerful attraction, and 
 there are formed those unfortunate habits that lead 
 their victims on to the destroying disease of intem- 
 perance. 
 
 In this respect we are like the English. The French, 
 
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE. 179 
 
 and indeed most of the people of the continent of Eu- 
 rope, when they meet socially, are perfectly content to 
 sit down over a glass of some light and harmless wine, 
 or even to sit and sip a beverage as innocent as sugar, 
 and-water ; whereas we, like the English, must needs 
 pour down streams of the most powerful alcoholic stim- 
 ulus, oftentimes very slightly diluted, until the brain 
 feels the fire and all the veins swell with the intense 
 excitement. This habit is in a good degree an inherit- 
 ance, and partly an advance upon what descended to 
 us in the way of appetite and temperament. But what 
 is the reason the masses of our people cannot accustom 
 themselves to milder and more innocent stimulants of 
 the social feeling ? Why must they needs descend to 
 the gross and destroying practice of intoxication, in 
 order to testify one to the other the satisfaction they 
 experience in coming together ? Why this first and 
 last resort always to strong drink, and in such immod- 
 erate quantities ? There is an answer for these ques- 
 tions : Because no provision is made among our people 
 for innocent recreations and amusements, and hence 
 no taste for them has as yet sprung up ; their only 
 resort is the bar-room, and, with adulterated liquors, 
 consequent intoxication. 
 
 We have no games and diversions, no holiday fes- 
 tivals and general jubilees ; but the rout is made up of 
 an oddly assorted mixture of military turn-outs, target 
 excursions, firemen's demonstrations, and public pa- 
 rades, most, or all, of which demand more or less 
 stimulus from the bar-room or the dram-shop, and may 
 
180 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 be said to possess that special element in a correspond- 
 ing proportion. Now, if we banish the vile grog-shops, 
 which a proper license statute would be certain to do 
 for us, we must supply their places with something 
 better, for it will never answer to create a vacuum and 
 leave it unprovided for. This can be done, for there 
 never yet was a want felt but some one stepped in to 
 supply it. And here is where public rooms for conver- 
 sation, for reading, and similar social purposes might 
 be provided, with drinks at hand of an enlivening but 
 not inebriating nature, and with games of every de- 
 scription to cheer and enliven the spirits. In such 
 places the habits of a coming generation might just as 
 well be formed, and formed on right principles, as in 
 those other places where all is now placed at so great 
 a hazard. Here distilled liquors might be proved to 
 be not the essential elements and conditions of enjoy- 
 ment they are now popularly supposed to be ; and 
 young men, whose habits are forming, would learn that 
 the best and only true way was to practise the very 
 necessary art of governing themselves. 
 
 The condition of those unfortunate persons, however, 
 with whom a morbid desire for unhealthy and excessive 
 stimulus has been an inheritance, deserves more than 
 the passing notice and the hollow expressions of half- 
 pity they have heretofore received. In truth, those 
 who have been chiefly in the habit of talking on teeto- 
 talism, or temperance even, have not begun to under- 
 stand the lamentable condition of this class of people. 
 Here is a state of things most important in connection 
 
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPEBANCE. 181 
 
 with this subject, but to which such reformers have 
 steadfastly shut their ears and eyes. Are such un- 
 happy persons to be proceeded against as criminals ? 
 Not at all ; the rule will be found not to work. They 
 are manifestly an exception to any law, and are to be 
 considered and provided for accordingly. The taste 
 for strong liquors, and the stronger the better, 
 which they have both inherited and made controlling, 
 is their one great curse and cause of misery. Society 
 forgets entirely what it owes to itself and to each of its 
 members, if it omits to include this very large class in 
 its general estimate. 
 
 The leading and most widely operating causes of in- 
 temperance, then, we think we have already named : 
 in the first place, it is the fault of our social manners 
 and customs, that scarcely admit anything like rec- 
 reations or amusements within their circle ; next, it 
 comes of the fiery poisons and adulterations, one of 
 whose elements is the deadly strychnine, to the use of 
 which, through the very lack of social pleasures, men 
 are driven ; and lastly, the disease of intemperance 
 for it is undeniable that such it is is handed down 
 from father to son, and the teeth of the children are 
 indeed set on edge with the grapes eaten by the fathers. 
 Here are three grand causes for the prevalence and 
 increase of intemperance ; and reformers, in addressing 
 themselves to the consideration of this question, must 
 not think that any one of them can be overlooked, or 
 passed by as of secondary importance. 
 
 Latterly, however, evidence is producing that the 
 16 
 
182 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 more thoughtful and truly philanthropic of our reform- 
 ers are taking steps to provide for at least one division, 
 or class, of these causes. They have studied intem- 
 perance as a disease, and resolved as such to treat it. 
 In New York State, an Inebriate Asylum was estab- 
 lished last year, with the congratulations and God- 
 speed of all well-wishers of the human race. Many 
 professed temperance men are as strongly inclined as 
 ever to entertain doubts of its practical efficiency, yet 
 all seem to unite in conceding to it an opportunity for 
 a fair trial. Medical men, who have given their time 
 to the careful study of this subject, must be supposed 
 to know most exactly what are the statistics in relation 
 to the prevalence of this unfortunate malady ; and to 
 them must we look for a still more thorough diagnosis 
 of such a disease than we at present happen to possess. 
 Still, says an influential daily journal of New York 
 city, "It is enough to know that a large number of 
 eminent names are being erased from the list of the 
 living, where the true cause of death is never suspected 
 by the community at large, (the interposition of sur- 
 viving friends saving their memories from indelible 
 disgrace,) ' died from delirium tremens' being the 
 fearful secret. At least two on the list of subscribers 
 for the contemplated Asylum men who stood high 
 in the profession of law and literature are already 
 victims to this insidious destroyer ! It has been as- 
 serted that men are not to be found who would volun- 
 tarily commit themselves to an institution for inebriates ; 
 but this is refuted by the fact that almost before the 
 
THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE. 183 
 
 foundation stone was laid, there had been twenty-eight 
 hundred applications for admission, of whom, accord- 
 ing to Dr. Turner, Corresponding Secretary of the New 
 York State Inebriate Asylum, 'more than four hun- 
 dred are women in the high walks of life, educated and 
 accomplished.' There appears to be no room for rea- 
 sonable doubt upon this point. The chief divergence 
 in public opinion is occasioned by doubts as to the 
 permanency of the cures effected by an inebriate asy- 
 lum, the belief being prevalent that where disease has 
 once so far advanced as to deprive the individual of 
 self-control, a relapse to former habits would almost 
 inevitably ensue upon the removal of external re- 
 straints ; that organic changes already wrought in the 
 system would defy all attempts at correction." 
 
 It is to this feature the pathology of inebriety 
 that the New York State Asylum proposes to address 
 itself ; to inebriety of the stomach and brain, which is 
 first constitutional, and then hereditary in its character. 
 According to Dr. Turner, " the time, and the only 
 time, when this institution can reach the inebriate, is 
 when he has lost self-control, and the law regards him 
 as a dangerous citizen, or when he can be induced to 
 enter the Asylum voluntarily. A large proportion 
 of cases, as shown by the experience of some of our in- 
 sane asylums, may be cured in a year, within whioh 
 time the morbid condition of the stomach will be re- 
 moved, and the powers of the constitution renovated, 
 so that the unnatural craving for artificial stimulus 
 will no longer exist. Though this is the first institution 
 
184 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 of the kind in existence specially designed for the treat- 
 ment of this disease, it has the substantial indorsement 
 of all the prominent physicians in the State." 
 
 These are movements, it must be confessed, in the 
 right direction. Intemperance is a disease, either ac- 
 quired or inherited, or both, and as such it will in time 
 come to be treated. The only thing at present in the 
 way is, the excited passions and prejudices that, in 
 certain places, are strong enough to carry all before 
 them. 
 
A THOUSAND DOLLAKS. 185 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 A THOUSAND DOLLARS. 
 
 SOME time during the month of May, in the year 
 1856, an offer of a thousand dollars was made to the 
 writer of the best essay on temperance legislation, to- 
 gether with the outline of a law the essays to be 
 subjected to the careful examination of competent 
 judges and respectable men in the community, but no 
 one to take the prize unless his effort should, in the 
 opinion of the judges, be found worthy of their ap- 
 proval. This munificent offer was made by Mr. John 
 M. Barnard, of Boston, a well-known distiller, and a 
 man who, as is understood, is both able and ready to 
 carry out what he undertakes. 
 
 The motive apparent in the making of this offer was, 
 to call out the best possible productions from the best 
 minds of the country on the subject of Temperance, 
 and a law that should embody the general sentiment 
 of the community, in relation to the sale and use of 
 liquors. As a citizen having at heart the highest and 
 broadest interests of the society of which he was a 
 member, he performed an act of the most praiseworthy 
 and honorable character ; and it only remained for the 
 temperance men, who professed to have at heart the 
 16* 
 
186 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 same high and permanent interests, to come forward 
 and aid Mr. Barnard in his project to establish this 
 matter on a sure foundation, because on principles of 
 justice and truth. 
 
 But did temperance men do any such thing ? Far- 
 thest from it possible. They sneered at the proposal, 
 and turned up their noses at the offer. Why ? Simply 
 because the gentleman making the offer did not happen 
 to belong to their peculiar creed ! He wtis a distiller, 
 and of course, in their estimation, could not be sup- 
 posed to possess any real honesty of motive in a matter 
 of this kind. A teetotaler must be, as a matter of 
 course, a pure, moral, upright, and thoroughly religious 
 man, and a " respectable " man, too ; but a distiller 
 must be the very reverse in every particular ! There- 
 fore, obedient to these vicious prejudices of theirs, none 
 of the prohibition writers, who pretend to keep such a 
 fixed eye upon the well being of society, brought for- 
 ward their schemes and projects for the regeneration 
 of men, as they deem it quite practicable to redeem 
 him, but let the golden opportunity pass unimproved, 
 because, forsooth, it was not offered by somebody on 
 their own side of the question ! They certainly could 
 not have objected to the proposal that the judges se- 
 lected were either partial or incompetent men, for they 
 were such persons as John H. Clifford, formerly Gov-. 
 ernor of Massachusetts, Rev. Alexander H. Vinton, the 
 Rector of St. Paul's Church in Boston, but at present 
 preaching in Philadelphia, Nahum Capen, the Post- 
 
A THOUSAND DOLLARS. 187 
 
 master of Boston, and Peter Cooper, the distinguished 
 philanthropist of New York, and the munificent founder 
 of the Cooper Institute in that city. These, certainly, 
 are among the very first men in any community, and 
 it is not supposable that their verdict, after giving to 
 the Essays sent in their careful examination, would be 
 any other than competent and impartial. The pre- 
 mium offered, too, was large enough to enlist the best 
 talent, and should not have failed to call out that from 
 the body of the prohibition party, if, as they professed, 
 they were in earnest about their plans to redeem the 
 race from the vice and evil consequences of intemper- 
 ance. But their prejudices were insuperable, and over- 
 came every thing else. 
 
 A correspondence was held between Mr. Barnard 
 and the Assistant District Attorney for the county of 
 Suffolk, A. 0. Brewster, Esq., some time afterwards, 
 in which the whole subject treated of in the Essays was 
 discussed ; and as the correspondence between these 
 two gentlemen was made public at the time, and pos- 
 sesses much interest for readers generally, we append 
 it in this place. We may be allowed to add further, 
 that we have ourselves seen the essays that were sent 
 in from various parts of the country in competition for 
 the prize, respecting the merits of which mention is 
 made in the correspondence. The following are the 
 letters : 
 
188 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 BOSTON, December 15, 1858. 
 
 John M. Barnard, Esq. Dear Sir : During the past 
 year various and repeated inquiries have been made of 
 me about the offer, made by you a year or two since, to 
 give a premium of one thousand dollars for the best 
 essay on temperance legislation. If I remember right, 
 your proposition was published at the time, and an- 
 swered by various writers who entered the field as 
 competitors for the premium. Have you any objection 
 to acquaint me with the facts relating to a matter of 
 such public interest ? Perhaps, on the whole, the bet- 
 ter mode is to communicate through the columns of 
 the press the award of the committee, to whom the 
 essays were referred with full power to approve or reject. 
 
 My object in dropping you this note is to solicit full 
 information in regard to the line of argument pursued 
 by the writers, and to receive such suggestions as are 
 valuable and worthy of adoption. The public mind, too, 
 is still at sea upon a question of paramount interest. 
 
 Can we have a better law than the one now on our 
 statute book, designed to regulate the manufacture, 
 sale, and use of intoxicating liquors ? 
 
 It is to be presumed that the competitors for the pre- 
 mium discussed this question in its full length and 
 breadth. Will you give to the public the award of the 
 committee ? In other words, who got the premium ? 
 and where is the essay ? 
 
 I am, dear sir, your ob't servant, 
 
 A. 0. BREWSTER, 
 
 22 Tremont Row. 
 
A THOUSAND DOLLARS. 189 
 
 BOSTON, December 24, 1858. 
 
 Col. A. 0. Brewster. My dear Sir : I am happy to 
 acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th hist., 
 making inquiries as to the result of my proposition to 
 give one thousand dollars for the best essay on tem- 
 perance legislation. I now avail myself of the earliest 
 opportunity to state frankly and freely such suggestions 
 as occur to me in connection with this matter. 
 
 As your letter is decidedly explicit and direct, you 
 will of course pardon me for a little directness on my 
 part. 
 
 The offer to which you refer was made public in 
 May, 1856, and was a " premium of $1000 for the best 
 essay on temperance legislation, and outline of a law." 
 My motives for this offer were stated at the time, with 
 a view to invite the spirit of duty in the statesman, 
 and to advance the cause of temperance in a reasonable 
 and practical way. No limits or requisitions were pre- 
 scribed as to the number of pages, but intimating a 
 directness of aim and a comprehensive brevity. All 
 competitors were requested to send their productions, 
 enveloped, sealed, and directed to me, on or before 
 May 1, 1857, after which I would place them in the 
 hands of the judges who had kindly consented to serve, 
 viz. : Hon. John J. Gilchrist, late Chief Justice of the 
 U. S. Court of Claims ; Hon. John H. Clifford, late 
 Attorney General of Massachusetts ; Eev. A. H. Vin- 
 ton, of Boston ; Hon. Peter Cooper, of New York city, 
 and Nahum Capen, Esq., Postmaster of Boston. 
 
190 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 In a few months following my proposal, a number of 
 communications were received, which continued up to 
 the period limited, when they reached the number of 
 forty or more. Most of them were unnecessarily long, 
 prolix, and tedious ; Job himself would have rebelled 
 against reading them. Others were more practical and 
 comprehensive, but did not come up in merit to the 
 views of the committee. 
 
 To prove to you the extreme fanaticism and igno- 
 rance which pervade the minds of some writers upon 
 temperance reform, I will here state as an illustration, 
 that one of the writers commenced his essay with a sad 
 recital of the evils of intemperance now desolating the 
 land, and after drawing a gloomy picture of life, pro- 
 posed as a panacea for the evils an outline of a law, 
 which, among other remedies, undertakes to make all 
 parents criminally liable for the acts of their children 
 under twenty-one years of age, (provided that the 
 oifences charged against them are the result of intoxi- 
 cation.) In other words, an honest and industrious 
 mechanic, the father of many children, has one son 
 addicted to intemperance ; that son in an unhappy 
 moment engages in a quarrel, and takes the life of a 
 human being ; under the law, the father is to be held 
 to bail, or imprisoned, and in due course of time is to 
 be placed at the bar for trial on a charge of murder or 
 manslaughter. 
 
 Imagine such a law on our statute books. And this 
 is but one illustration of the impracticable views of our 
 modern over-zealous reformers. 
 
A THOUSAND DOLLARS. 191 
 
 Another writer opens the discussion with a feeling 
 and eloquent portrayal of the miseries of intemperance, 
 and in a fervent spirit calls upon the statesman and 
 legislator to come to the rescue, and devise some means 
 to stop this tide of human suffering. What, think you, 
 is his remedy ? He condemns the Maine Law, pro- 
 nounces all sumptuary laws as unjust and oppressive, 
 but proposes, in lieu thereof, sanitary institutions all 
 over the State, with different apartments for inebriates, 
 and to be supported from the revenue of the Common- 
 wealth. He argues from this that the burden of tax- 
 ation would be so great in maintaining these hospitals, 
 that the moral influence of all good citizens would be 
 directed towards the suppression (by moral suasion) of 
 the free use of intoxicating liquors. 
 
 Another contributor, in an earnest, but voluminous 
 essay, falls back upon a license system as the most 
 effectual one to meet the views of the public. 
 
 In most of the communications there is a want of* 
 harmony and unity of views. No two writers seem to 
 agree. Extremes meet. Both start from the right 
 place, but diverge at different points. It has been 
 owing, possibly, to the impracticable, visionary views 
 of some, and the too cautious conservatism of others, 
 that the committee failed to see how any essay on the 
 score of merit was entitled to the prize. 
 
 I transmit, for your perusal, the decision lately placed 
 in my hands by the committee : 
 
192 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 BOSTON, December 12, 1858. 
 
 Sir : The Essays on Temperance Legislation received 
 by you, under your liberal offer of a premium for the 
 best discussion of that subject, having been submitted 
 to us, we are constrained to say that no one of them is, 
 in our judgment, of sufficient merit to justify us in 
 awarding to its author either the prize or the preference. 
 We are respectfully 
 
 Your ob't servants, 
 
 JOHN H. CLIFFORD, 
 ALEX'R H. VINTON, 
 NAHUM CAPEN, 
 PETER COOPER. 
 To John M. Barnard, Esq., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Tliis report, brief but simple, tells the whole story, 
 and you will not thank me for further comments. 
 
 I am glad that you have written me about this mat- 
 ter, as the public is entitled to know its finale. 
 
 I was in hopes, when I made the offer, that it was 
 liberal enough to arouse the best talent of the country, 
 and engage the attention of sound thinking men to dis- 
 cuss this question in a broad, wise, and comprehensive 
 spirit. The present law, commonly known as the 
 ;i Nuisance Act," has failed to reach the difficulty. It 
 needs modification to make it effective. 
 
 No two men in our community better understand 
 this than Mr. Cooley and yourself. I think you once 
 told me that you experienced great trouble in procur- 
 ing convictions under it, and intimated that the number 
 of disagreements by juries was owing, not so much to 
 its alleged unconstitutionality as to other vexed and 
 
A THOUSAND DOLLARS. 193 
 
 delicate questions involved. You have no difficulty 
 with prosecutions based upon other criminal statutes ; 
 and why is it that the liquor law is so inoperative and 
 void? 
 
 I know of no one abler or better fitted to discuss this 
 subject than yourself; and why not enlighten public 
 opinion upon a matter so deeply interesting ? With 
 your large experience, and varied knowledge, you can 
 readily see the imperfections of our impolitic and im- 
 practicable statutes, and should be able to suggest a 
 remedy. 
 
 In these observations I do not mean to hint that you, 
 or your honored associate, Mr. Cooley, should depart 
 from the line of official duty, to engage in the discus- 
 sion of a popular question ; and yet, who better com- 
 petent to advise and instruct than gentlemen whose 
 every-day life brings them into contact with different 
 minds ? 
 
 You know better than most men the logic of the 
 jury box, the mode of reasoning, the prejudices and 
 partialities of juries, their willingness to exercise the 
 right to judge the law as well as the fact ; and you 
 can easily obviate an apparent difficulty by making the 
 law more liberal and consistent, but none the less 
 effective. 
 
 Obliterate the odious and abominable features of the 
 
 law, conceived by zealots and partisan bigots ; strike 
 
 from it all that is despotic and tyrannical ; give to it 
 
 consistency, dignity, and sense, with its full measure 
 
 17 
 
194 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 of severity of punishment, and you will work a 
 lasting and permanent good. 
 
 I am, most respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN M. BARNARD, 
 No. 13 Temple Street. 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 195 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 AMERICAN WINES. -PART I. 
 
 UNTIL very lately, our people have not permitted 
 themselves to think of the possibility of such a thing ; 
 but it is now as fixed as any other fact in existence. 
 We are yet to manufacture all our own wines, and 
 doubtless export wines besides. Adlum, the author 
 of a " Memoir of the Cultivation of the Vine in Amer- 
 ica," published in 1823, said, in the preface of his 
 little book, " A desire to be useful to my countrymen 
 has animated all my efforts, and given a stimulus to all 
 my exertions. It is from this desire, in connection 
 with a wish to satisfy the numerous inquiries that have 
 been made upon the subject, that I have been led to 
 undertake the present work, which, I hope, will induce 
 others to follow my example in cultivating the vine, 
 and be the means of spreading a knowledge of the sub- 
 ject among my fellow-citizens. As I am advancing in 
 years, and know not when I may be called hence, I am 
 solicitous that the information I have acquired should 
 not die with me." It has not. These precepts of Ad- 
 lum, of Dufour, of Longworth, and of Fisher, the 
 pioneers in grape culture in this country, have not 
 been passed over or forgotten. They have proved 
 themselves as true and as worthy patriots as any this* 
 country has ever had. 
 
