Dialogue III
Pp. 9-12
James: I have been with Father to the prison; don't you wish you had gone
with us?
Philip: I do not know; what did you see there?
James: We saw a great many men shut up in the rooms, the doors of which
were three or four inches thick, and large nails or spikes driven through
them, with flatted heads, and so close together that they almost touch
each other. The doors were locked with a padlock so large that I could
hardly have carried it. The windows had bars of iron in them crossing
each other, and so near together that a child could scarcely creep
through; and the rooms were so dark and gloomy that we could but just see
how dirty and frightful they looked.
Philip: Why were the men shut up in those ugly rooms?
James: I do not know, father did not tell me. Wont you tell us, Pa?
Father: Some were put in the prison because they had stolen, some for
having robbed others; one or two because they had committed murder; and
some for other crimes.
Philip: Father, what made those people do such bad things?
Father: One half of them were led to their crimes by the habit of using
strong drink. Drinking men are apt to become poor and lazy, and then they
will steal and even rob, instead of laboring to earn their bread. They
are easily made angry when drunk, and then they will curse, and swear, and
even strike their fellow-creatures, and even kill them.
James: When the men are shut up in the prison for their crimes, how long
have they to stay?
Father: That depends on the nature of their crime. Some remain three
months, some six months, and some a year. Some are sent from this prison
to another, called the States Prison, and are there shut up in a little
dark cell where you could not see your hand, and are allowed nothing to
eat or drink but bread and water. Some are forced to remain for ten
years, some as long as they live;
while others, instead of being sent to the States Prison, are hung
by the neck till they are dead, and then the surgeons cut them to pieces.
Philip: Do they ever hang people for drinking rum?
Father: No, my son; but sometimes men are hung for the crimes they are led
to commit by their having drank ardent spirits. I will relate to you a
most dreadful instance of this kind. A man who had a wife and a number of
small children, not having been taught by his parents, when he was young,
that he never ought to drink rum, got into the habit of using it a
little. It increased upon him by degrees, until he was often absent at
the tavern home later than usual, he tried to open the door of his house,
but found it fastened. Believing hat the was locked out by his wife, who
had often remonstrated with him about his conduct, he, in a rage, suddenly
formed the resolution, and set fire to the house, and burnt it to ashes,
with his wife and children all in it. The man confessed his crime, and
was hung.
Dialogue IV
Pp.: 12-14
Father: You remember, Thomas, when you were in the city with me, I took
you to the Lunatic Asylum?
Thomas: Yes, father; I shall never forget what I saw and heard
there. What a number of crazy persons, male and female, were confined in
that building! And what miserable beings! What distracted looks! What
wild and senseless talk! And how some of them raved and tore their hair
and their clothes! It was enough to melt ones heart to hear them beg to
be let out; some to get to their husbands and wives, and some to their
children or to their parents; and to hear assurances that they would hurt
no one if they were only released. Oh, how they entreated and cried to us
to pity them!
Philip: What made those persons crazy, father?
Father: One third of the number confined have become deranged from the use
of intoxicating liquors. Once those now miserable and disgusting men and
women were happy and lovely children like my own sons and daughters. Some
of them had been taught, even by their parents, to drink a little of
ardent spirits, instead of being cautioned never to taste a drop of
it. They had seen the poisonous drink used in their parents families, and
in the company which they frequented as though it were the chief good; and
thus have grown up in the love of strong drink, instead of having their
minds influence to abhor it.
The taste for ardent spirits is, in many instances, soon formed,
and when once
formed, is most difficult to be resisted. By falling into vicious,
dissipated company, or meeting with disappointments, or adverse
circumstances, they have become enslaved to strong drink, and taken it to
such excess as to derange them.
James: Are all the persons who grow mad by drinking rum, confined in the
Asylum?
Father: No, my son: there are thousands in the country, some of whom are
running at large, half naked, through wet and cold, through woods and
briars; and some are confined in their own or their parents houses, and
grief, the burden, the plague and shame of the families to which they
belong.
Dialogue IX
Pg.: 25-27
Thomas: We have seen and heard much of the evils resulting from the use of
rum and other ardent spirits, but we have not yet been informed how and
where the persons who drink the poison get it.
Father: These pernicious liquors are kept for sale at the tavern, the
groceries, and many of the stores.
Philip: I should not suppose anybody could be so wicked as to keep such
poisonous stuff to sell. But where do the grocers and the merchants get
it, Father?
Father: They are furnished from the stills.
Philip: What is a still, Father?
Father: It is a place where they make rum, gin, whiskey, and such vile
stuff. You may remember the black-looking building at the south side of
the village. That is a still.
Thomas: What is ardent spirits made of, Father?
Father: Rum is made of molasses; whiskey and gin are made of grain, such
as rye and corn.
Philip: Molasses is very good and nourishing; why do they make it into
rum? Rye and corn are fine to make bread and puddings, but what is the
use of gin and whiskey?
Father: These are pertinent questions, Philip. I will answer them. The
chief use of rum and all distilled liquors, is to make devils of human
beings; and thus wicked man perverts the bounty of his Creator, by
concerting into physical and moral poison, that which God has designed to
sustain mans life, and make him comfortable. The reason why men do it is
their love of money, which the Bible teaches us, is the root of all evil.
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