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CHAPTER V.

Tenth Remonstrative Reason considered and reduced to a Logical Conclusion— Part 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.

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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

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* Dr. Peck, of New York.

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

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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

intoxication, now rapidly diminishing among all classes, under the influence of moral suasion and example, would be aggravated by indulgences under the proposed law, as under the suffrage law of 1845."-Vid. Tenth Reason.

The doctor's following laconic reply, it will be perceived, was evidently designed to show, conclusively, that the tenth. reason to sustain the remonstrance before the Legislature was simply opinionative; and, that a professed "reason," founded on nothing but opinion, is to be considered, in all cases, as vague, indefinite, and baseless, having no foundation on facts for support. Hence, in reply to a professed reason of thousands of remonstrancers against the legislative enactment of the Liquor Law of Maine, Dr. Peck tips the whole fabric of their tenth reason topsy-turvy by one dash of pen, ink, and paper, thus: "Their opinion in these matters is worth nothing. We deny that drunkenness increased under the suffrage license law of 1845; and that it is now rapidly diminishing, no man of common sense and common observation believes for a moment."

Such are the united opinions of umpires between the right and wrong of all that belongs to the liquor-craft monopoly. The amount is, that no opinions, however plausible, can ever prove that it is right to do wrong! As well might an opinion prove that light is darkness, or that darkness is light! The impracticability of such a sophism could as easily be overcome, as to prove by any argumentative opinions that it is right to make and sell intoxicating liquors, to make and kill drunkards by a CRAFT to accumulate wealth, sustained by the laws of the land, while the thundering voice of Omnipotence from heaven denounces

TENTH REASON OF REMONSTRANCE.

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WOES against drunkenness, drunkards, and drunkard makers, and the very tokens of the forthcoming woes are filling the land with wretchedness.

And hence we remark conclusively on this article, that if the Liquor Law of Maine, in statute throughout Christendom and the world, would prevent the curse of drunkenness at once, by the destruction of the poison which produces self-murder by degrees, slowly and surely (though under the lashing influence of discriminate moral suasion, and conscience let loose upon transgressors, yet resisted efficiently by the power of a morbid appetite and thirst for strong drink unto perpetual drunkenness, in full view of all its consequences both here and hereafter), then surely the voice of humanity, in philanthropic strains, loud and long, with trumpet sound, would dictate the passage of the Liquor Law of Maine into a STATUTE, not only in the State of New York, but throughout the American Union, and all nations of the earth, without fail or delay. None would be opposed to the universal Temperance Reformation instanter, but manufacturers, traffickers, and consumers of alcoholic poisonous beverages, to be made and sold for wealth, and consumed for pleasure, at the expense of all the wretchedness resulting from drunkenness in this life, and the woes of endless death in the world to come, to all impenitent parties concerned in the God-provoking, heaven-daring, soul-destroying craft of the prevailing system of liquor monopoly.

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Nothing is wanting but the Liquor Law of Maine, legally adopted, as a STATUTE of every national government of the earth, and executed faithfully by the combined

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