Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871. Excerpt: ... VIII. Baiitmat Intemperance an;d the Remedy:. § 126. The United States of North America have the unquestioned honour of originating the first systematic and organized plan for the suppression of Intemperance amongst the "Western nations, in modern times. Here, as in the mother land, it had been considered, by legislators and Christians alike, that the licence and supervision of the drink traffic, the punishment of drunkards, and the fining of transgressing publicans, were all that could be done to repress intemperance, beyond the appeals of the moralist and the preacher. The people of the States, however, untrammeled by the conservative and conventional habits of the old country,--unburdened by the dead-weight of enormous pecuniary interests,--unvitiated as yet by the despotism of fashion and the reign of an 'upper ten thousand,'--uncorrupted by the influx of wealth and luxury, of war, speculation, and the love of pleasure, (which are more recent developments)--were not disposed to accept the great curse as a thing absolutely necessary and inevitable. On the contrary, as a practical people, engaged in hewing out a new form of society and civilization, they set themselves to ascertain the reason of things being as they were, and then straightway began the work of reform. There were, of course, great difficulties in the way,--of interest, prejudice, appetite, and even fashion,--but these were neither so inveterate nor so vast as in Great Britain, where a new truth has to fight its way over strongly entrenched interests, and the social debris of a thousand years. Besides, what were difficulties to the genius of a people who had just emerged, not only safely, but triumphantly, from a long and terrible conflict for political independence, and had become a...
Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.
