TEMPERANCE COFFEE-HOUSES AND FRIENDLY INNS.


The cure of a drunkard is always attended with peculiar difficulties.
The cost is often great. Sometimes cure is found to be impossible. A
hundred may be protected from the ravages of intemperance at the cost of
saving one who has fallen a victim to the terrible malady. "An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure."

While so much is being done to reform and save the drunkard, the work of
prevention has not been forgotten. Great good has been accomplished in
this direction through the spread of total-abstinence principles. In
this the various temperance organizations have done much, and especially
with the rising generation. But, so long as men are licensed by the
State to sell intoxicating drinks, the net of the tempter is spread on
every hand, and thousands of the weak and unwary are yearly drawn
therein and betrayed to their ruin. In our great cities large number of
men who have to do business at points remote from their dwellings, are
exposed to special temptations. The down-town lunch-room and dining-room
have, in most cases, their drinking bars; or, if no bar is visible, the
bill of fare offers in too many cases, any kind of intoxicating
beverage that may be desired. Thousands of men are, in consequence,
yearly led away from sobriety.

Seeing this, efforts have been made during the past few years to
establish, cheap temperance coffee-houses, where workingmen and others
may get a good noonday lunch, or a morning and evening meal at a
trifling cost. In all cases, these have been found of great service to
the cause of temperance. A pint mug of excellent coffee, with sugar and
milk, and a large, sweet roll, costing five cents, are found to make a