George Barrell Cheever: Deacon Giles' distillery (1844)

Others had written sentences like the following:
"A Potior raom The Lake or Fire Ajtd Bkisi Store. Inquire at Deacon Giles' Distillery."

All these inscriptions burned, when visible, a "still and awful red." One of the most terrible in its appearance was as follows:
"Weeping And Wailino And Gnashing Of Teeth. Inquire at Deacon Giles' Distillery."

In the morning the workmen vanished as before, just as it was dawn; but in the dusk of the evening they came again, and told the Deacon it was against their principles to tuke any wages for work done between Saturday night and Monday morning, and as they could not stay with him any longer, he was welcome to what they had done. The Deacon was very urgent to have them remain, and offered to hire them for the season at any wages, but they would not. So he thanked them and they went away, and he saw them no more.

In the course of the week most of the casks were sent into Hie country, and duly hoisted on their stoups, in conspicuous situations,, in the taverns and groceries, and rum-shops. But no sooner had the first glass been drawn from any of then*, than the invisible inscriptions flamed' out on the cask-head to every beholder. "CONSUMPTION SOLD HERE. DELIRIUM TREMENS, DAMNATION AND HELL-FIRE." The drunkards were terrifktl from the dramshops; the bar-rooms were emptied of their customers; but in their place a gaping crowd filled every store that possessed a cask of the Deacon's devil-distilled liquor, to wonder and be affrighted at the spectacle. For no art could efface the inscriptions. And even when the liquor was drawn into new casks, the same deadly letters broke out in blue and red flame all over the surface.

The rumsellers, and grocers, and tavern-keepers were full of furyThey loaded their teams with the accursed liquor, and drove it back to the distillery. All around and before the door of the Deacon's establishment the returned casks were piled one upon another, and it seemed as if the inscriptions burned brighter than ever. Consumption, Damnation, Death, and Hell, mingled together in frightful confusion; and in equal prominence, in every case, flamed out the direction, "INQUIRE AT DEACON GILES' DISTILLERY." One would have thought that the bare sight would have been enough to terrify every drunkard from his cups, and every trader from the dreadful traffic in ardent spirits. Indeed, it had some effect for a time, but it was not lasting, and the demons knew it would not be, when they played the trick; for they knew the Deacon would continue to make rum, and that as long as he continued to make it, there would be people to buy and drink it. And so it proved.