Intemperance is not the cause of _every_ crime that is committed,
though it is of very many of them. It is _itself_ one of the greatest
of crimes. It is a violation of not one law only, but of _many_. The
drunkard outrages the law of his nature, tramples on the laws of
morality, and flings contempt on the law of the Almighty; and it is
not at all wonderful that so manifold a sin should meet with a various
and adequate retribution. Intemperance unfits its votaries for every
thing good, and qualifies them for, and spurs them onward to the
commission of every base and sinful work; and it is impossible to
estimate the crimes it has committed, or the miseries it has produced.
I saw, in the Windsor Prison, many of the criminal votaries of this
Moloch of modern idolatry, and my soul was often severely pained in
contemplating the certain and lasting misery with which he rewarded
his most faithful worshippers. I have not time, in this place, to
enter into a full discussion of the connexion of intemperance with the
crimes and misery of state prisons; but I will present a few striking
illustrations of the subject, which may answer in the place of a
volume.
L. N. was a very intemperate drinker. Rum had _marked_ him for her
own. He had worshipped his idol in gaols and prisons for a thousand
miles round; and he was always punctual and regular in his devotions.
The consequence was--the loss of public confidence--a straw pillow for
his head, and a grated dungeon for his home--the pollution of his
soul, and the ruin of his body--a death in shrieks of agony, and a
prison-yard for his grave.
C. C. learned while a youth to drink the poisoned glass. He was well
educated, and of a respectable family. His habit of intemperate
drinking unfitted him for business, and he became the scoff and scorn
of the giddy rabble. He fled his country for a crime, and remained at
a distance for years, adding sin to sin. At length he returned home
and repeated his former crime, for which he was sent to Windsor.
No one can describe the pain he endured when taken away from the
bottle. "_Horrors!_--_Blue_ horrors!--_Ruffled_ horrors!" were the
words in which he expressed the agony of his body and soul, under the
cravings of an intemperate thirst for rum. After several years he was
pardoned, but he returned to his former habit; and in one of his
paroxysms of intoxication he inflicted a mortal wound on a
fellow-being, and was sent back to prison, where he now is.
B. F. H. was a victim of drunkenness. Few men ever received from the
hand of their Creator a richer store of intellectual capacity than
this man, and on none were such gems more wastefully lavished. He
abandoned a most amiable wife; and after spending many years in
different prisons, the last I heard of him he was fitting for another.
Over this victim, intemperance might boast, for he was like a star of
superior brightness; he was learned, ingenious, and eloquent,
qualified for a high station, but self-damned to the lowest.
P. D. illustrated very affectingly the legitimate consequences of
intemperance. After he became its victim, it made him the author of a
crime for which he was sent to prison for eighteen months. When this
term had expired, he enjoyed liberty about three months, during which
time he added another crime to the effects of rum, for which he was
sent back to prison for three years. When these had expired, he was
let out into the fields of liberty again; but in less than _seven
hours_ he was in gaol for a crime which he had had but just time
enough to get drunk and commit, and in less than _seven days_ he was
back again in prison for six years.
This was entirely the effect of rum. He was not a criminal of
_choice_, but when filled with rum, he would always steal. I never
knew a man of better or purer moral feelings, when he was sober; and
what is by no means common, he had such a sense of the crimes he
committed, that he justified his punishment, and always considered it
merciful. What a pity that _such_ a man should have been ruined by
intemperance.
I need not dwell on particular cases.--How great a proportion of the
crimes which sent so many prisoners to Windsor, were directly or
indirectly caused by the sin of intemperate drinking, I have not
sufficient data to ascertain; but I have no hesitation in saying, that
one half of the entire number would never have been in that gloomy
mansion, if there never had been any intoxicating liquors. The victims
of this prevailing sin, which I saw in that dreary house, are passing
through the field of memory, and they appear like the armies of Gog
and Magog. It would be well for the dealers in this ruinous article to
dwell a few minutes every night on the _moral character_ of their
employment. They are earning their daily bread, and growing rich, on
the profits of a poison which sends the _body_ of the purchaser
through flames of torment to an untimely grave, and prepares his
_soul_ for the miseries of the second death.--Let rum, and all the
family of intoxicating drinks, be banished from the land, and half the
rooms in our prisons will be soon found without an inhabitant.
I have known many prisoners who had gone to such excess in drinking,
that for a year after they came into prison they endured a trembling
of their hands, and a burning thirst for rum, which rendered their
existence a real curse. Very many have I heard lamenting their crimes
as having been occasioned by rum. Their language was--"If it had not
been for liquor, I should not have done so;" and this was no doubt the
fact. But though the prisoners so deeply lament their past folly and
sin in drinking, it is not easy to cure them of it. After spending
years in prison, and after many a "dolorous lament" over the effects
of intoxication--after writing and publishing against intemperance, it
is no strange thing to hear that they are drunk the day they are
released. With one instance of this kind I will close this article. B.
