George Barrell Cheever: Deacon Giles' distillery (1844)

The history of this transaction forms a part of the history of the temperance reformation. While it presents to posterity one of those signal incidents by which the mighty enginery of drunkenness ha? been nearly overthrown, it reflects nothing upon those who then felt themselves injured, both in their good name and worldly prosperity. The darkness that overshadowed them and the community in which they dwelt,is the apology for their faults. Haply it may be, that thej are now foremost in the condemnation of the business whose character was exposed. Tempera mutantur. The old distillery has long since been abandoned, and the building, now converted to useful purposes, was recently the scene of a joyful temperance tea-party.

But other distilleries are still in operation. In the censusof 1840 there were returned 10,306, distilling in a single year 41,402,627 gallons; with a reasonable certainty that, for every thirteen hundred gallons distilled and sold, one human being is destroyed. And, now, without the most strenuous efforts by the friends of temperance, giving broadcast through the community whatever exhibits the true character of this business, they will continue to pour over this land and heathen lands, what Robert Hall justly termed, a flood of " liquid fire and distilled damnation."

Frequent inquiries, after a lapse of nine years, for a true history of the production, with the grounds of prosecution and the masterly defence of Mr. Cheever, have led to this publication. In his defence. Mr. Cheever showed that, while it was no part of his object to defame, vilify, or injure the character of any particular distiller whatever, or tc bring indignation or disgrace upon any one's family connexions, he had a right, and it was his duty to show in the most forcible manner in his power, the horrid business of distillation. It is a production demanding the attention of every philanthropist and statesman. The whole is An Imagination, A REALITY, A Defence, which should never die. It is a story, which should be familiar to every child in all coming generations; for while there is a distillery on earth, there will be drunkenness, lamentation, and wo.