never did, never does, never can, never will do any good.. That it don't pay to have our active, intelligent boys transformed into drunkards, thieves and criminals, to enable one man to lead an easy life by selling them liquor.
To reduce the question to a narrow compass and a nice point, is it right to permit a man who, for the sake of gain, will engage in the sale of poison?"
The parties petitioning for license to sell intoxicating liquors failed, at this session of the Board, to get such permits.
INGERSOLL'S
ARRAIGNMENT OF ALCOHOL.
Col. Robert G. Ingersoll in addressing a jury in a case which involved the manufacture of alcohol repeated the following terrible arraignment of the demon. No one can gainsay its truth and no one can read it without a shudder:
"I am aware that there is a prejudice against any man who manufactures alcohol. I believe that from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm in the distillery until it empties into the jaws of death, dishonor and crime, it demoralizes everybody that touches it, from its source to where it ends. I do not believe that anybody can contemplate the object without being prejudiced against the liquor crime. All we have to do, gentlemen, is to think of the wrecks on either side of the stream of death, of the suicides, of insanity, of the ignorance, of the destitution, of the little children tugging at the faded and withered breast of weeping and despairing mothers, of wives asking for bread, of the men of genius it has wrecked, the men struggling with imaginary serpents, produced by this devilish thing; and when you think of the jails, of the almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, of the scaffolds upon either bank, I do not wonder that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against this damnable stuff called alcohol. Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its strength and old age in its weakness. It breaks the father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes natural affection, erases conjugal attachment, blights parental hope, and brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life. It makes wives widows, children orphans, fathers fiends and all of them paupers and beggars. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemic, invites cholera, imports pestilence and embraces consumption. It covers the land with idleness, misery and crime. It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses, and demands your asylums. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes riots. It crowds your penitentiaries and furnishes victims for your scaffolds. It is the life blood