Newspaper Page Text
Banks County Gazette.
VOL 2.—NO. 31.
The Lottery and the Saloon.
Elsewhere we publish some inter
views with inen of national eminence
► who have made themselves prominent
r recently in opposition to the Louisia
tna lottery. For this wo honor them,
Land are glad to publish their strong
Swords against the legalization of that
public iniquity. But bearing in mind
the fact that the lottery is about 1,200
miles away and that a still greater
(iniquity, the liquor traffic, is legalized
fright here at the homes of these men,
we sought for some similar bold ex-
Basssion in regard to this near-by evil,
Hd sou-ht in vain. The result makes
r :;He understand better why it was that
went among the humble fisher-
Ben to find his first followers.
W The Louisiana lottery robs the
’ people of twenty-two millions a year
and returns ten millions in prizes.
The saloons rob the country of over
one billion dollars a year and return
nothing. The lottery compels no one
to buy its tickets; like the saloon it
simply entices them, and the “person
al liberty” cry is just as applicable
to one as to the other. The lottery
I wants legal protection and offers
l $2,500,000 a year to obtain it. The
■saloons wants legal protection and
r they get it for far less. The lottery
arouses false hopes and develops the
desire for gambling; but it does not,
as the saloon does, make raving mani
acs out of men, for the time being,
who commit all sorts of crimes of vio
lence, and for which two-thirds of all
the arrests arc made. The lottery
has acquired a great political power
in Louisiana which it uses for corrupt
purposes; but the liquor traffic has
acquired, not in one state alone but
in thirty-eight states, an equally dan
gerous power, which it uses with even
greater insolence and damage. Look
king at the matter solely in the light
|of moral duty, is there not ten times
as much reason why these men should
raise up their voices against the le
galization of the the saloon in their
|own states as for their opposition to
further legalization of the Louis
Hfrtterv
fK>c of them say that the cases
*ot parallel because the saloon is
always and of necessity an evil,
i/iu not Archbishop Corrigan, in his
letter, careful intimate that a lottery
is not per se an evil? There are
church lotteries that are certainly as
innocent as any saloon, yet the law
which these men are striving after
sweepingly prohibits all lotteries.
Others plead inability to close the
saloons; but have not more ability to
close the saloons of New York, where
they have a vote, than in Louisiana
where they have none ? No one asks
Father Elliott or Lyman Abbott to
close the saloon; but have we not the
right to ask that what power they
have shall be exerted to that end ?
We have little hesitation in saying
that the state of New York could as
Msily stamp out the liquor traffic as
of Louisiana can damp out
if the leaders of thought
were to manifest the same
as there.
- ? 5 ifffault for the I ulitical corrup-
the debased moral .standards
our day lies more with the leaders
■ f public sen iment, especially those
looked to as teachers of mor-
Hkn with the people, despite the
jar that these leaders justify their
Bnion by the condition of “public
sentiment.” There is nothing what
ever that is so debauching to public
sentiment as the way in which such
leaders and teachers are lowering all
moral standards and pleading expedi
ency for their connivance with great
fpublic iniquities. It is no wonder
that Lowell wrote of his own beloved
America:
“l am no pessimist, nor ever was
.... what fills me with doubt and
dismay is the degradation of the
moral tone."
That degradation of moral tone is
due to the degradation of the moral
teaching.—The Voice.
“Look Yonder.”
Considered as a means of diverting
public opinion, there can be no more
powerful factor than that of “pride of
country.” In the presence of this
passion, once aroused, the most vital
interests of a country are flung to the
winds when it is given out that an ex
ternal enemy has designs upon its
homogenity, or has in any way fallen
below the common standard of such
international courtesy as is due from
one nation to another. The internal
affairs of a country may be on the
verge of dissolution, ruin and col
lapse, at the hands of traitors in its
own household, but in the anticipa
tion of a foreign foe ell is forgotten
or condoned by the men who, from a
material point of view, are to lose all
and win nothing. Considered in the
larger sense—the possibilities of the
instinct—patriotism is a virtue to be
extolled. In lino with the evolution
of the race, it shall yet ignore geo
graphical limits and break through
the confining barriers of national
boundaries and political prejudices.
