Select Temperance Tracts

Select Temperance Tracts, by American Tract Society, brings together tracts that include one called EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS. The contents list also names tracts called REWARDS OF DRUNKENNESS, THE WELL-CONDUCTED FARM, ALARM TO DISTILLERS AND THEIR ALLIES and PUTNAM AND THE WOLF. One tract says ardent spirit impairs, and often destroys reason, and gives the figure that of 781 maniacs in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink.

The text says the perspirable matter which passes off from the skin becomes charged with the odor of alcohol in the drunkard, and that the whole system soon bears marks of debility and decay. A tract says all who traffic in ardent spirit are guilty of a sin, and that often the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his children is lest, through the instrumentality of such men, they should be ruined. A narrator addressing Jack says he thought on his madness and folly and wondered why people would put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains.