not very genteel, --I presented the object of my visit. A very fine-looking young fellow, who seemed to be principal of the establishment, replied, rather coldly, that he was not aware of having any particular interest in the subject, and he had nothing to give for the object stated. "What, sir,” said I, with an expression of surprise, “did I understand you to say that you were not aware of having any interest in the subject I have presented?" "Yes," he very calmly replied, "that was what I said." “Well, sir,” said I, “I regret to hear such a remark from you, as it affords me sad evidence that you do not understand your own business." That was pushing plainness of speech almost to the edge of impudence, I confess; but you must jog men's elbows hard, sometimes, before you can set them at thinking. A little heated by my bluntness, he remarked, with most provoking politeness, that if I supposed myself better acquainted with his business than he was himself, he should be most happy to take a few lessons of me. "I have no doubt I do in this matter," I replied, "and, if you please, I will proceed to instruct you forthwith." This I uttered with the utmost seriousness; but the seeming impudence of it carried the gentleman' quite beyond the point of irritation, and excited his bump of mirthfulness. He laughed in my face.

"Sir,

hat

The following dialogue then took place between us. you deal in hats, and intend to make a little money on every you sell." "Yes.” "Whatever sends additional customers to your counter, and increases their ability to purchase, promotes your interest, does it not? "Certainly." “Whatever destroys men's ability to purchase, and makes them content to wear old, worn-out hats, does your craft an injury, does it not?" "Very true." “Well, sir, if you and I were to walk out for an hour or two, through the streets and lanes, and along the wharves of the city, we should see scores of men with old, miserable, slouched hats on their heads — hats which ought, years ago, to have been thrown into the dock or the fire. Now, sir, what hinders those men, that they do not condemn the old head-dress, and walk up to your counter and purchase

"That,"

The men

a hat from your excellent and extensive assortment? he replied," is not a difficult question to answer. are too poor; they have not the money to spare, I suppose." "Very true, sir. But, if you please, step a little behind their present poverty, and tell me what, in your opinion, made the mass of them so poor that they cannot buy a decent hat; and has so far crushed their self-respect, that they are content to sport old concerns, whose rims have been torn half off, and whose crowns flap up and down as they walk, like the airvalve of a blacksmith's bellows." "Well, I do not

66

"Hold!" I exclaimed; "do not, I beg of you, say you do not know; but think one minute." He again broke forth in laughter, and at length replied, "Well, sir, if you must have it, I suppose it was the work of rum.” Exactly so, sir. I thought you would see the subject in its right light, with a very little assistance and reflection; and now, do you not begin to discover, sir, that you made a mistake, when you asserted, a few moments since, that you had no interest in the subject of temperance? There are thousands of poor topers and tipplers in this city, who expend every cent they get, beyond what purchases the bread that feeds them, at the dram-shops; and you will never get any patronage from them unless they become sober men. But, sir, let one of them go up to Washingtonian Hall, sign the temperance pledge, take the good counsel which will there be given him, and live up to the principle and prac tice of total abstinence, and he will not wear the old slouched hat eight weeks. The change in his habits will be discovered by his acquaintances; and some friend who has known him from a boy here, or who came from the same part of the country, and has observed his downward course with deep regret, will, now that the good work of reformation has begun, feel a strong desire to strengthen his good resolutions, and encourage him in well-doing. If he cannot command means to improve his dress, means will be furnished by some such friend. He will go to some of your excellent clothing stores, and get new garments, and then walk up to your store perhaps, and purchase

a new hat. You will put the profit of the trade in your pocket gains which you would never have received, but for the temperance efforts of some of your fellow-citizens. And, when I call on you as an humble servant of the cause, and ask you for a trifle to aid in carrying forward the work, you will, perhaps, give me the cold shoulder, and tell me you are not aware of having any interest in the subject."

Mr. President, feeble as was his assailant, the man was conquered. He saw the mistake he had made, and his hand found the way to his pocket with amazing rapidity. He handed me a dollar, and remarked, "Sir, I never saw the subject before in the light you have presented it." But why had he failed to do so? The facts were all before his eyes, as well as mine. Sir, he had not given the subject sufficient consideration to be able to see the direct influence of the traffic and use of strong drinks on the business in which he was engaged.

