Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

[81] promptly reporting such in its columns. Voters were urged to scrutinize the moral character of candidates for office, and the necessity for concerted action on the part of temperance men in polities was emphasized. The custom of ‘company-treating,’ as the furnishing of liquor to the militia on training days was called, was then universal, and scenes of drunkenness and debauchery were naturally the result. The Philanthropist vigorously assailed it, and the editor wrote an ‘Address to the Privates of Militia and Independent Companies,’ to be read aloud to such as were willing to consider the subject. Until that year, licensed vendors of intoxicating drinks were permitted to sell them freely at booths and tables on Boston Common, on public holidays; and the order of the Mayor and Aldermen prohibiting it appeared in the Philanthropist, as did also a portion of an admirable and courageous address by the Rev. John Pierpont on the evils of the militia system, and the uselessness and inefficiency of military musters. Mr. Garrison listened with delight to this address, delivered before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which had incautiously invited Mr. Pierpont to preach the annual sermon for that year.

The universal use of intoxicating liquors on almost every occasion where men assembled together, sixty years ago, can be faintly indicated now by the statement that, aside from the constantly proffered social glass, a house was hardly ever erected, or a ship built, without rum being furnished to the neighbors who came to help raise the frame or lay the keel; and it was even served to the men who worked on the roads in country towns. So established was this custom, that every departure from it, in consequence of an awakened and reformed public sentiment, was deemed worthy of special note and rejoicing by the Philanthropist, which urged employers to dismiss intemperate men from their service and take only those whose sobriety could be relied upon. The editor also pointed out the criminality of professed