The Washingtonian, or, Total abstinence advocate. (Augusta, Ga.) 1842-1843, June 11, 1842, Image 1

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- • a OR, Vol. I ] THE WASHINGTONIAN. HU BUSHED BY JAMES MeCAFFERTY, TWICE EVERT MONTH. Office 0,1 Macintosh street — opposite the Post Office. TERMS. For a single copy, for one year. One Dollar ; for six copies, to one address. Five Doll in ; for ten copies, to one address, Eight Dollars—and so in proportion. Payment in all cases to he made in advance. All communications by mail, must be rosv pud, to receii e attention. WASHINGTON Total Abstinence Society of Augusta. OFFICERS: Dr. Joseph A. Eve, President. llev W». T. BRAXTLr, Vice-President. Wm. Haixes, Jr.,Secretary and Treasuier. Mjnagei r—James Harper,Dr. F. M. Robertson, F. W. I'olman, Jesse Wolton, James W. Whitlock, William 1 Shear, C. C. Taliaferro. Speech of tile Uni:. Thomas-F. Marshall, on Fashionable Wine Drinking. Deliv ered at the Btoadway Tabernacle, \ew York, on tne Ith of May, 1811. I had expected. Gentlemen and Ladies that my colleague and friend, Mr. Briggs, of Massa chusetts, would have been here to-night to make some remarks; but I am informed, since arriving, that he has been attacked by a severe indisposi tion, which continues, and is of such a kind as prevents his affording you the agreeable treat of his presence and an address to-night. I have myself—and I name the fact that the audience may excuse the, knyness of my Voice at least ween I first commence the remarks I design to sake -I have labored all day under a severe cold, pprtw?--; . ted lust night by very imprudent ly going into the cold without my cloak. * lell trie room extremely heated and went into the open air. which wVs exceedingly cold, and struck ; at once to my chest. 1 have labored under a so- I vere pain in my head and breast, with a feeble ness of voice, all day; and it was with great difficulty that 1 reached here myself. Nothing, ind. cd, hut the very deep interest which 1 take in the cause in which ! am engaged, and noth iri-r hut a disposition, to the very best of my abili ty,’to return the kindness I have received from the citizens of New-\ork ever since 1 visited it. i would have induced me to be present to-night. Judging ftom the immense concourse of people which attended at tlic Tabernacle on \vednes day evening, and seeing that the -nretnirr to-night was advertised in all the city papers, I had the j win it v to presume that it was expected by many who would here attend that I should be present; and from the fact of my being a stranger, and the . somewhat singular relation to this great ques- j tion which I hive been made to sustain by the 1 public prints, which are in every body's bands, 1 have been led to think that many may have ! come here upon this occasion from a curiosity to bear me —a curiosity lam perfectly willing, on mv part, to gratify, especially in relation to a | people who havereceived and treated me with so ; much kindness and attention. You have heard to-night, and have had exhib ited palpably to your senses by the learned gen tleman who preceded me, the physiological facts in connection, with the use of alcohol by man. I mean not to go into this subject at any great length, for lain no physician. It has however been asceitained and proved that alcohol, where eier we find it— no matter in what fluid or with what fluid we find it in composition, through them all— wine, cider, {hard, cider that is,) beer, ale, porter, brandy, whiskey, rum—in all the forms of fluid which the device and ingenuity of man has discovered, with vvhicn alcohol is com mingled—trace it through them all, and its oper ation is the same. There is no organ with which nature has armed the human frame, of sufficient power to digest and appropriate it as aliment to the animal System. It enters into the stomach alcohol; it circulates through the system alco hol ; it leaves the system alcohol —unchanged and unoperated upon by any of the organs with which it comes in contact, or to whose influence it is subjected through all its passage in circula tion. Its influence on the delicate coats of the stomach—the most delicate surfaces ofthe human frame—has been exhibited to your view. Its influence on the nervous system is among the most remarkable phenomena it exhibits. Its in fluence there is peculiar to itself, as every one knows. Nothing else that /know of—no poison with which l am at all acquainted —no other fluid, certainly, which I have ever swallowed— produces the same effect on me as alcohol does in any of its forms. (Cheers.) It not only in flames the stomach in the manner which has been exhibited so truly—advancing on from the TOTAL ABSTINENCE ADVOCATE. first stages of irritation to the last stage of gan grenous inflammation—prostrating all the pow ers and the functions destined for that organ— o wonderful in its contrivance and so important in all the relations of the animal economy—to perform; it no only does this—if it