196 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Dufour, though not an American by birth, says of 
 his* travels through this country for this very purpose, 
 " I went to see all the vines that I could hear of, even 
 as far as Kaskaskia, on the borders of the Mississippi 
 River ; because I was told by an inhabitant of that 
 town, whom I met with in Philadelphia, that the 
 Jesuits had there a very successful vineyard when that 
 country belonged to the French, and were afterwards 
 ordered by the French government to destroy it, for 
 fear the culture of the grape should spread in America 
 and hurt the wine trade of France" ! The volume of 
 Dufour is the manual of the vine-dresser to-day. 
 
 For thirty years and upwards, Nicholas Longworth, 
 of Cincinnati, has devoted himself to the culture of the 
 grape and the manufacture of wine, in the Ohio valley ; 
 and " to him," says a well-known writer, " more than 
 to any other man in the "West, we are indebted for 
 our knowledge in grape culture." His great endeavor 
 has uniformly tended to but one result, namely, to pro- 
 mote national prosperity, national temperance, and 
 national hilarity. 
 
 Fisher, who passed five years abroad, in France, Ita- 
 ly, and Switzerland, for the sole purpose of informing 
 himself on this most important subject, says, in relation 
 to temperance in those countries, " I have passed three 
 years in France, where I never saw a drunken French- 
 man. Eighteen months in Italy, and, in that time, not 
 an Italian intoxicated. Nearly two years in Switzer- 
 ^ land, of which I cannot say the same, but I can safely 
 aver, that during that period, I did not see twenty 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 197 
 
 drunken men ; and whenever my feelings were pained 
 at beholding a prostration so sad over better principles, 
 it was invariably on an occasion of extraordinary fes- 
 tivity." And the same writer adds, T^ith a vast deal of 
 truth, " The cultivation of the vine will do more to- 
 wards the furtherance of this object" (the overthrow 
 of intemperance) " than a host of non-consuming res- 
 olutions. On all efforts shall legislators look with in- 
 difference, and withhold from the moral improvement 
 of the community the aid so liberally granted to rail- 
 ways, and canals, and sectional improvements ? To 
 the system that should banish intemperance from our 
 land will be justly due a conspicuous rank among the 
 improvements of the age." 
 
 It is true that wherever the vine has been planted, 
 and now flourishes, there live a happy people. The 
 very word vineyard starts clusters of pleasant and 
 loving associations. There is poetry in the word. It 
 suggests plenty, contentment, sociability, and not ex- 
 cess. We associate excess, in this country, with the 
 strychnine infusions that are poured down diseased 
 men's throats, kindling a fire in their stomachs that 
 consumes their very souls. 
 
 Up to the present time, the State of Ohio has taken 
 the lead in this great vine-growing movement in Amer- 
 ica, and from this point it is likely to spread and take 
 permanent root all through the rich slopes of the West. 
 Missouri offers unusual facilities and attractions for the 
 culture of the vine, which are made still more valuable 
 by the accession of populous colonies of Germans to the 
 17* 
 
198 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 fertile hill sides of that noble State, whose habits of 
 industry are, of all others, best fitted to the work. The 
 Germans, like the Swiss, make notable vine-dressers. 
 In California, the grape has already been cultivated 
 with surprising success, and the last year's product was 
 upwards of eight millions of gallons. It is predicted 
 that a much larger breadth of land will be planted to 
 the vine in that State by another year, and that the 
 yield in the immediate future will be enormous. The 
 climate and soil combine to make it preeminently a 
 land, in parts, for the extensive culture of the grape; 
 and it is nothing to hazard to say that it will in a very 
 few years become a staple article in the long list of her 
 most valuable products. Kentucky, too, has done 
 great things in this line, and promises to do better. 
 
 Buchanan, a reliable authority on all matters con- 
 nected with the growing and dressing of the vine, says, 
 in his little book on " Grape Culture and Wine Mak- 
 ing," that the year 1853 was a highly favorable year 
 for the vine in Ohio, about six hundred and fifty gal- 
 lons having been averaged to the acre, and, in some 
 instances, as high as eight hundred and nine hundred 
 gallons. He obtained himself, from a little estate of 
 five acres, four thousand two hundred and thirty-six 
 gallons ; or, at the rate of eight hundred and forty- 
 seven gallons per acre. Taking the country through, 
 however, the yield that year came up to about four 
 hundred gallons an acre. And wine selling for a dol- 
 lar a gallon at the press ! A gentleman in Kentucky 
 states that, from his own experience, wine can be made 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 199 
 
 as cheap in Kentucky as in France or Germany ; as 
 cheap, in fact, as cider ; and that, at fifteen cents a gal- 
 lon, it will pay a better profit than the generality of 
 staple productions. And he sets about proving his as- 
 sertions in the following way : 
 
 Pour hundred gallons of wine, at fifteen cents, is six- 
 ty dollars. An acre of the best land in hemp will aver- 
 age six hundred weight ; six hundred weight of hemp, 
 at five dollars, is thirty dollars; leaving a balance in 
 favor of the vineyard of thirty dollars, or one hundred 
 per cent. One acre of corn will average fifty bushels, 
 worth thirty cents per bushel ; fifty bushels, at thirty 
 cents, is fifteen dollars ; leaving a balance in favor of 
 the vineyard of forty-five dollars. 
 
 The same writer further states, that the tillage of the 
 vineyard and making wine is not so laborious, nor near 
 so expensive, per acre, as the tillage and labor of secur- 
 ing the products of an acre of corn or hemp. If we 
 can get one dollar a gallon for wine when ready for 
 market, or fifty cents per gallon from the press, the 
 products of the gold mines of California would be small 
 in comparison with the receipts from wine-growing in 
 any single State like Ohio or Kentucky. If you plant 
 out a vineyard of a hundred acres, the products, at fifty 
 cents a gallon, amount to twenty thousand dollars per 
 annum. A man having five acres, which he could 
 manage himself, would find them more profitable than 
 a Kentucky farm of two hundred acres, with three 
 negroes to cultivate it. 
 
 Of the several varieties of native American grapes, 
 
200 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 those that have hitherto proved themselves the most 
 prolific, and at the same time the best producers of 
 wine, are the Isabellas and the Catawbas. A gentle- 
 man near New York planted a single acre with the Isa- 
 bella vine, and the product he estimates at four tons 
 of grapes per annum. The vine grows more luxuri- 
 antly in the Southern than in the Northern States. 
 The famous Scuppernong sometimes covers acres of 
 ground with a single vine, the circumference of whose 
 stem is measured by feet rather than inches, and the 
 weight of the grapes by tons. 
 
 Wine, pure wine, such as this country is abundant- 
 ly capable of producing, is both a powerful and prac- 
 tical argument for temperance, and a necessity among 
 the masses. We should have more of it. It should be 
 made just as free as it is possible to make it ; so cheap, 
 in fact, that not even the poorest should be deprived of 
 its blessings. As a potent means of eradicating the 
 vicious use of fiery liquors, it is capable of doing, and 
 destined to do, a great work in the future. This we 
 seriously believe. On looking at statistics, those 
 only truth-tellers for persons who would get at the fun- 
 damental laws of political economy, we find that in 
 those countries where wine has been driven out from 
 common use by high duties, worse liquors have come 
 in to supply their place ; the more potent, and gener- 
 ally the viciously adulterated liquors, have been con- 
 sumed in a more than corresponding degree. When 
 England was known to possess a population of twenty- 
 four millions, she consumed twenty-eight million gal- 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 201 
 
 Ions of spirits, exclusive of ale, porter, and beer. 
 France, however, with a population o/ thirty-three mil- 
 lions, consumed but fifteen million of her own brandies, 
 and of these a great part was employed in manufactures, 
 in strengthening wines for shipment, and in preserving 
 fruits, and preparing confections. Whereas, in the 
 United States, we manufactured at the same time eigh- 
 ty-six million gallons of whiskey, spirits, and ale, for 
 home consumption only ! This is a terrible recital, and 
 publishes to the world a terrible truth. If wines were 
 at all common with us, if the duties on them did not 
 operate to their practical exclusion from common use, 
 or, what is equivalent, if we could raise wines enough 
 of our own to expel these stronger and more harjnful 
 drinks from popular use, any reflecting mind can at 
 once perceive what a blessing it would prove, in all re- 
 spects, to our population ! 
 
 It is this same matter of duties that makes so much 
 trouble. Abolish them, and wines would be more com- 
 mon, while doctored and diluted spirits would be ban- 
 ished from such general use. A hundred and fifty 
 years ago, three times as much wine was drunk in 
 England as is drunk there now. The grape in Europe 
 is not indigenous that is, does not belong to the soil. 
 The entire grape stock is of Asiatic origin, and it is 
 universally believed to have had its rise in the Orient. 
 The Phoenicians introduced it into the islands of the 
 Archipelago, into Greece, and into Sicily ; afterwards 
 into Italy, and the territory about Marseilles. From 
 this point it extended over the whole of the south of 
 
202 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 i 
 
 France ; and it is said by one writer, that the Johnny 
 Crapeaus had thqjr claret and olives in the times of 
 Solon and Sappho, and drank to the health of Neb- 
 uchadnezzar when he captured Jerusalem, June 9, 
 587 B. C. 
 
 The vine was introduced into Switzerland in the days 
 of Julius Caesar, by a blacksmith of Helvetia. The 
 slips were brought from Italy. The vine made its way 
 into Spain and Portugal subsequently to the Christian 
 era. But in tracing up the history of the vine in 
 Europe, nothing is more apparent than the fact that it 
 is not a native of the soil, but of Asiatic origin. And 
 in the process of propagation through such a succession 
 of centuries, it has been at length overtaken with a 
 disease that seems to baffle all attempts to eradicate it. 
 The reader is perfectly familiar with the distress which 
 prevailed but a few years since in Italy, in Prance, and 
 in Madeira, in consequence of the prevalence of the 
 oidium, or vine disease ; and it is established pretty 
 thoroughly that that disease is a natural result of the 
 long and steady culture of the vine from one particular 
 stock. The consequence is, the stock must be replen- 
 ished infused with a new vigor and vitality. How 
 shall that be done ? is the important question. It is 
 certain that the Asiatic vine yields to certain climatic, 
 and other influences, in Europe ; and that resort 
 must be had to the original stock again, as it was at 
 first found wild on the mountain sides, or else there 
 must occur an importation and general planting out of 
 American vines. And even then the plan may fail, as 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 203 
 
 it has failed already. What, then, is to be done? 
 Whither is the world to look for its supply of wines ? 
 Manifestly, to our own productive slopes and hill sides, 
 where the grape is indigenous, and where its products 
 surpass the wildest calculations of all who have had to 
 do with the vine before. 
 
 It is in relation to this very point that we wish to 
 remark further in another chapter. 
 
204 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 AMERICAN WINES. -PART II. 
 
 IT is stated that the Northmen, who are the reputed 
 discoverers of America, when they first landed on the 
 island where Newport now stands, named it " Vine 
 Land." And with propriety ; for the vines were grow- 
 ing all over the banks, down to the water's edge. Sir 
 John Hawkins, a knight of Queen Elizabeth, speaks of 
 drinking a wine from grapes grown in Florida, in the 
 year 1564 the same year in which Shakspeare was 
 born. Ealph Stone wrote in 1585 of the grapes of 
 Virginia, that they were " grapes of such greatnesse, 
 yet wilde, as France, Spain, nor Italic have no greater." 
 As early as the year 1620, vineyards were planted in 
 Virginia. The wine produced from grapes native to 
 Delaware was much praised as early as 1648. " A 
 second draught," says the quaint writer of that day, 
 " four months old, will foxe [intoxicate] a reasonable 
 pate." In the year 1683, William Perm made the at- 
 tempt to establish vineyards in the neighborhood of 
 Philadelphia. The Jesuits set out their vineyards at 
 Kaskaskia, on the bank of the Mississippi, earlier than 
 this. Wines were produced by the French at Fort 
 Duquesne, now Pittsburg, in the year 1758, and even 
 a little previous to that time. Volney, who visited this 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 205 
 
 country in 1796, speaks of drinking a native wine at 
 Gallipolis, Ohio. Dufour, in the same year, speaks of a 
 Frenchman at Marietta, on the Ohio, who was making 
 several barrels a year out of the wild grapes, known 
 by the name of " Sand Grapes." " I drank," said he, 
 " some of the wine when about four months old, and 
 found it like the wine produced in the vicinity of 
 Paris, in France, if not better." 
 
 Early in the present century, the vineyards at Spring 
 Mills, near Philadelphia, and the Swiss settlement at 
 Vevay, Indiana, were established. Several varieties of 
 foreign grapes were tried at Spring Mills, but soon 
 abandoned for those that were native to the soil. The 
 " Schuylkill " succeeded there admirably. This was 
 replanted by the Swiss colony that settled Vevay, un- 
 der the name of the " Cape Grape," and flourished 
 there for many years. The wine produced from it, 
 however, was but indifferent when compared with that 
 yielded by the Isabellas and the Catawbas., which are 
 destined in the immediate future to give us a great 
 name as a wine-growing and wine-producing nation. 
 These two vines, both indigenous to our soil, form the 
 great channels through which a vast amount of our 
 national wealth and prosperity is yet to flow. Their 
 names are yet to be remembered, as performing better 
 service in weaning our people from the love of adulter- 
 ated spirits and forming their tastes on true principles 
 of temperance, than the names of all the much-vaunted 
 prohibition rantipoles that ever stirred up peaceful 
 communities to unhappy strife. 
 18 
 
206 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 The exact number of vines that spring native in our 
 soil cannot be counted ; they are, we might as well 
 call it, incalculable. Since such vast tracts of territory 
 have been added to our national domain, we have 
 hardly given that attention to the discovery of such 
 treasures which the subject truly demands. The nat- 
 uralist has years of close labor and study before him 
 in this field alone. Henderson says, that in Europe, 
 " the climate most congenial to the culture of the vine 
 extends from the 35th to the 50th degrees of north lat- 
 itude ; and it is between these points that the most cel- 
 ebrated vineyards, and the countries richest in wine, are 
 placed." This same rule appears to be applicable to 
 our own continent ; it is exactly between the same 
 parallels that the vine flourishes best in America. 
 And within these very limits there is scarcely a State 
 that has not a native vine of its own not from the 
 Rio Grande to Canada, nor from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific. With perfect propriety, therefore, might the 
 early Northmen discoverers name America the " Vine 
 Land." The " Catawba " is the grape mostly raised 
 in California, which they call the " Sweetwater." The 
 " Mustang " and " El Paso " are the peculiar grapes of 
 Texas. De Bow's Review says of the valley of El Paso, 
 in which the latter is raised, that it stretches midway 
 between Santa Fe and Chihuahua, and is some twenty- 
 two miles in length, extending from the Falls of the 
 Rio Grande, on the north, to the Presidio, on the south, 
 and is a continuous orchard and vineyard, embracing 
 and sustaining a population of about eight thousand. 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 207 
 
 There are annually manufactured in this valley not 
 less than two hundred thousand gallons of perhaps 
 the richest and best wine in the world, which is worth 
 always two dollars a gallon. They are pronounced far 
 superior in richness, and flavor, and pleasantness of 
 taste to any thing of the kind to be met with in the 
 valley of the Rhine or on the sunny hills of France. 
 
 The great Mustang grape of Texas is also said to be 
 a grape of superior wine-producing quality. It is said 
 by French cultivators to be the port wine grape, of a 
 very superior quality and yield. The sea islands, that 
 fringe the coast from Norfolk to the Florida reefs, are 
 laden with vines, and clotted with the purpling fruit. 
 Florida abounds in this luscious product ; Alabama is 
 already bestowing serious attention on the grape ; the 
 woods of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas stagger 
 under the loads of rich fruit that hang from the prolific 
 native vines ; Texas has a countless variety of native 
 grapes, and so has California; and when we come back to 
 North Carolina, we come to the natal soil of the Isabella 
 and the Catawba, as well as the Scuppernong a fact 
 that should constitute glory enough for any single State. 
 Virginia holds out a great number of inducements for 
 the culture of the vine, and upon her soil the Catawba 
 brings forth a wine of a distinct flavor from that pro- 
 duced by the same vine in Ohio. There is certainly 
 wild and waste land enough in Virginia that is pecu- 
 liarly adapted to the growth of the vine, especially 
 of the Catawba ; and the time may not be far distant 
 when this most important branch of industry will be 
 
208 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 pursued with astonishing success in that noble old 
 State. 
 
 Of Ohio and Missouri wines we have already spoken. 
 They are supplanting in our great markets the im- 
 ported wines of France and Italy, even at the same 
 prices per gallon. Vine growing in the Ohio valley is 
 N what people nowadays call an "institution;" in other 
 words, it has grown up from an experiment into a 
 great business. Terraces of vines rise above terraces, 
 all laden with dark foliage and heavy clusters of fruit. 
 The red soil of the banks is completely concealed by 
 the beautiful covering which the graceful vine has 
 thrown over it. It is in Ohio, thus far, that the Ca- 
 tawba has chiefly excelled, and in Norfolk, that the 
 Isabella has especially betrayed its matchless qualities. 
 The culture of the grape in Pennsylvania proved but a 
 temporary success, and after a time public interest in 
 it began to subside ; but there are present signs of its 
 reviving again, and that the Quaker State will yet man- 
 ifest the ancient interest in the work of vine growing. 
 The vine has also been cultivated with decided success 
 in New Jersey, in certain localities ; and so it has in 
 Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. But of all the other 
 States thus far, Missouri promises to be the most active 
 competitor with Ohio in the production of wines, al- 
 though it still remains to be seen what California is 
 able and ready to do. Indiana is to be considered as 
 much a pioneer in the growing of the vine as Ohio, 
 for there was first planted the Vevay colony of Swiss 
 emigrants. 
 
AMERICAN WINES. 209 
 
 In Missouri, in the year 1852, the vineyards at Herr- 
 mann embraced some forty or fifty acres only ; three 
 years later, there were not less than five hundred acres 
 under cultivation in that locality, not including a great 
 many more in the interior of the 'State. Six prizes 
 were awarded to vine growers of Missouri, at the New 
 York Crystal Palace exhibition, for samples of superior 
 native wines, both Isabella and Catawba, still and 
 sparkling. Of these two grapes, the Catawba seems to 
 be the favorite in Missouri, as it likewise is in Kentucky 
 and Tennessee. In the St. Louis market, we are told 
 that the native wines are rapidly supplanting all im- 
 ported and foreign wines, and driving them out of the 
 market altogether. The wines set before the guests at 
 the hotels there, are generally produced in the State 
 itself, or at least in this country. 
 
 Ohio first produced a pure native wine, and to her 
 belongs all the honor. There, scientific culture of the 
 grape and scientific treatment of the grape juice have 
 united to place before the world a product of which 
 the whole country may reasonably feel proud. Within 
 a circuit of twenty miles around Cincinnati, there were 
 raised in the year 
 
 1848, . . . . 34,000 gallons. 
 
 1849, (a very bad year for rot,) 36,000 " 
 
 1852, . . . . 125,000 
 
 1853, .... 340,000 
 We have not the figures for later years, or we might 
 
 bring down the statement to the year before last. In 
 1854, however, the crop was a short one, in consequence 
 18* 
 
210 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 of a cold and backward spring, and excessive rains ; 
 yet, to compensate for this, there was a largely in- 
 creased number of cultivators of the vine, which of 
 course caused an increased crop of fruit. Speaking of 
 American wines in general, the patent office report of 
 1854 states that their value exceeded, for that year, 
 the value of the tobacco crop, and proves the statement 
 by the figures. One can readily infer from this to 
 what a state of forwardness the cultivation of the vine 
 has reached by this time. 
 
 One thing is certain that the growing of the grape 
 is destined to become, and in not many years from this 
 time either, one of the largest and most important in- 
 terests of America. We shall make all our wines, and 
 export them beside. We shall thus drive out intem- 
 perance from the land more rapidly and effectually 
 than by all the prohibitory laws that may be thought of. 
 And it rejoices us, above all, to feel assured that men 
 are now engaging in this great work with a zeal and 
 energy that promise perfect success in the future. 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 211 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 INTOXICATING FOOD. 
 
 IT is a fact with which all scientific men are familiar, 
 that the intoxicating element can be extracted from the 
 food man eats, provided circumstances and conditions 
 are rightly adjusted for it, as well as from the liquors 
 that have been already expressed for this very purpose. 
 For example, a person who has been either wholly or 
 partially fasting for a long time on the wreck of a ves- 
 sel, in the wilderness, or on a desert, will become in- 
 toxicated by partaking of almost any kind of nutritive 
 food ; and hence it is generally administered to such 
 very sparingly. We can find numberless cases of indi- 
 viduals on wrecks, who, on drinking the warm blood of 
 an animal, or even of a slain companion, became drunk 
 and crazy, and fell into the sea. The Scotchman takes 
 his whiskey as food just as the Englishman takes his 
 roast beef and ale, or the wild Arab his dish of snails. 
 
