Article #23 - Intemperance and Punishment

Mr. Editor

            Feeling deeply interested in your Lyceum I take the liberty to pen a few lines

fo your Journall [sic]. I think it ought to be sustained its colums [sic] are mostly full of inter-

esting matter that which is generally useful and calculated to benefit its members and the audience, all are invited to contribute to it. it is also open for criticism and discussion. I said it was highly useful, yes, both to the hearer and the writer, for many can impart knowledge through the medium of the pen that cannot do it orally. They can hear their testimony against all the evils

that exist (for there are many) some of the worst of them are War, Slavery, Intemperance, and Capital punishment. – These subjects ought not to escape the minds of our members, Intemperance is one, which we have written but very little upon, compared to what is required, although some of our members think we should write on some other subjects, we cannot even pass along the streets of some of our villages without being insulted by the profane language of

a drunken man, in this intoxicated manner he perpetrates a rash act, and when proved to be guilty he is deliberately murdered by the community – had he not touched the intoxicating bowl he would have shuddered at the act – he would have quailed at the idea.

            Can it be possible now in the nineteenth century that we should be so uncivilized as

to justify the launching of him into eternity forever with all this dreadful crime resting

upon him. The question arises what good does it to him or us thus to devour him. Not any. a thousand times better would it be to place him in solitary confinement he there feels conscience stricken that I conceive is punishment enough, these are the ones that need time for repentance.

            Fellow Members how can we be silent when we look arround [sic] and behold the

crimes that are perpetrated every day, and the wrongs and oppression that are in our land, is it not time that we were arousing public opinion and public sentiment so that all may take view of subjects which have their origin in the “fire waters of alcohol,” that we may have our laws so altered that the Maine law shall be enforced all over the Union, that slavery shall be no more and that Capital Punishment shall be dispensed with immediately, and all the other various things that mar the beauty and harmony of life may be annihilated and in lieu thereof education the

fountain of knowledge and peace may be diffused all over the Earth at her approach error and wrong disappear, harmony and quietude spread their halcyon sway over all the desert waist [sic] of imorality [sic] shall be dried up, the fruitful vine of peace and joy portray the harbinger of the malineum [sic].

                                    Dora