F. H. while in prison, wrote several essays on the sin of
intemperance, to which he had been given, and delivered an oration on
the subject in the prison chapel; and he professed to have been
thoroughly reformed. Through the influence of his friends he was
pardoned, and the journal of the prison contains the following entry
in respect to him;--"Benj. F. Harwood _pardoned_--returned at
night--DRUNK."
INFLUENCE OF "FREE MASONRY" ON THE REGULATIONS OF PRISONS, AND THE
DECISION OF COURTS.
On this contested point, I am, from occular demonstration, a perfect
sceptic. I have known many Freemasons in prison, and I have known
_masonic_ keepers treat them with a severity for which there can be no
excuse. I have known many instances of this kind. And so thoroughly is
it understood that MASONRY is of no use to a man in that prison, that
when a masonic prisoner is in punishment, the common remark
is,--"This is rather hard treatment to receive from a brother."
I am not a _mason_, and should there be any real necessity for me to
take sides in the contest on this subject, I should be an ANTI. I am
not then under the influence of any prejudice in favor of the order,
and I wish to record it here as a historic fact, that masonry was not
of any obvious advantage to a single prisoner in Windsor, during my
whole acquaintance with it. I never heard it mentioned as a matter of
complaint by the prisoners, that any one had been favored in the least
because he was a mason, which was not the case in respect to other
things. It was often said of the Master Weaver, that he was partial to
the IRISH, and to ROMAN CATHOLICS. The Superintendent was often
accused of shewing favor to the BAPTISTS. One of the Visiters was
often cursed because he was thought to be a particular friend to
professors. But it was never said of Judge Cotton, or Captain Hunter,
that they were partial to the masons. Indeed I always thought that
they retained a little _wrath_ against such prisoners as had belonged
to _lodges_, on account of their having disgraced the order. As an
instance of the treatment which masons have to endure in Windsor, I
will relate the case of H. M.
He was sent to the prison for ten years. He was a man of good habits,
was industrious and orderly, and I know not that he did any thing that
should make him an object for particular wrath; and yet he was made to
stay nine years out of ten, and was, moreover, treated rather
unmercifully all the time. It is said by some that the rule of the
masons is to _hide_ a brother's faults, while they _can_ be hidden,
and to withdraw their protection from those whose faults are known.
If this is true, it accounts for the treatment which I have mentioned.
But however this may be, I have two facts in relation to masonry
which I learned in Windsor, and I shall make this the place to record
them. The first relates to a stranger who was apprehended in
Burlington and committed to gaol for passing counterfeit money. He was
a man of gentlemanly appearance, and there was no doubt of his being
guilty of the crime alleged against him. Soon after his commitment a
letter from him to some of the principal men of the place, drew a
number of them to his room. He was taken out on bail, and permitted to
go on his way. He was a mason, and those who visited him were masons;
and from a full conversation with him, which was overheard, it is
certain that his masonry was the sole cause of his release. There was,
however, no bribery of officers, no polluting of the streams of
Justice, in this case, as the men who befriended him, did it legally,
and they were private individuals.
Another fact is couched in a conversation which I had with a mason
while in prison. We were personal friends, and what was proper for him
to say, as a mason, he said to me very freely. He remarked that as a
prisoner under sentence, he was exiled from the charities and the
interference of the Fraternity of Free Masons; but still, he said,
masonry was useful under other circumstances. "It would be very
convenient," said he, "for a person in distress at midnight, even in a
strange place, to be able to call at a house, and by giving a
particular sign be secured and protected."
This is all that my observation in prison enables me to say of the
influence of masonic principles in that place, or their interference
in any way, with the administration of justice.
A great stir was made about Burnham, and much craft and skill were
employed to make the public believe that, instead of dying and being
buried as was the fact, he was let out of prison by bribery on account
of his being a mason. But this was all a political farce, and evinced
only the length to which political factionists will go, to effect
their purposes.
One remark more and this article will be finished. It is this. The
Superintendent and Warden were both masons of a high rank. It is said
that the pure principles of the craft are always developed in holy
friendship and brotherly love. The enemies of the Order say that
Masons will defend each other, "right or wrong." But so far were these
men from acting on the principles ascribed to them, that if they were
_friends_ to each other, may all creatures and the Creator too, be my
_enemies_ to all eternity.