 The accompanying article, full of the largest possible 
 interest for the readers of this volume, is extracted from 
 a recent number of Dickens's Household Words, a 
 well-known English publication ; and, as it shows so 
 graphically the great variety of food, as well as drink, 
 used by different nations, one will not fail to observe 
 that the Abyssinian gets drunk on raw meat and warm 
 
212 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 blood just as easily as the Yankee inebriate does on 
 new rum, or the Turk, arid v/e are sorry to say it 
 the modern temperance man, on opium! The arti- 
 cle in question is as follows : 
 
 " Nothing is more variable than national diet, except 
 it be national appetite. An Italian is content with a 
 handful of bread and grapes, but an Esquimaux will 
 devour twenty pounds of flesh in a day ; a Hindoo picks 
 up a few spoonfuls of rice between sunrise and sunset ; 
 and a Russian Tartar will eat, in the twenty-four hours, 
 forty pounds of meat. Nay, a Tartar mentioned by 
 Captain Cochrane in his Travels, consumed in that 
 time the hind quarters of a large ox, twenty pounds of 
 fat, and a proportionate quantity of melted butter for 
 drink ; and three of the same tribe the Yakuti 
 think nothing of polishing off a reindeer at a meal. In 
 London and New York the average consumption of 
 meat is half a pound to each person daily ; in Paris it 
 is one sixth of a pound, with a lower fraction still for 
 the villages and country ; yet the Irishman's bone and 
 muscle are elaborated from potatoes, not from flesh ; 
 and the brawny Highlander builds up his huge mem- 
 bers from porridge, kail, and whiskey. So that meat is 
 not absolutely essential even to Northmen ; when, by a 
 little unconscious chemistry they supply efficient sub- 
 stitutes, tailing off by units the various properties con- 
 centrated in honest beef and mutton. 
 
 "Pood is very unequally distributed among us. 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 213 
 
 There is the poor man, who can never give his children 
 a hearty meal ; and there is the rich man, gorged with 
 unimaginable luxuries ; on the one side Lazarus, with 
 a hunger never sated ; on the other Dives, who, be- 
 tween the ages of ten and twenty, consumes forty wag- 
 on loads of superfluous meat and drink, at the cost of 
 seven thousand pounds, according to the calculations 
 of Sydney Smith. 
 
 " But even more varied than amount is kind. There 
 is no limit to the odd dainties affected by different peo- 
 ple. The New Brunswickers find a special charm in 
 the moufle, or loose nose of the moose deer. Sharks' 
 fins and fish-maws, unhatched ducks and chickens, sea 
 slugs and birds' nests, are all prized by the omnivorous 
 Chinese. The Esquimaux revels in the foreign luxury 
 of a purser's candle ; and the Abyssinian intoxicates 
 himself with raw meat and warm blood ; which are as 
 intoxicating in their way as ardent spirits. Paris has 
 lately gone mad about horse flesh ; and in the Exhibi- 
 tion of eighteen hundred and fifty-one, a Monsieur 
 Brocchieri showed and sold delicious cakes, patties, and 
 bon-bons of bullocks' blood ; rivalling the famed mar- 
 rons glaces, or baptismal dragees, of the confiseries of 
 the Boulevards. This seems to us almost the triumph 
 of the art. 
 
 "Meat biscuits, made in Texas for the use of the 
 American navy, were also exhibited. They are like 
 light-colored sugar cakes in appearance. One pound 
 of meat biscuit contains rather more nutriment than 
 five pounds of ordinary meat. Portable soup is another 
 
214 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 matter of culinary condensation, wherein nutritive 
 power is out of all proportion to bulk ; and pemmican, 
 so well known to arctic voyagers, is again a condensa- 
 tion of solid meat finely ground, then mixed with 
 sugar, fat, and currants. The Siamese dry elephants' 
 flesh, as Germany hangs her beef and pork ; Cuba feeds 
 her slaves on dried meat imported in enormous quanti- 
 ties from Buenos Ayres and the United States, and, all 
 through America, the trade in this article is brisk and 
 lucrative, extending even to Europe, which imports 
 and consumes a goodly quantity to her share. 
 
 "The extreme north presents, perhaps, the oddest 
 specimens of luxuries in food. Blubber, the unrumi- 
 nated food of reindeer serving as an accompanying 
 salad ; whales' skin, cut into cubes, black as ebony, 
 and tasting like cocoa-nut ; whales' gum, with the bone 
 adhering, not unlike cream cheese in flavor, and called 
 Tuski sugar these were some of the chief dishes at a 
 Tuski banquet ; while at a feast given by some respect- 
 able Greenlanders were half raw and putrid seals' 
 flesh, putrid whales' tail, preserved crowberries mixed 
 with reindeer's chyle, and preserved crowberries mixed 
 with train oil. "Walrus is good eating. It is like 
 coarse beef ; and walrus liver, raw, is a dish on which 
 to grow poetical. Frozen seal is excellent as a stand- 
 by in travelling ; and putrid seal, which has been buried 
 under the grass all the summer, is a winter's special 
 charm. The reindeer's maw is made into a dish called 
 nerukak, or the eatable, and sent about, as presents of 
 game or fruit might be with us. The entrails of the 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 215 
 
 rypeu, mixed with fresh train oil and berries, make 
 another favorite dish; and the Greenlander's winter 
 preserves are crake berries, angelica, and eggs in every 
 stage of incubatory progress, flung all together into a 
 sack of seal skin, which is then filled up with train oil. 
 An Esquimaux will eat his sledge when it is made 
 of dried salmon sewed between two skins ; the cross- 
 pieces being reindeer bones. This is not so marvellous 
 as it seems to be : it is not quite like feeding off a one- 
 horse chaise or clarence with C springs ; but it must 
 be a curious sight to see a party turn out and make a 
 meal of their carriage. Reindeer is the great delight 
 of the Esquimaux when he can get it ; and frozen 
 reindeer, eaten raw, is better, to his taste, than all the 
 royal venison ever cooked for royal feasts. 
 
 " Keeping for a while among the cetacea, we find that 
 the manatus, or sea calf, gives a white, delicate flesh, 
 like young pork ; a lean or fibrous part like very red 
 beef; and fat, which is like hog's lard, with an excep- 
 tional portion lying between the entrails and the skin, 
 like almond oil in taste, and an excellent substitute for 
 butter. The tail is the titbit, and is covered with a 
 fat of firmer consistence and more delicate flavor than 
 that on the body. But the manatus is too human to 
 be pleasant. ' It appears horrible,' says Mr. Lund Sim- 
 mons, in his Curiosities of Food, < to chew and swallow 
 the flesh of an animal which holds its young (it has 
 never more than one at a litter) to its breast which 
 is formed exactly like that of a woman with paws 
 resembling human hands.' The tongue of the sea lion 
 
216 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 (jphoca jubata) is preferred by some to ox tongue ; and 
 the heart is said to be equal to roast calf's heart. The 
 walrus has a tongue, a heart, and a liver, all service- 
 able and palatable, though we think the meat coarse 
 and strong ; the female sea bear is like lamb, and its 
 cub the very counterpart of roast pig. Seal flesh we 
 think strong and oily ; but we have already taken the 
 Greenlander's opinion on it. The black skin of the 
 whale, too, we have tasted, and found its ebony cubes 
 with the cocoa-nut flavor simply delicious, but its 
 coarse, red flesh like inferior meat. Porpoise, or sea 
 pig, is not to be despised by British sailors suffering 
 from salt junk and scurvy ; but it is not much sought 
 after now, though in the days when peacocks in their 
 pride, swans, and herons were at English tables, por- 
 poises, or sea pigs, had their place of honor there as 
 well. All sea things have the recommendable quality 
 of being highly iodized. This is one of the virtues of 
 cod liver oil ; one of the reasons why sea-side air is so 
 good for the scrofulous and consumptive, and almost 
 the sole benefit to be found in the Iceland moss, once 
 so famous as a specific against consumption. Isinglass 
 has also a fishy origin. The court plaster of the chem- 
 ists' shops is isinglass and balsam spread on silk. Ca- 
 viare is the dried roe or salted spawn of fish ; the black, 
 which is the best, comes from the sturgeon ; the red is 
 from the gray mullet and the carp. Botargo is a kind 
 of caviare made from the spawn of the red mullet, and 
 of great esteem in Sicily ; the roe of the pollock makes 
 commendable bread, and the roe of the methy (eoilia 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 217 
 
 maculosa) can be baked into biscuits, which are used 
 in the fur countries as tea bread. 
 
 " In Beloochistan the cattle are fed on a compound 
 of dates and dried fish ; the inhabitants living almost 
 entirely on fish ; and we here, in England, fling hun- 
 dreds of pounds of sprats and other fish upon our fields 
 to fertilize the land, poison the air, and deprive some 
 hungry thousands of a dinner. The Atlantic tunny is 
 like veal, but drier and firmer ; and the sturgeon, so 
 prized by Greece and Rome, is also of the veal type ; 
 that is, like flesh without blood. The sharp-nosed stur- 
 geon is like beef, very coarse, rank, and unsavory. 
 The shark is dry and acid. Havana is the only place 
 where shark is openly sold in the market, and the Chi- 
 nese are the only people who ascribe any specially in- 
 vigorating virtues to the fins and tail. 
 
 " The Gold Coast negroes are fond of sharks, as they 
 are of hippopotami and alligators ; and the Polynesians 
 surfeit themselves to indigestion and disease by their 
 love of sharks' flesh, quite raw. 
 
 " Scotland, and some other northern countries, eat 
 the picked shark and the dog fish. The conger eel, 
 dried and grated, thickens soup in Catholic countries, 
 and is a Jersey dainty, tasting like veal. In Cornwall, 
 they make conger eels, as they do every thing else, into 
 pies. The Chinooks dry a little fish something like 
 a sardine then burn it as a candle ; and the scales of 
 the delicious and delicate callipevi make exceedingly 
 beautiful ornaments. 
 
 " Other people beside the Gold Coast negroes feed 
 19 
 
218 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 on, and take pleasure in, reptiles. We ourselves eat 
 one of the tribe when we devour calipash and calipee. 
 But, though we revel in turtle, we keep an adverse 
 countenance to tortoise ; yet half the soup eaten by 
 travellers in Italy and Sicily .is made of land tortoise, 
 boiled down to its- essence. In Trinidad, and other of 
 the Wes't India islands, land tortoises are in much re- 
 pute ; the eggs of the close tortoise (iestudo clausa) 
 are held a supreme delicacy in North America ; and 
 Sir Walter Raleigh fed his fainting men on ' tortuggas 
 eggs ' while sailing up the Orinoco. 
 
 " In both North and South America the salt water 
 terrapin is a fat and luscious luxury, if taken just at the 
 close of summer ; and its eggs, in their parchment-like ' 
 skin, they have no true shell, are always valued. 
 The hiccatee, New Holland's curious snake-necked 
 version of a tortoise, has a liver which would send the 
 pate de foie gras of Strasbourg out of the field alto- 
 gether ; while of turtle the world of gormands is never 
 tired, under any form of presentation that it may please 
 the chef to serve him. The hideous, scaly, demoniacal- 
 looking iguana is better in the trial than in the prom- 
 ise ; cooked skilfully, it is like chicken in flesh, and 
 like turtle in flavor ; but, if one of its paws should 
 happen to stick up in the dish, it is so frightfully sug- 
 gestive of a pygmy alligator that many a stout European, 
 afraid of nothing else under the sun, would be afraid 
 of that. It is excellent eating, being omingustatory ; 
 it is like chicken, like rabbit, when stewed or curried ; 
 like turtle, if dressed as turtle should be ; like hare, 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 219 
 
 when turned into soup ; and a good dish of imitation 
 minced veal might be made of it, with lemon cream 
 and streaky bacon superadded. It is of the range of 
 white meats ; and its small, soft-shelled, delicate eggs 
 are equal to itself in purity and daintiness of flavor. 
 Indeed, the eggs of most reptiles are wonderfully appe- 
 tizing ; but none more so than those which bring forth 
 the harmless, hideous, and delicate iguana, unless it 
 be the eggs of the contemned land tortoise. 
 
 " Caymans and crocodiles, lizards and frogs, are all 
 Beaten and enjoyed by certain people. The typical 
 crocodile is like veal ; but some species have a strong 
 flavor of musk, which is nauseating enough ; and some 
 are like juicy young pork, while others resemble lob- 
 ster. Others again have a powerful fishy taste, very 
 disagreeable. On the whole, therefore, crocodile is 
 uncertain eating, and not to be ventured on with undue 
 rashness. Alligator is supposed to be invigorating and 
 restorative, and at Manilla is sold at high prices ; the 
 Chinese clutching at the dried skin, which they use in 
 their awful messes of gelatinous soup. Alligator is 
 likened to sucking pig, but the alligator's eggs have a 
 musky flavor. 
 
 " The Australians devour even the most venomous 
 snakes ; and those who have tried say the flavor is like 
 collared eel, though the general likeness is to veal. In 
 olden times viper broth was, to a benighted world, 
 what turtle soup is to us ; and viper jelly is still con- 
 sidered a restorative in Italy. The hunters of the Mis- 
 sissippi have, at this day, a dish called musical jack, of 
 
220 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 which they are mightily fond, though it is only a stew 
 of rattlesnakes. 
 
 " The French are notoriously fond of frogs, and frogs 
 command a high price in the markets of New York, 
 where they sell the large bull frog, weighing sometimes 
 half a pound, as well as the tender little green frog, 
 (rana esculenta^) whose hind legs taste so like delicate 
 chicken, when served up with white sauce in the res- 
 taurants of Paris and the hotels of Vienna. Of course, 
 frogs do not escape in China, which devours every 
 thing with blood or fibre in it ; and the horrid negroes 
 of Surinam eat the still more horrid and most loath- 
 some Surinam toad. 
 
 " Snakes and frogs seem to go somehow with mon- 
 keys and parrots ; they are all of the same class 
 together, though the naturalist would scoff at such a 
 notion, and no physical geographer would countenance 
 it. To us they suggest a sequitur. African epicures 
 are never more charmed than when they can dine off 
 a highly-seasoned, tender, young monkey, baked, gypsy 
 fashion, in the earth. The Rio Janeiro monkeys are 
 sold in the Leadenhall Markets of the place, together 
 with parrots and the paca, a not very edible-looking 
 rodent. The great red monkey, and the black spider 
 monkey, the howling monkey, and the couxio or jack- 
 eted monkey, are all eaten by the various people among 
 whom they are found. Monkey tastes like rabbit, and 
 is reported nutritious and pleasant. 
 
 " Bats and fox monkeys the flying lemur are 
 also eaten, but are neither of very respectable holding 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 221 
 
 in the gastronomic aristocracy ; they have a rank odor, 
 arid are unpleasant, but are eaten, nevertheless, by the 
 natives of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, Mal- 
 abar, &c. One species of bat is good eating ; it is called 
 by the naturalists the eatable bat, and is said to be 
 white, tender, and delicate ; it is much favored by the 
 inhabitants of Timor ; for all that it is a hideous beast, 
 like a weasel, with a ten inch body, covered with close 
 and shining black hair, and four feet wings, when 
 stretched to their full extent. 
 
 " If the rank fox monkey may be eaten, why not the 
 fox ? So he is in Italy reckoned a crowning delica- 
 cy ; and in the arctic regions, where fresh meat is 
 scarce, when judiciously interred in a pie, he is consid- 
 ered equal to any rabbit, under the same conditions, 
 ever bred on the Sussex downs. But, strange to say, 
 the Esquimaux dogs, which will eat any thing else, will 
 riot touch fox. The skunk, the prairie wolf, and the 
 sloth are eaten. Cats and dogs find purchasers and 
 consumers in China, where they are hung up in the 
 butchers' shops, together with badgers tasting like 
 wild boar and other oddities of food. 
 
 " In the South Seas, too, dog is a favorite dish, and 
 a puppy stew is a royal feast in Zanzibar ; but it is only 
 justice to say that where dog is eaten, he is specially 
 fattened for the table, and fed only on milk and such 
 like cleanly diet. The Australian native dog, or dingo, 
 is eaten by the blacks, but by no one else ; and a South 
 African will give a large cow for a well-sized mastiff. 
 19* 
 
222 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 The tiger is thought by the Malays to impart his own 
 strength and courage to his consumer. 
 
 " The American panther and the wildcat of Louisiana 
 are said to be excellent eating ; so is the puma, which 
 is so like veal in flavor that you would not know the 
 difference blindfold. The lion, too, is almost identical 
 with veal in color, taste, and texture. Bears' paws 
 were long a German delicacy ; and bears' flesh is held 
 equal or superior to pork by connoisseurs, having a 
 mixed flavor, which partakes of the joint excellences of 
 both beef and pork. The fat is as white as snow, and 
 4 if a man were to drink a quart of it,' says one amiable 
 enthusiast, ' it would never rise on his stomach ! ' The 
 tongue and hams are cured, but the head is accounted 
 worthless, and thrown away. 
 
 " The badger tastes like wild boar ; the kangaroo is 
 not inferior to venison, and kangaroo-tail soup is better 
 than half the messes which pass in London under the 
 name of ox-tail soup. Hashed wallaby is a dish no 
 one need disdain, and a small species of kangaroo, 
 called pademelon, is as good as any hare ever cooked. 
 An Australian native banquet is an odd mixture. Kan- 
 garoos and wallabies, opossums and flying squirrels, 
 kangaroo-rats, wombats, and bandicoots, all of them 
 more or less of the venison type, represent the pieces 
 de resistance ; while rats, mice, snakes, snails, large 
 white maggots, called cobberra, worms and grubs, are 
 the little dishes and most favored entrees. A nice 
 fat marmot is a treat why not ? They are pure 
 feeders. An Esquimaux strings mice together as a 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 223 
 
 Londoner strings larks, and eats them with equal 
 gusto. 
 
 u The muskrat of Martinique is eaten, musky as it is, 
 and indescribably loathsome to a European ; and the 
 sleek rats of the sugar-cane fields make one of the most 
 delicious fricassees imaginable so tender, plump, 
 cleanly, and luscious are they. Sugar plantations gen- 
 erally maintain a professional rat-catcher ; but some 
 people think that rat produces consumption, so dis- 
 courage the sport. The Chinese are in a rat paradise 
 in California, where the rats are incredibly large, highly 
 flavored, and very abundant ; they make a dish of rats' 
 brains equal to the famous plat of nightingales' tongues 
 spoken of in a certain Roman history ; and rat soup is 
 thought by all right-minded Celestials to beat ox-tail or 
 gravy soup hollow. 
 
 " Mr. Albert Smith gave his impressions of Chinese 
 fare as consisting, for the most part, of ' rats, bats, 
 snails, bad eggs, and hideous fish, dried in the most 
 frightful attitudes,' with the addition of a soup of 
 ' large caterpillars boiled in a thin gravy with onions.' 
 India is now about to supply China with salted rats, 
 which it is hoped will open a new field of commercial 
 enterprise and fortune quite unparalleled. The bandi- 
 coot, dear to Australian palates, is the pig rat ; and 
 the vaulting rat, or jerboa, is of the same order. The 
 Indians eat the beaver, which is said to be like pork ; 
 and porcupine is a prime favorite with the Dutch, 
 the Hottentots, the Australians, the Hudson Bay trap- 
 pers, and the Italians. Porcupine is a cross between 
 
224 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 fowl and sucking pig, and accounted exceedingly nu- 
 tritious. 
 
 " Elephants' feet, pickled in strong toddy vinegar and 
 cayenne pepper, are considered in Ceylon an Apician 
 luxury. The trunk is said to resemble a buffalo's 
 hump, and the fat is a godsend to the Bushmen, who 
 go almost any distance for a portion. Hippopotamus 
 fat, too, is a treat ; when salted it is thought superior 
 to our best breakfast bacon, and the flesh is both pal- 
 atable and nutritious ; the fat is used instead of butter 
 for making puddings, and, indeed, for all the ordinary 
 uses of butter. The young tapir is like beef, and the 
 peccary and musk hog are both superior to the common 
 porker, if care is taken to cut out the fetid orifice in 
 the back. Pig the pig for which Charles Lamb 
 would almost dare a crime, and the immortal China- 
 man burned down his house the pig of our childhood, 
 our maturity, and our old age has detractors and 
 calumniators ; surely no man who has once tasted could 
 ever forego again. America is the great pork-shop of 
 the universe ; not even excepting Ireland, where the 
 pig element is also strongly developed. In America, 
 they speak of pickled pork by the acre ; and, in Ohio 
 alone, they use about three-quarters of a million of 
 swine yearly. In Spain, pig is game, lean and highly 
 flavored, without fat or unctuousness, devoid of any 
 capability for bacon, and without a rasher or a cheek 
 available for breakfast. It is fondly thought that sau- 
 sages come from this member of the pachydermatous 
 family; but sausages are deceptive, and sometimes 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 225 
 
 contain as much horse flesh and donkey flesh as their 
 more legitimate basis. Mr. Richardson, of Manchester, 
 gave evidence in Mr. Scholfield's committee to the 
 effect that horse flesh is mixed with potted meats, and 
 enters largely into the composition of collared brawn, 
 sausages, and polonies ; and that, indeed, it is of ma- 
 terial use in these preparations, as, being harder and 
 more fibrous than pork, it binds together the whole, 
 which else would be inclined to run to waste and 
 water. 
 
