Home Rula Repubalika, Volume I, Number 4, 13 November 1901 — The Black List of Intemperance [ARTICLE]

The Black List of Intemperance

, Intemperance cuts down \outh in its vigor, manhood m its strength, and age in us weakness. It breaks the father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes natural affections, erases conjugal love, blots out filial attachments, blasts parental hopes, anil brings down mourning age in sorrow to the gra\e. It produces weakness, not strength, sicknrss, not health: death, not life. It makes wncs widows, children orphans, fathers fiends—and all of them paupers ami beggais. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemics, invites cholera, imparts pestilcnce and embraces consumption It covers'the land with idleness, misery and crime It fills the jails and almshouses and demands asylums. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes riots. It crowds the penitentiaries and furnishes victims to the scaffolds. It is the life-blood of the gambler, the element of the burglar, ihe prop of the highwayman, aud the support of the midnight incendiary It coxmtenances the liar, respects the thief, esteems the blasphemer It violates obligations, reverences fraud, honors infamy. It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and slanders innocence. It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, helps the husband to massacre his wife, and the child to grmt the paracidal axe. It burns up me'"", consumes women, detects life, curses God and despises heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, 1 defiles the jury box and stams the judicial ermine. It degrades the citizen, debases the legislature, dishonors the statesman and disarms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness; and with the malevolence of a fiend iV calmly*Siirveys the frightful desolation and, unsatisfied with its havoc, it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confidence, slays reputation, and wipes out national honor; then curses the world and laughs at its rum. It does all that, and more —it murders the soul. It is the sum of all villainies, the father of all crimes, the mother of all abominations, the devil's best friend and God's (and man's) worst enemv.— Anon.