ELEVENTH REASON OF REMONSTRANCE. 97 Law statute encroachment; the average proportion of loss to each county of the Empire State could not probably be considered less than one tenth of the estimated loss of the emporium of the State. Perhaps the Remonstrancers would estimate the average proportion of loss to the other counties of the State much higher. But, be that as it may, higher or lower, one-tenth of one hundred millions would be ten millions of dollars at an average to each of the other fifty-seven counties of the State, amounting in all to five hundred and seventy millions of dollars, which, added to the one hundred millions of the city and county of New York, would be six hundred and seventy millions of dollars. This immense sum of capital, all in funds or investments of liquor dealers and their accomplices, in the most lucrative craft that adorns the innumerable splendid hotels, elegant boarding-houses, and all necessary eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping houses of entertainment, to say nothing of the innumerable equally necessary dram-shops, and indescribable other places of resort for drinking and tak ing comfort, all of which adorn, and beautify, and enrich this celebrated Empire State of the American Union. And yet, sad to relate, or even state, the fearfully impending danger of loss, while six hundred and seventy millions of dollars are at hazard of loss by the threatened Maine law! But LET THE LIQUOR DEALER PLEAD HIS OWN CAUSE! He would doubtless say, Alas! who can wonder that stockholders of such wealth and usefulness should be moved at the sound of the trumpet of alarm from hosts of reformed 88 EIGHTH AND NINTH REASONS OF REMONSTRANCE. stupefy, derange, craze, and madden, till one after another has long been dead. Others are dying. And some abandoned wretches, in fits of delirium tremens, murder their wives, cut the throats of their children, set their house on fire, cut their own throat, and thus take the awful leap into dark, dread eternity, to receive the wages of sin justly due, which is nothing less nor more than ceaseless, hopeless death, "everlasting punishment," endless misery, "eternal damnation!" In torment's endless fiery pit of hell, Where devils howl, and drunkards with them dwell; Nor water, even, to cool tongues, can come. CHAPTER V. Tenth Remonstrative Reason considered and reduced to a Logical ConclusionPart of the Eleventh Reason Analyzed - Liquor Dealers Plea for King AlcoholProspective Effects of the Maine Law, if obtained as a Statute of the State of New York-Comparative Loss and Gain to the City and State of New York, and also to the General Community, if the Liquor Law of Maine should become the Statute and General Law of Nations. TENTH REASON OF REMONSTRANCE. * THE tenth remonstrative reason against the introduction of the Liquor Law of Maine into the State of New York, as a statute, is now before the legislature of the Empire State [Feb., 1852], on a question of vital importance to the whole American Union, and to all nations of the earth. And as this reason has been pronounced by an able writer, as merely "opinionative," i. e., a sentiment vaguely drawn on one side of a sentimental line of demarkation, founded merely on assumption, which admits of no other argumentative authority than opinion against opinion; hence the Rev. Mr. H. B. Beegle, of Boundbrook, N. J., and the Rev. George Peck, D. D., of New York city, are hereby introduced as umpires, so far as their published opinions, unitedly, may tend to settle the important question of right or wrong, between advocates of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, as a com * Dr. Peck, of New York. 90 TENTH REASON OF REMONSTRANCE. mon beverage, and the advocates of the liquor-craft monopoly, sustained by statute law. In a well-written article for the Christian Advocate and Journal, headed "RUM SELLING," and published under date of February 5, 1852, the Rev. Mr. Beegle gives his opinion to the public on the question of right or wrong to make, sell, and consume intoxicating liquors. The article occupies more than a column of the large sheet of the valuable paper above named, and is worthy of perusal by all advocates, either for or against the right or the wrong of all that belongs to the liquor-craft business. The following are extracts from the article above stated: 66 RUM SELLING. "The rum-seller, the rum-seller! What can be said in favor of the rum-seller, who, for gain-paltry gain-will continue to dispense that which is destroying the peace and happiness, honor, health, and life, soul and body, of those around him, and look, unmoved, upon the ruin he is working in the community, the legitimate fruit of his business? Better, yea better, ten thousand times better for the rum-seller, to give to each and all his customers, as they come, a dose of arsenic, which would lay them dead in a few hours. "It would save the drunkard a vast amount of suffering. Who can portray the sufferings of a drunkard, when, in the last burning crucible of rum, suffering the delirium tremens? Here the gnawings of liquid fire are devouring him! his body sinks and mind reels under the load of real torture! All this suffering would have been saved, had TENTH REASON OF REMONSTRANCE. 91 the rum-seller been kind enough to have given him a dose of arsenic. "The drunkard's wife! Who can tell her woe, her sufferings, and her grief? No language is sufficiently expressive, no tongue sufficiently eloquent, to portray the sufferings of the drunkard's wife. Had the rum-seller given arsenic, it would have stanched this tide of woe, prevented the drunkard from squandering his property, and beggaring his family. A dose of arsenic from the rum-seller would have murdered him more decently, more cheaply, and just as effectually as all the poison he bought with his farm and cash, and would have saved this property to the drukard's family, where it should be. It would sooner open the eyes of the community to see the startling crime of licensing such a business, and the worse crime of prosecuting it. "If the rum-seller would administer arsenic, and the victim should in a few hours lie down dead, it would not be long before those of his customers who might remain, startled and surprised at the appalling sight, would throw down the fatal poison, and hasten home to their business; the community would awake, and take the alarm, and, burning with virtuous indignation, would hang the murderer, and drive the business from the land." Such is the opinion of the Rev. Mr. BEEgle. Doctor Peck's reply to the tenth reason of the remonstrance of New Yorkers, against the legislative enactment of the Liquor Law of Maine, is short, comprehensive, and decisive. The amount of the remonstrative reason, under his review, was merely the assumption, " That the vice of |