 " Birds are of large importance in the supplies of 
 human food ; and not only birds but birds' nests as 
 we l] at least with the Chinese, whose dainties are 
 always peculiar. These nests are brought from Java 
 and Sumatra, the gathering taking place thrice in the 
 year, and being inaugurated by solemn ceremonies. 
 The nests are like fibrous, ill-concocted isinglass, in- 
 clining to red, about the size of a goose's egg, and as 
 thick as a silver spoon. They hang upon the rocks 
 like (according to Mr. Albert Smith) watch-pockets. 
 When dry they are brittle and wrinkled, and are sold 
 for twice their weight in silver. The best are the 
 whitest and cleanest ; but even with these there is enor- 
 mous labor in preparing them for the Chinese market, 
 the end and aim of the trade being a soup with these 
 nests floating about like lumps of soft, mucilaginous 
 jelly. This nest, which is of the sea swallow (Jiirundo 
 esculenta), is the only edible one known. Many are 
 the delicious morsels afforded by birds. The beccafico 
 in the fig season ; the bronze-winged pigeon of Australia 
 
226 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 when the acacia seeds are ripe ; the young, fat, hideous 
 diablotin or goat-sucker, if taken when a tender nest- 
 ling, and the same bird when older, if taken when the 
 palms are in fruit ; the rice bunting of South Carolina, 
 when the rice is ripening in the field ; and the ortolan, 
 mere lump of idealized fat as it is, these are among 
 the most celebrated of the smaller titbits, not forgetting 
 the snipes and woodcocks of our own land. 
 
 " Some people eat insects. The grub of the palm 
 weevil, about the size of one's thumb, is much favored 
 in the East and West Indies ; and the grubs of most 
 beetles find their admirers and an cesophagal tomb in 
 some or other quarter of the globe. Locusts are a 
 substitute for grain with the Arabs, and are ground up 
 into a kind of bread ; beside being salted, smoked, and 
 plainly boiled or roasted. The Moors think a fine fat 
 locust superior even to a pigeon, and the Hottentots 
 make a coffee-colored soup of their eggs. Grasshoppers 
 and cicadas are also eaten ; and, indeed, the problem 
 seems to be to find any living thing which does not 
 pass through the furnace for the benefit of some one's 
 bill of fare. The white ants termites are said to 
 be good eating ; so are ants generally, giving a pleas- 
 ant acid to the preparation, whatever it may be. They 
 are distilled with rye in Sweden for the purpose of fla- 
 voring inferior brandy. The grub, or larva, of the 
 termites is like the most delicious bit of cream ; but 
 the lusciousness of a large white fat maggot, precious 
 to the Australian native, is said to be without com- 
 pare. Stupid native ! he devours the grubs of the most 
 
INTOXICATING FOOD. 227 
 
 valuable and the rarest moths and butterflies , and 
 certain species are almost extinct, in the plumed state, 
 because the thirsty, parched, unentomological black 
 seizes on that bit of living marrow, the grub, wherever 
 he finds it. The thrifty Chinese first wind off the 
 cocoon, then send the chrysalis of the silk-worm to 
 table. It is a pleasant adjunct in a feast where half- 
 hatched eggs, sea-slugs, rats, frogs, and dogs are the 
 principal dainties. Spiders are delicacies of the dessert 
 kind to the Bushman ; and Lalande and Anna Maria 
 Schurman used to eat them like nuts, which it is said 
 they resemble. Snails have their partisans, and Mu- 
 rillo's Seville boy ate a snail pie while he was being 
 painted. Even we rear a certain large white race, 
 which we sell in Covent Garden, to be made into soup 
 and jelly for the consumptive, who believe them to be 
 almost a specific for that complaint. The Chinese gloat 
 over sea-slug, or bcche de mer, and a dish of a certain 
 sea-worm is one of the events of life to the dwellers in 
 the islands of the Southern Pacific. The people of 
 Chili eat barnacles as we eat whelks ; the Hottentots 
 devour handfuls of roasted caterpillars, which taste 
 like sugared cream or almond paste, and stand to them 
 in the place of sugarplums and comfits. What a bless- 
 ing it would be if we could persuade our rising popula- 
 tion to exchange daff and mineral-colored lozenges for 
 nice young harmless caterpillars roasted in the ashes. 
 Think how the farmers would gain by the exchange ! " 
 
228 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 
 
 THE bloody work made in Portland, at the hands of 
 Neal Dow, while mayor of that city during the year 
 1855, is not forgotten by even a single one of our read- 
 ers. It was a terrible, a murderous piece of business, 
 begun and carried out by the very man who assumes 
 to be the author of the Maine Law, as well as its suc- 
 cessful pilot among the rocks and shoals of more than 
 one legislature. 
 
 No more significant fact could be stated than this 
 that the author of the prescriptive, illiberal, tyrannical, 
 and, after all, inoperative Maine Law was compelled to 
 resort to the military and the hasty use of firearms in 
 executing it. One man an innocent and unsuspect- 
 ing stranger was murdered in this process ; others 
 were wounded ; life was put in imminent jeopardy, and 
 public feeling was excited to a pitch that would not 
 compensate, in its fearful effects, for a thousand fold 
 more drunkenness than that particular locality in which 
 it occurred ever witnessed. 
 
 We will rehearse the mournful and disgraceful story ; 
 premising that it is no more than an earnest of what is 
 quite likely to follow every where else, if it shall be 
 attempted to carry out this most impossible of all laws 
 of the present day and generation. 
 
NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 229 
 
 On the 2d day of June, 1855, in the city of Portland, 
 Maine, occurred what has generally been styled the 
 " Maine Law Riot," but which a great many, both of 
 the citizens of Portland and other places, have insisted 
 was the " Maine Law Murder." The occurrence took 
 place on Saturday night. One man was killed outright, 
 and seven more were wounded. It appears that a large 
 quantity of liquors, valued at sixteen hundred dollars, 
 had been purchased in New York, and brought to Port- 
 land for sale. It having been suggested to the city 
 marshal that it would be necessary, under the law, to 
 seize such liquors as illegally exposed for sale, the 
 response was elicited from Mayor Dow that he had 
 purchased them himself, on his own individual respon- 
 sibility, and had ordered them to be sent on and stored 
 in the city. This being the case, Mr. Dow was evi- 
 dently guilty of breaking his own law, the penalty for 
 which would have been imprisonment for thirty days, 
 and the entire forfeiture of the liquors so seized. A 
 complaint was accordingly made to the Police Court, 
 and the judge issued his warrant for the seizure of the 
 liquors ; but not for the arrest of their owner, Mayor 
 Dow. This warrant was not, however, given to an 
 officer who would have been ready to make immediate 
 service, but placed in the hands of the deputy marshal, 
 who was not, very soon after receiving it, to be found 
 any where. This deputy was a friend of Mayor Dow's. 
 
 Upon this, the mayor suddenly summoned the board 
 of aldermen to meet, for the purpose of effecting a 
 transfer of this liquor to the city for its agency. The 
 20 
 
230 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 agency, however, had only been established a day or 
 two before, and by the casting vote of Mr. Dow him- 
 self, which was several weeks subsequently to the pur- 
 chase of the liquors by Mr. Dow in New York. The 
 aldermen had been in session but a little while, when 
 the missing deputy marshal suddenly made his appear- 
 ance, and seized the liquors upon the warrant in his 
 possession. An idle crowd collected about the door 
 where the liquors were stored ; but there was not the 
 least symptom of excitement, the only desire being to 
 see what was done, and how it was done. This took 
 place on the afternoon of the fatal Saturday. As early 
 as seven o'clock in the evening, it being still light, 
 for it was early in June, a crowd was found collected 
 
 about the City Hall building, in which the liquors were 
 
 
 
 deposited, and kept gradually increasing until after 
 nine o'clock, when a cry of fire was raised, it is said 
 by Mayor Dow's own order, and the bells were rung, 
 with a view of diverting the crowd from the spot. It 
 produced, however, a contrary effect, and greatly in- 
 creased the crowd. 
 
 Presently a few stones and other missiles were thrown 
 through the windows and against the door of the room 
 where the liquors were stored, biit this was proved to 
 be the work chiefly of boys, intent on mischief and 
 fun ; there was no malice about it, and the temper of 
 the crowd was any thing but malicious. On the con- 
 trary, good nature was apparent all the while, and no 
 other motive seemed to have called the people together 
 but that of curiosity. They wanted to see what was 
 
NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 231 
 
 going on. A Portland paper remarks at this point of 
 the narrative, " It is our decided opinion and we have 
 not met an intelligent person who witnessed the pro- 
 ceedings of the evening that does not concur with us . 
 that an efficient police officer, with a dozen good 
 men, could have easily dispersed the crowd any time 
 prior to half past nine o'clock. Soon after ten o'clock 
 the crowd had materially diminished, and seemed rap- 
 idly dispersing, when Mr. Dow, accompanied by Captain 
 Green and a part of the Light Guard, appeared upon 
 the sidewalk on the north side of the City Hall. The 
 crowd were warned to disperse. His appearance, sword 
 in hand, with soldiers, at once changed the temper of 
 the multitude. They rallied around them, and gave 
 groans and hisses in reply to the proclamation to dis- 
 perse." 
 
 Then Mayor Dow gave his fatal order, on the 
 haste and impulse of the moment, as if instigated to do 
 so by nothing but the derisions of the multitude, 
 "First section, FIRE!" The order was not obeyed; 
 and it was then that the mob began to hurl missiles, 
 mostly at him., A part of the company started off with 
 Dow in escort, and the remainder at once returned to 
 their armory in an upper story of the City Hall building. 
 Captain Green refused to order his men to fire, as was 
 said, because he thought it was unauthorized by the 
 trivial scenes and circumstances of the occasion. At the 
 time Dow gave his rash order, the company were stand- 
 ing directly opposite the entrance to the hall of the 
 Mechanics' Association in Clapp's block, and their fire 
 
232 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 would have taken effect, if at all, upon the people on 
 the sidewalk, a part of whom were mechanics just com- 
 ing from their hall, and who were entirely unconscious 
 that any such proceeding was called for or contem- 
 plated. After Captain Green's company had retired, 
 the brickbats flew thicker and stronger, and the police 
 who were aiding the deputy marshal, who had seized 
 the liquors to guard them, commenced firing pistols 
 charged only with powder. A sort of sham fight was 
 thus kept up between the crowd, which had now be- 
 come more determined in its character, and the police, 
 iintil about eleven o'clock, when Mr. Dow, with a por- 
 tion of the Rifle Guards, descended from the Light 
 Guards' Armory, and with the muskets of the Light 
 Guards, to the south side of the City Hall. The doors 
 of the liquor store were then thrown open, and the 
 firing commenced, by Mr. Dow's order, through the 
 store upon the crowd in the street upon the other side 
 of the building. 
 
 One man, named George Bobbins, the mate of the 
 bark Louisa Eaton, was shot through the body, fell 
 into the arms of a person close by, and died almost 
 instantly. He was only thirty-two years of age, and 
 was to have been married to a young lady in Portland 
 very soon. 
 
 Thomas McCarty, a hostler, aged twenty-two years, 
 received a ball under his chin, which passed out through 
 his cheek, breaking the jaw-bone in its passage. 
 
 Thomas McKenney, a young man about twenty years 
 old, was slightly wounded by a bullet on the head. A 
 
NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 233 
 
 young man by the name of Frank Milliken received a 
 blow from a brickbat in the face, making a severe 
 wound. An apprentice of Mr. Felt, and a young man 
 employed at the United States Hotel, were also slightly 
 wounded by bullets. John A. Poor, Esq., on his way 
 home from his office, passed, in company with two other 
 gentlemen, in front of the Clapp and Deering block, 
 and just before reaching Preble Street a bullet passed 
 through his hat, but did no injury. There were sev- 
 eral other similar hair-breadth escapes. After firing 
 for a while, the soldiers charged bayonet through the 
 streets, and made several wanton and rude arrests, 
 though none were attempted in the early part of the 
 evening, when they ought to have been made. Mr. 
 Seth Hilborn, an elderly gentleman, received a severe 
 bayonet wound on the hip, while trying to get out of 
 the way as fast as he could. 
 
 Such is the account of a rash, hot-headed, and vin- 
 dictive man's trying to enforce a law of his own, with 
 which it was impossible that his pride should not have 
 far more to do than his boasted love for the race and 
 its moral reform. In teaching people how to be tem- 
 perate, he was betrayed into the grossest and most 
 criminal intemperance himself; showing, in the first 
 place, that he never possessed a proper conception of 
 what the influences are that really operate to man's 
 elevation, and, secondly, that he was the most unsafe 
 man of all others to be clothed with the power necessary 
 to enforce a law, whose whole spirit and temper was 
 that of violence itself. We have been at the pains, in 
 20* 
 
234 THE KAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 a previous part of this volume, to point out the various 
 methods by which such a law is certain to work mis- 
 chief in every free community, and it is not necessary 
 that we should rehearse them here ; but this revolting 
 tragedy, wrought at the hands of Neal Dow, furnishes 
 us with all the illustration we need, by the aid of which 
 to make each one of them glaringly real. This case 
 abundantly sets forth the truth of the doctrines that 
 we- have all along laid down in reference to this law. 
 All its tyranny, its violent and ruthless temper, and its 
 dangerous tendencies are well illustrated by the tragedy 
 that occurred in Portland in the year 1855, and it is 
 for this reason that we have rehearsed it in this place. 
 Having said that all such laws, operated only by the aid 
 of a system of spying and lying, of malice and mean- 
 ness, of meddling and suspicion, must of necessity lead 
 to open violence in the end, and to the fatal disruption 
 of all those ties that hold communities and neighbor- 
 hoods together in peace, we bring forward this pres- 
 ent case by way of furnishing an ample illustration of 
 the position with which we set out. It is, indeed, a 
 most melancholy illustration ; yet it holds up the truth 
 of the whole matter before the eyes of the reader better 
 than volumes of arguments, could we have brought 
 forward so many. 
 
 In reference to the various causes that directly 
 brought about this result, we quote from the columns 
 of a well-informed journal of the city where this bloody 
 drama was enacted : 
 
 " As to the principal causes which produced this 
 
NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 235 
 
 unhappy result, there can be but one opinion. The 
 course which Mr. Dow has pursued in the execution of 
 the new liquor law, ruthlessly searching private dwell- 
 ings, and packages coming by steamboat or express, 
 and disregarding what have ever heretofore been re- 
 garded as the sacred rights of citizens, has done much 
 to irritate and excite hostile feeling against him and 
 his officers. They have seized liquor wherever they 
 could find it without warrant, and have treated it and 
 its owners as if the article was entirely outlawed ; as if 
 the formalities of law were of little importance in dis- 
 posing of it. Mr. Dow and his minions have adopted 
 just the course of proceeding which Elder Peck made 
 an occasion for boasting at the recent Temperance 
 Convention in Boston. He told the assembly there, 
 that they had got so in Maine that they seized liquors 
 wherever they could find them, and that they got the 
 warrants when convenient. This spirit, manifested on 
 the part of the authorities, has produced a deep-seated 
 bitterness in the community. To add to this, Mr. Dow 
 asked of the city government, at its last meeting, an 
 appropriation of two thousand dollars to pay informers 
 under the law, and the aldermen voted it. The com- 
 mon council laid the order on the table for the time ; 
 but as there was a large majority of Mr. Dow's satellites 
 in that body, it was presumed he would drive them 
 into voting this appropriation for pimps and spies, and 
 thus add another aggravation to his already odious 
 manner of executing the law. 
 
 " Then came the development in regard to the 
 
236 THE EAMEOD BROKEN. 
 
 wholesale purchase of liquor by Mr. Dow, and the at- 
 tempt of the aldermen on Saturday to cloak the trans- 
 action after the warrant had been obtained for its 
 seizure, and before it was served. The impression was 
 pretty strong that the law was thus to be cheated, and 
 that both Mr. Dow and the liquors were by unfair 
 means to escape the penalty meted out by him with a 
 high hand in other cases. 
 
 " There was a pretty strong current of feeling, that 
 no great moral or legal wrong would be done by letting 
 Mr. Dow's liquor into the gutter, (the common recep- 
 tacle for the article here, and no doubt the best one 
 when properly got into it,) and it was this feeling on 
 the part of a few, and curiosity on the part of others, 
 which caused the assemblage on Saturday night. The 
 worst that any one of those assembled had in view was 
 the spilling of a little liquor, which is hardly regarded 
 as property, and with those unable to make the nice 
 distinctions between beverage and medicine is not a 
 crime of a very serious nature. Whatever of violence 
 there was exhibited on the part of the crowd, was di- 
 rected wholly against this liquor. The desire for the 
 destruction of liquor seemed to have become an epi- 
 demic. The position of parties, however, was singularly 
 reversed ; the people wished to destroy, and the police, 
 with Mr. Dow at their head, were defending it. We 
 do not believe, however, if Mr. Dow and the military 
 had kept away, that any serious harm would have been 
 done. 
 
 " A few panes of glass broken, and some other injuries 
 
NEAL DOW'S LAW EXECUTED BY HIMSELF. 237 
 
 done to the door of the liquor store, would have been 
 all, and the crowd would quietly have dispersed of 
 themselves, or a reasonable spirit from any prominent 
 citizen would no doubt have dispersed them any time 
 during the evening. But the presence of Mr. Dow, 
 brandishing his sword, and accompanied by soldiers, ex- 
 asperated the crowd to make a more violent attack upon 
 the store. These acts were unlawful and unjustifiable 
 on the part of those who committed them ; but these 
 did not, in our judgment, call for or justify the shed- 
 ding of blood. The loss of the liquor would have been 
 of little consequence, compared with human life, which, 
 we confess, it seems to us was most wantonly sacri- 
 ficed in this case." 
 
 Is there need of saying more ? We simply ask how 
 much real, practical, permanent reform can possibly be 
 effected by statutes claiming to be based only on the 
 sentiment of benevolence, but whose execution is liable 
 at any time to call out an armed soldiery to shoot into 
 excited mobs. Temperance and Reform this is, with 
 a vengeance ! 
 
238 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 RECEIPTS FOE DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 
 
 INASMUCH as it is generally conceded that wines must 
 oe used in families, for one purpose and another, cer- 
 tainly in a state of sickness if not in health, we have 
 thought the reader would consider it not amiss to find 
 within these pages such reliable directions for the man- 
 ufacture of pure drinks as would be of service at any 
 future time. There is a further satisfaction, likewise, 
 that the drinks thus manufactured will be pure, and 
 so incapable of producing, even if used in some in- 
 stances improperly, those terrible effects which are 
 chiefly to be deplored in the case of those usually sold 
 and consumed. 
 
 We commence with the harmless beverage of cider ; 
 at which too many people simply pucker their mouths 
 and make wry faces, instead of trying to do something 
 to make cider what jt ought to be. 
 
 " Cider," says a high medical work, " made of ripe 
 apples, properly fermented, and racked or purified, is, 
 of all fermented liquors, the most innocent and the 
 best. It may be made, by care and proper manage- 
 ment, as fine flavored and as clear as wine." 
 
 There are several modes of keeping cider ; but we 
 can recommend the following one as the best, if not 
 
EECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 239 
 
 the very best method in use. We give it, anecdote 
 and all. 
 
 " A few years ago chemistry and sugar making were 
 found to be intimately connected. The chemist told 
 the planter how to arrest the natural tendency of cane 
 juice to acidify. It was simply to add a little sulphite 
 of lime. Now he tells the cider makers the same thing. 
 Mind, it is sulphite, and not sulphate. The latter 
 is a natural form of lime, known as plaster of Paris. 
 The former is a preparation by the chemists the salts 
 of sulphurous acid. To use this material, which is in- 
 expensive and harmless to health, in preserving cider, 
 Professor Horsford, of Harvard University, says, 
 
 " ' Put the new cider into clean casks or barrels, and 
 allow it to ferment from one to three weeks, according 
 as the weather is cool or warm. When it has attained 
 to lively fermentation, add to each gallon three fourths 
 of a pound of white sugar, and let the whole ferment 
 again until it possesses nearly the brisk, pleasant taste 
 which it is desirable should be permanent. Pour out 
 a quart of the cider, and mix with it one quarter Ox 
 an ounce of sulphite of lime for every gallon the 
 cask contains. Stir until it is intimately mixed, and 
 pour the emulsion into the liquid. Agitate the con- 
 tents of the cask thoroughly for a few moments, then 
 let it rest, that the cider may settle. Fermentation 
 will be arrested at once, and will not be resumed. It 
 may be bottled in the course of a few weeks, or it may 
 be allowed to remain in the cask and used on draught. 
 If bottled, it will become a sparkling cider better than 
 what is called champagne wine.' ? 
 
240 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 Be careful to have the cider work sufficiently before 
 putting in the sulphite of lime, or you will get nothing 
 more than sweet cider, which will prove comparatively 
 worthless. 
 
 Pure hard cider , if kept in perfectly clean barrels in 
 a cool cellar, is no bad drink, unmixed with any other 
 ingredient, and with very many constitutions it is a 
 specific for summer complaint, nausea, and all kindred 
 
 diseases. 
 
 WINE. 
 
 The same physician referred to above, as speaking of 
 cider and its benefits, says of wine as follows : " Wine, 
 unmixed with alcohol, used in moderation, may be 
 considered a wholesome drink. In those countries 
 where it is produced in abundance, the people drink 
 freely of it without injury, and are proverbially tem- 
 perate. In Prance, where there are such immense 
 quantities of wine, a drunkard is seldom or never to 
 be found. It seems to destroy that hankering after 
 stronger spirits which is so peculiar to other countries 
 where wine is not much made. The wine imported 
 into this country frequently contains such a large quan- 
 tity of alcohol, that it becomes injurious. Hence the 
 necessity and importance for Americans and others to 
 plant vineyards. Some of our most sensible men give 
 it as their opinion, that if wine was as freely used as 
 in Prance, it would eradicate the universal vice of in- 
 temperance." 
 
 Says a noted writer upon this subject, " Wine, when 
 used in moderation, proves generally grateful to the 
 
EECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUOES. 241 
 
 stomach ; it warms and stimulates it to greater exertion, 
 promotes probably a more speedy discharge of its con- 
 tents, and, from its immediate action, imparts a transient 
 sensation of warmth and comfort ; but when taken in 
 an immoderate quantity, it produces intoxication for the 
 time, and, its exhilarating effects having subsided, it 
 leaves the frame disordered, relaxed, and weak. Wine 
 may be considered as the best of cordials, where its 
 good qualities are not destroyed by too free and fre- 
 quent a use. Most of the great drinkers of vinous and 
 spirituous liquors die of relaxation, of debility, loss 
 of appetite, tubercles, and scirrhosity of the liver, or 
 dropsy. 
 
 " The uses of wine are great, both as a beverage 
 and a medicine. Several physicians recommend it as 
 an excellent cordial, and particularly serviceable in 
 fevers. The moderate use of wine is of service to the 
 aged, the weak, and the relaxed, and to those who are 
 exposed to a warm and moist or corrupted air ; wine 
 deserves to be ranked first in the list of anti-scorbutic 
 liquors. Considered as a medicine, it is a valuable 
 cordial in languors and debilities ; grateful and reviv- 
 ing ; particularly useful in the low stage of malignant 
 or other fevers, for raising the pulse and resisting putre- 
 faction." 
 
 There are various kinds of domestic wines that de- 
 serve to be manufactured with much more care than is 
 now bestowed upon them ; if they are esteemed of high 
 value when made in the hasty way they now are, what 
 might they not become if an equal amount of pains 
 21 
 
242 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 was bestowed on them with that paid to the manufac- 
 ture of the Catawba and foreign wines. Of the several 
 kinds in constant and common use, we cite a few of 
 the leading ones, and speak of the best mode of their 
 manufacture and preservation. 
 
 GRAPE WINE. 
 
 In the first place, great attention is to be paid to 
 the mashing of the grapes. Where but a few bushels 
 are to undergo this process, a simple and efficacious 
 process is to prepare a wooden stamper, say three 
 and a half feet long, about six inches in diameter 
 at the larger end, and with the bottom slightly scooped 
 or concave. Let holes be bored thickly through the 
 larger end, with a quarter-inch auger, into which, fix 
 hard oak or hickory pins, so that they may project 
 from the masher for nearly half an inch in every 
 direction. Now, put about two bushels of grapes 
 into a clean, sweet cask, holding in the neighborhood 
 of forty gallons, and proceed to pound the masher up 
 and down among them. Continue this operation until 
 the entire mass of the grapes is thoroughly mashed. 
 Then empty the whole mass into a box placed upon the 
 wine press. 
 
 In European countries, the practice has been to tread 
 out the grapes with the feet, the grapes being placed in 
 a small tub, the bottom of which is perforated with a 
 great many holes. But this practice is not likely to be 
 adopted by us. The skins and pulp of our grape are 
 so hard that the work would be too laborious ; and many 
 
RECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 243 
 
 of our vintners think that the " tannin " of the stem 
 improves the flavor and aids in the preservation of the 
 wine. Concerning the European practice of allowing 
 the mashed grapes to stand in casks for fermentation, 
 before pressing, it is thought that it will hardly be 
 adopted in this country by wine-makers, although many 
 experiments are yet to be tried in order to satisfy the 
 public on the matter. It is thought that the season 
 here, at the time of the vintage, is too warm to per- 
 mit it. 
 
 After mashing comes pressing. As soon, therefore, 
 as possible, the mass of mashed grapes is to be taken 
 to the wine press. This instrument each person will 
 of course suit to his own crop of grapes and length of 
 purse. Any modern hand-book on the manufacture of 
 wine will furnish the reader with diagrams of such an 
 instrument as he will need, together with complete di- 
 rections for their manufacture. The whole mass is 
 poured upon a floor like a frame, to which is tightly 
 fitted a cover ; and on the back of this is a stout cross- 
 piece, to which the screw is applied that produces the 
 wine. The sap that first flows from the press makes the 
 best wine ; all the other expressions are of course in- 
 ferior. Yet few persons in this country would stop to 
 consider so trifling a fact, important as it is in its 
 results. 
 
 Let the whole work be performed with as much 
 nicety and despatch as possible. Young wine juice 
 absorbs acids very readily from the atmosphere, and 
 likewise from the vessels, if not thoroughly clean, into 
 
244 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 which it runs. The grapes, either before or after mash- 
 ing, should not be allowed to stand about for any length 
 of time in tubs, casks, and barrels, but be attended to 
 at once. Make a business of it while the work is going 
 on, and, where the small quantity of grapes will per- 
 mit, mash and press all that are gathered in one day 
 on the same day, and carry the juice instantly to the 
 cellar, leaving it as little exposed to the atmosphere as 
 need be. .It is of course highly important that casks, 
 clean and tight, should be all prepared for the recep- 
 tion of the juice of the grape, and made as large as you 
 can secure. The larger the body of wine fermenting 
 in one vessel, the better will be the wine finally pro- 
 duced. 
 
 The casks that receive the product of the wine press 
 should not be allowed to stand on the cellar bottom, 
 but upon platforms or scaffoldings, and should be filled 
 not more than three fourths full. Within twenty-four 
 hours the wine will commence the work of fermenta- 
 tion. By this process, many of the finer essences be- 
 longing to the wine, and that would greatly improve 
 its flavor and general character, escape. The carbonic 
 acid especially is lost, being secured only in the wines 
 known as champagne. But the cost of securing this 
 essential element is so great as to be out of the ques- 
 tion with those who would be glad to get hints on 
 domestic wine-making from the pages of this volume. 
 
 When fermentation subsides, instantly close the casks 
 so that the oxygen of the atmosphere cannot penetrate 
 to the fermenting mass. Of course the bungs are left 
 
RECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 245 
 
 out while this process is going on, else the casks would 
 burst. Fermentation being over, drive in the bungs 
 tightly. The wine becomes clear generally in a few 
 weeks, when it may be drawn off. The wine should be 
 carefully kept in dry, walled cellars, impervious both to 
 the heats of summer and the cold of winter. Vegeta- 
 bles, that produce a peculiar and sometimes an offensive 
 smell, should not be kept in the same cellar with the 
 wine, or, certainly, not very near the casks. Every 
 thing should be as clean, sweet, and dry as it can be 
 made. 
 
 In the spring, the fermented wine should be drawn 
 off, if it has not already been done, when it will be 
 found to have become much improved by its winter's 
 sleep. Then it is placed in bottles for family use, some 
 of which may be drank to advantage after suffering 
 them to lie embedded in sand for about six weeks. 
 Good wines are clear wines, and have of course gone 
 through the necessary process of fermentation. All 
 the boasted unfermented wines are crimes against nature, 
 and contain elements that go to the making up of no 
 wholesome beverage. 
 
 We now proceed to cite some of the simpler domestic 
 wines, and to give the best and easiest methods of man- 
 ufacturing them. 
 
 GOOSEBERRY CHAMPAGNE. 
 
 Secure none but the largest sized gooseberries that 
 are not yet turned red, and take off clean their tops 
 and tails. Measure a gallon of pure, soft water, and 
 21* 
 
246 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 weigh out three pounds of the berries ; place the ber- 
 ries in a clean tub, and pour on a little water ; mash 
 them well with a wooden masher ; then pour on the 
 rest of the water, and stir the whole mass thoroughly. 
 Place now a cloth over the tub, allowing the whole to 
 stand four days; but stir it frequently during that 
 time. Then strain the liquor into another vessel, and 
 add to every gallon of liquor four pounds of fine loaf 
 sugar, and to every five gallons of the whole a quart 
 of the purest French brandy. Have the mass well 
 mixed, and pour it afterwards into a clean and sweet 
 cask that will be exactly filled, leaving no space at all. 
 Put the cask on its side in a cool, dry place in the cel- 
 lar, and place the bung loosely over the bung hole. Be 
 very careful not to allow the cask to be disturbed in 
 any way, since any shaking or jarring is calculated to 
 injure the wine. Let it work now for about two weeks, 
 when the noise caused by the fermentation will cease 
 to be heard. Next bottle it, driving in the corks tight- 
 ly. Place the bottles on their sides, and by suffering 
 them to lie for six months they will be found to furnish 
 as lively champagne wine as any family would wish to 
 drink. 
 
 RED CURRANT WINE. 
 
 An excellent and much admired wine is made of the 
 red currant, which sells very readily in the market at 
 the rate of two dollars a gallon. This currant is acid, 
 but juicy, arid of a very fine vinous flavor. The fruit 
 is very acceptable at the time when it makes its appear- 
 ance, and is used in sundry ways by those whose palates 
 crave just the refreshment it is ready to furnish. 
 
RECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 247 
 
 In order to make a good and palatable drink, in the 
 form of wine, from this common berry, observe the fol- 
 lowing process: After expressing the juice from the 
 currant, add two pails of water and three pounds of 
 sugar to each gallon. Or, what is better, make a strong 
 sirup by adding a pound of sugar to a quart of currant 
 juice, strain and bottle it, or put it in casks, cork as 
 tightly as will be safe, and set away in a cool place in 
 the cellar, that the fermentation may not be too rapid. 
 Afterwards add a little water to the pomace, so that 
 each quart of currants and pound of sugar shall receive 
 a quart of water. This mixture will keep well for one 
 or two years, and is at all times sweet and refreshing, 
 besides containing none of the alcohol to be found in 
 all imported wines. 
 
 GREEN CURRANT WINE. 
 
 Let the currants be full grown, though not so far 
 advanced as to have begun to redden. Pick them clean 
 from the stems, weigh them, and allow to every three 
 pounds a gallon of soft, pure water. Proceed to mash 
 them in the same way as in the case of the gooseberry 
 champagne ; but in the matter of sugar, a good light- 
 brown sugar may be used, if preferred on account of 
 the expense, instead of the loaf sugar. As soon as the 
 fermenting process is over, it may be tightly secured in 
 the cask, without the trouble of bottling, the bung be- 
 ing driven in. After standing in a proper place for six 
 months, it will be fit for drinking. 
 
248 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 PEACH WINE. 
 
 Weigh out eight pounds of the best freestone peaches, 
 fully ripe, and very juicy. Slice them into a couple of 
 gallons of soft water, and add five pounds of well-broken 
 loaf sugar. Next extract the kernels from the peach 
 stones, break them up, and sprinkle them in the bottom 
 of a clean tub, or other vessel. Then put the peaches, 
 with the now dissolved sugar, into a kettle, and boil 
 and skim it till the scum no longer rises. Strain it 
 now through a large sieve into the tub containing the 
 broken peach-stone kernels. Stir all together thor- 
 oughly, and cover it over tightly till all is cool. Then 
 throw in a large slice of toasted bread, smothered with 
 yeast, and leave it to ferment ; when fermentation 
 ceases, strain it into a keg, and add a bottle of sweet 
 Malaga wine, or Muscadel. Now let it stand undis- 
 turbed for six months. After that, draw off a small 
 quantity in a glass, to see if it is clear ; if it should not 
 be by that time, draw off a pint of the wine, into which 
 put an ounce of gum arabic ; dissolve the mixture in 
 a slow heat, and add an ounce of powdered chalk. 
 When all are well dissolved, pour back the pint of 
 wine into the cask, stirring it gently the while with a 
 stick ; but be careful not to let the stick touch the bot- 
 tom, lest it may disturb the lees, or sediment, in the 
 cask. After standing three days longer, it will be fit 
 for bottling. Six months keeping will make it a very 
 fine beverage. 
 
RECEIPTS FOR DOMESTIC LIQUORS. 249 
 
 BLACKBERRY WINE. 
 
 This is quite a common domestic wine, but none too 
 many families are in the habit of manufacturing it. 
 Let the berries be fully ripe, and pick them all over 
 carefully. Allow a quart of soft water to every quart 
 of the berries, and boil the water separate. Put the 
 blackberries in a clean tub, and mash them with a 
 wooden instrument, so as to do the work thoroughly. 
 Pour the boiling water upon the mashed berries, and 
 let them stand in a cool place till the next morning, 
 stirring them from time to time. Then press out all 
 the juice, measure it, and allow for every quart of the 
 liquor half a pound of sugar. Put the sugar into a 
 cask, and strain the liquor upon it through linen. Stir 
 frequently till the sugar is completely dissolved, and 
 leave the cask open till the liquor has ceased to work. 
 Add now half an ounce of isinglass, or an ounce of gum 
 arabic, dissolved in a little hot water ; or the beaten 
 whites of four eggs will answer as well ; keep the cask 
 open till the next day, after which the bung may be 
 driven in. In two months it will be fit for bottling. 
 
 DOMESTIC BEER. 
 
 Pleasant and healthy beer can be made very cheaply. 
 Almost any cook book contains at least half a dozen 
 different receipts for its manufacture. Any old lady or 
 skilful country housewife can tell how to make beer 
 that will make a sick man well, and a well man happy 
 and strong. The time once was, when a girl who could 
 
250 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 not bake and brew about as well as her mother, stood 
 but a slim chance in the field of matrimony. A very 
 common mode of manufacturing beer is, to sweeten as 
 much water as is wanted to suit the taste of the drink- 
 er, although the more sweetening used, the more 
 vitality will the beer contain, to add to each gallon 
 of water half a gill of common yeast, and the strength, 
 in liquid form, obtained by steeping a common handful 
 of hops. This is all that is necessary to make good 
 beer, yet it is usual to add sarsaparilla, yellow dock, 
 spruce, or any thing else that the health or taste of the 
 consiimer may require. 
 
 DISTILLED LIQUORS. 
 
 The process of distillation is very simple, and if our 
 Saviour was warranted in performing his first miracle, 
 that of turning water into wine, may not the dis- 
 tilling practices of the present time be defended, which 
 only convert water, with molasses added, into New and 
 West India rum ? The rum itself is good, may be used 
 innocently, and its efficiency as a medicinal agent is 
 undeniable. Its abuse is quite another matter, and is 
 as infinitely different from its proper use as hell is said 
 to be from heaven. 
 
THE CUKSE OF OPIUM. 251 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 THE CURSE OF OPIUM. 
 
 UPON the tendency of the human race generally to 
 manufacture stimulating drinks, or compounds, we 
 have already commented in a previous chapter, and at 
 quite sufficient length. It is an acknowledged fact, 
 therefore, that men have a natural desire or craving 
 for stimulus, and that desire they will gratify in one 
 way or another, at almost any cost ; if the gratification 
 of this instinct is denied or forbidden them, instead of 
 its being educated, disciplined, and refined, there is 
 little doubt, as the history of mankind fully shows, that 
 the instinct will pursue even improper and ruinous 
 courses in order to secure the enjoyment of its own 
 purposes. 
 
 Hence in some countries, where we think civilization 
 has long since demonstrated the impossibility of such a 
 thing, we find men of the highest social position, hold- 
 ing office under government, and possessed of the most 
 brilliant talents, devoted to the daily use of the deadly 
 drug called opium, than which no other power among 
 stimulants is at once more subtle and tyrannical. Rum 
 is comparatively powerless by the side of opium. It 
 holds its devotees like bound slaves. De Quincey fur- 
 nishes an illustration of a man with splendid talents, 
 
252 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 who, by the habitual use of this potent enchantress, 
 practically threw away the high and valuable services 
 of an active manhood, and lives now only to do daily 
 and even hourly penance for the guilt of which he 
 stands self-charged by his habit of indulgence. It is a 
 belief with him now, years after his reformation was 
 effected, that a large and greedy worm has been gen- 
 erated in his vitals, and that the horrible creature's con- 
 stant cravings for stimulus are the cause of the ever- 
 lasting gnawing with which his life is afflicted. 
 
 In Eastern countries, as in China, opium is largely 
 eaten and smoked by the people for its exhilarating 
 effects ; likewise in Turkey, where the inhabitants, 
 some of them, derive the very inspiration and essence 
 of their lives from partaking of it. The lotus plant is 
 likewise used in Egypt, and in India the liquor that is 
 distilled from hemp. As we before said, there is no 
 end to the methods by which this universal instinct in 
 man, that craves for stimulus of some sort, will in- 
 geniously resort to secure its gratification. But opium 
 eating, of all others, is, without doubt, the habit that is 
 most deplorable. It most surely and thoroughly de- 
 praves the intellects of its victim ; it soonest runs its 
 delicate and insinuating influences under and through 
 his whole nature, and determines to rule and ruin it 
 together ; it will have all its worshippers the most sub- 
 missive possible of all slaves, begging for the poorest 
 favors, which in a right state of health and self-control, 
 they would have but to reach out and take for them- 
 selves. 
 
THE CURSE OF OPIUM. 253 
 
 He who once eats of this drug usually eats of it for- 
 ever. There is a spell in its influence which no man has 
 full power to withstand. He becomes a slave in his very 
 soul. The power over himself is almost gone. He is 
 sunk completely in his indulgence. He is no indi- 
 vidual he is a thing. Friendship goes for nothing 
 with him ; nor love of kindred, nor the pious duties 
 that belong to a husband and father, nor the claims of 
 citizenship and manhood. His nature undergoes a 
 rapid reversal. Every thing seems to be turned inside 
 out. He has no ideas of responsibility, no self-respect, 
 no shape or form for his character whatever ; he is 
 devoted to but one thing, and that the drug of which 
 he eats, and through whose instrumentality he destroys 
 himself. A pitiful spectacle such men present, but 
 quite as common as it is wretched. 
 
 De Quincey, the famous English author, in his " Con- 
 fessions of an Opium Eater," remarks of the common- 
 ness of this practice of eating opium, and the large 
 class addicted to it, " But who are they ? Reader, I 
 am sorry to say a very numerous class indeed. Of this 
 I became convinced some years ago, by computing, at 
 that time, the number of those in one small class of 
 English society, (the class of men distinguished for tal- 
 ent, or of eminent station,) who were known to me, 
 directly or indirectly, as opium eaters. Now, if one 
 class, comparatively so limited, could furnish so many 
 scores of cases, (and that within the knowledge of one 
 single inquirer,) it was a natural consequence that the 
 entire population of England would furnish a propor- 
 22 
 
254 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 tionate number. The soundness of this inference, 
 however, I doubted, until some facts became known to 
 me, which satisfied me that it was not incorrect. I 
 will mention two : 1. Three respectable London drug- 
 gists in widely remote quarters of London, from whom 
 I happened lately to be purchasing small quantities of 
 opium, assured me that the number of amateur opium 
 eaters (as I may term them) was, at this time, im- 
 mense, and that the difficulty of distinguishing these 
 persons, to whom habit had rendered opium necessary, 
 from such as were purchasing it with a view to suicide, 
 occasioned them daily trouble and disputes. This evi- 
 dence respected London only. 
 
