THE SENATOR'S SON, OR, THE MAINE LAW; A LAST REFUGE; A STORY DEDICATED TO THE LAW-MAKERS.
BYMETTA VICTORIA FULLER.
CLEVELAND, O. TOOKER AND GATCHEL.
1853.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-three, BY TOOKER & GATCHEL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Ohio. WILLIAM H. SHAIN, HUDSON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. HARRIS, FAIRBANKS & CO., PRINTERS, CLEVELAND.
"Does our political party stand on rum? If so, let us be ashamed of it and quit it. But let us take heed lest our political party is soon in the minority, from its adherence to rum, for it surely will be. Degeneracy and subserviency to wickedness and debasement is not the spirit of the age. God will overturn, and overturn, and overturn, until temperance and truth are triumphant."
PREFACE.
IT may perhaps be expected that a few explanations should be given for the publication of a new work of fiction. My attention was particularly called, during the past summer, to the fact that, in many States, there existed a strong feeling in favor of the general adoption of the Maine Liquor Law, as it is called; but so many of past usages and modes of thinking prevailed, that philanthropists have been unable, except in a few instances, to carry into effect an Act that must so clearly benefit all classes of society. The thought suggested itself, that if a new work could be written on this subject, sufficiently interesting to attract anything like general attention, it might perhaps turn the scale, now so nearly balanced, in favor of this noble end.
To do this successfully, one would be obliged to go out of the ordinary manner of treating the subject of Temperance. For long years, the most vivid descriptions have been given of the terrible sufferings and awful wretchedness that await the victim of Intemperance. Reason and judgment have been appealed to in vain. Thousands are at this moment reeling towards a drunkard's grave. Experience has proved that in no way can the evils of the heart or of society be shown so plainly and effectively page: vi-vii[View Page vi-vii] ively as under the garb of fiction. The human mind is so constituted that the picture must be rather overdrawn, than otherwise, to attract us towards it. The world-wide popularity of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a proof of this fact. But it is only when some effort at human improvement is robed in its captivating garb that fiction should be tolerated. As in the spreading landscape the ragged rocks, the majestic oak, and the dark ravine, take a firmer hold of the mind than all the gay colors of field and forest, so in this kind of fiction, while we cull its sweets, and linger entranced over its fascinating pages, the stern ideas of truth and right that meet us at every turn will gradually fasten upon our judgments and linger in our memories long after the sweet flowers that decked them have faded and been forgotten.
With such a desire have the following pages been written; and though I have wandered in the luxuriant fields of the imagination to select colors for my theme, yet my aim has been to draw, with stronger outline and deeper shading, the mournful ruins of humanity, caused by Intemperance, and to place them in the foreground of the picture; and if I should ever hear of one soul saved by its means from the dark and fearful gloom that hangs forever over the end of the drunkard, it would be more than payment for all my labors. Whether it is ever destined to accomplish even this much, remains to be seen; but its failure will not alter her faith in the ultimate triumph of the Maine Liquor Law, through the length and breadth of our fair land.
