Temperance by Egbert L. Bangs

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 40.

Temperance.

By Egbert L. Bangs

What Makes the Difference?

I AM sitting by an open window. It is that witching hour just after sundown, before it has grown dark. All sorts of vehicles are in the street before me. I am looking out upon the business thoroughfare of a very lively town.

Three places of business right across the way are open, and they are all having a good trade, for it is Saturday, and people from the country have poured in, as they always do on that day.

Out of one of those open doors there comes a plain-looking man, leading a little boy by the hand. The boy has on a new suit of clothes, and is happy in the consciousness of being well dressed. The sign over the door where they have been, reads:

CLOTHING AND FURNISHING GOODS.

Several persons have gone in at the next door, but they have not come out yet. At the third door there stands a farmer's two-horse wagon; a cook stove, bright with tinware and copper boilers, has just been lifted in. They are putting in the end-board, and now they start—brown-faced man and buxom wife, for their home in the country. Over the door of the place they came out of, I read in great wooden letters:

HARDWARE STORE.

Between these two places there is another door. It admits you to a very attractive place. The windows are a perfect curiosity shop. There are stuffed birds, mounted on the dry branches of an evergreen. There are also stuffed animals, so naturally placed that they seem instinct with life. Strains of music from time to time come from that elegantly-kept place of business. But whom do I see going in there? That well dressed gentleman, with a red nose, is one of our principal business men. The young fellow who comes after him belongs in a dry goods store. The seedy-looking man who brings up the rear is a day laborer. He has just been paid fifty cents for sweeping a cellar and picking up the rubbish in a door-yard. Lucky fellow, he is going to invest in what he calls internal improvements. The sign at the middle place of business, reads:

LIQUORS AND CIGARS.

This kind of business is regarded as a necessary one. I heard a prominent business man—one of our city fathers—say the other day that grass would grow in our streets were it not for the places where liquor is sold. I, for one, would let our city or any other city go to grass, and would try the dairy business on the spot for a living, sooner than I would thrive by a business that is kept moist with the tears of women, and red with the blood of murdered humanity.

But glance at those three open doors again. Let us ask each of the men who preside within them the same question.

"Mr. A:—What do you pay for the privilege of selling ready-made clothing?" "What do I pay?" why nothing at all. Thank God, I live in a free country."

"Mr. B:—What do you pay for the privilege of carrying on your business?" "I pay three hundred dollars, sir," says Mr. B, as he takes the change for a "set-em-up-all-round," and drops it in his till. "And," continues he, "it's a cursed shame to make me pay it; I tell you, and don't you forget it."

"Mr. C:—What do you pay for selling hardware?" "Nothing at all, sir. Can't I sell you a lawn mower, or a George Washington hatchet, or a catch-em-alive mouse trap?" "No," I say; "I've just come out of a catch-em-alive trap that keeps the grass from growing in our streets; a trap that does double duty, like the old-fashioned clock that kept the time of day accurately and gave two quarts of milk on Sunday; I don't want to buy anything."

I go out of that place, the last of the three, with a puzzle, so to speak, on my hands. The puzzle is this: Why does the man in the middle place of business, he who is the meaty part of the sandwich, pay for the right to sell his property when neither the man on his right hand, nor the man on his left pay a single cent for the privilege of selling theirs? Is it just? Liquor dealers do a great deal of cheap swearing on the subject. Have they any cause for their profanity?

The whole community would rise up in arms if bonds were required of every business man, and if he were compelled to pay heavily for the privilege of selling his goods. If it is right to sell liquor, if it is an honest calling, if it benefits the community—then, clearly, it is unjust to make any distinction between selling liquor, and selling ready-made clothing or hardware. But suppose it to be a curse, as it surely is. What then? How does it look to take money as a compensation for an injury to society, and then credit a wicked business with helping us to pay our taxes?

Our Saxon ancestors allowed the most notorious offenders to commute for murder. We commute for almost everything. Cash down for a quantity, buys milk tickets, dinner tickets, and railroad tickets, at reduced rates. Cash down would save the neck of a Saxon murderer after the commission of a crime. We go further. Cash down in advance, and the seller of liquor is allowed to be an accessory to every crime under heaven. Shades of our Saxon ancestors, how your descendants have improved upon your uncouth legislation!—Egbert L. Bangs, in Christian at Work.