 "But, 2, (which will probably surprise the reader 
 more.) Some years ago, on passing through Manchester, 
 I was informed by several cotton manufacturers that 
 their work people were rapidly getting into the practice 
 of opium eating ; so much so, that on a Saturday after- 
 noon the counters of the druggists 1 were strewed with 
 pills of one, two, or three grains, in preparation for the 
 known demand of the evening. The immediate occa- 
 sion of this practice was the lowness of wages, which, 
 at that time, would not allow them to indulge in ale 
 or spirits ; and, wages rising, it may be thought that 
 this practice would cease ; but as I do not readily be- 
 lieve that any man, having once tasted the divine 
 luxuries of opium, will afterwards descend to the 
 gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for 
 granted 
 
 * That those eat now who never ate before, 
 And those who always ate now eat the more.' " 
 
THE CURSE OF OPIUM. 255 
 
 The amount of opium annually consumed in the 
 United States has latterly begun to attract public at- 
 tention. It is reported that some three hundred thou- 
 sand pounds were imported into the country last year, 
 of which the comparatively small portion used for me- 
 dicinal purposes, as can easily and accurately be ascer- 
 tained, shows how much and it was an enormous 
 quantity was used by the regular eaters of the drug. 
 Few persons have any idea of the matter. The evil 
 has gained a footing that it will be no such easy work 
 to eradicate. It takes hold on rich and poor alike ; it 
 knows no distinctions of position, of culture, or of any 
 thing else ; it insinuates its way into the habits of our 
 population, every person sacredly keeping his own 
 secret, and soon comes to assert its own prerogative, if 
 not the entire mastery. 
 
 Even those persons who have set up the loudest out- 
 cries against others using spirits and wines for social 
 and stimulating purposes, addict themselves to this 
 vice with the utmost constancy. They either do not 
 see their inconsistency, or they are hypocrites on prin- 
 ciple. In families where we little dream of such a 
 practice, and which, of all others, we would suppose to 
 be exempt from their invasion, the deadly but infatu- 
 ating drug is secretly used, each member keeping the 
 practice closely to himself, and going on in his indul- 
 gence until his thraldom is thorough and complete. 
 Professional men buy and eat opium for the sake of 
 the splendid relief it furnishes them from the toilsome 
 cares of their daily avocations. Lawyers address juries 
 
256 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 on matters where human life trembles in the balance, 
 under the weird spell of this potent drug. Authors sit 
 at their solitary tables, silent and rapt in thought, and 
 pour forth a wealth of intellect which, in their normal 
 condition, they are astonished to find in any sense the 
 fruit of their own faculties. Ladies in high life scruple 
 not to buy and eat opium, for the splendid dreams it 
 drifts over the sky of their lives, and deem themselves 
 happy only when lapped in the indescribable elysium 
 produced by the Eastern narcotic. And failing to get 
 opium itself, they consume laudanum in large quanti- 
 ties, making it do the work instead. 
 
 So that much the larger part of the opium and lauda- 
 num imported into this country is consumed by those 
 who purchase it for the sake of its intoxicating prop- 
 erties. What that exact quantity is, cannot of course 
 be ascertained, because of the secrecy with which it is 
 employed. What is used for medicinal purposes can 
 be readily known ; and the great balance must be set 
 down to the charge of these men and women and a 
 vast army they make among our population who ha- 
 bitually eat the drug, and r drink the deadly wine that 
 is compressed in its manufacture. It would startle us 
 all if we could count the numbers of these people, and 
 behold them drawn out in array before us. But the 
 fact is none the less well established, lamentable as it 
 is, than if we really had the whole of this wretched 
 body of beings directly before our eyes. 
 
THE CURSE OF OPIUM. 257 
 
 THE HASHEESH EATER. 
 
 The eating of hasheesh is as common in Eastern coun- 
 tries as the use of opium ; and it is but another proof 
 of the universal tendency of mankind to the discovery 
 and consumption of some agent that shall exalt and 
 enlarge the spirit, and seem to make life larger than 
 it is. 
 
 A book was published by the Harpers of New York, 
 a short time ago, entitled " The Hasheesh Eater ; " and 
 the author describes hasheesh, and its weird influence 
 on him who eats of it, in the following way: " In 
 northern latitudes the hemp plant {cannabis saliva) 
 grows almost entirely to fibre, becoming, in virtue of. 
 this quality, the great resource for mats and cordage. 
 Under a southern sun this same plant loses its fibrous 
 texture, but secretes, in quantities equal to one third of 
 its bulk, an opaque and greenish resin. Between the 
 northern and the southern hemp there is no difference, 
 except the effect of diversity of climate upon the same 
 vegetable essence ; yet naturalists, misled by the much 
 greater extent of gummy secretion in the latter, have 
 distinguished it from its brother of the colder soil by 
 the name cannabis Indica. 
 
 " The resin of the cannabis Indica is hasheesh. From 
 time immemorial it has been known among all the na-' 
 tions of the East as possessing powerful stimulant and 
 narcotic properties ; throughout Turkey, Persia, Ne- 
 paul, and India, it is used at this day among all classes 
 of society as an habitual indulgence. The forms in 
 22-* 
 
258 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 which it is employed are various. Sometimes it appears 
 in the state in which it exudes from the mature stalk, 
 as a crude resin ; sometimes it is manufactured into a 
 conserve with clarified butter, honey, and spices ; some- 
 times a decoction is made of the flowering tops in water 
 or arrack. Under either of these forms the method of 
 administration is by swallowing. Again, the dried 
 plant is smoked in pipes or chewed, as tobacco among 
 ourselves. 
 
 " Used in whatever preparation, hasheesh is character- 
 ized by the most remarkable phenomena, both physical 
 and spiritual. A series of experiments made with it 
 by men of eminent attainments in the medical profes- 
 sion, principally at Calcutta, and during the last ten 
 years, prove it to be capable of inducing all the ordi- 
 nary symptoms of catalepsy, or even of trance. 
 
 " However, from the fact of its so extensive daily use 
 as a pleasurable stimulus in the countries where experi- 
 ments with it have been made, it has doubtless lost in- 
 terest in the field of scientific research, and has come to 
 be regarded as only one more means, among the multi- 
 tude which mankind in all latitudes are seeking, for 
 the production of a sensual intoxication. Now and 
 then a traveller, passing by the bazaar where it was ex- 
 posed for sale, moved by curiosity, has bought some 
 form of the hemp, and made the trial of its effects upon 
 himself; but the results of the experiment were dig- 
 nified with no further notice than a page, or a chapter, 
 in the note book of his journeyings, and the hasheesh 
 phenomena, with an exclamation of wonder, were 
 
THE CURSE OF OPIUM. 259 
 
 thenceforward dismissed from his own and the public 
 mind." 
 
 The writer then proceeds to give the results of his 
 own personal acquaintance with the drug, which he 
 does in a most vivid style, conjuring up in the imagina- 
 tion of his reader the wildest and seemingly most un- 
 real forms it is possible to conceive of. He treats the 
 subject of hasheesh as " a key to some of the most sin- 
 gular manifestations of the Oriental mind, as a narra- 
 tive interesting to the attentive student of the human 
 soul and body, and the mysterious network of interact- 
 ing influences which connect them." And he thus 
 finely sums up the object he has in giving his expe- 
 riences as a hasheesh eater to the world : " The aim of 
 this relation is not merely aesthetic nor scientific; 
 though throughout it there be no stopping to moralize, 
 it is my earnest desire that it may teem with sugges- 
 tions of a lesson without which humanity can learn 
 nothing in the schools. It is this : The soul withers 
 and sinks from its growth towards the true end of its 
 being, beneath dominance of any sensual indulgence. 
 The chain of its bondage may for a long time continue 
 to be golden, many a day may pass before the fetters' 
 gall ? yet all the while there is going on a slow and 
 insidious consumption of its native strength ; and when 
 at last captivity becomes a pain, it may awake to dis- 
 cover, in inconceivable terror, that the very forces of 
 disinthralment have perished out of its reach." 
 
 The experiences of the eater of hasheesh are too 
 various and terrible to be described ; in fact, no verbal 
 
260 THE BAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 description is equal to the gigantic reality. A moment 
 of time becomes years to the person under its influence ; 
 a common voice sounds like the shouting of a mighty 
 host ; all persons, space, time, and number are viewed 
 as through a spiritual telescope ; the world has become 
 a larger world, a grander sphere, a vaster reality. The 
 demon of madness seems to have seized hold upon the 
 one yielding to the fatal indulgence. He goes he knows 
 not whither ; he lives newly ; old places and old friends 
 take on fresh and varied characteristics ; the world is 
 a dance, and the hasheesh eater reels on through the 
 whole, the vastest dream of all. 
 
 This drug exercises a spell as potent as that of opium ; 
 and the devotees of each count by legion in the Eastern 
 countries. As we before remarked, we are only re- 
 minded by the prevalent use of this resinous substance, 
 called hasheesh, of the activity of human ingenuity in 
 devising means to produce intoxication of the senses, 
 and a temporary stimulus of the mental and spiritual 
 faculties. 
 
DELIRIUM TREMENS. 261 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 DELIRIUM TREMENS. 
 
 THIS terrible disease is the penalty paid by those who 
 indulge in the excessive use of strong liquors ; especial- 
 ly the criminally compounded liquors that are unblush- 
 ingly sold in these times for pure drinks. It is, in fact, 
 a much more common disease than is generally known. 
 Its symptoms are those appertaining to the disease of 
 insanity. It is called by some the brain-fever of drunk- 
 ards. It commences with nausea, vomiting, and the 
 like, and sometimes only because of a sudden disuse of 
 stimulus. It is not necessary, either, that the victims 
 to it should have been notorious drunkards ; a man 
 who has always kept his skin full, yet screened his rep- 
 utation from shame by superior steadiness of nerve, is 
 as likely to succumb to its frightful assaults as one who 
 has habitually lain in the gutter. 
 
 The disease is of gradual approach, and several days 
 usually elapse before it reaches its highest stage of 
 riotous power. The patient is extremely wakeful, in- 
 clined to walk hurriedly to and fro, and his brain is 
 haunted with throngs of the most hideous and frightful 
 images. Generally the unhappy victims to it see noth- 
 ing but devils all around them, these forming the acme 
 of the " Gorgons and chimeras dire " with which they 
 
262 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 are beset. Symptoms of decided fever accompany the 
 disease. The countenance takes on an expression of 
 alarm, anxiety, and suspicion. Suddenly the patient 
 grows wildly talkative, extremely irritable, and 
 calls out for help from others. Then he raves, and is 
 tormented with idle fears that he is pursued, that he is 
 about to be robbed, or murdered. And in this course 
 he continues for a term of four or five days, when the 
 disease terminates in a fit of epilepsy and the decease 
 of the unhappy victim. 
 
 It is a fact well worthy of general consideration, that 
 delirium tremens was comparatively, if not altogether, 
 unknown among even immoderate drinkers of strong 
 liquors in other days ; and temperance writers and 
 temperance orators themselves admit it. If the reader 
 will take the pains to turn back to the chapter review- 
 ing the book called the " Satanic License," he will find 
 that the reverend author of that book makes this most 
 important admission. We call it important, because 
 upon it hinges the whole case whose defence, or rather 
 whose elucidation, we have been engaged in setting 
 forth in this volume. For if it shall be shown, and 
 admitted by candid men, that it is owing only to the 
 poisoning and base adulteration of spirits that these 
 melancholy cases of delirium tremens occur, then we 
 have all the stronger right to insist that they shall be 
 brought to an end by the interposition of statute law. 
 
 If it can be shown that, by reason of this wicked adul- 
 teration of liquors, this most criminal compounding of 
 poisonous ingredients, such a fearful disease as the 
 
DELIRIUM TREMENS. 263 
 
 delirium tremens is entailed on the human race, then 
 it plainly follows that it devolves on the social state to 
 remove this cause of the vast evil, by decreeing that 
 such abominable corruptions and compositions shall be 
 rooted out of the land. The law-makers have plenary 
 power in their hands to do this thing, and they know 
 very well they would be sustained by the people at 
 large in the enactment of laws stringent enough to suit 
 the case. They can see the evil, and they know what 
 is the most efficient remedy to apply to it. And fol- 
 lowing close upon the heels of a statute to prevent the 
 adulteration of liquors of all kinds, would fitly come 
 another statute, embodying effective and stringent pro- 
 visions in favor of a proper system of license. 
 
 The greatest portion of the evil that has been right- 
 fully charged against rum as all sorts of wines and 
 liquors are commonly styled by fanatically inclined 
 persons is well known to proceed from that rum's 
 being such vile and murderous stuff. It was manufac- 
 tured expressly to destroy both body and soul. A 
 greater degree of criminality of heart can hardly be 
 said to exist in the cold and calculating manslayer than 
 is to be found in the man who deliberately and perse- 
 veringly mixes potent draughts of poison, for the sole 
 purpose of selling them to be drank by those who buy 
 them because they can get nothing better. These 
 draughts may inspire intoxication at first, but it is 
 maddening rather than exhilarating"; it gnaws at the 
 stomach rather than diffuses a healthy stimulus all over 
 the body ; it perverts the taste as soon as it passes the 
 
264 THE BAMROD BEOKEN. 
 
 delicate pavement of the palate, and craves more from 
 the moment it has secured its first gratification. Like 
 all other poisons, it does its work without mistake. 
 Travelling lecturers on teetotalism show to astonished 
 audiences the awful condition of the human stomach 
 that has imbibed these destroying fluids, by means of 
 hideous but truth-telling diagrams and pictures. It is 
 indeed a dreadful matter for any civilized people to 
 contemplate ; and we are glad they are led, or even 
 forced to do it, while these murderers or poisoners of 
 the public are allowed to go on with their nefarious 
 work with impunity. It is best that the truth should 
 be pressed upon the minds of all continually, so that if 
 they are made to feel their responsibility for the tolera- 
 tion of these things, there will be no sort of excuse if 
 they do not go to work and bring them to a speedy end. 
 We have not at our hand any statistics of this dis- 
 ease called delirium tremens, and we question if any 
 have yet been collected in such form as to be of service 
 in showing the fearful extent of its ravages. Yet 
 enough is known in various quarters, such as our pub- 
 lic hospitals and other similar places, to certify to the 
 lamentable fact that thousands are afflicted with it 
 every year ; and it is perfectly safe further to presume, 
 from such significant and numerous facts as have al- 
 ready come to public observation, that there are multi- 
 tudes more among our population who linger and die 
 under its destructive power, but whose true cases, from 
 reasons of pride and delicacy on the part of friends, are 
 never known. It is a scourge, wrought by man upon 
 
DELIRIUM TREMENS. 265 
 
 man; and there is no reason why it should not be 
 brought to an end by those who always have it in their 
 power to secure that result. It is a destroyer whose 
 liberty ought not to be tolerated in a community styling 
 itself civilized for a day ; but nothing is easier than for 
 those who are resolved to throttle the monster, to do it 
 without fear or ceremony. 
 
 But fanatical minds are always impracticable minds ; 
 that is, in their heat and prejudice they see every thing 
 but the right thing, and every way but the right way, 
 and therefore suppose that the way to check the ravages 
 of this fell destroyer is to try to stop mankind's drink- 
 ing any stimulating drinks at all, even if they were to 
 be had pure and unadulterated ! This is merely fanat- 
 icism flying over to its other natural extreme folly. 
 For it cannot be deemed practicable now, after all this 
 long and futile experimenting, to stop the consumption 
 of stimulating drinks by the community ; and if legis- 
 lators are disposed to attempt it again, and so keep on 
 with their dead experimenting, they will suddenly dis- 
 cover that a more intelligent public sentiment and a 
 more practicable public determination have availed to 
 rotate them all out of their position and their power 
 together. 
 
 The fact is simply here : wines and spirits will al- 
 ways be manufactured, and will always be sold ; and 
 the only question for legislators to answer is, whether 
 they will permit dealers to mix the poisonous elements 
 they now do, and sell them in every direction, or insist, 
 on the other hand, that none but pure and thoroughly 
 23 
 
266 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 tested liquors shall be sold, on penalty of forfeiting lib- 
 erty itself for the criminal transgression. This deadly 
 stream is not to be rendered innocuous by building 
 fences all along on either side of it, and telling people 
 that they shall not climb over, or creep under, and 
 drink, on their peril ; but rather by following it up to 
 its fountain head, and there stopping the flow of waters 
 that carry such certain destruction from the beginning 
 to the end of their course. 
 
 Hence, we say, there is no stronger argument for a 
 severe license law, one of whose provisions shall ex- 
 pressly take protecting care of the liquors to be sold, 
 than the prevalence of such a disease as delirium tre- 
 mens, which is known to be the direct fruit of poisoned 
 liquors. This terrible fact stares us in the face, and 
 calls louder than all others for a reform where, indeed, 
 a reform can alone be effective. It is idle to talk about 
 preventing the use of liquors, for that has been tried, 
 even at the expense of human life itself; the most val- 
 uable reformer is he who will address himself to their 
 purification, rather than their banishment. And every 
 month proves that public sentiment is rapidly setting, 
 in relation to this matter, in the right direction. 
 
THE THREE. AN HONEST RAMROD. 267 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THE THREE.-AN HONEST RAMROD. 
 
 THE frontispiece to the present volume gives the 
 reader a pretty vivid notion of three distinct classes of 
 individuals, each of which will find more or less re- 
 mark suited to itself in these pages. We candidly 
 consider that the talented artist has done his work as 
 he should do it, and that his pencil will work a more 
 thorough reformation in public opinion than a vol- 
 ume of dry temperance discourses could on the same 
 subject. 
 
 The individual standing on the extreme right of the 
 picture represents " An Honest Eamrod ; " that is, a 
 man whose bad digestion inclines him to hate wine, 
 and all other creature comforts, on principle alone, and 
 who dies a thousand deaths in seeing others enjoying 
 what nothing but the morbid state of his liver which 
 he mistakes for his heart forbids his enjoying too. 
 He looks over his spectacles ; any one can see that it 
 imparts increased sanctity to his countenance ; the 
 little boys along the street dare but to throw glances 
 at him, and secretly wonder if an angel is at all like 
 that man for right down hard goodness. You cannot 
 see that the glasses are colored, yet whatever he looks 
 at seems to his vision to be of a yellow hue. That 
 
268 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 proceeds from his liver again. He is affected with the 
 jaundice, in consequence of his indigestion, and all ob- 
 jects of course take on a saffron tint. The thoughtful 
 style, however, in which he throws his telescopic glance 
 over his spectacles, as far forward into the misty future 
 as he can make it go, is peculiar to the Ramrod style 
 of man, and, we ought conscientiously to add, as be- 
 coming as it is peculiar. One of Burns's songs, now, 
 sung on a roistering key in that excellent gentleman's 
 ears, we do not discover that they are extremely long 
 ears, either, would give him a shock that he would 
 carry with him into his grave. 
 
 Poor, honest, unhappy man! How we pity him! 
 He carries his Bible on his arm, as if it were a cross 
 upon his back. See what a weight it is upon him. 
 He would bow under it, if that would make him look 
 any more meek. Between the covers of that Bible 
 he believes he has found the sum of all truth ; and 
 that amount is comprised in spurning the good gifts 
 of Heaven, and making himself acceptable by going 
 without altogether. It is a sorry mistake, but few men 
 get so much comfort out of theiu misery as he does ; 
 and all that is to be said in his favor. That book as 
 he believes teaches him to turn his face the other 
 way, when he is obliged to pass a cider mill ; to salute 
 the fresh apple blossoms of spring with the grimmest 
 smile that ever played about a human mouth ; to bless 
 God that he never tasted any thing delicious in grapes ; 
 and to inwardly declare that the beautiful miracle at 
 Cana of Galilee was one of the most mistaken examples 
 
THE THREE. AN HONEST RAMROD. 269 
 
 a truly divine teacher could have allowed himself to 
 set for his followers. 
 
 His faith and stomach combined have had the effect 
 to start ugly puckers, in the form of wrinkles, all over 
 his face. Such a faith ought to be too much for any 
 constitution ; it ought to wear a man out, and, in due 
 time, it will him. The Almighty will not consent to 
 keep one of his children shut up here on this earth, 
 while he betrays such dissatisfaction with every thing 
 around him ; he will suffer his ill digestion to take him 
 off as soon as it may. 
 
 The slenderness of this gentleman's outline, elegant 
 as it is in the eye of art, is likewise to be attributed to 
 the operation of his faith. That is enough to take the 
 flesh off of any man. To get fat on his sort of faith 
 would be as difficult as to make a breakfast off a raw 
 east wind ; that has been tried, but never would suc- 
 ceed. This class of individuals are never gross crea- 
 tures ; their very honesty forbids that. They look like 
 walking clothes-pins, with coats on ; where they find 
 their tailors, is a mystery. 
 
