TEMPERANCE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

The first Temperance Society organized in this country, in the year 1808, provided that “No member shall be intoxicated under a penalty of fifty cents, and no member shall ask another person to take a drink under a penalty of twenty-five cents.”

There was a Temperance Society in the State of Maine, prior to the year 1825, which had the following remarkable plank in its platform: “If any member of this Society shall get drunk, he shall be obliged to stand treat for the whole Society all round!”

A hundred years ago the virtues of rum were set forth in an English publication after the following fashion:

“It sloweth age, it strengthened youth, it helpeth digestion, it cutteth phlegme, it abandoneth melancholy, it relisheth the heart, it lighteneth the mind, it quickeneth the spirits, it cureth the hydupsia, it healeth the strangurie, it pounceth the stone, it expelleth the gravel, it puffeth away ventosity; it keepeth and preserveth the head from whirling, the tongue from lisping, the mouth from snaffling, the teeth from chattering and the throat from rattling. It keepeth the weasen from stiffling, the stomach from wambling and the heart from swelling. It keepeth the hands from shivering, the sinews from shrinking, the veins from crumbling, the bones from aching, and the marrow from soaking.”