Claiming the entire earth as a field
for its operation,it shall lose the name
“patriotism” in that of “cosmopoli
tanism,” and “love of country” in
that of “love of humanity.” In the
meantime, however, it shall not be
exempt from in position. Mercenary
mountebanks and political pirates, to
further their own ends at the expense
of the individual and the country of
which he is a citizen, will manipulate
this passion, which is but an exten
sion of the instinct of self preserva
tion. To guard the interests of a
class, whose wealth makes them inde
pendent of the weal of the majority,
the very virtues of a people will be
transformed into vices, and turned
into weapons to rob them of their
homes and liberty. This has been
the history of the past, and should
form the lesson of the future if not of
the present. There Can be nothing
easier than the inflanring of the burn
ing passion of patriotism. It needs
but to blow hard enough such stock
cant ns “should demand a retraction,”
“foreign invasion,” “the dignity of
our government,” “insult to our flag,”
etc. History is full of such wicked
wiles. No sooner ave the people of a
country arounsed to the danger of
some misrule at home, than, meta
phorically speaking, the agents of the
class which benefits by such evil,
raises the cry of “Fire! Fire! Look
yonder!” This is why Dr. Johnson
fearlessly said that, “patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel,” and why
we say that the Chilean “war scare”
is a forgery and a fraud, gotten up
expressly to divert the minds of the
people from the consideration of
greater evils, and more insidious dan
gers at home.—Union, San Francisco,
Cal.
Business Men Slaves.
“A prominent manufacturer of Cin
cinnati said to us: “I know more
than half the men in my factory will
vote for the people’s ticket. But
don’t mention my name. lam at the
mercy of the banks. The mere men
tion of my name as thinking along
these lines would cut off my discounts
considerably. If I was in a position
where I didn’t have to go to the banks
for discount, I could speak out, but
that binds me.” About nine out of
ten business men in Cincinnati wear
the collar of the money power. It is
placed around their necks by the
agents of Wall street and Lombard
and Threadneedle streets, London.
They are beginning to see the folly
of voting for the old parties whose
legislation makes slaves of them and
the people. Is America ever going
to be independent again?—Golden
Rule.”
There is more truth in the above
than many of our business men will
care to admit. An instance known
to the writer, in a city in Missouri, is
in line with the case mentioned
above. A grocery merchant who had
been in business for a number of
years, and had prospered fairly well,
found his sales gradually falling off
and his collections more difficult to
make. He had among his customers
some of the best farmers—men who
could get credit anywhere in the
county, and men of unquestionable
integrity. When a number of these
customers frankly informed him they
HOMER, BASKS COUNTY, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER!), 1891.
were unable to pay their bills of $25,
S4O and SSO because they could not
get what was due them, it set this
grocery man to thinking. He knew
these men were honest; that they had
always paid their bills before, and he
would no more have doubted their in
tegrity than he would his owu exist
ence. This merchant commenced
reading and thinking and it only
took a short time to solve the ques
tion and read himself out of the Re
publican party. So thoroughly was
he convinced that all our financial
woes came from a wrong monetary
system that he commenced to preach
the doctrine to his neighbors and he
soon became an earnest advocate of
financial reform. By and by the
news of his conversion and develop
ment as a “crank” reached the ears
of his wholesale merchant with whom
he bad dealt a number of years and
had paid many thousands of dollars.
The wholesale merchant at once
called upon our grocery merchant,
and at first mildly protested against
what he called his crankiness, but
finding his retail merchant really in
dead earnest, finally informed him
that unless he gave up his “fanatical
ideas” their business relations must
cease, and that he would then and
there insist upon nn immediate set
tlement of the account due the whole
sale house, which was not then even
due according to terms of purchase.
The grocery merchant was on his
metal in a moment, resented the in
dignity by telling the wholesale mer
chant he could go to —well, a climate
warmer than Missouri, and defied
hinto do his worst. We have this
front the wholesale man, and do not
doubt it. The groceryman is still in
business and is doing well in spite of
the effort to gag or crush him.—
Economist.