 Yet these poor Ramrods are not to be looked on with 
 contempt, by any means. Miserable as they look, and 
 miserable indeed as they are, they are nevertheless honest 
 in their wretchedness. They have disordered livers, 
 spleen, indigestion, and all manner of bad humors, 
 simply because they believe these to be conditions of 
 happiness ; else they never would go in for them at the 
 killing rate they do. Do you think they believe in 
 youth ? not they ! They are entirely opposed to all 
 23* 
 
270 THE BAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 sorts of spirits, even to the frolicsome spirits of chil- 
 dren. Other people's happiness is their misery. If 
 they must take cider which God forbid! let them 
 have it hard, and made of the genuine crab, or even of 
 the persimmon ! 
 
 Were it not for their honesty, we should despise 
 them ; but your really honest Ramrod is an honest man 
 indeed. Otherwise, what could induce him to forego 
 all the comforts and pleasures that make so many oth- 
 ers happy ? Or what could prompt him to hate even 
 goodness itself, if it must be had only with the aids of 
 cheerfulness and contentment ? He loves only that 
 half of his Bible which agrees with his views, while the 
 other half he believes to be either a mistake, or incor- 
 rectly translated ; himself he loathes from the crown 
 of his head to the sole of his feet ; he cannot think why 
 God placed him here, unless it was to show up human 
 unworthiness in its very worst aspect ; he believes that 
 as there is nothing good in man, so there is nothing 
 good in nature ; and he is down upon wine and cider, 
 and even small beer, with all the truculent fierceness 
 of his " totally depraved " nature. The honest, but 
 wretched creature ! how we pity him ! He does not 
 understand what he was born for, and so carries about 
 his Bible with him, and exclaims continually, " We are 
 all poor worms ! we are all miserable sinners ! " 
 
 A DRINKING HYPOCRITE. 
 
 Our friend on the extreme left of the picture stands 
 in exact and entire contrast to the honest Ramrod ; 
 
THE THREE. A DRINKING HYPOCRITE. 271 
 
 for while the latter is in all respects conscientious in 
 his conduct and belief, the former is a walking false- 
 hood, a speaking volume of hypocrisy and deceit. He 
 guzzles all the while, and talks temperance, and even 
 teetotalism, with as much gusto as if he had never 
 tasted a drop in his life. It is this very trait that makes 
 him contemptible. Nay, more ; he is one of the most 
 malignant deceivers any community holds ; for it is 
 from such as he that it learns hypocrisy, and from lips 
 like his are poured out that lava-tide of backbiting and 
 lies which may well be esteemed the worst infliction 
 any community can endure. 
 
 His very face tells the story for him. See how 
 blotched and pimply it is ; behold the unornamental 
 knob on the end of his nose ; as if a man with such a 
 nasal organ as that could by earthly possibility be any 
 thing else than a drunkard ; watch the leering look 
 that slips out of his eyes, hinting to you that he hardly 
 expects you to believe him, and more than half won- 
 dering if you do ; see the unsteady attitude, and the 
 total want of true manly character expressed in his 
 whole carriage ; see with what pains he attempts to 
 make it appear that he is a sober and moral citizen by 
 buttoning about him a decent exterior, while he knows 
 and feels that all within is corruption itself. This class 
 of men are by no means rare. They may be found on 
 every corner. They grow on almost every bush. If 
 you hear a person talking over-loud and over-earnestly 
 in favor of temperance reform, and especially of their 
 desire to see the liquor law enforced to the last letter, 
 
272 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 look twice, and behold a hypocrite and a drunkard on 
 principle, for you cannot very well have gone wide of 
 your calculation. He always wants to see the law en- 
 forced upon somebody else ; himself he considers per- 
 fectly safe from its reach. 
 
 The motive for his hypocrisy is apparent enough ; it 
 is quite plain why he talks so loudly and earnestly in 
 favor of the stringent execution of the most stringent 
 law ; it is because he would be thought what he is not, 
 because, knowing his own guilty habits and prac- 
 tices, he seeks to call off public attention from them by 
 crying out against something else. That is the whole 
 secret of it. Such tricks are no new thing ; they have 
 been tried before ; it has always been considered a 
 shrewd game by corrupt men to seem to be what they 
 are not, by charging upon others the vices they practise 
 themselves, and our contemptible friend on the left 
 of the frontispiece represents exactly one of that class 
 of would-be shrewd men. But his very countenance, 
 unfortunately for his pretensions, lets the cat out of the 
 bag for him ; that hypocritical expression, that knobby 
 nose, that pimpled face, that leering and lying eye, 
 each betrays him. 
 
 He never drinks a glass of liquor for the pleasure of 
 the thing, not he ! He never uses liquor at all, un- 
 less it is for a medicine ; and, for that matter, he man- 
 ages to be ailing about all the while. He wears a 
 diseased, anxious, medicated look continually. He is 
 never well, and of course he never presumes to look as 
 if he were well. He is forever sick on principle. He 
 
THE THREE. A DRINKING HYPOCRITE. 273 
 
 goes to the agency State or town for all his rum, 
 and has a new complaint, or an old complaint in a new 
 place, every time he makes his application. The town 
 agent cannot help wondering if he is a conscientious 
 rumseller how it is such a man can live along in this 
 way, and still be so sick all the while ; and well may 
 he wonder, and satisfy his curiosity in wondering. The 
 expressions of illness and hypocrisy are so adroitly 
 blended in his countenance, that a close observer would 
 at once declare this was the sickest hypocrite he ever 
 saw. 
 
 Such are the men who are red-hot with the desire to 
 see the Maine Law carried out in all its severity. Such 
 are the men who desire nothing so much as to exercise 
 supervision and authority over the appetites of others. 
 Such are the men who talk the loudest against the 
 vices, arid even against the foibles, of their neighbors, 
 as if they had nothing of the kind of their own. This 
 fellow in the picture probably has as little charity for 
 others as any man that lives ; and he asks the charity 
 of nobody else in return. Instead of appealing to that, 
 he prefers to try his art of deceiving others into the 
 belief that he is upright and pure himself, needing no 
 such favor as charity at any body's hands. He would 
 be thought a reformer ; and yet he is the meanest type 
 of a drunkard. He would be esteemed a temperate 
 man, if not a teetotaler ; and yet he keeps his skin as 
 full of poor agency rum all the while as it can hold. 
 He would have all persons believe him ; and he is the 
 veriest liar that wears boots. 
 
274 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 No cause, however good, can be helped on by hypo- 
 critical practices. No man will be fool enough to 
 believe what such a fellow says about the virtues of 
 teetotalism, or even of temperance, while he sneaks off 
 afterwards and takes a stolen drink of agency rum be- 
 hind the door. These fellows are the co-workers, or 
 would be thought so, with the rest ; but it would be a 
 thousand fold better to kick them off without hesita- 
 tion. Compared with him, we fairly honor and love 
 the honest old Ramrod over against him, because we 
 believe that he, at least, is honest ; that expression on 
 his countenance is not the expression of a hypocrite, 
 but of a man whose liver is out of order, and who takes 
 wrong views of things. But this drunkard on the left 
 is a hypocrite ; he insults you while he stands in your 
 presence ; he abuses you whenever he opens his mouth ; 
 he corrupts the moral atmosphere with which he hap- 
 pens to be surrounded ; and we only wish for him that 
 old Ramrod may have the final settlement of his per- 
 sonal accounts ! 
 
 AN OLD-FASHIONED BIBLE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 He will bear looking at ; he stands in the middle of 
 the picture. All the children would love him, because 
 they couldn't help it. He carries the certificate of his 
 righteousness in the very lines of his countenance. On 
 comparing him with the honest old Ramrod who stands 
 facing him, one would hardly suppose they were dwellers 
 upon the same planet, while to imagine them descend- 
 ants from a common ancestor would be preposterous. 
 
AN OLD-FASHIONED BIBLE CHRISTIAN. 275 
 
 His skin is full of the juices of good humor and loving 
 kindness. His bosom overflows with the milk of hu- 
 man kindness. His malignant enemies come in the 
 night and girdle his apple trees, or cut down his choice 
 and well-tended grape vines, and he strolls out to be- 
 hold the mischief on the next day, not cursing them 
 either with his lips or in his heart, but blessing Heaven 
 that even the consolation of innocent beer is still 
 left him. 
 
 He excites no hostility between neighbors, and wages 
 no wars of passion to prove that he holds his Christian 
 principles in real earnest. The influence he exerts on 
 those around him is one entirely of charity and peace. 
 He doesn't look in the least like a Neal Dow man, 
 though he would probably be as glad to see the evil of 
 intemperance swept out of existence as Neal Dow him- 
 self. You discover none of the riot disposition in the 
 expression of his face, in his posture, or in his general 
 make-up. He is evidently of opinion that life is too 
 precious to be thrown away in quarrels, when it can be 
 made so much more productive by the operation of a 
 steady and beautiful example, by the promulgation of 
 the purest morals, and by the exercise of a sweet for- 
 bearance and comprehensive charity. " Girdled my 
 trees, have they?" he seems to say to himself; "but 
 what do they expect to accomplish by that? They 
 can't excite me to do the same thing to them they 
 can't stop my using cider, or wine and they can't 
 force me even to hate them, for I only pity them ! 
 But, thank God, there is a power in kindness, in moral 
 
276 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 suasion, and I am bound to repose upon that. If these 
 midnight marauders come to see me, I shall treat them 
 well, and show them how I can punish them by pitying 
 and forgiving them ; as for going to law about it, and 
 having the whole community by the ears, I shall do no 
 such foolish thing ! " 
 
 This man, now, believes in the real doctrines of the 
 Bible ; such as those of forgiveness and charity. And 
 he would perform ten thousand times as wide and per- 
 manent a work with that benignant countenance and 
 warm heart of his, as any professed reformer, with a 
 rigid law and the soldiery at his back, could perform in 
 a dozen lifetimes. He would make all things beautiful 
 and harmonious around him. The feelings of no man, 
 friend or foe, should be injured by act or word of his. 
 While his convictions necessarily lead him to the con- 
 clusion that licensing is the only method by which the 
 indiscriminate sale of poisoned liquors can be stopped, 
 he confesses that no law can supply the place of moral 
 suasion in converting and reforming the individual 
 whose appetite has hitherto had dominion over him. 
 He is ready to help along such temperance lecturers as 
 generously as means and sympathy will permit ; and 
 what he gives, he gives ungrudgingly, and not for effect 
 and show. What he does, likewise, he does from the 
 impulse of a noble and generous heart ; there is no 
 gainsaying it, than an act of his on this side or that 
 carries much, more than the ordinary weight with it, 
 because he puts his heart into his deed, and thus hal- 
 lows it. 
 
AN OLD-FASHIONED BIBLE CHRISTIAN. 277 
 
 We love to contrast such a man with Ramrod, be- 
 cause it shows us the fallacy of looking at the world 
 through a poor medium ; but to think of comparing 
 this genuine, old-fashioned, Bible Christian with a fel- 
 low like that drunken hypocrite, upon whom he has 
 properly turned his back, is more than we can well do. 
 Our Christian friend, we remarked, does not bear a 
 spirit of hatred towards any body ; but he does hate 
 this knavish drunkard's hypocrisy with all the hearti- 
 ness and spontaneity of his honest nature. The slime 
 of a serpent like that he will freely caution all men to step 
 out of the way of; he will denounce that Phariseeism 
 with his last breath, nor refuse to shake his cane, like- 
 wise, by way of giving emphasis to his gesture. He 
 feels that it is right for him to hate hypocrisy, and he 
 knows very well that he could not do otherwise ; be- 
 cause he is no hypocrite himself, and cannot endure to 
 see the acts of a hypocrite played off upon others. 
 
 Here are the three men, therefore, representatives 
 of a large class, each of them. Reader, tell us which 
 one strikes your fancy. Which would you choose for 
 your friend your confidant your counsellor ? Can 
 you accept the bilious misery of old Ramrod, and call 
 such a life as he leads living ? Will you take up with 
 the practices of the knavish guzzler on the left, and 
 call them any thing else than corruption, and the 
 meanest sort of hypocrisy ? Or, on reviewing the field, 
 does not the old-fashioned Bible Christian meet your 
 24 
 
278 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 views of the case, and is he not the most thorough rep- 
 resentation of the true reformatory idea ? 
 
 We must all of us be classed under one of these three 
 heads. Reader, where are you? For ourselves, we 
 shake hands with our friend in the centre of the pic- 
 ture, and will agree to send him a plentiful supply of 
 sweet cider next autumn. 
 
THE USE OF TOBACCO. 279 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 THE USE OF TOBACCO. 
 
 THIS weed holds a high place in the list of narcotics, 
 and is probably used as extensively as any other. Very 
 few people in this country, compared with the entire 
 body of the adult population, but are addicted to to- 
 bacco in one form or another ; they take it in the form 
 of snuff, or they smoke or chew it. Such a statement 
 may well be thought astonishing, when it is known 
 that it is naturally productive of nausea, and that it 
 works emphatic injury to the nervous system ; but 
 these drawbacks fail to have the effect we should sup- 
 pose they would upon those who habitually use the 
 weed. Still, there are not a few who are entirely ig- 
 norant of its pernicious effects, and hence go on in the 
 way they do with no knowledge of the certain results. 
 
 Inasmuch as tobacco is so commonly used, it is 
 proper that its power and the effects of its consumption 
 should be set down along with the fact of its general 
 use. It is called, then, by chemists, a virulent and 
 active poison. Three drops of the distilled oil of to- 
 bacco, dropped on the tongue of a cat, will cause her 
 death in a few minutes ; and a tobacco poultice, ap- 
 plied to the pit of the stomach, causes terrible vomitings 
 in a very short time. It likewise t)roduces similar 
 
280 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 effects when applied to the head. A French physician, 
 who had experimented with the weed, gives the follow- 
 ing piece of experience : " I made a small incision in a 
 pigeon's leg, and applied to it the oil of tobacco ; in 
 two minutes it lost the use of its foot. I repeated this 
 experiment on another pigeon, and the event was ex- 
 actly the same. I made a small wound in the pectoral 
 muscles of a pigeon, and applied the oil to it ; in three 
 minutes the animal could no longer support itself on 
 its left foot. This experiment, repeated on another 
 pigeon, ended the same way. I introduced into the 
 pectoral muscles of a pigeon a small bit of wood cov- 
 ered with this oil ; the pigeon in a few seconds fell 
 insensible. Two other pigeons, to whom I applied this 
 oil, vomited several times all that they had eaten. 
 Two others, with empty stomachs, treated as above, 
 made all possible efforts to vomit. Vomiting was the 
 most constant effect of this oil." 
 
 Applied in almost any form, tobacco will produce a 
 similar effect. Chemists at once classify it with the 
 vegetable poisons. It is said that scurvy abounds much 
 more since the general use of tobacco, than ever before. 
 The use of snuff is said, also, to have produced apo- 
 plexy in a great many instances. In smoking, it is 
 well known that a great deal of saliva is wasted that 
 would otherwise assist in the digestion of food ; and 
 hence it cannot be esteemed conducive to health to get 
 rid of an agent so essential in the animal economy. 
 Chewing uses up much more of this important liquid 
 than smoking. Darwin says, in his Zoonomia, " The 
 
THE USE OP TOBACCO. 281 
 
 unwise custom of chewing and smoking tobacco for 
 many hours in the day, not only injures the salivary 
 glands, producing dryness in the mouth when this drug 
 is not used, but I suspect that it also produces scirrhus 
 of the pancreas. The use of tobacco in this immod- 
 erate degree injures the power of digestion, by occasion- 
 ing the patient to spit out that saliva which he ought 
 to swallow, and hence produces that flatulency which 
 the vulgar unfortunately take it to prevent." 
 
 There is another consideration. Not only does to- 
 bacco use up the saliva which ought to be used in the 
 digestion of the food, but it so thoroughly saturates the 
 tongue and mouth with tobacco juice, that it vitiates 
 the saliva that remains, which, in this poisoned condi- 
 tion, finds its way to the stomach. " It seems," says 
 one writer on the subject, " to act directly upon the 
 nervous system, enfeebling, exhausting, or destroying 
 the powers of life." It affects the sensibility of the 
 membrane that forms the lining of the nose, mouth, 
 and stomach, and thus directly causes dyspepsia. An 
 eminent surgeon declares that of the cases of cancer of 
 the under lip that have come under his observation, all 
 but three were those of individuals who had, at some 
 period of their lives, used tobacco in some one of its 
 forms. De Bomare says of the habit of taking snuff, 
 u The least evil which you can expect it to produce is, 
 to dry up the brain, emaciate the body, enfeeble the 
 memory, and destroy, if not entirely, yet in a great 
 measure, the delicate sense of smelling." 
 
 It is thought by many that chewing tobacco is a 
 24* 
 
282 THE KAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 preservative of the teeth ; but competent medical au- 
 thority assures us that both chewing and smoking wear 
 down, or absorb, the grinding surface of the teeth 
 much faster than would otherwise be the case. So 
 active a poison as the smoke or juice of tobacco, con- 
 tinually in contact with the surface of the teeth, must 
 tend to destroy their vitality, and consequently to 
 hasten, instead of retard, their decay. A German 
 paper speaks further of the excessive use of the weed 
 having produced vertigo, blindness, and paralysis. It 
 causes, also, a dryness of the throat, which in turn calls 
 for something of a stimulating nature to allay the new 
 thirst. " To this dark catalogue of evils," says a dis- 
 tinguished medical writer, " arising from the use of 
 tobacco, may be added the turbid nostril, the besmeared 
 lip, the spitting of saliva, imbued with this baneful 
 narcotic upon the floor, furniture, and even upon the 
 clothes of those around them; and last, though not 
 least, the foul and offensive breath, which, to those 
 whose olfactories have not been perverted by the use of 
 narcotics, is almost insupportable." 
 
 Blasts against the use of tobacco in any form, and 
 counterblasts likewise, have been issued from time 
 " beyond which the mind of man runneth not to the 
 contrary." But thus far to no purpose at all. If 
 people w r ould only be more particular in the business 
 of spitting, and spirting, and squirting, we think we 
 should be less anxious on the score of their health from 
 the use of the weed ; but, in our opinion, considered as 
 a social question, the gravest and most offensive charge 
 that can be brought against the use of tobacco is, that 
 
THE USE OF TOBACCO. 283 
 
 it is instrumental in daubing us all over with saliva 
 that does not belong to us. In the famous Counterblast 
 of King James against tobacco, he concludes the sub- 
 ject in the following strain : " A custom loathsome to 
 the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dan- 
 gerous to the lungs, and, in the black, stinking fume 
 thereof, nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke 
 of the pit that is bottomless." This is strong, but we 
 are not inclined to question a line of its accuracy. 
 
 We do not advise any one to leave off the use of to-" 
 bacco, if, after being put in possession of facts like 
 these, he is confident it does not injure him ; but if he 
 already confesses himself a slave to the habit, then it 
 is manifestly high time he took some steps towards self- 
 emancipation. We do not use tobacco in any form 
 ourselves, and are ignorant of the temptation that would 
 be strong enough to induce us to do so ; still, we de- 
 nounce nobody else for doing what we choose not to 
 do ; that is not to our temper at all. We would have 
 every one go at the prosecution of his indulgence in 
 the weed with his eyes open on the subject, merely 
 imploring him not to bedaub his friends with the saliva 
 which, we think, he might as well " keep at home." 
 And we would particularly remind those devotees of 
 tobacco who style themselves "Sons of Temperance," 
 and who are continually crying out against the habits 
 of other people, to carefully examine the following pas- 
 sage of Scripture, (Matt. vii. 5,) " First cast out the 
 beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see 
 clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." 
 
284 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 TEA AND COFFEE. 
 
 THERE are those who believe that the use of these 
 stimulants is decidedly injurious, and therefore think 
 it necessary that they should froth at the mouth at all 
 others .who do not incline to follow their advice in the 
 matter. For ourselves, we entertain no sort of enmity 
 to the above drinks. Our grandmothers God's peace 
 be with them used to drink both, and drink them 
 freely. Our mothers may their days be many still 
 use them as a beverage, and, while we live, we mean 
 to enjoy them also. 
 
 Dr. Beach, an eminent physician of the old school, 
 says in respect to these beverages, in his volume en- 
 titled " The Family Physician," " Tea and coffee are 
 injurious, especially to invalids, dyspeptic and nervous 
 people ; they produce debility, hysterics, and other evil 
 consequences. Tea and coffee, being both narcotic, or 
 poisonous, have many ill effects, by impairing the pow- 
 ers of the stomach, producing various nervous symp- 
 toms, palpitations of the heart, restlessness, headache, 
 a pale and sallow hue of the skin, and all the usual 
 train of morbid feelings which accompany dyspepsia." 
 
