NEW EXPOSURES TO INTEMPERANCE.
There was never more need than now for vigorous moral agitation to promote temperance, or for the exertion of personal influence to save the young from the fascinations of the intoxicating cup. However temperance men may differ as to questions of license and prohibition, they cannot fail to see that the temptations to drinking are taking new and more dangerous forms, under the effort to enforce the present laws. Excluded from their old haunts, drinkers have adopted the “co-operative” system in procuring their regular potations, and combine to keep liquors of their own on tap at convenient places, as the law permits. As the drinks in this way cost less than half as much as when bought at a bar, there is a temptation to take more of them, and the secrecy induces many to frequent these places who would not be seen taking liquor in a public saloon. Then there are social drinking clubs organized, the members of which spend their evenings together in drinking bouts, and naturally make rapid progress toward drunkenness. The old fashion of keeping liquor in the house for private use is also coming into vogue to an extent that many temperance men do not dream of. It is possible that laws may be so constructed as to reach these sources of temptation, and the innumerable others that human sagacity can invent, and yet it is not obvious how it can be done unless there shall be absolute prohibition established, and drinking liquors in any place and in any quantity, except upon the prescription of a physician, shall be punished as a crime. Certain it is that no existing law can remove the perils to which our young men are exposed, and there is therefore absolute necessity for the use of argument, example, and all legitimate moral and social influences to induce men to voluntary self-control. Here in fact lies the only security for any man, for there is not as yet, and probably never will be, any such thing as absolute immunity from temptation in this world.—Sel.