Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

TBi WABBX96TOIIAiri VOL. I.] iTHE WASHINGTON!AN. PUBLISHED BY JAMES McCAFFERTY, TWICE EVERY MONTH. Office on M aeintosh street — opposite the Post Office. TERMS. For a single copy, for one year, One Dollar ; for six I copies, to one address. Five Dollars ; for ten copies, to j one address, Eight Dollars—and so in proportion. QQ- Payment in all cases to be made in advance, gyw All communications by mail, must be post paid, jo receive attention. Last of Agents for the Washingtonian. The following gentlemen are respectfully re" quested and fully authorised by us, to act as agents for itbe Washingtonian, in extending its circulation : . ... f Dr.W. J. Rusk, Clarksr,lie- J LewW Levy . Dalohnega —C. B. Leitner. Coving'on—C. Pace. Decatur —L. Willard. Athens—H L. Newton. Maiietta— James F. Cooper. Columhu, —R. Boyd Ssmdersrilte~ A. O. Ware. Social Circle —J. L. Gresham. Isncolnton —Henry J. Lang. K Crau'fordrilU —Rev. John W. Wilson. Warrentou —Eliphalei Hale. Culbreath's —Rev. C. ollius. H Sparfo—N. C. Sayre. I McDonough —Wm. L. Gordon. , Caesville -Rev. Mr. Howard. Rockbridge—John W. Fowler. Old Church P O. J A Bell. Hamburg. (S. C ) -C. H. Lindsey, P. M 80-well C. H (S C.)-0. D Allen. Rock Hills, (S. C)—W A. Lewis. Richlands (If. C.)— Bryan H. Koonc e . Tuskegee, (Ala.)— Rev. G. P. Sparks. j Mich mood County Washington Total Ab s tine lice Society. OFFICERS. Dr. Joseph A. Eve, President. r-oi. Jons Mii.lkdce, T */aWKINS Hcjff, i T)r. F. M. Robertson, S- Vice Presidents. Or. i- P Gauvin, J VV. Meredith, MANAGERS. ofciMES Harper, John G. Dunlap, JESSE W ALTON, E. E. Scoi 'IELD, James Gl>d.«t, H*** M«*\ 9.C., Nov. B<l, 1842. Editir WttkingtonSan: I* Dear Sir,—After perusing this piece, and making modifications, it any are necessary, you will please give it a place in your respectable little journal. It is my first attempt at composition, and I know it is incoherent ly and imperfectly written ; the events, however, as * f recorded, are really and substantially correct. I have i been a General in the service of King Alcohol, and I look forward with plefising anticipations of being able in future of doing something for the cause of Temper, auce, to counterpoise the vast amount of harm 1 have caused, by my influence and example in persuading men to swallow down the hellish curse. Your sanguine friend in the cause of Total Abstinence, GUILLAUME. For the Washingtonian. Mr. Editor —As it has become remarkably common, and even fashionable, of late days, lor Reformed Drunkards to make known, through I _ | the columns of Temperance Journals, their expe-! rieneeofthe destructive and ruinous effects which j too great indulgence in the inebriating bowl has j had on them ; and as I am fully satisfied the re-; ij presentation which I shall be able to giveofits horrid and deleterious consequences on me, will l not suffer in comparison with other accounts giv en by some of the foremost reformed inebriates in the country. I have, in perlect congruity to my ! own feelings, concluded to pen down for your j Journal, a few of the anomalies and eccentricities ; which characterized me during my allegiance to! the sceptre of the Stygian Monarch—Prince Al cohol. My father embarked in the mercantile business about ihirty-five years ago, many years before my induction into the world, at old P. C. H., in So. Carolina, and after continuing a respectable and i very successful merchant at this place for seven j years, he removed about seventeen miles to the : South, where he settled, and erected a fine set of, merchant mills, &e., and denominated his resi dence R M . Here he resumed the vo- i cation of merchandizing, and continued actively TOTAL ABSTINENCE ADVOCATE. YVm. F. Pemberton, Wm. O Eve, A. Phii.lips, Dr. Benjamin Docolass, J. L. Mimms. AUGUSTA, GA. SATURDAY, DECTiMBt'iST 1842. and zealously engaged in its pursuits up to the ] time of his demise, which occurred in 1837. At j this place I was horn, which event transpired ! about twenty-two years ago; and as I grew up and became able to share in the management of my father’s concerns, my services were occasion ally demanded in the store as clerk. My father also carried on an extensive distillery: lie manu factured thousands of gallons of whiskey, brandy and gin, and kept it in his store to sell to his cus tomers. He tvas one of those men who, errone ously, believe that it is an utter impracticability for any merchant to succeed in making sale of any thing like a fair quantity of dry goods, with out blending the sale of spirituous liquors with them. The idea was this: When a man entered the store, it he were in the habit of drinking, he would most generally call out his half pint, or quart, as the case might be, or if he happened to be not of the inclination to spend his money in the purchase of it, why, the clerk, in conformity to the orders of the employer, would present him with a glass for the purpose of infusing into him a disposition to make other purchases. And, Mr. Editor, you perhaps know, or if you don’t. I do, that when a fellow has taken down two or three pretty stiff “horns” of the “ overjoyful,” he feels like hew both the bigest and the richest man in creation ; and t’e not unfrequently, after his intel lectual and visionary organs have been a little brightened up in this way, sees and wants a great many things, which he would not, if he were so ber, ever think of purchasing; and he readily, and without the least hesitation, and not at all considering the real value of the article, agrees to pay whatever price the clerk may be pleased to put upon the article, wholly regardless of the contents and dimensions of his purse, and the amount of the debt he may be contracting. Being, as 1 stated before, frequently engaged in the supervision of the affairs of my father’s store, and accustomed every day to draw and sell large quantities of liquor, I occasionally would taste a little, and very soon, and very young, con tracted the habit of moderate dram-drinking.