Judging
from the vote given in Hamilton against open barrooms, there is apparently a
revival of the old temperance sentiment that prevailed in this city during the
fifties. In the year 1847, the first division of the Sons of Temperance was
organized in Canada, and the following year Hamilton division was instituted.
Among its charter members were such prominent businessmen as John W. Bickle,
Thomas C. Watkins, Alexander Hamilton, Dr. Case and the Lawson brothers –
indeed, a large number of merchants in the city, nearly all of whom were total
abstainers but connected themselves with the order to benefit their weaker
brothers who were addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors. The order
prospered, and hundreds were gathered into the division who lived and died
respected because of their reformation. In those days a tavern keeper paid very
little for the privilege of selling intoxicating liquors, and, as a result, the
number of gin mills was far beyond the actual necessities of the town. The City
council pretended to limit the number of licenses to be issued, but it
generally turned out that almost any applicant succeeded in being added to the
list. It was not necessary in order to sell liquor that one should have
accommodation for travelers, for there was provision in the law to license beer,
ale houses and saloons which virtually made it free for all who could raise
money to buy a few quarts of whiskey and a keg of beer, and the city
chamberlain was kind-hearted enough to take the license money as the keeper
could spare it. The result was that in every part of the city were gin mills
galore, and many of them pretty tough places. Things were getting into bad
shape for the small city of Hamilton, and among the business class the movement
was encouraged to check the table of intemperance. The meetings were held in
White’s block, and the order was a blessing to scores of older men who had been
hard drinkers before joining it, and other scores of young men were trained in
temperance principles before the appetite for strong drink had taken control of
them. So enthusiastic were the members of the division that they organized a
brass band and a fire company, into which only abstainers were admitted, except
in the case of the leader of the band, who had to be selected independently of
his views on temperance. The order prospered for five or six years, and its
membership in this city at one time into the hundreds, but by the close of the
decade, the Hamilton division had dwindled down till there was hardly a quorum
left. Many fell from grace and dropped back into their bibulous habits, and
many more left the city to try their fortunes elsewhere. During the ten years
or more the division was in active working order it made scores of families
happy and drove the wolf of poverty from more than one door. The meeting of the
grand division of the sons of Temperance in its fifty-fourth annual convention
in Toronto this week recalls the days when that order was a power for good in
Canada. A revival of temperance along the old lines of moral suasion might not
be a bad idea to mix up with the efforts for legal suasion.
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When the Sons of Temperance came into
existence in the latter part of the forties, the leaders wisely decided that
the best method of making temperance men was to begin with the boys. It is an
old saying that if you want to raise a race of good men and women, it is
necessary to begin away back with their ancestors. One cannot hope for virtue
from the slums. The Cadets of Temperance were organized, taking in boys from 10
to 18 years of age. The pledge the boys took was to abstain from tobacco in any
form and the use of intoxicating liquors till they arrived at the age of 18
years, when their membership in the cadets ceased. The thought of the founders
was that if the boys could only be started in a right direction, they would be
strong enough to resist temptation. There was a large section of Cadets in
Hamilton, and so interested were the boys in the weekly meetings that the hall
in White’s block was always well-filled. The sons had an oversight over the
boys, and every six months appointed one of their number as the honorary assistant
presiding officer. Interest was kept up in the meetings by debates and musical
entertainments in which the boys were the principal performers, and many a boy
got his lessons in total abstinence as a Cadet that were valuable to him in
after life. Capt. Campbell, the lighthouse keeper down at the Beach, was a
worthy patron of the section of Cadets at the time he had a knife run into him,
the evening the Orangemen were returning from Toronto. The captain was a great
friend of the boys in those days, and rarely was he absent from his post on the
night of meeting.
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The story has been told before of that
outrage. The Orangemen from Hamilton went over to Toronto to celebrate the Twelfth
of July, and when they returned by steamboat in the evening, they marched up
James street with colors flying and the fife and drum corps playing an air that
ruffled the temper of some who were easily aroused in those days at the sight
of an Orange ribbon. At the head of the procession was a file of men with
muskets, and, unfortunately, the guns were loaded. A crazy fellow who had
tarried too long at the bar that day was in a frame of mind to do anything desperate,
and when the procession had come up James street to about the drill sheds, the
man made a dash into the ranks of the drum corps and plunged a knife into
Captain Campbell, and then ran back toward the sidewalk. A sharp ring of
musketry and the deluded man was riddled with bullets. The excitement on James
street that evening will never be forgotten by those who witnessed the tragedy.
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In 1854, a new temperance order called
the Good Templars was established in Hamilton, and as it admitted both sexes to
membership on equal footing, it at once became a power intemperance work. Many
of the men who were prominent in the Sons of Temperance united with the new
order, for they could have their wives, sons and daughters attend the lodge
meeting with them. In November of that year, a grand lodge for Canada was
instituted with Dr. Case as the first grand Templar, and this gave the order a
local prominence that added largely o its membership, and in time made it
necessary for the lodge to own a hall of its own to accommodate the large
number that attended every meeting night. In Elgin block on John street, Thomas
Piper, flour and grain merchant, owned two buildings, and the Good Templars
bought the second and third stories and, tearing out the upper floor and
building an addition to the east end, transformed the place into an elegant
large hall, with gallery in the west end that accommodated the membership. This
building was nearly paid for by the membership by the time it was finished.. It
is now owned by the Oddfellows and occupied by that order and by the Knights of
Pythias. The Good Templars were practical workers along temperance lines, and
the good they accomplished can never be fully estimated. The members made it a
point to get after their associates who were not in the fold, and many a young
fellow was made thankful that such an order existed. If a brother fell by the
wayside, he was lifted up and encouraged to try again, and no name was dropped
from the rolls till all means for reformation failed. A constant care and
oversight were kept on those who had to fight against temptation, and by this
nursing of the weakness, they were strengthened and encouraged.
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With the passing of the old temperance
organizations came the laying aside of moral suasion and a looking toward
legislative action to stem the tide of intemperance. In the old days,
temperance people worked and prayed for success; now they turn the whole thing
over to the Lord and the government, and sit down and patiently wait to see
what may be done. Whiskey is a power the Christian world over. When one looks
at the internal revenue figures of the quantity
of malt and spirituous liquors manufactured each year – and the quantity
seems to be growing all the time – the query forces itself : is the drink habit
falling off? The vote given a couple of weeks ago would indicate that the
sentiment favorable to temperance is increasing in the province of Ontario at
least, for the latest reports show that out of 97 constituencies, 77 gave a
decided majority against barrooms. More than 170,000 votes were cast for
prohibition and 50,000 against it. But then less than half the voters went to
the polls. Ever since the days of weak-minded old Noah down to the present,
strong drink has been raging. Will the millennium of temperance ever come ?
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