were content with this: if it only achieved what other substances alien to the constitution per form, it would not be so serious an evil; —but it is upon finer and subtler instruments—the finer and subtler instruments of the human mind by which this wonderful creation called the human understanding, so far as we are acquainted, oper ates—it is on the sensorium—on the brain and ! nervous system —that alcohol works its greatest mischief; and it is through the destruction of this all-important instrument that it achieves the overthrow of the moral and ineffectual man. What this connection of mind and body is, it is not for me to inquire. It lias perplexed and bat fled all philosophy, , flow is it that the mind 1 possess - which eve-! , ry one of us believes to lie spiritual and immor tal—which a creed not fanciful apprehends to be an emanati n from Divinity itself— infused into man from the very nostrils of his creator —as communicated to us by the revelation of God himself-—how it is that this immortal principle does operate and communicate with external nature through the .brain and nerves and fluids, which permeate and penetrate and circulate through every part ofthe human body—through | which alone sensation and ideas arecominunica- [ ted to the understanding—how these wonderful j effects are achieved 1 mean not to inquire; and j if I did, perhaps the inquiry would be fruitless. But we know that such is the fact. Destroy the ! nerves andsensations ceases. Destroy one set of I nerves, and one class of sensation ceases: des-! troy another set and the power of the mind over ; the muscles—the action of the will, of volition,! ceases. W • know then that the nervous fluid | whatever it nay he—that the brain is the seat of i sensation and the great organ of the mind, and i that the nerves are like so many messengers sent j out from the brain to every part of the body to ; | bring to the intellect—its throne- -all that they ( learn of the mighty nature by whicli they are ; surrounded. This alcohol operates upon these messengers so as to deprive them of theirpeculiar funetions-to distort the information tiiey receive, and to render t hem, instead of the heralds oftruth from the universe to the enthroned monarch within—the soul of man—lying heralds—the ! heralds of false impressions and perceptions to the mind to which they announce whatever oc curs in the wide world around. It is then on these finer instruments of the intellect--material though these instruments be —yet by means of : which the Almighty has enabled the human understanding to bold communication with, and j draw information fromsurroundingnnd external; nature —on these instruments it is tnat the subtle I foe to all that is divine in our nature exerts its 1 greatest power and its greatest destruction. And ; what a ruin—and what a ruin, gentlemen, is this! Men say it stimulates—and so it does, and a most unhealthy stimulus it is to the animal spirits with which nature has turnished us. Let, these animal spirits alone—or supply them only with the natural aliment which nature has pro vided and God has furnished—an all-sufficient magazine to serve all the purposes of life and enable us fully to supply the wants of failing nature and to replenish any waste that the busi ness and pursuits of life may make in the stores ofthe animal system. Why the stimulus alcohol furnishes is something like that which the in cendiary would supply to the means of defence provided for a great country—in its magazines— ample magazines of powder sufficient to serve it J for a long and dangerous war, if only you called ; upon it in prudence and in time of danger, aJI sufficient for all defence. But the incendiary j madman may seize a chunk of fire and rush into this magazine and blow up all at once, all your strength and hope and means of defence. Call (hat a stimulus—and it resembles that stiirlulus which all at once blows up the human system. [This was followed by deafening applause: and after a momont’s consultation of his watch Mr. j Marshall proceeded.] I don’t like to speak against time much, but! my own strength and the patience of the audience are both indications that I should not take too i wide a scope in a subject which is perfectly and entirely inexhaustible —connecting itself as it • does with all the moral, social, and political rela tions of man—all the duties he owes to his fel lows, his country, and his God. My friend at my elbow, [Mr. Marsh,] suggests that I had a particular subject chalked out for discussion at this time, and that is Fashionable Wine-drink ing. Unacquainted as lam with the people of New-York, and almost a stranger to all the bright faces I see around me, I am still led to infer, from , the promptings that are given me, that there must be a vast number of fashionable wine- AUGUSTA, GA. JUNE 11, 1842. drinkers present on this occasion. I hope— indeed I know—from every indication furnished me, both to-night and on Wednesday evening, that the audience