COMMUNICATED.
A Law Prohibiting the Traffic.
In a former article we adduced as a 1st. reason, why we should have a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in our state; that nothing short of this, would afford protection to the rights of individuals, families and communities, that were violated and trampled upon by the traffic.
A 2nd. reason for such a law, is to be had in the fact that it comes within the province of legislation. The law is desired for the very thing for which governments were established, viz: the protection of rights. Why is it better to be an inhabitant of England than Polynesia? The United States than South America? Because individual rights are better protected. And that is the best and most perfect government where property and life is most secure. Where the law of the land throws over them the aegis of its secure protection.
Now we say that the liquor traffic in the most egregious trespass upon the rights of communities that was ever made. Look at it simply in the light of expense. Take but one item—our criminal courts. Whence do these cases arise? Facts show that more than three-fourths of them come from this source. Who pays the expense? Who pays the constables for arresting them? The jury for indicting and trying them? The sheriff for turning the key upon and feeding them? The district attorney and witnesses that are employed for convicting them? The taxpayers of the county as every one knows. Should we add to this the support of the poor made so through strong drink, and the robberies that are committed by its influence, we should find a pretty heavy bill of rights of quite a numerous and important class of our great commonwealth, that demand some attention of their representatives at Albany.
But there are other rights more important and sacred than these. The rights of children to the affection and support of a father, and of a wife to a husband. The 10,000 poor, miserable, and wretched families of our state; made so by drunken husbands and fathers, ought to excite our pity. Their wail of anguish ought to come up into the ear of every man, woman and child—and by them be borne on to the Capital, to those who have the power to afford relief, and dry up the tears by removing the source of their woe.
But communities have a right to be protected from the moral influence of dram-selling, as well as from gaming and horse racing. These are the lesser, that the greater evil. These the branches, that the root, where the axe ought to be laid. The one the streams, the other the fountain, the sink, the whirlpool of iniquity; which draw many of the youth of every community within its circling eddies—and bears them onward to a speedy and inevitable destruction. The state too has a right to the industry of her citizens, and to the taxable capital that such industry would accumulate. She has a right to the intellect of her gifted sons, to counsel for her safety and prosperity. In short, who does not see that there is a great chance here in our legislation? That there is nothing like it any where else—and that should there be poured in upon community, from any other source such a devastation of all that is right and lovely, and good report, that it would meet with a universal cry for its suppression.
3dly. The law is a practicable one. It can, it will be carried out if obtained. The law we have had did not go far enough. They said there should be no license to be sure, but there was a great gap left, a sort of implied permission or expectation, that the sale would go on. There were enough to step into this gap, and go forward in the work of death. Now a law of no sale closes the door, and makes all fast. The public sentiment will sustain such a law. There was no lack of those who not only felt friendly to the law of no license, or of those who were willing to bring a civil process against offenders, until by repeated trial, their patience was wearied with the difficulty of bringing the issue, and with the multiplied evasions that were so easily practiced. Grant that intemperance has increased for a year or two past, that does not prove that the general sentiment, the great abiding conviction of the evils of intemperance, which the most startling facts for these 20 years past has been impressing upon the minds of the people, is lost.
Some of the reformed may have turned back and become worse than before, and in many places, some of the youth have been drawn into the snare. But that the conviction of the great body of the people of this state, has changed upon this subject, we do not believe. It is not a fair way of judging, by merely passing through the country. It is like Elijah passing through Israel. He saw in all the public places so many Baal-worshipers, that he thought he was the only worshiper of the Lord in all the land; but he overlooked the 7,000 that had not bowed the knee to Baal. All this demonstration of increase is but the ripple upon the surface, while there is a deep, powerful, resistless under current moving the other way. But the suppression by law of other evils, most clearly shows that this law is a practicable one. It is not many years since that lotteries were in vogue, and exerted a most bewitching and powerful, but demoralizing influence over the minds of the entire public. A man drew a prize, it was the great theme of conversation; hundreds were excited to buy tickets and try their fortune, and thus the minds of the people were drawn away from obtaining a competence, in the pursuit of an honest industrious calling, by an uncertain and dishonorable speculation.
A law of prohibition was passed, there were some that found fault for a time, those particularly who were the managers and made the money. But the law commended itself to the reason and moral sense of the great body of the people, and lotteries now, and their pernicious influence, have passed away from the state as things that were.
Twenty years ago and horse-racing was popular in the state, especially in the western part of it. There were race grounds in several different localities. A celebrated one was in the county of O——. The races were held two or three times in a year upon this ground, when there would be congregated there to witness them, from 5,000 to 15,000 people. The races lasted for two or three days. It may readily be imagined what the influence of this must have been upon the minds of the people.
A law was desired to suppress it, and it was granted. It produced a great excitement. The good people, some of them trembled. They were afraid that the public sentiment was such that the law would be a dead letter—that it could not be sustained. But it was not so. The law was enforced, and the evil in a very short time suppressed, and one of the fairest portions of our country redeemed from a curse that would have entailed poverty, disgrace, and ruin upon thousands of the inhabitants from generation to generation. Grant that intemperance is a Hydra-headed monster; shall we apply any the less forcible, and powerful means for its destruction? Shall we take an old dull knife and dabble with that, or rather take the powerful GUILLOTINE of the law, get all the heads under it, and strike them off at a blow. Such a course, conscience approves as right, experience proves as practicable, and posterity will reward with thanksgiving. B.
