A Judge’s Temperance Lecture

A Judge's Temperance Lecture. At Morris, Grundy county, Illinois, three saloon-keepers—one woman and two men—were arrested and indicted for selling liquor to minors. As usual in such cases, the liquor sellers were lavish in their funds in aid of their unfortunate co-workers, and eminent counsel was employed in defense of these destroyers of the bodies and souls of the young and rising generation. But the proof of their guilt was so fully demonstrated that the jury were compelled to pronounce them guilty. Hon J. N. Reading, the presiding judge, in pronouncing the sentence of the court, used the following language: "The jury having found you guilty of selling intoxicating liquors to a minor, it remains for the court to pronounce the sentence of the law. The penalty for this offense, fixed by the legislature,indicates that it considered the crime to be of a serious character. By the law you may sell to men and to women, if they will buy. You have given your bond and paid for your license to sell to them, and no one has the right to molest you in your legal business. No matter what the consequence may be, no matter what poverty and destitution are produced by selling according to law, you have paid your money for this privilege, and you are licensed to pursue jour calling. No matter what families are distracted and rendered miserable, no matter what wives are treated with violence) what children starve, or mourn over the degradation of a parent, your business is legalized, and no one may interfere with you in it. No matter what mother may agonize over the loss of a son, or sister blush for the shame of a brother, you have the right to disregard them all, and pursue your legal calling; you are licensed. You can fit up your lawful place of business in the most enticing and captivating form; you can furnish it with the most

620 IMPROVEMENT ERA. elegant and costly equipment for your lawful trade; you may fill it with the allurements to amusements; you may use all your arts to induce visitors; you may skillfully expose to view your choice wines and most captivating beverages; you may then induce thirst by all contrivances to produce a raging appetite for drink, and then you may supply that appetite to the full—because it is lawful; you have a license. You may allow boys, almost children, to frequent your saloon; they may witness the apparent satisfaction with which their seniors quaff the sparkling glass; you may be schooling and training them for the period of twenty-one, when they, too, can participate—for all this is lawful. You may hold the cup to their very lips; but you must not let them drink— that is unlawful. But, while you have all these privileges for the money which you pay, this poor privilege of selling to children is denied you. Here parents have a right to say, 'Leave my son to me until the law gives you the right to destroy him! Do not anticipate that terrible moment when I can assert for him no further rights of protection! That will be soon enough for me, for his mother, for his sisters, for his friends, and for the community to see him take his road to death. Give him to us in his childhood, at least! Let us have a few years of his young life, in which we may enjoy his innocence, to repay us in some degree for the care and love we have lavished upon him!' This is something you, who now stand prisoners at the bar, have not paid for; this is not embraced in your license. You have your 'bond' to use in its full extent, but in thus taking your 'pound of flesh' you draw the blood, and that which is nearest the heart. The law in its wisdom does not permit this, and you must obey the law. By the verdict of the jury you have been found guilty of transgressing the law. Its extreme penalty is thirty days' imprisonment in the county jail, and one hundred dollars fine; its lowest, ten days imprisonment and twenty dollars fine. "For this offense, the court sentences you to ten days' imprisonment and seventy-five dollars and costs; and that you stand committed until the fine and costs of this prosecution are paid." Remember, dear reader, you are to say by your vote, June 27, whether or not licensed or legalized saloons and the sale of liquor are to continue or be prevented in Utah. What will you do?