And thus it is, sir, with thousands. They have eyes sharp enough to discover how their business is likely to be affected by tariffs and railroad improvements; by changes in our commercial policy, or the state of Europe; by the failure of the crops, or the discovery of gold mines on the other side of the continent. But they do not see, that a vile system, directly in their midst, a branch of business carried on within a stone's cast of their doors, is taxing them more heavily, and eating larger holes into the very roots of their prosperity, than any other evil which curses community.

And it is because the business men of community do not investigate this subject, to learn the bearings of the rum traffic on the particular business in which they are engaged, that I, as an humble advocate of the temperance reform, have felt called upon, of late, to press on the attention of those who have listened to me the particular branch of the subject to which I have invited your attention this evening. I know it may be said, that in the view of the subject I have been laboring to present, the appeal is not made to men's benevolence, but to their selfishness. Very true. Very true. But, nevertheless, if an intelligent

view of the vile injustice of the liquor traffic, and its injurious effect on the pecuniary interests of men, shall have the effect to direct their efforts against the system of which I complain, until it shall be annihilated, the ends of benevolence and humanity will have been secured. But, sir, to return from this digression to our proper subject.

I demand, in the name and behalf of all useful occupations among men, that this nuisance of the rum traffic be abated. There is no place for it in the social system among that brotherhood of trades and branches of business which exist

for the supply of our natural wants. What does the grogseller furnish to the list of valuable commodities? Sir, he is a producer, beyond dispute. No one will presume to question that he is a manufacturer. But what does he produce? What is the manufactured article with which he proposes to bless his fellow-men? It is, when finished, the thing called drunkard. He builds or leases a shop, furnishes it with all necessary apparatus-demijohns, decanters, glasses, and toddysticks with villanous mixtures of various strength and complexion, and then commences operations. He takes the raw material, which he is about to operate upon, from the happy homes of his fellow-citizens, and, after passing it through a variety of operations, he turns off the manufactured article,—a drunkard ! Sir, I am not surprised that such manufacturers are ashamed of their work when it is finished. The branch of business they follow is, I believe, the only one carried on in Connecticut which turns off a manufactured article worth less than the raw material. Sir, I repeat that I am not surprised they are ashamed of their work- that they do not wish the credit of the job. The blacksmith takes a bar of iron, heats it at his forge, and, upon his anvil, gives it another form, and we have a horseshoe. The shoe is, when finished, worth more than the iron of which it was made. That man need not be ashamed of his work. So the shoemaker takes into his hands some bits of leather, and, employing his skill upon them, he, in a short time, turns you off a pair of shoes or boots-articles

worth much more than the raw material of which they were fashioned. So with every useful trade. The cotton cloth which is brought from the mill is worth much more than the cotton when carried there in the bale. Not so with certain other manufacturing establishments of Bloomfield. The raw material is rendered less valuable at every successive step in the process of transformation; and when their work is done, as I have before hinted, they are ashamed of it. Go into a village in which there are but two grog-selling establishments, all told, and if you shall find a man drunk in the public streets, it is not one time in ten that you can find a citizen who will acknowledge he sold him the liquor. Go to Mr. Rum-seller No. 1, and ask, "Sir, have you furnished Mr. A. B., who lies out here by the street side, with strong drink to-day?" He will answer in the negative. Point his neighbor, Grog-seller No. 2, to the prostrate form of that fellowbeing, and ask if that be a specimen of his handicraft, and he will declare to you, perhaps, that the individual has not been to his place of business for a week. And yet you know that the man must have obtained the poison at one of those establishments. There are no others of the kind in the village. The man came in sober, and you know he did not bring rum with him, for if he had, he would have been drunk when he reached the village. Here now has been a piece of work done which none will acknowledge. Nor can we wonder

Nineteen times in twenty, the men who will now engage in a business producing such results will speak falsely in relation to any matter connected with it, if the utterance of truth might subject them to censure or punishment. How different is the course pursued by men who are engaged in useful and honest employments! I have noticed that most of our manufacturers seem quite proud of their work. They send out their goods with their own proper name attached to them. They label, number, and box them up in good style; and you may generally learn, by looking at a package of goods in Chicago or St. Louis, at which of our New England villages they were