EDITORIALS.
Home.
Well may the poet sing—
"Home, home, sweet, sweet home.
There is no place like home."
The person is never so old but that he looks back with a thrilling heart upon the scenes of his early days. And there is in fact but one home in the wide world, and that is the home of our youth.
Whatever may be his calling in life, and however much fortune may have lavished her stores upon him, the mind turns back and runs over the thrilling incidents of his childhood, and again he seems to be a child, standing by his mother's knee, and that musical voice, though it may have been long hushed in death, comes to him as in the days of his youth, and he is again at home— at the home of his boyish days—and he is sad when the reverie is broken and he finds that many years have separated him from that home, which he can never enjoy more.
Has the man swerved from the path of virtue and honesty, and become contaminated with the evil that is in the world? There are moments when memory will carry him back to the balmy and innocent days of his childhood, while the wee-bits of his brothers and sisters will float before his memory, and the mother that nourished him will pass in review, and her soft hand will be upon his head, and her maternal cheeks will meet his own, and imprint the burning kiss upon the lip, then so innocent and free from pollution. He is living over again the days of his early existence. But the spell must be broken. Ah! He has never had a home like that, and that was the only home that he has ever had.
If the home of our youth is thus remembered, and looked back to with so much interest long after we have left the hallowed circle of our childhood, how important that every home should be made a place where the memory can rest in after years, and remember with fond delight those holy and virtuous principles that were then and there instilled into the mind. It should be the object of every united head of a family, to create such a home for their children—a home that will live in their memory as the only home worth the name—a home, the principles and spirit of which shall be to them a guiding star in all future life.
The parental roof is the starting point in human existence with us all, and principles and precepts rightly instilled into the youthful mind, will hold a position in that mind, parallel with the memory of home.
Does the parent wish to be remembered by his children in after life? Make then that home to them the dearest spot on earth, and you have accomplished your object. Home should be to the child a sacred retreat, where he can unbosom all his sorrows, tell his troubles and meet with that sympathetic interest in the parent, which every heart pants after, and without which it cannot maintain due respect for the parent; and if denied that sympathy at home will seek it from some other source.
The parent was not designed for a tyrant over his household, but is to his household what the rudder is to the ship, to guide and direct their course, teaching them by his precepts and examples to shun the evils they may meet, directing them, not by the strong arm of oppression and their serf-like submission to his will, but drawing then with the silken chord of influence and tenderness which they cannot resist, until he has formed their mind to his own liking without a seeming effort.
At the present time there are a thousand inducements, to draw the child away from the parental roof that did not exist a few years ago; and the parent should understand this, and lay himself out to meet it. There is too, every facility within the reach of the parent to make home attractive, in the shape of reading matter; and children should be supplied with books suitable to their age, and almost any child will become attached to this source of amusement and profit, if a little reasonable pains are taken by the parent at the proper time. Children form their habits earlier in life than parents are in many instances aware of, and therefore the time has gone by that they might labor successfully before they begin the work, and the failing is more to be attributed to the want of a discretion in the parent, than for the want of capacity in the child. A habit of reading formed in a child is but one of many habits that a parent should step forward and aid, and direct the child; but this is a foundation principle, and this accomplished the child finds many helps, to aid him in the formation of principles that are good and wholesome, that he could not have derived from any other source.
Every parent is capable of making the family circle agreeable, and the first indication discovered in a child to seek pleasures elsewhere, should be a watchword to the parent to double his diligence to make the child feel that "there is no place like home."
We are all social beings, children as well as adults, and unless they can enjoy social intercourse with the parents, they will be restless and discontented. The parent should understand this, and instead of maintaining that dignified authoritative position which we often see in parents, they should condescend to the capacity of their children and engage with them in their childish sports. Teach them to play hull-gull—even or odd—start them off in the play of hide and seek, or relate to them some amusing story—repeat to them the history of Joseph, Moses, Sampson, and the like interesting narratives, and as soon as the child is able to read, furnish them with books of an interesting and instructive nature, and the child will be happier at home than in the streets, or even skipping about with their playmates.
Parents should continue to study the wants of their children as long as they remain under the parental roof. Many young persons are driven from their home in consequence of a rigid, faithful discipline so called, and an impassable gulf is thus thrown between the parent and child, and where there is no sympathy, there can be no real love, and the child instead of confiding in such a parent seeks for social feelings without the family circle, and is ever happy when he is released from the scrutiny of that parent which he feels has not a sympathetic chord of the heart that beats in unison with theirs—and that he is ruled as with a [rod] of iron. As soon as they are from under the eye of the parent they give vent to their pent up feelings in boisterous mirth—and like a whirlwind are driven forward without a studied principle to guide them, and are but subjects to be led astray, and overcome by the various temptations they are thrown in contact with.
Then as the parent values the happiness and well-being of the child, study to make home inviting. Study their wants and feelings and provide for the wants of the mind as well as the body. Never destroy their confidence. Be careful of your promises, but more careful of their fulfillment.
Always manifest a deep interest in all their troubles, and assist them in all their plans of innocent amusement, and their home will be the centre of all their joys.
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