"How is business?"
"Very dull, I am losing terribly."
"Any prospect of times brightening?"
"I don't see my way out clear; but I hope there will be a change for the
better. Confidence has been greatly shaken, men of[?] business have
grown exceedingly timid about investing and there is a general
depression in every department of trade and business."
"Now Paul will you listen to reason and common sense? I have a
proposition to make. I am about to embark in a profitable business, and
I know that it will pay better than anything else I could undertake in
these times. Men will buy liquor if they have not got money for other
things. I am going to open a first class saloon, and club-house, on M.
Street, and if you will join with me we can make a splendid thing of it.
Why just see how well off Joe Harden is since he set up in the business;
and what airs he does put on! I know when he was not worth fifty
dollars, and kept a little low groggery on the corner of L. and S.
Streets, but he is out of that now--keeps a first class _Cafe_, and owns
a block of houses. Now Paul, here is a splendid chance for you; business
is dull, and now accept this opening. Of course I mean to keep a first
class saloon. I don't intend to tolerate loafing, or disorderly conduct,
or to sell to drunken men. In fact, I shall put up my scale of prices so
that you need fear no annoyance from rough, low, boisterous men who
don't know how to behave themselves. What say you, Paul?"
"I say, no! I wouldn't engage in such a business, not if it paid me a
hundred thousand dollars a year. I think these first class saloons are
just as great a curse to the community as the low groggeries, and I look
upon them as the fountain heads of the low groggeries. The man who
begins to drink in the well lighted and splendidly furnished saloon is
in danger of finishing in the lowest dens of vice and shame."
"As you please," said John Anderson stiffly, "I thought that as business
is dull that I would show you a chance, that would yield you a handsome
profit; but if you refuse, there is no harm done. I know young men who
would jump at the chance."
You may think it strange that knowing Paul Clifford as John Anderson
did, that he should propose to him an interest in a drinking saloon;
but John Anderson was a man who was almost destitute of faith in human
goodness. His motto was that "every man has his price," and as business
was fairly dull, and Paul was somewhat cramped for want of capital,
he thought a good business investment would be the price for Paul
Clifford's conscientious scruples.
"Anderson," said Paul looking him calmly in the face, "you may call me
visionary and impracticable; but I am determined however poor I may be,
never to engage in any business on which I cannot ask God's blessing.
And John I am sorry from the bottom of my heart, that you have concluded
to give up your grocery and keep a saloon. You cannot keep that saloon
without sending a flood of demoralizing influence over the community.
Your profit will be the loss of others. Young men will form in that
saloon habits which will curse and overshadow all their lives. Husbands
and fathers will waste their time and money, and confirm themselves in
habits which will bring misery, crime, and degradation; and the fearful
outcome of your business will be broken hearted wives, neglected
children, outcast men, blighted characters and worse than wasted lives.
No not for the wealth of the Indies, would I engage in such a ruinous
business, and I am thankful today that I had a dear sainted mother who
taught me that it was better to have my hands clear than to have them
full. How often would she lay her dear hands upon my head, and clasp my
hands in hers and say, 'Paul, I want you to live so that you can always
feel that there is no eye before whose glance you will shrink, no voice
from whose tones your heart will quail, because your hands are not
clean, or your record not pure,' and I feel glad to-day that the
precepts and example of that dear mother have given tone and coloring to
my life; and though she has been in her grave for many years, her memory
and her words are still to me an ever present inspiration."
"Yes Paul; I remember your mother. I wish! Oh well there is no use
wishing. But if all Christians were like her, I would have more faith in
their religion."
"But John the failure of others is no excuse for our own derelictions."
"Well, I suppose not. It is said, the way Jerusalem was kept clean,
every man swept before his own door. And so you will not engage in the
business?"
"No John, no money I would earn would be the least inducement."
"How foolish," said John Anderson to himself as they parted. "There is a
young man who might succeed splendidly if he would only give up some of
his old fashioned notions, and launch out into life as if he had some
common sense. If business remains as it is, I think he will find out
before long that he has got to shut his eyes and swallow down a great
many things he don't like."
After the refusal of Paul Clifford, John soon found a young man of
facile conscience who was willing to join with him in a conspiracy of
sin against the peace, happiness and welfare of the community. And he
spared neither pains nor expense to make his saloon attractive to what
he called, "the young bloods of the city," and by these he meant young
men whose parents were wealthy, and whose sons had more leisure and
spending money than was good for them. He succeeded in fitting up a
magnificent palace of sin. Night after night till morning flashed the
orient, eager and anxious men sat over the gaming table watching the
turn of a card, or the throw of a dice. Sparkling champaign, or
ruby-tinted wine were served in beautiful and costly glasses. Rich
divans and easy chairs invited weary men to seek repose from unnatural
excitement. Occasionally women entered that saloon, but they were women
not as God had made them, but as sin had debased them. Women whose
costly jewels and magnificent robes were the livery of sin, the outside
garnishing of moral death; the flush upon whose cheek, was not the flush
of happiness, and the light in their eyes was not the sparkle of
innocent joy,--women whose laughter was sadder than their tears, and who
were dead while they lived. In that house were wine, and mirth, and
revelry, "but the dead were there," men dead to virtue, true honor and
rectitude, who walked the streets as other men, laughed, chatted,
bought, sold, exchanged and bartered, but whose souls were encased in
living tombs, bodies that were dead to righteousness but alive to sin.
Like a spider weaving its meshes around the unwary fly, John Anderson
wove his network of sin around the young men that entered his saloon.
Before they entered there, it was pleasant to see the supple vigor and
radiant health that were manifested in the poise of their bodies, the
lightness of their eyes, the freshness of their lips and the bloom upon
their cheeks. But Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would
change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with
intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the
drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness
overmastered health. But the saddest thing was the fearful power that
appetite had gained over its victims, and though nature lifted her
signals of distress, and sent her warnings through weakened nerves and
disturbed functions, and although they were wasting money, time,
talents, and health, ruining their characters, and alienating their
friends, and bringing untold agony to hearts that loved them and yearned
over their defections, yet the fascination grew stronger and ever and
anon the grave opened at their feet; and disguise it as loving friends
might, the seeds of death had been nourished by the fiery waters of
alcohol.