 We are aware that a great many people indorse the 
 views of Dr. Beach, and would just as soon swallow 
 
TEA AND COFFEE. 285 
 
 arsenic as either tea or coffee. "With some particular 
 constitutions, or in certain states of health, it is ad- 
 mitted that tea and coffee do not agree, and the pos- 
 sessors of such constitutions we would advise to drink 
 something else ; but for the great majority of people 
 we know that tea and coffee are both agreeable and 
 healthy, and to such we would frankly say, " Don't be 
 scared ! they are narcotics, in a degree, to be sure ; 
 but the Arab lives almost wholly on a coffee diet, and 
 drinks it strong ; he is hardy and healthy, and is ca- 
 pable of a vast amount of endurance. The Chinese 
 drink strong decoctions of tea, from the cradle to the 
 grave ; and they generally manage to make a long jour- 
 ney of it, too ; there seems to be no immediate danger 
 of the Celestial race of mortals becoming extinct. 
 
 We insist, in this place again, that each one is to be 
 left to be his own judge in the matter of food and drink, 
 and ought to be able to decide, if thus left to his indi- 
 vidual discretion, what best suits his health, and secures 
 to him happiness. But " as ye would that men should 
 do to you, do ye also to them likewise ; " and if you 
 wish to stimulate your systems with tea and coffee, or 
 tobacco in its various forms, pray be so much of a Chris- 
 tian as to allow us to take what is better and healthier 
 for our constitutions than any of your favorite beverages, 
 viz., a little pure and unadulterated wine, or whiskey. 
 
 The ancient Mexicans and Peruvians produced an 
 intoxicating drink by fermenting a preparation of maize, 
 or Indian corn ; and the Hebrew people must have had 
 something similar, for the Bible says, " Corn shall make 
 
286 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids." 
 ' (*Zechariah ix. 17.) We have shown beyond reason- 
 able dispute, in the course of these pages, that some 
 sort of narcotic, or stimulant, has been prepared and 
 used by every nation known to history ; and the infer- 
 ence is a fair and strong one, that all nations will con- 
 tinue the practice ; it is merely a practice based on the 
 common instincts of human nature. Many people, in 
 giving reflection to this matter, become infected, with- 
 out seeming to know it, with a species of fanaticism, or 
 insanity; they think they see one point clearly, and 
 straightway surrender their estimate of all other points 
 to their estimate of this. So good and famous a man 
 as Dr. Thomas Dick, of Scotland, went even so far as 
 to say it was not compatible ivith a state of innocence 
 to take the life of any sensitive being and feed on its 
 flesh ! and that, consequently, no such grant was given 
 to Adam in the garden of Eden, or to the antedilu- 
 vians ! He considered it a grant only fitted to the state 
 of man after the flood. Another writer of eminence, 
 also, Dr. Cheyne, says he is almost convinced that ani- 
 mal food was never intended, but only permitted as a 
 curse or punishment, and a cure for a malady, being 
 adapted to a corrupt state of man : 1st. To let him feel 
 and experience the natural and necessary effects of his 
 own lusts by painful diseases ; 2d. To shorten the du- 
 ration of his natural life, that sin and misery might not 
 increase infinitely ! This looks as if the writer thought 
 the Almighty had made a mistake in the creation of 
 man, and was eager to rectify it as soon as possible. 
 
TEA AND COFFEE. 287 
 
 Tea and coffee have been used long enough, and 
 commonly enough, to establish the fact that, as an ar- 
 ticle of diet, they are not merely harmless, but even 
 necessary to most human constitutions. For our own 
 part, we use them regularly, and to no disadvantage 
 whatever ; and we insist on every body else having the 
 same privilege. And we have not the slightest objec- 
 tions to others using the genuine corn tea, too, pro- 
 vided it is only pure and unadulterated. In proper 
 quantities, and at proper times, it is as beneficial as the 
 tea grown in China ; and only popular prejudice clam- 
 ors against it. Others may do as they see fit ; while 
 they continue rational beings, we wish by all means to 
 have them do so. For ourselves, we claim no other 
 privilege in these matters than we are perfectly ready 
 to accord to others. 
 
288 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 MORAL SUASION. 
 
 AFTER carefully surveying the whole ground, it is 
 evident that we must at last fall back upon moral sua- 
 sion. We have seen that force itself has been tried, 
 but it has shown us that it is the last thing on which 
 we can rely. A law to prevent the consumption of 
 stimulating drinks has long since proved itself an im- 
 possibility. Men will use stimulus, and no law on 
 earth can prevent it. We have shown in this volume, 
 from abundant historical records, that such has always 
 been the case, and it is safe to presume that such ever 
 will be. It may be argued, we very well know, that, 
 as mankind advance in true civilization, they will be 
 more and more disposed to dispense with such an in- 
 dulgence, even if it be done by the aid of legal pro- 
 visions ; but such is in no sense good logic, since the 
 higher the civilization, the more, we insist on leaving 
 to individual choice and government ; we do not call 
 ourselves free, we do not speak of ourselves as in the 
 enjoyment of any sort of liberty, if at the same time 
 we are forcibly restrained of what, in even a ruder state 
 of society, was left to the self-restraining power of the 
 individual. 
 
 The tragedy at Portland, at the time it was attempted 
 
MORAL SUASION. 289 
 
 to carry out the law of Neal Dow, fairly illustrates 
 the extent and nature of the evils that do certainly 
 grow out of any attempt to execute such stringent and 
 ill-founded statutes. They rest too much on pure au- 
 thority, and too little on the intelligent and cultivated 
 sentiments of the individual. In the name of liberty, 
 they embody the spirit of tyranny. Professing to per- 
 form nothing but the greatest good, they notoriously 
 lead to the greatest possible harm. They mistake the 
 real spirit and tendency of the age, which is towards 
 the largest individual freedom compatible with general 
 peace and safety, and undertake to set up in its stead 
 a certain crude theory of their own as to what that 
 spirit and tendency ought to be. They take away 
 choice, and substitute in its place naked compulsion. 
 And this is openly hostile to the real theory of our po- 
 litical liberty, of our religion, and of our social state. 
 
 This experiment has been tried, and tried pretty 
 thoroughly. The people have shown themselves will- 
 ing to bear patiently with the experimenters, to see if 
 by good chance some unlooked-for blessing might not 
 result. They have even submitted, in many instances, 
 to personal insults and indignities, for the sake of giving 
 this new piece of legislative experimenting a fair trial. 
 At any time, they well knew, they had it in their power 
 to take back the direction and control of matters into 
 their own hands, yet they declined to avail themselves 
 of their privilege simply because they would not seem 
 to judge even of the value of ill-digested statutes hastily. 
 Therefore they have waited, and waited till now ; and 
 25 
 
290 THE EAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 even now there is no disposition whatever on the part 
 of the people to take any rash and hasty steps, to turn 
 any sharp and short corners, but to allow this change 
 in sentiment to work itself out gradually, by natural 
 processes, and altogether after the safe methods and 
 laws of observation and reflection. It is safe to assert, 
 that at this very day there is going on in the public 
 mind, upon this important question, a change that will 
 presently astonish those who have been thinking that, 
 once establish a law, and reforms follow it as a natural 
 consequence. The lesson will be learned, we believe, 
 that no enlightened public will ever consent to give up 
 its freedom of instincts, but that, if discipline is needed 
 in order to give greater protection to the social state, 
 that discipline, both in the matter of amount, method, 
 and time, must be left altogether to the discretion and 
 disposal of the individual. 
 
 The form and character of such a law as we sincerely 
 believe would be most conducive to the protection of 
 the community in respect of the manufacture, sale, and 
 use of wines, liquors, and inebriating drinks, we think 
 the foregoing pages have indicated in a sufficiently 
 clear and ample manner, and it is not necessary for us 
 to enlarge upon the subject, much less to indulge in 
 any repetitions concerning it in this place ; it is enough 
 that it is coming to be admitted more and more openly 
 every day, that the best that can be done is to regulate 
 a traffic which cannot be prevented, or outrooted, and 
 to leave the rest to the healthy operations as perma- 
 nent, too, as they are healthy of moral suasion. We 
 
MORAL SUASION. 291 
 
 have not yet discovered the true merit of this plan, be- 
 cause we have not yet sufficiently given it our confi- 
 dence and trust. Where it has been tried, with all 
 surrounding circumstances to cooperate with its pow- 
 erful influence, it has shown itself capable of working 
 wonders indeed. If the reader will revert to the 
 account we have given of the almost miraculous con- 
 versions wrought in Newport by Hawkins, the great 
 temperance apostle, he will at once see that this power 
 of persuasion is by no means one of the " lost arts," 
 but may be brought to bear with all its native strength 
 and energy to-day. That single narrative indicates the 
 most gigantic results ; it will do well to set over against 
 the temporary reign of terror instituted by Neal Dow 
 another apostle of temperance in Portland, that re- 
 flecting people may see for themselves the vast differ- 
 ence in the results of the two plans. Newport and 
 Portland exhibit the sharpest and boldest contrasts in 
 this matter, and the reader will do well to oppose them 
 frequently in his mind, when he pauses to give serious 
 attention to this subject. 
 
 If men would be as ready to trust their good and 
 noble qualities as they are to rely on their mean and 
 baser ones, or, rather, if they would go forth thinking 
 to reform the world as Christ did, by simply sowing 
 good seed on every side, and leaving it to spring up or 
 not as nature willed it, and not by exciting prejudice, 
 passion, class feeling, and all the bad blood that flows 
 in the veins of human nature, there is little question 
 that something very different would result from it from 
 
292 THE KAMBOD BROKEN. 
 
 what we behold around us to-day. But we have too 
 little confidence in truth ; we continually doubt and 
 suspect one another ; we ever think it a mark of wis- 
 dom to agree to call a man a rogue till he has proved 
 himself if he has the opportunity honest; we put 
 no faith in the power of Love, but esteem Hate stronger, 
 simply because it does its work quicker ; we are, more 
 than all this, impatient because we do not see the effects 
 of our work sooner, and, like pettish children, run off 
 to try something else that will produce earlier fruits. 
 
 We often bring to mind the fable of the Sun and 
 the North Wind, when the traveller, with his cloak 
 wrapped around him, went forth to encounter the wind, 
 but was finally forced to throw off his cloak altogether 
 in- consequence of the superior power of the sun. This 
 fable aptly illustrates the contest that has for some time 
 been going on between the power of law and the power 
 of moral suasion. One makes a man defiant, fills him 
 with opposing energy, and excites the highest spirit of 
 resistance ; while the other conquers him by the silent 
 force of love, and, having once conquered him, forever 
 after keeps him as a cooperator and friend. There is all 
 of this advantage in moral suasion, that it does not 
 conquer by overcoming, but by practically convincing ; 
 so that the man who yields to it does so, not as being 
 vanquished, but as being converted. Thenceforward 
 he helps along the cause to which he has been brought 
 over, instead of merely submitting with a sullen grace, 
 to superior authority. 
 
 It is a fact which will soon have to be openly admitted 
 
MORAL SUASION. 293 
 
 in this matter, as it is theoretically admitted in almost 
 every other, that appeals to prejudice and passion can 
 do nothing at all for the cause of temperance. The 
 idea has been exploded so far as religion is concerned ; 
 it will have to be in the matter of temperance. When 
 the community is excited from one part to another 
 over this question, when hard names are called, and 
 reputations, earned after long years of labor, are 
 trampled under foot, and societies split asunder, and 
 even families, once all harmony, become rent with feuds 
 and torn with madness, and human life itself becomes 
 a rash sacrifice, flung as an offering to the demon of 
 hate and passion, there is little likelihood of the law 
 becoming elevated in the general respect, and much 
 less of the public conscience becoming tender upon 
 points and practices to which, under more favorable 
 circumstances, it would be tremblingly alive. Once 
 open the doors and let in passion, and from that mo- 
 ment reason is driven out. And since all reform, all 
 growth, all real advancement is the result of reason 
 and reflection, aided most effectually, of course, by the 
 power of persuasion, it is incontestable that when re- 
 forms are attempted, they can take no permanent root 
 except in the reason and the native sentiments out of 
 which every thing like character must surely grow. 
 
 We shall hold to this doctrine till all else has been 
 given up. As the genial sun has so much more power 
 than the blustering north wind, so has moral suasion 
 more than the machinery of arbitrary laws, or the 
 tyranny of partisan prejudice and passion. Men will 
 25* 
 
294 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 be convinced, but they will not be driven. It is easy 
 enough, and we fear it is much too common, besides, 
 for would-be lawgivers to draught their theoretical 
 statutes, and say, " Now, we know this statute, or that 
 statute, to be the best thing that could be set up as a 
 rule of public action, and therefore all the rest of the 
 community shall obey it, whether it suits their reason 
 or their instincts, or no." But it is not such an easy 
 matter, on the other hand, for them to declare that 
 what they know to be good and proper is really thought 
 to be good and proper by others ; and until this is in a 
 larger measure the case than it now is, there is little 
 use in making an attempt to enforce any law, since it 
 is entirely beyond the reach of ordinary reason and re- 
 spect. The great vice of reformers is, that they are 
 not willing to leave any thing to nature ; they must 
 needs be interfering with their own little plots and 
 plans all the while, as if Nature did not work fast 
 enough, or sure enough, for them, and they would jog 
 her on from time to time, and help her out with their 
 own petty devices. Men who seek the reformation of 
 the race, and very many of them, too, the best inten- 
 tioned men and the sincerest that live, are too impa- 
 tient because matters do not progress faster than they 
 do, or because, forsooth, their own personal projects do 
 not eventuate as they had hoped. They put too much 
 confidence in law, and too little in reason. They rely 
 on authority, and treat persuasion as a very little thing. 
 They defy the instincts of human nature, thinking to 
 set up something better in their place. Force is their 
 
MORAL SUASION. 295 
 
 god, and they hold the gentle but certain operations of 
 persuasion in very slight esteem. 
 
 All this will have to be changed. We can see for 
 ourselves, if we will stop to look at it, that a change is 
 already coming over the public mind on this subject. 
 Men have opened, and are still opening, their eyes to 
 the significant facts all around them facts that tell 
 them far different stories from those they have been 
 told by these fanciful theories of legal reform, and that 
 form the basis for a very different kind of reform from 
 that which relies upon force as its finality. We can 
 all see how little a law is doing for society, which every 
 one makes it a point to treat with ridicule and con- 
 tempt. We can see how next to impossible it is to 
 carry out its provisions ; with what countless difficul- 
 ties arid dangers it is beset ; how it provokes hostility, 
 instead of inspiring respect and a spirit of obedience, 
 and how universal this hostility has become ; how it 
 alienates friends and neighbors, sunders communities, 
 arrays class against class in the most deadly feuds, and 
 divides families with the ruthlessness of barbarism itself; 
 how the very thought of reformation is entirely sunk 
 and swallowed up in the other thought of carrying the 
 point, of forcing the community into obedience, of 
 making authority good ; and, finally, how important 
 are all the various methods resorted to for the attain- 
 ment of any good whatever, while nothing but mischief 
 and misery are the consequences of the measures thus 
 set on foot by mistaken zealots and ambitious reformers. 
 
 And this spectacle is enough. The reflecting man is 
 
296 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 at no loss to draw the legitimate inferences from it. 
 It is too plain that there is a mistake thus far, and that 
 the only safety lies in retracing our steps and accepting 
 the valuable hints offered us by nature and reason. 
 There is no need, and there should be no fear, of re- 
 lapsing from a show of stringent authority, under the 
 name of law, into the opposite extreme of license, and 
 no law ; such a fear proceeds only from those minds 
 that, as we said before, trust altogether to authority, 
 and in no wise to reason ; but it is baseless and mis- 
 chievous. What we want is, a thorough law, that shall 
 protect the community, and which, from its very tone 
 and temper, may hope to be executed and sustained ; 
 the rest is to be left must be left to be done by the 
 silent, secret, and beautiful processes of reason and 
 persuasion. And such a work cannot fail to be both 
 permanent and secure. 
 
CONCLUSION. 297 
 
 XXXVIIL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE cannot bring this volume to a close without call- 
 ing the reader to witness that, in the progress of its 
 several chapters, we have in no way encouraged the 
 immoderate use of intoxicating drinks. Such has cer- 
 tainly been the farthest from our intention. That we 
 have spoken, and with just cause, of the drunkard as a 
 self-made beast, is true, and it was our deliberate in- 
 tention so to speak of him. He has little .enough ex- 
 cuse, at the best, for the disgrace into which he brings 
 himself. We have referred to, and quoted in various 
 places, the laws of the ancient Hebrews in relation to 
 intemperance, laws that condemned the drunkard to 
 death, and likewise spoken of the severe penalties 
 imposed by the statutes of other nations well known in 
 ancient history. Some of these laws only declared that 
 the finger of scorn should be pointed at the inebriate, 
 which would not be any too insignificant a punishment 
 even in this country of ours. But we offer no sugges- 
 tions to our legislators on this point. They will not for- 
 get, on the one hand, what is due to society, nor, on the 
 other, what are the most humane methods by which so 
 unfortunate a being as the inebriate rnay be lifted out 
 of his degradation. Hosts of drunkards have been 
 
298 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 reformed have reformed themselves; for there is no 
 reform except it be self-wrought. And what they have 
 succeeded in happily accomplishing for themselves 
 once, they may assuredly do again. 
 
 And while alluding to this work of reformation from 
 the vice of drunkenness, it gives us tlie sincerest pleas- 
 ure to state to our readers that there has been, for 
 many years, ah institution in the city of Boston, called 
 the "Home for the 'Fallen," of which Mr. Albert Day 
 is the humane and efficient superintendent. This in- 
 stitution is established at No. 36 Charles Street. Here, 
 in this almost private quarter, a man has been devoted 
 to the pursuit of -a work, which entitles him to a thou- 
 sand times as much praise as the bloody work of Neal 
 Dow of Portland, because it is a work of the most beau- 
 tiful and persistent philanthropy. Mr. Day is very 
 glad at all times to see visitors and sympathizing 
 inquirers, to whom he is ever ready to impart such in- 
 formation as his varied experience has put him in pos- 
 session of. He is doing a noble work, although his 
 name is blown out of no trumpets, and swings on no 
 flags in the air. Through his personal instrumentality 
 hundreds of unhappy beings, once men, have been 
 lifted out of their accustomed degradation, and raised 
 to posts of usefulness and even public honor. 
 
 If an habitual drunkard desires to reform, he may put 
 ipecac, or antimony, in his rum, and that will be found 
 to assist him temporarily ; still, whatever results such 
 agencies may be able to work out, Mr. Day professes 
 to use nothing more and nothing less simple than the 
 
CONCLUSION. 299 
 
 law of love ; and many oT his disciples and beneficiaries 
 may be found to-day in Boston, men thoroughly re- 
 formed and honestly respecting themselves, who have 
 risen from their fall by no other aid than that of the 
 all-pervading law of morality and reason. They can 
 walk by a grog shop as safely as they can avoid a mud 
 puddle. But it is only because they have been taught 
 to respect themselves, rather than the forms of pledges, 
 or the authority of law, or the power of public preju- 
 dice. Treat an inebriate like a man, and he will be 
 likely to reform ; but unless you do as much as this, 
 you destroy his confidence in himself and make certain 
 and permanent his degradation. 
 
 Our solemn advice is to every person who has been 
 in the habit of using spirituous liquors moderately, to 
 impose upon himself the severe restriction of total and 
 unconditional abstinence not to touch a glass, not to 
 taste a drop if it appears that the habit becomes too 
 strong at all times to keep under control. And we 
 would further recommend to any one who makes only 
 an occasional and moderate use of liquors, to abstain 
 for a few weeks at a time, that he may be sure at all 
 times that he has control of his appetites. This would 
 be on the same principle with the facts, which are prac- 
 tised so efficaciously by certain of our religious sects. 
 Far better suffer if suffering it is from the use of 
 too little, than from excess. A drunkard is the most 
 loathed of all men, because he consents thus to debase 
 himself; because he gratifies his appetites at the ex- 
 pense and degradation of his intellect and his spiritual 
 
300 THE RAMROD BROKEN. 
 
 nature. He wallows in a sty of sensual indulgence, 
 and can never hope to advance or become exalted while 
 he continues in such courses. It is to him ruin in- 
 deed ; for it is brought upon himself, and it is complete. 
 We call upon the real and consistent friends of TEM- 
 PERANCE, rather than the friends of the mere temper- 
 ance party, to cooperate in the enactment of a stringent 
 law- against the manufacture and sale of spurious and 
 counterfeit liquors. We have laws, in present opera- 
 tion, to punish the counterfeiting of money, and why 
 not have them to punish the counterfeiting of liquor ? 
 If such are passed, and rigidly enforced, we need en- 
 tertain no more fears of the ravages of delirium tre- 
 mens. Only let pure spirits have the benefit of as good 
 laws as good money has, and the consequences will be 
 plain to every one. We shall be secure of temperance 
 every where, and all the inebriates now worth saving 
 would be certain to reform. 
 
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