p. 471 | The Ex-Saloon Keepers

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 7, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 30.

The Ex-Saloon Keepers.

THE saloon is beginning to go from Iowa—in some places voluntarily, in others involuntarily. Even Dubuque landlords are notifying saloon-keepers that their leases end on the 4th of July. In the interior cities many of the proprietors of bars are publicly announcing their intention to quit, and some have already done so. We know of quite a number of those who are seeking a better business and honorable employment.

In Des Moines quite a number of our best people have united in recommending a retiring saloon-keeper—good man who was a gallant soldier—for mail-carrier in the postal service. He is well qualified for the position, deserves well of his countrymen, has a family to support, and now that he is quitting this traffic, he finds his neighbors willing to serve him, and help him to better employment.

This is right. It is to be hoped that in every community in Iowa temperance people and all others will unite in aiding the men who are quitting the saloon business, to get honorable employment. Many of them have impulses toward better citizenship, and the temperance people will encourage them to become useful citizens. The Register, for its part, begs that the best people of all opinions join in and show these men good-will and an active disposition to aid them in securing such business as will afford them a living.

Now is the time for the kind hand and the kind word. The warfare in Iowa has been upon the saloon, as a public curse, and not upon the saloon-keeper as an individual. As their business is doomed to go, and they are going to quit it, they should be met in the right spirit and encouraged into joining the general throng of thrifty, industrious, contented people in Iowa, making a living by honorable means.—Iowa State Register.

AT a recent lecture in San Francisco, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster referred to drinking among women and said: "I say the women are drinking dreadfully, and there is to-day an asylum in New York for inebriate women, and in that asylum the wives and daughters of merchants residing on Fifth Avenue are placed to be cured of this horrible appetite for strong drink. In Boston, in Chicago, and in your own city of San Francisco drinking among women is increasing daily, and among women, too, who are socially high, and are mothers of children and wives of prosperous men."

MANY a smoker throws away the stump of his cigar because he does not like the flavor of it. He does not know why the flavor is unpleasant to him, but it is caused by nicotine, the active principle of tobacco, and a violent poison. This accumulates in the base of the cigar with every draft of the smoke, and the man, noticing the unpleasant flavor, throws the stump away. This reservoir of nicotine finds its way into the cigarette, and the person who smokes it, gets in a condensed form the poison which so often works mischief on the brains of habitual smokers.—Exchange.

THERE never was a stricter temperance pledge than that of Solomon. We think it sufficient to say, Drink not; but he said, "Look not on the wine." The color, the sparkle, the very sight of the intoxicating draught is enough to awaken the appetite in some men, so that it becomes necessary for them to make a covenant even with their eyes.—Ex.