The way business and other things
absorb the father and lead him to
neglect the sacred and more import
ant duties of homo-life are illustrated
in the following not ideal incident:
“Awhile ago a gentleman, who shall
be namelcs, met a friend near his own
homo, and they joined company on
their way to business, before they
had gone far they met a trim nurse
maid wheeling a baby carriage in
which sat a line six-months-old baby.
‘That’s a jolly-looking little chap,’
said the gentleman; he hastily glanc
ed at his watch, and finding that he
had a moment to spare, stopped the
carriage, and chirped to the baby,
who smiled genially in response. ‘I
have a little one at home about this
one’s age,’ observed the gentleman
to his friend. ‘By the way,’ he con
tinued to the inaiJ, ‘whose baby is
this?’ ‘Yours, sir,’ responded the
nurse in much astonishment.”—
Christian Advocate.
Christian Peace.
“Christian peace” is a phrase often
used in the pulpit and in social and
and religious conversation.
It is often used without special
thought as to its significance; again
it is used with some degree of com
prehension of its fullness and depth
of meaning. It is a phrase which we
should reserve to represent that state
of the soul which is the purest, sweet
est, best the soul can know. In origin,
Christian peace comes from the right
relation of the individual soul to its
God. That right relation is, on the
part of the individual soul, one of
repentance for sin and of trust; it is
a relation of humility and love; it em
bodies, so far as the human being
can embody, Christ-likeness. On the
side of God Christian peace implies a
love of God for the individual soul. This
iove itself implies the giving of all
that God himself can give to the hu
man soul. Christian peace, therefore,
may exist in the soul that is devoid
of many materially favorable circum
stances and conditions; it may dwell
in the heart afflicted, torn by sorrow,
rent by disaster. It has no relation
to exterior time or circumstance; it is
a spiritual relation. It also is a rela
tion having affiliations with the intel
lect. But it may exist in a being
whose intellect is narrow, whose vis
ion of material truth is small, and it
may not exist in a being whose intel
lect is broad and whose vision of
truth is large. But it is to be said
that the nobler any one faculty of the
soul, the move comprehensive its be
ing, the larger and more satisfying
should be Christian peace to that
soul. All that ministers to the growth
of the individual in good things should
minister to the enrichment and power
of this Christian peace. Education
should man for its fuller
possession.
The contrast between Christian
experiance and happiness is sharp.
Happiness in its origin is due to the
right relation of man to his circum
stances. The man who bears this
relation to time and space, who has
worth and work and friendships, we
cad happy. He is free from the
touch of anxiety’s gnawing tooth.
What happens to him makes him hap
py. But as we have said, Christian
peace belongs to the soul in its right
relation to God. The man who bears
the right relation of circumstances
and material conditions may have an
entirely wrong relation to his God,
he may hate or despise and sin
agasnst his God; he has therefore no
peace, but he has happiness. On the
other side, the man who bears the
right relation to God may be suffer
ing in body, afflicted in mind, desti
tute in material condition and com
fort, but be has peace. We meet
every day these two classes of persons:
the persons who have Christian peace,
and tho persons who have happiness.
Tlie two qualities may dwell, not in
frequently to dwell, together; the
two may dweil, not infrequently do
dwell, apart.
As to which is the more valuable
of these qualities no one can doubt.
As is so often said in prayer: “We
thank thee, O God, for that peace
which the world can neither give nor
take awuy."|-Tlia Advance.
The whisky trust has brought suit
against the Illinois State Commission
for having ordered the slaughter of
125 head of cattle that had the lumpy
jrw. The Trusts maiutains that
lumpy jaw does not injure the whole
someness of the beef. We don’t
know whether it does or no ; but we
do know that lumpy jaw beef is not
one tenth as dangerous as the whisky
the Trust manufacture. The state
that confiscates lumpy jaw cattle,
when sold by the Trust and the
farmers, and allows the sale of liquid
poison that produces lumpy jaw in
men, not to mention insanity and dis
ease, is a very inconsistent sort of
State. Why should the distiller have
so many snore rights than the farmer?
—The Voice.
A Terrible Army.
Men talk of building invincible
coast defenses. Men talk of building
a great navy or organizing a vast
army to defend this country against
foreign invaders.
