THE EVILS OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
Among many interesting incidents connected with the closing of the saloons in Kittanning, Pa., a leading merchant tells the following:— A woman came into his store very timidly. She was evidently unaccustomed to trading. “What can I do for you?” inquired the merchant. “I want a pair of shoes for a little girl.” “She is twelve years old.” “But what number does she wear?” “But what number did you buy when you bought the last pair for her?” “She never had a pair in her life. You see, sir, her father used to drink when we had saloons; but now they are closed he doesn’t drink any more; and this morning he said to me, ‘Mother, I want you to go up town to-day and get sissy a pair of shoes, for she never had a pair in her life.’ I thought, sir, if I told you how old she was, you would know just what size to give me.” Oh, it is pitiful that the children of this republic must be robbed of shoes and bread that a few idlers may be supported. The man who gives his influence in favor of the saloons gives his sanction to this cruel robbery. He says, “This idler may have the privilege legally to take the hard earnings of this toiler, and debase him, tho his children go with bare feet.” A Sober Young Man’s Testimony.
“Let liquor alone, and it won’t hurt you,” was the advice given by a gentleman to a young friend—a wide-awake, bright-eyed young business man—who sat beside him on a railroad train. “But it has hurt me,” answered the young man. “How is that?” inquired his friend, who saw no token on his manly countenance of the blight that so soon makes its mark on the “human face divine.” “Well, six months ago my employer went off his balance, signed some notes which he should not have indorsed; and yesterday the firm (a heavy iron firm) went under. So here I am, and nearly two thousand others, in the dead of winter, thrown out of employment.” That gentleman’s act because of drink, has touched the comfort, and possibly the subsistence, of not less than ten thousand human beings. Senator Rusk, of Texas was once at an Indian “talk” when a man drove up with a barrel of whisky. An old Indian, after looking earnestly for some time at it, asked Mr. Rusk if he knew what was in that barrel. He said he presumed it was whisky. “No,” said the Indian, “there are about a thousand songs and fifty fights in that barrel.” During a temperance campaign in a Missouri county a lawyer was discussing learnedly the constitutionality of the proposed temperance law. An old farmer, who had been listening attentively, shut his jack-knife with a snap and said, “I don’t know nuthin’ about the constitutionality or the unconstitutionality of the law, but I’ve got seven good reasons for votin’ fur it.” “What are they?” asked the lawyer. And the grim old farmer responded, “Four sons and three daughters.”—Sabbath-School Visitor.