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Show oe WHEN EVERYONE TOOK A DRINK (From the Autobiography of Horace Greeley.) In my childhood there was no merry-making, there was no entertainment entertain-ment or relatives er friends, there vrs scarcely a casual gathering of two or three neighbors for an even-Irg's even-Irg's chat, without strong drink. Cider, always, while It remained drinkable without severe ronlortions 01 visage Hum, at all seasons and on all occasions, wan required and provided. No house or barn was raised without a bountiful supply of the latter, and generally of both. A wedding without "toddy," "sling-' or "punch," with rum undisguised in abundance, would have been deemed ' a poor, mean affair, even among the penniless, while the more fortunate nnd thrltty, of course, dispensed wine, brandy and rrin In profusion Dancing almost the only pastime wherein the sexes Jointly participated was always enlivened und stimu teted by liquor. Militia trainings-then trainings-then rigidly enforced at least twice a jear usually wound up with a drinking drink-ing frolic at the village tavern. Elec-t'on Elec-t'on days were drinking days, as they still too commonly are, and even funerals fu-nerals were regarded as inadequately celebrated without the d.spensing eif fplrltous consolullon. so that I distinctly dis-tinctly remember the neighborhood talk, in 1K20, after tho funeral of a poor mans child, that it he hadn't been moan as well as poor he would have cheered the hearts of his sympathizing sym-pathizing friends by treating them at leatt to one gallon of rum. 1 have heard my father say that be hod mowed through the: haying season sea-son of thirty consecutive years, and never a day without liquor; and tho account of an Irishman who mowed end pitched throughout one haying, drinking only buttermilk, while bis ctsociates drank rum. yet accomplished accom-plished more, and with less fatigue, than any of them, was received with ruuch wondering incredulity, as though it had been certified that he had lived wholly on air. Nay, wo (bad un ord. nation in Amherst nearly ' fifty years ago, settling an able and popular young clergyman named Lord (I believe ho Is now tho venerable ex-presldent of Dartmouth college) to the signal satisfaction of the great body of oHir people, and, according to my recollection, strong drink was more generally ami bountifully dispensed dis-pensed thau on any previous occasion, occa-sion, bottles and glasses being el ou tables In front of many tanners' houses as an invitation to those who passed ou their way to or from the installation to Ktop and drink freely. We have worse liquor now than we bad then, and delirium tremens, apoplexy, apo-plexy, palsy, etc , come pooner and oftener to those who use It. But our consumers of strong drink are a class, whereas they were then the whole people. The pious probably drank more discreetly than the ungodly, but trey all drank to their own satisfaction, satisfac-tion, and. I judge, more thau was con-elbtent con-elbtent with their personal gooJ. |