to whom I have spoken, both now and then, appreciate perfectly the delicacy of my situation and the embarrassing circum stances into which I have voluntarily thrown myself. That I, appearing for the first time in the great citv of iNcw-Yotk, and addressing a New-York audience for the first time on my very first visit to that proud city,should labor under a feeling of embarrassment, is perfectly natural; so natural thatyou must be aware of it, and with due consideration will make all allowance forme arising out of that circumstance. It has been my fortune, or rather my misfortune, never to have been inthecity of New-York till last Wed nesday. Tie whole scene burst upon me with entire novnity and a splendor almost equal to that which met the gaze of Adam when he fi'st ! opened his eyes upon the whole universe, (Ap plause.) The sensations 1 experienced were entirely novel; for they were like nothing 1 had ever known before. Nothing in my experience furnished me any means or instrument of com parison by which to measure my feelings as I approached the point below. That I might have the best view on this my first visit, I came by ' water, and took the boat from Amboy on Wed-1 nesday. And can you, or can you not—albeit j accustomed to the scenery through which 1 j i passed from that point to Castle toarden — can j j you, or ralher can you not, imagine how a j | stranger m|ist have felt on beholding the eviden- i ! ces of the progress of your city which burst upon j my view from the time i first embarked 1 Bred i ! in the “ ffr West,” beyond the Apalachian I | mountains; the deep and rolling ocean, in all his \ ■ solemn ami silent grandeur, never presented him- j ; self to my qyc, except the glimpse 1 caught of him j | as we rounded Staten Island. Then again be-! ; yond the Narrows—there he lay! the. ocean on I one side, and the ocean's queen- -the city ofNcw : York—on the other! [Loud applause.] i la j bored under all the vast sensations which a scene »o grand could not fail to produce, and which : were produced; and for a moment 1 forgot that I was a Washingtonian! Notwithstanding ihe amount of cold water that rolled before me, for a single instant the object of my mission vanished from my mind, and 1 forgot—pardon me—that 1 ever was a Washingtonian! But the intellect soon returned, and oh! upon the very subject upon which I have been sent, or rather been call : ed here to say something, in this great city, there was abundant food for meditation in the grand scenery which was then spread out before me. As I looked upon the city of New-York, the metropolis of my country—for the United States, thank God, is my country: I approached it as a ; city jn which I had some interest . I looked upon j NeW-York as a city containing a vast commerce, capital, and commercial enterprize, and laboring | for the necessities, the comforts, and the inde pendence of that far country from whence I come. I looked upon it as a means of support to thatcountry. This emporium of commerce, this great centre of ttade—and this great centre of fashion with j all its appendages —for 1 consider all the towns j aroUnd it, big as some of them are, as dwindling into: villages beside the mighty mother and parent | of them all; as part and parcel of this great city of New-York—containing a population approxi mating to a million of people—larger than some of the proudest sovereign States of this Union I locked on this, I say, as the centre ot trade and the centre of fashion—as destined to influence, now and forever, in a most immense degree, not only the fashions but the ideas ofthe men ofthat vast Western country. (Applause.) And it is so. Perhaps you have never been in the West: you that are located here. Then you can scarce ly know or immagine what an influence Ncw- Ifork has even in the smallest and merest trifles every i’hcre in the great Western Country. Why a Western fellow does not consider him self half dressed unless he has every thing from New-York—unless he has even a New-York ! hat on] (Applause.) If you come across two j ; bucks [here, let them meet in the street of some ! | village; and get into a dispute about the block of | ! their bfcaver- ‘Why,’ says one, ‘I got mine ini Philadelphia.’ ‘ Pooh,’ says the other, ‘ I got | i mine in New- York’ —and that’s a settler. Why the vejy cut and fashion of our garments must ! come from New-York. New-York has better tailors evgp, than any other city, let that city do her b^t; and whenever a Western fellow wishes to appfar particularly charming in the eyes of some fiiir lady—and some of us Western chape are extremely fond of exhibiting the beauty of our persons —he don’t think himsel f half clad unlessevery garment is made in the city of New- York. Every thing must come from New-York! ; From her, as a root, spring all the branches of fashion and manners. How immensely import ant then does it become, not only that the city of l New-York, but that the whole wide-spread country of which she is the