THE CIDER QUESTION

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 4, 1880

THE CIDER QUESTION.

ONE of our best workers for temperance said: "I had a long talk on various phases of temperance work with a converted saloon-keeper. At last I asked him, 'What do the signs in the saloon windows mean, "Sweet Cider Free?"' 'Well,' said he, hesitatingly, 'I really don't like to tell you;' yet I urged it, and he said, 'The thing is Satanic, it's too bad to tell.' But at last I prevailed upon him.

'"It is nothing but a lure—a regular trap. You see, there are so many boys from the country going up and down the streets; they are from pure, good homes—have probably promised their mothers they never would drink; but they get awful lonesome and homesick in a great city, with no place to go but a comfortless boarding-house; and they see these signs and they think how good the sweet cider used to taste at home; one boy remembers how father made it, and how mother never thought of there being any harm in drinking it, and he longs for it.

'"One draught of cider would be almost home—it would be as good as the odor of a clover field; so he goes in, and the bar-keeper pours out a glass—so sweet, so good, and nothing to pay. Well, you see he has been in the trap once—taken one nibble at the bait—and the man behind the bar is perfectly satisfied—he is in for it now; so he goes in the second time, for "there isn't the least harm in sweet cider—it wouldn't hurt a baby," but he is ashamed to go in without paying something; so he buys a glass of beer; next thing there is a game of billiards; then he is fast; the business is done, and that case is secure as a regular customer!"'

Is anything more to be said, is any instruction needed, as to why cider—poor harmless apple-juice—should be included and excluded with the other intoxicants, when it can do a work which nothing else can do? In this we have only indicated it as accessory; it can be fully proven as criminal per se.—Our Union.