Let us see. I have not inquired at what period of time the use of
intoxicating liquors commenced; nor is it important to know. It is
sufficient that, to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of
drinking them is just as old as the world itself that is, we have seen
the one just as long as we have seen the other. When all such of us as
have now reached the years of maturity first opened our eyes upon the
stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor recognized by everybody,
used by everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the
first draught of the infant and the last draught of the dying man. From
the sideboard of the parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless
loafer, it was constantly found. Physicians proscribed it in this, that,
and the other disease; government provided it for soldiers and sailors;
and to have a rolling or raising, a husking or "hoedown," anywhere about
without it was positively insufferable. So, too, it was everywhere a
respectable article of manufacture and merchandise. The making of it was
regarded as an honorable livelihood, and he who could make most was the
most enterprising and respectable.
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