(I.)—IF THIS STATEMENT BE TRUE, THE PUBLIC-HOUSE SHOULD BE AVOIDED.
We are quite willing to allow that a certain amount of enjoyment can be obtained in these places. Once acquire the taste, and drink gives pleasure to the palate, and produces, in a very short time, a kind of joy. Men who are
in business difficulties can forget their creditors. Those who have lost friends by death can forget the ties of affection. Scolding wives are left at home, and a smiling face receives the money spent, for the landlady is real good to those who have the coin. But on the other hand, are not these drinkers paying too dear for their gladness? Is it not a kind of delirium that shuts out the facts of the case? Will not the creditor call for his money? Will you not wake up to greater loneliness than ever? Will you have taken the edge off the woman’s tongue by spending the money she needs for the family? Are you not buying temporary insanity at so much a glass?
Are you not running a fearful risk of becoming a criminal? I know of a little beershop where murders have been hatched, and that in a quiet rural village! Do not men go primed with drink to rob and slay? Do not wife-beaters get their inspiration at the public-house? Is not gambling fostered in the bar parlour? Do you tell me that you are not likely to become a thief, or a murderer? So others have said whom we have known, once as decent and quiet as you. Besides, if you keep out of the hands of the police, you will have to take your trial some day for robbing God, and for soul murder! In the public-house you learn to do all this.