FOOTNOTES:
[36] Rev. John Pierpont
[37] This statement was made in 1849; subsequent events have shown that I was mistaken. It is now thought respectable and patriotic not only to engage in the slave-trade, but to kidnap men and women in Boston. Most of the prominent newspapers, and several of the most prominent clergy, defend the kidnapping. Attempts have repeatedly been made to kidnap my own parishioners. Kidnapping is not even a matter of church discipline in Boston in 1851.
[38] The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving the people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known and will long be remembered.
At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add, that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story.
[39] The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one glass in a little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5 a day, or $1,565 (313 × 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the amount of $65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000. This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little money, a complaint is soon made.
[40] It must be remembered that this was written, not in 1851, but in 1849.
[41] In 1679, "The Reforming Synod," assembled at Boston, thus complained of intemperance, amongst other sins of the times: "That heathenish and idolatrous practice of health-drinking is too frequent. That shameful iniquity of sinful drinking is become too general a provocation. Days of training and other public solemnities have been abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been debauched by those that call themselves Christians.... This is a crying sin, and the more aggravated in that the first planters of this colony did ... come into this land with a design to convert the heathen unto Christ, but if instead of that they be taught wickedness ... the Lord may well punish by them.... There are more temptations and occasions unto that sin publicly allowed of, than any necessity doth require. The proper end of taverns, &c., being for the entertainment of strangers ... a far less number would suffice," etc.
Cotton Mather says of intemperance in his time: "To see ... a drunken man become a drowned man, is to see but a most retaliating hand of God. Why we have seen this very thing more than threescore times in our land. And I remember the drowning of one drunkard, so oddly circumstanced; it was in the hold of a vessel that lay full of water near the shore. We have seen it so often, that I am amazed at you, O ye drunkards of New England; I am amazed that you can harden your hearts in your sin, without expecting to be destroyed suddenly and without remedy. Yea, and we have seen the devil that has possessed the drunkard, throwing him into fire, and then kept shrieking Fire! Fire! till they have gone down to the fire that never shall be quenched. Yea, more than one or two drunken women in this very town, have, while in their drink, fallen into the fire, and so they have tragically gone roaring out of one fire into another. O ye daughters of Belial, hear and fear and do wickedly no more."
The history of the first barrel of rum which was brought to Plymouth has been carefully traced out to a considerable extent. Nearly forty of the "Pilgrims" or their descendants were publicly punished for the drunkenness it occasioned.
[42] Over eight hundred in 1851.
[43] This statement appears somewhat exaggerated in 1851.
[44] In 1847, the amount of goods stolen in Boston, and reported to the police, beyond what was received, was more than $37,000; in 1848, less than $11,000. In 1849, the police were twice as numerous as in the former year, and organized and directed with new and remarkable skill.