We have already within the bound
aries of this country an army of in
vader's far more powerful than the
armies of any foreign nation. They
have their picket lines stretching from
Maine to California; their camps are
pitched in every hamlet, and their
scouts are stationed at every cross
road in the United States. The great
armies of the world have performed
their terrible execution upon the field
of battle by means of the cannon, the
musket, and the sword. But this
army, without the aid of the bullet or
the sword or any of the legitimate
means of warfare, is subjugating this
country and devastating everything
before it in its march, like the black
cyclone of death. Who are these ter
rible invaders and destroyers? They
are the 250,000 men who stand behind
the bars of every liquor saloon in this
country. They are the men who go
to make up an army which for terri
ble execution can put to shame the
mighty military armies of the world.
Christian men, temperance men, pro
hibitionists, listen: Two hundred and
fifty thousand men armed with the
whisky and beer bottle are invading
your county; they are marching
against your homes. Before their ad
vancing columns and withering fire
your sons, daughters, fathers, mothers,
sisters and brothers go down like the
grass before tlie scythe. The battle
is taking fiercely on every hand. The
field is covered with the dead and
wounded. Still the invaders, knee
deep in blood, pursue their awful
work of destruction, and riding over
and tramping upon the dead bodies of
your countrymen, and pillaging your
homes, they scoff in your faces, and
bid defiance to your puny efforts to
check their terrible onslaughts.
“Dumb Dogs” That Fear Unpop
ularity.
Many of our ministers are “dumb
dogs” and are afraid to open their
mouths on the prohibition question,
because it ia not popular, and they arc
afraid of their heads, lest some lordly
politician in the pew should become
offended. Better ofi’end these lordly
politicians a thousand times than
offend Christ or one of those “little
ones,” who are being destroyed by
the saloon because of your cowardly
silence in the pulpit. Why some
ministers are afraid to mention tue
word prohibition in their prayers or
sermons, because it is not popular.
Tho church has now over 3,000,000
voters. The saloon and liquor-dealers
can only control about 1,000,000
voters. So in God’s sight, the church
of to day is responsible for the liquor
traftic. Party prejudice is tho great
barrier that is keeping Christians
apart on the prohibition question to
day. The liquor dealers will rise up
in the day of judgment, and condemn
church membors because they were
wiser in their generation than the
children of light.—lowa Prohibition
ist.
We Trust It Is So.
Expressions of a belief that the
Church in all lands is upon the eve
of a great revival of religious inter
est, and a consequent ingathering of
souls into the kingdom, were given
oy us sometime ago. These were
quoted from the outgivings of leading
Congregational ministers in England,
and were clear and emphatic. Since
then we have met with similar dec
larations from Methodist ministers of
prominence in Great Britain. It is
said by them that there is evidently
“a growing impression among all the
Methodist Churches of the coun
try, that we are on the eve of a sea
son of refreshing from the presence
of the Lord.” Modern Elijahs, who
Lave spent much time in wistful and
agonizing prayer, are beginning to
exclaim, “There is the sound of
abundance of rain.” The wish may
be father to the thought; but the wish,
when it grows intense, must itself be
born of tho Spirit of God, and be
an earnest, in a sense, of its own ful
fillment. Moreover, into whatever
heart the longing for this great revival
has come, it comes as a blessing. For
it prompts the seeking of blessings
for others, and expands tho heart to
take in the whole Church of God and
the our (lying, world in its wickedness
and sorrows. It would be a great ad
vance, and a very hopeful one, if the
people of God should everywhere
give themselves to prayer so intense
in its earnestness that it would lead
to strong crying and tears. —The
Presbyterian.
In regard to prohibition in Maine,
Gov. Burleigh, of that state, makes
these discriminating and just remarks:
“It has always seemed to me that the
opponents of our temperance policy
have adopted arguments against it
that are peculiarly weak and falla
cious—arguments that they would
never think of urging against any
other of our statutory laws. The
burden of their song has been that
liquor is sold and drunk in the state
in spite of our prohibitory laws, and
therefore prohibition is a failure.