— The thirst gradually and imperceptibly increased ! upon tne, as is always the case, and very often I would find myself deeply intoxicated, and entire ly incapacitated to perform any of the duties that necessarily devolve on a clerk. My father had i in his employment several young mechanics— tailors, waggon makers and blacksmiths, the ma jority of whom evinced as great a delight and p easure in swallowing down the contents of the bottle as I did, and every night, after the labors of the day were done, and rny father had retired to his dwelling, which, by-the-by, was situated at a sufficient distance from the store-house and w« rk-shops, for us not to apprehend any fear or danger whatever of.being detected by him in our midnight, Bacbanalian carousals, we would as semble ourselves in the counting-room, or in some more commodious and suitable establishment, | where we would while away the night in card I playing, drinking, fiddling, dancing, &c. and I early in the morning, each one again would en gage in the duties of his res|iectivc occupation; though after having undergone the tiresome labor of “cutting the pigeon wing,” and feeling the enervating effects which the liquor had produced, wearied out with the loss of sleep, and other bad feelings consequent upon a night thus spent in ! ; drinking and revelling, you may safely conclude j j that we did not discover any great degree of | cheerfulness in proceeding to our labor. We all j were apprized that it would not answer the pur ! pose so well, to let the old gentleman into the J secret of our course of procedure during the I night; and knowing this, all were careful not to ! make any movements that would lead to the de tection of our conduct. We thus continued to ; drink and frolic, clandestinely, without my father j suspecting such a thing. Often have we met in the store-room at night, and after getting pretty ! drunk, we would'break every tumbler, pitcher, bottle and decanter, that came within our reach, i nd not satisfied with doing this, we would very ' often commence ojierations on the wares on the OR, shelves, and shiver whole dozens into atoms. Next morning by times, the broken fragments would be carefully and cleanly swept up, and de posited in some secret place, to avoid the old gen tleman s seeing them, and all the goods placed judiciously and systematically back on the shelves again, in such a manner that he could not possi bly have the least suspicion of what had been done the night before. My father was in the habit of waggoning his cotton, flour, &c. to Augusta, where he most generally sold his produce, and purchased his supplies ot goods. Once, I recollect, he left home for that place, and hired a young man to super vise his negroes and carry on the affairs of his farm, and me, he directed to take into my charge the management of the store, distillery and mills, until he should return from Augusta, which gen erally required about ten days to make the jour ney. Well, we barely gave the old gentleman time to got out ot sight, when I and the overseer ! commenced a campaign of drinking which lasted without any kind of intermission, for eight days. - There were barrels of whiskey in the store at our command, but a thought struck our minds that, “old ball-face” would not put a taste sufficiently pretty in our mouths, and so we determined to have the best that could lie obtained in the neigh-' borhood. There lived about a mile from the store a wealthy old planter who we knew always drank, and kept the best juality of peach brandy for sale. So we, not more than an hour after the departure of iny father from home, gathered up two jugs, each of which held a gallon and a half, and oil'we started for the brandy. We had to "lank down one dollar per gallon, and that dollar had to be silver, the real “ rhino,” or we did not get the liquor; for the old gentleman from whom we purchased it, w is no great believer in Tom Benton’s cravat stiffening. When our jugs were filled, and we had paid oft' the hill, we started back home. We would call a halt about every hun dred yards, draw the stoppers, and take a pull at the “ critter,” and when we arrived at the store, the inflamable properties of the brandy had so completely darkened my vision, that I could not have told northern homespun from black broad cloth ; and to judge from the circular windings and back steps which the overseer made in his attempts to walk, the organs of his sight were not less materially obnubilated and operated on. Wc, in the period of eight days, drank no less than eight gallons ofthe strongest kind of peach brandy, without giving away more than one gal lon at the furthest to friends. We would gel drunk three times in the day, and twice at night. If the overseer had been interrogated what the hands were engaged at in the farm, he could not have given a definite answer to the question. If he had been asked, whether they were planting or