centre and the pride —to the whole world—what fashions and what manners she is toettle for them all! It becomes of infinite moment to tho whole country, what are the fashions of New-York : it becomes a ter ritory which, if hostile to us Washingtonians, we have a great interest in invading at once If evil fashions do prevail—if evil manners, hos tile to the single tiuth which we maintain, do prevail in fvew-York, it is important that we make tear upon this your city; and i! we wish to cut up the evil by the root, the place to be-in is this same city of New-York. It is not worth while to be climbing out ou the branches and lopping off the limbs, and twigs, and cutting off the leaves. Here is the trunk— here's the root of the matter, and if we can only dig that up: the trunk, boughs, limbs, branches, twigs, leaves, and all must wither and perish a9 a mat ter of physical necessity! (Applause.) Do you let it become established and known as a pan" of man ners in New-York : as one principle of good breeding and of the fashion of society: that it is an ungentlemanly thing to offer and to press upon a friend to do that which if he does to any extent—to just that extent that he does it, it infallibly injures him; and not only that but which, if he had no liking for it before, it imme diately provokes a liking and leads necessarily to farther indulgence and farther injury. Let it once he known that it is considered ungenteel in New-York for one gentleman to ask. another to drink wine with him, at his table or his house let this once be understood, and I’ll bet you it is instantly considered the bight of vulgarity all j over the United States! (L.auohter and ap- I plause.) I am telling you now a simple truth ; and I do | not do it from any disposition to compliment you at all, but just to make you aware of the prodi j gious influence the manners and fashions of this I city have over the whole country, and to make you aware, of the tremendous responsibility un der which you live. Let it be understood and it will be quoted; begin here and go to the small est village in Kentucky; Let the richest mer chant in that village, who has made his money by buying here and selling there, and has at last retired, as they call it, to enjoy in old age the fruits of the labor and industry of his youth: let him offer a bottle of wine and press his guest to drink it—he will be told, ‘Why, my clear Sir, have you ever been to New-York 1 " Don’t you know that in New-York it’s held to be very vul gar to offer a gentleman wine V Now it’s no matter whether this be founded in propriety and right or not; hut the fact is so, and if you can set and change the fashionsevery month—if you can make a broad skirt to a gentleman’s coat beautiful one month, and a narrcnc skirt just as beautiful another month, and just because its the I fashion in New-York, why you can also set the fashion on this as on any other subject. Well, then, since this is perfectly understood, that if New-York says its ungentlemanly to ask aman to get drunk, it will be pronounced vulgar everywhere, the only remaining question is, ought you to do it 1 Is it a mere question of fash ion, as perfectly indifferent as the length of the skirt of a gentleman’s coat, or is it notf Isthere any thing more important in it, or is there not? I said just now, and I wish to repeat it if you please, not that I don’t suppose it perfectly un derstood, but just to keep up a sort of connection to my subject, that there is one remarkable physi cal peculiarity to alcohol, which no other liquid possesses; and another is that the food it craves never satisfies it. Every other appetite is satisfi ed by its appropriate food, but the instant you have swallowed alcohol, that instant it "excites a craving for more. And whatever the quantity of the fluid /ou take, the system siiiu.s just as far bejfevv as it was raised above its natural tone; and this might well be illustrated by regarding the system as a thermometer. Thus the seeond time vou take it, you want it more than at first, and so" or until at last it becomes absolutely necessary. Y< u liav’nt that healthy state With which you b 1 ; .n: but you must not onlyjdrink then with the risk which was incurred at first, but you have to bring the system bwdk to the healthy system with which you commenced : the first dram you drink makes it necessary if you follow your sensations ; and this ; s tile secret of the great dangeT ot temperate drinking. Did you ever know an in temperate drinker who haii not first been a tem perate drinker ? Bnd was there ever a man on God’s earth that took the second glasß thithad’nt before taken the first ? and was there ever a mortal man found to be drunkard who had never touched, nor tasted, nor bandied the ‘critter’at all? (Loud laughter.) This is the philosophy of tbc matter. Ought you not to change the fashion if it exists—and 1 know nothing about the people or the fashion? of this citv-.I can’t tell how 'tis with others, but [No. I.