The Street of Hell! by R. T. Cross

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1874

The Street of Hell!

By R. T. Cross

In 1870 there were in the United States one hundred and forty thousand licensed liquor saloons. If formed into a street with saloons on each side, allowing twenty feet to each saloon, they would make a street two hundred and sixty-five miles long. Let us imagine them brought together into such a street, and let us suppose that the moderate drinkers and their families are marching into it at the upper end. Go with me if you have the nerve and patience, and stand at the lower end, and let us see what that street turns out in one year.

What army is this that comes marching down the street in solid column, five abreast, extending five hundred and seventy miles? It is the army of five million men and women who daily and constantly go to the saloons for intoxicating drinks as a beverage. Marching twenty miles a day it will take them more than twenty-eight days to go by.

Now they are gone, and close in their rear comes another army, marching five abreast and sixty miles in length. In it there are 530,000 confirmed drunkards. They are men and women who have lost control of their appetites, who are in the regular habit of getting drunk and making beasts of themselves. Marching two abreast, the army is 150 miles long. Scan them closely. There are gray-haired men and fair-haired boys. There are, alas! many women in that army sunk to deeper depths than the men, because of the greater heights from which they fell. It will take them seven days to go by.

It is a sad and sickening sight, but do not turn away yet, for here comes another army—one hundred thousand criminals. From jails and prisons and penitentiaries they come. At the head of the army comes a long line of persons whose hands are smeared with human blood. With ropes around their necks they are on the way to the gallows. Others are going to prison for life. Every crime known to our laws has been committed by these persons while they were under the influence of drink.

But hark! Whence come those yells? and who are those, bound with strong chains and guarded by strong men, who go raging by? They are raving maniacs, made thus by drink. Their eyes are tormented with awful sights and their ears ring with horrid sounds. Slimy reptiles crawl over their bodies, and fiends from hell torment them before their time. They are gone now, and we breathe more freely.

But what gloom is this that pervades the air! and what is that long tide of black coming slowly down the street? It is the line of funeral processions. One hundred thousand who have died the drunkard's death are being carried to their graves. Drunkards do not have many friends to mourn their loss, and we can put thirty of their funeral processions into a mile. We thus have a procession 3,333 miles long. It will take a good share of the year for them to go by, for funeral processions move slowly. Yes, most of them do, but every now and then an unconfined corpse in a rough cart is driven rapidly by, and we hear the brutal driver sing:

“Rattle his bones, rattle his bones Over the stones; He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns.”

Look into the coffins as they go by. See the dead drunkards. Some died of delirium tremens, and the lines of terror are still plainly marked on their faces. Some froze to death by the roadside, too drunk to reach their homes. Some stumbled from the wharf and were drowned. Some wandered into the woods, and died, and rotted on the surface of the earth. Some blew their own brains out. Some were fearfully stabbed in drunken brawls. Some were roasted in burning buildings. Some were crushed to shapeless masses under the cars. They died in various ways, but strong drink killed them all, and on their tombstones, if they have any, may be fitly inscribed, “He died a drunkard’s death.”

Close behind them comes another long line of funeral processions; we know not how many, but they are numerously attended by mourning friends. They contain the remains of those who have met death through the carelessness and the cruelty of drunken men. Some died of broken hearts. Some were foully murdered. Some were burned to death in buildings set on fire by drunken men. Some were horribly mangled on the railroad because of drunken engineers or flagmen. Some were blown up on a steamboat because a drunken captain ran a race with a rival boat.

But here comes another army—the children—innocent ones, upon whom has been visited the iniquities of their fathers. How many are there? Two hundred thousand. Marching two abreast they extend up the street thirty miles. Each one must bear through life the stigma of being the drunkard’s child. They are reduced to poverty, want, and beggary. They live in ignorance and vice.

Some of the children are moaning with hunger, and some all shivering with the cold, for they have not enough rags to keep them warm. A large number of them are idiots, made such before they were born, by brutal, drunken fathers. And worse than all the rest, many of them have inherited a love for liquor, and are growing up to take the places and do the deeds of their fathers. They will fill up the ranks of the awful army of drunkards, that moves in unbroken columns down to death.

It has taken nearly a year for the street to empty itself of its year’s work. And close in the rear comes the vanguard of next year’s supply. And if this is what liquor does in our land in one year, what must be its result in all the world through the long centuries!

Thus far we have listened to the stories that the figures tell. But they cannot tell all. They give only the outline of the terrible tragedy that is going on around us. They cannot picture to us the wretched squalor of a drunkard’s home. They cannot tell us how many unkind and cruel words strong drink has caused otherwise kind and tender-hearted husbands and fathers to utter to their dear ones. They cannot tell us how many heavy blows have fallen from the drunkard’s hand upon those whom it is his duty to love and cherish and protect. They cannot tell us how many fond expectations and bright hopes which the fair young bride had of the future had been blasted and turned to bitterest gall. They cannot number the long, weary hours of night during which she has anxiously awaited, and yet fearfully dreaded, the heavy footfall at the door.

Figures cannot tell us how many scalding tears the wives of drunkards have shed, nor how many prayers of bitter anguish and cries of agony God has heard them utter. They cannot tell us how many mothers have worn out body and soul in providing the necessities of life for children whom a drunken father has left destitute. They cannot tell us how many mothers’ hearts have broken with grief as they saw a darling son becoming a drunkard. They cannot tell us how many white hairs have gone down in sorrow to the grave, mourning over drunken children. They cannot tell us how many hard-fought battles the drunkard, in his sober moments, has fought with the terrible appetite; how many times he has walked his room in despair, tempted to commit suicide, because he could not conquer the demon. And finally, we cannot search the records of the other world, and tell how many souls have been shut out from that holy place, where no drunkard enters, and banished to the regions of eternal death by the demon of drink.

What man, what woman, what child would not vote to have that whole street, with its awful traffic in the infernal stuff, sunk to the lowest depths of perdition, and covered ten thousand fathoms deep under the curses of the universe?—Rev. R. T. Cross.