Now it has always seemed to me as if
this method of assault might equally
well be directed against any other
portions of our penal code. It might
be said that as crime has not been
eradicated in Maine, therefore all
SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS,
statutory provisions for the protection
of society should be repealed, all
crime be accorded the sanction of law
and every individual be given per
sonal liberty to act as be pleases, with
out consideration for the welfare of
the community in which he moves.
I regard the liquor traffic as one of
the worst, in view of the evils that
follow in its train, of all crimes. It is
the foe of progress, of industry, and
Christian civilization. The victim of
the drink habit is more than his own .
enemy, he is a menace to society. To
my mind, of all the puerile attacks
upon our prohibitory law, that which
asserts that it injures the business
prosperity of the state is most absurd.
It will he impossible to conceive of
two things more incompatible than
buriness success and intemperance.
Sobriety and industry go hand in
hand. Both are essential to success.”
National Temperance Advocate:
The African traveler, Macaj, says:
“Oh, how often will I enter in my
journal, as I pass through many dis
tricts: ‘Drink is the curse of Africa’”
He adds: “The west coast is ruined
with rum, it is killing the Kaffer
south;” and he portrays in vivid
terms tho wholesale destruction of
the natives by liquor in other regions.
It is a painful reflection that America
continues, from the greed of gain, to
contribute to this devastation and
ruin.
There has been but one absolutely
perfect man, the man Christ Jesus.
But the world crucified him. Per
fection has always been an intolera
ble virtue in th eyes of the world.
Perfect holiness is the world’s great
est crime.—Nashville Christian Ad
vocate.
Urn, IltnUi on l,owell.
It has always seemed to ino that his
early success, as well as his strength, lay
in his keen instinctive insight into the
personal character of the New Eug
latvder. He had by no moans created
the “Yankee” in literature; neither hud
ho been the first to use the Yankee
dialect. Judge Iluliburton, a writer
of more unqualified English blood, had
already drawn “Sam Slick,” but it was
tlie Yankee regarded from the “out
side”—as he was wont to aggressively
present himself to the neighboring
“Blue Noses”—and although the pic
ture was not without occasional grace
ful and poetic touches, the poetry and
grace was felt to he Judge Hatiburtou’s,
rather than Sam Slick’s.
It may interest the curious reader to
compare the pretty prose fancy of Sam
Slick’s dream with the genuine ring of
“Ilosea Biglow’s Courting.” Dr. Judd’s
“Margaret”—a novel, 1 fear, unknown
to most Englishmen was already a
New England classic when Ilosea Big
low was born. It was a dialect ro
mance. so provincial as to tie almost un
intelligible to even the average Ameri
can reader, but while it was painted with
f. coarse Flemish fidelity, its melodrama
was conventional and imported. It re
mained for Mr. Lowell alone to dis
cover and portray the real Yankee,
that wonderful evolution of the Eng
lish Puritan, who Imd shaken off the
forms and superstitions, hut never tlie
deep consciousness of God. —Bret llarte
In New Review.
Hydrophobin Unknown in Alunkn.
Probably in no country on earth is
there as large a proportion of dogs per
capita as can he boasted by the inhab
itants of the Indian village at Sitka.
To the casual observer by daylight
these dogs are multitudinous enough,
but they blossom in full regalia of
canine beauty along about midnight.
And they are certainly as numerous as
tlie leaves of Vallombrosa. There is
one blessed peculiarity about these
dogs and a pertinent fact which de
mands perhaps something more than
mere comment.
At no time within tho memory of
man lias there been a mad dog heard of
in Sitka or its vicinity, and no authen
ticated case of hydrophobia within tlie
limits of Alaska. The natives are
brought in direct contact with the
dogs and handle them fearlessly, and
there must be many times when they
are badly bitten, but never, so far as
known, have any evil results attended
tlie wound. Whether this be owing to
tlie climate or to some peculiarity of
the dogs themselves is unknown. A
scientific investigation us to the cause
of this immunity from one of the most
terrible diseases which afflict humanity
would bo interesting.- Sitka Alaskan.
First Passenger—Can you tell me
the time?
Second Passenger—Y’es, sir (contin
ues to look at tlie view).—Jewelers’
Circular.