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Games Vice Grog-shops

Games Vice Grog-shops image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
April
Year
1874
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Ihe temporalice orusade ad vanees with varying fortunes. But there can be no doubt that it has recqvered the holy city of inany a soul profaned by the infidel poasession of low passiona. And already the question presses, what arniy of oocupation shall be left within these places to maintain the costly victory? For it is written that wheu the ovil spirit revisiting hisold abode linas ifeinpty, he returns theroto with seveu others worse than himself. Certain towns, we observe, zealous in good works, resolve to banish " every bar and billiard-table " froui their limita - What local trespasses may be laid to the suore of the billiard-table we do not know. But this iudiscriminate coupling of unrelated matters is not likely, we subínit, to benefit the cause which the village fathers have at heart. A ruin-shop is the bañe of a cominunity. Tho billiard-table uiay ba or may represent its antidote. And it is quite possible that only by a judicious subetitutiou of the billiard-table can the rum-shop be kept out of town. As a religioue paper wisely and wittily instructs an anxious inauirer that. " dancing is wicked when it is wioked, and is not wicked when it is uot wicked," so a family journal may say, without fear of imseonstruction, that bilHards and tenpins are the possiblo allies of the reformers, and a posaible means of graoe. Wesley sitw no reason why all the best tunes shouid belong to the devil. And Methodist hymns now stir the heart and dim the eyt& of the devout, whose music once was fitted to the bailada of the slums and the cock-pit. Healthy blood does not erare the excitement of liquor. Nor do children want it. It is spent men, weak men, sedentary men, men who have long forgotten the glow and freshness of vigorous boyhood, who thirst for the potent poison. In that fact is the hint of helpfulness. ' If we can supply aome amusement and innocent excitemeut to the leisure of drudgery, routine labor, and weariness, we ghall go far to circumvent the tempUtion of the saloon. The pavior, or carter, or farmhand, or truckman, cannot read Shakespeare or even the newspaper with profit when his day's work is done. The accountant, or broker, or lawyer, or builder, or shop-keeper, umy be too tired to find reiresnnient in the prayer-meetiug or pleasuro in the new magazine, or interest in the douiestic versión of the neighborhood gossip. What all these toilers need, they and their weary wives as well, is entertainment, amusement, fun. Por the few, this end is attainable under their own roofs, with billiards or round gaines, or the many amusements which half a dozen bright families together devise and execute. For Ihe many, the best resource seems to be mutual benefit clubs, where billiards, ten-pins, and the like entertninments can be cheaply enjoyed, and where liquor is forbidden. Now that the longer days are comiug, the temperanco reformers of villages might well bestir themselves to organize base-ball sidt'S, quoitpitching matches, or cricket olubs. A woll-regulated gymnasium is oiie of the best anti-rum missions All hearty out of door amusemeuts belong to the same class. Nobody be'ieves more heartily in total abstinenoe, nor more constautly labors to seoure it thun Mother Nature. The more houra we can p;iss in her great samtorium - whose roof is the sky, whose walls are the far horizon, ind wheremethod of cure is the holding us with iuuumerable interests of good away from all inter ests of evil - the bet ter for us, body and soul. JN o doubt the hurry in which Americana li e provokes and proruoteg the desire for stiiuulauts. It seems to tbis nation rather frivolous and childish to stop its work lor play, or take any moment whioh could be used to make money for the speuding theroof instead. But the quality of rieither our thinking nor our I doing declaren this sparing to be econo my. Wa havo not yet conspieuouily outehone the the Greuk culture. Pythagora8, one of the groatost of the Athenian philosopkers, was also the inventor of boxing. The fact shows the relationship between Greek scholarship and Greek gymnastics. Those wiso Hellenes built their state on Üie sound pliysical health of the citizons. The use of unmixed wine was held barbarous and harruful to brain and musole alike. The Athenian idler would not have found corner groceries seductive, though tour oí tnoin had bounded every square. He mixed his cup of Pramnium, or wine of Cyprus, with three parts of water. His fine healthful body found exciteniont and stimulant enough in the auushine and the air. And tho crowds of handsome loungers who overflow the markets, tho oourts, the gymnasia, the theater, tho barbera' shaps, the schools of the sopliista and philosophers, were uot made np of Bots and debauchees. Out-of-door lite, alightdiet largely made of fraits, cleanliness, and gymnastics, gave to the world the handsomest, most intellectual, most oultivated, and most températe race that populous orb has possussed. We do not adviso a return to Attio loafng or Attic faiths. But a flavor of Attic eisure and health would penétrate our vapid and unwholesome society to its jreat gaiu. And nothing is more certaiu than that our overdriveii people mast bo )ersuaded into wiser habits of living bo'ore it will cease to be an intemperate peo)le. We would have preaohers declare .he gOipel of the rngoneration of tho body hrough sunshine, water, air, and exercise. We would have teachers warn their upili of judgiueut tooomo for ging of bad ventilation, dirt, indolenou, impurity, gluttony. We would hftre journnlistii cali smners to ropentancn for their wasta ot onergies and ovil baste to be rioh which íorbid amusement and rest and open i the way to the false friendship and hülpfulncss of liquor. And one and all should join to ndviso otaeerful entertainment of ome sort every duy The temperance revivul 'has plucted rnany brand, from the burnin. „t the oíd ftro mil oreep and creep and overtako this touohwood agam, if it be not put to botter uses atraightway. To soine extent the grog-shop has boen dispossessed. No w íts substituto must be established. And we forebode that every amusement which. can be made haimloss will be needed to supply the place of that floree ploasure whioh good citizpns evervwhnr,. .MM prohibit.-

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Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus