This question was asked by a man who knew more than any one else, and he knew very well what the answer would be. We should suspect a man of insanity who looked for grapes on a thorn bush. And yet we see numbers of both men and women looking for happiness and comfort in the Public House, and judging from their appearance afterwards, we feel sure they went for grapes and found festering thorns! It was our duty, some time ago, to be part of a deputation to support a memorial to the Magistrates at what is called "The Brewster Sessions." There was a number of Ministers and others who represent the Temperance movement, with some ladies like-minded, and we took our places in the same court where the publicans and their friends were. Some of these had come to transfer licenses, others to seek to have in-beershops, and power to sell other kinds of drink. The Magistrates, however, refused both of the applications for new licenses, nor did we wonder, when we saw those who were waiting to be punished or pardoned, as the case might be. In the gallery were a number of the friends of those who were waiting to have their names called upon, and then to appear in the dock. Besides these, were the usual loafers, many of whom have found, or will find work for the police, after going to seek grapes where thorns grow: and then others, like the writer, who were on the lookout for a profitable way to spend an hour or two. It was a most instructive time, and one wonders how it is that long-headed Englishmen can, after seeing the results of visiting the publichouse, ever be persuaded that grapes are to be got there without trouble. The mistake many good people make is looking on drinking as a failing, and not as a crime. It must be a sin for any one to make himself eligible for doing all sorts of mischief and wrong, as men do who take, as they say, "a sup of drink." It is this sup of drink that gives them the impetus towards cruelty and lust, and we must insist upon it that for a man to prepare himself for wickedness is a sin against himself and his God. If this be so, the social element in drinking makes it all the more dangerous. Men and women drink often because it is considered a kind and hospitable thing to offer it, and an ungenerous and churlish thing to refuse it. What is this but calling a thorn a vine? While we were in the court, several cases came before the Magistrates -- "Drunk and Disorderly," varied by obscenity and quarrelling. One woman told the Bench that she had been teetotal for five and a half years, till she came into the town to pay a debt, and then she had a glass, "and it will be twenty years before I have any more." "Ah!" said "His Worship," "LISTEN TO NO FRIEND THAT WANTS YOU TO TAKE DRINK." Another poor wretch was "Drunk and Incapable." She told the Magistrates that she had come to get a situation, that her box was at the station. She had evidently seen better days. The Chairman said how sorry he was to see a woman like her, evidently a superior person, in such a case, and she gladly promised to be a better woman, but she had been more than once to the thorn for grapes, and we fear will go again. There was a young fellow brought up for drunkenness and obscenity, whose fine was paid by his mother. She looked a decent but poor woman, and one could not but wonder what she had parted with to raise the money, to keep what one of the Magistrates called a blackguard, out of prison. But what will not a mother's love do! These are a few of the cases which made us wonder that in our town we have so many places, licensed by the same Magistrates, to sell that which fits men and women to appear in the court to be punished. We wonder how long it will take to make the English people see that so long as we allow drinking shops to abound, there will be a necessity for police and lock-ups, and that it is as easy to gather grapes of thorns as to expect peace and quietness and facilities for drinking to exist together? GOD'S ANGER IS A FIRE THAT |
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