gathering corn or cotton, lie would have repli ed one as soon as the other. Ido not now recol lect that he went out into the fields the first time during my father’s absence to Augusta. Whilst the overseer was utterly reckless of the perform ance of the commands which my father had given to him about the plantation, 1 was equally re gardless ofthe resjionsibilities of my station, and the directions he had given me when he departed. It is true, I did not abandon the store entirely, only when I went after a supply of brandy ; but 1 was so constantly and completely drunk, that I could not superintend any kind of business per taining to it. When a customer came to me for an article, it was altogether optional with me whether he got it or not. If I were requested to show a piece of goods to a man who said he wish ed to purchase, if it pleased me, I complied with his demand ; if not, he was not accommodated.— And if I did so far condescend, as to subject my self to the trouble of taking down an article from the shelves for his inspection, and if he refused to pay me the price I asked for it, or endeavored to obtain it for a less amount than I demanded, I would impose on him such a copious profusion of abuse and execrations, as would compel him to abscond from my presence immediately. I did not exhaust much oratory in telling him a big talo about the quality and cheapncsse of the goods, nor in persuading him to buy it. He wa# obliged to purchase, if he purchased at all, at my price; and if he discovered any backwardness in purchasing, or hesitated on account of the price, 1 would forthwith place the goods back on the shelves, and order him to shore, for he should not have the gratification of carrying my merchant dize home with him at any price! Our supply ol'liquor would not last us more than two days, and as soon as we discovered that it was nearly exhausted, we would navigate, as well as we were able, back to the old farmer’*, and have our jugs re-lilled, frequently leaving the store establishment wide open—good*, mo ney, books, all exposed. The approach of night would invariably cotnc upon us in a state of too great intoxication to be able, or even think of fastening a single door or window of the store house. We would get into the house in which we slept and ate just the best way we could. If any thing chanced to be stolen from the *tore, why it had to go so—we were by’ no means par ticular and watchful over small mailers. Things went on this way until the evening of the eighth day, two days before the expected re turn of my father from Augusta, when we con cluded it would be much to our advantage to cool off a little. Wc were well aware that it would not answer the purpose at all for the old gentle man to return home and find us in a state of inebriety; for if he did, the times would have been any thing but agreeable and pleasant to us. I had got sober from innumerable drunken frolics, and thought I had suffered all the bad feelings that could possibly attend them ; but never in my liie did I have such horrible sensations before, j My lather came back at the appointed time, and found all things going on pretty mueh to his no tion. On examining the books he discovered that hut few sales had been made while he was absent, and demanded of me, why I had not suc ceeded in selling more goods. My response to this interrogatory was, that application had not been made for them, and of course I could not be expected to effect sales if no one wished to pur | chase. The overseer was also questioned as to the progress of the work in the farm—what work had been done, how much, &c. &c. He reported that the negroes had been constantly and assidu ously engaged in the prosecution of their work, and had completed their tasks according a* he had allotted them off to them, and in good order; also, that he had faithfully obeyed and executed all the injunctions that were given him. These, our studied explanations accomplished, for the time being, the desired end to a fraction—they proved perfectly satisfactory to my father; and the old gentleman seemed highly delighted with the idea that I, his youngest son, had directed his business with such skill and judgment during his trip to market. It was sometimes requisite for me to labor with the negroes in the farm. Habituated, while offi ciating as a clerk in the store, to drink more or less every day, consequently, I very often felt a desire to take a “horn” whilst engaged at laborin the field, but could not exercise that gratification, having no suitable mode for carrying it with me. To obviate all difficulties, and in order to fix a plan for carrying it with convenience with us in the field, I and the overseer each had a frock coat usually denominated a W shington coat, made with a pocket in each side sufficiently roomy to contain a big flask. These, we would contrive secretly to fill every night with spirits to drink the ensuing day in the field. The overseer and myself were usually required to follow the plough, and at every round or two, we would stop our mules, draw out our bottles from our “ Washingtons,” pull the cork, and drink each other’s good health in the middle of the field. One day we were ploughi in afi dos young corn, that had just begun to make its appearance above the surface of the ground, and every man who is conversant with the process of cultivating this plant while in its young and tender state, knows it is a very difficult matter to run close to [No. 13.