Tavern Keepers Bond
Submitted by Sherida Dougherty
Note: These bonds are wonderful! If you have any, please consider contributing.
Note: I don't mean to infer that all Tavern Keepers or Saloon Keepers ran the following type of establishment, but I did find this interesting and thought you might also. Several of my ancestors were Tavern Keepers, unfortunately, I don't have their licenses.
Source: Falmouth Outlook.
Published in the Falmouth Outlook , circa unknown.
We publish below a true copy of both sides of a business card which is
used by
the proprietor of the Temple Bar Saloon at Flagstaff, Ariz. And who, as
the card
states, reports himself to be an "Honest Saloon Keeper":
I am grateful
for past
favors, and having supplied my store with a fine line of choice wines
and
liquors, allow me to inform you that I shall continue to make
drunkards, paupers
and beggars for the sober, industrious, respectable part of the
community to
support. My whiskies will excite riot, robbery and bloodshed. They will
diminish
your comforts, increase your expenses and shorten life. I shall
confidently
recommend them as sure to multiply fatal accidents and incurable
diseases. They
will deprive some of life, others of reason, some of character, and all
of
peace. They will make fathers fiends, mothers widows, children orphans,
and all
poor. I will train your sons in infidelity, dissipation, ignorance,
lewdness and
every other vice. I will corrupt religion, obstruct the gospel, defile
the
church, and cause as much temporal and eternal death as I can. I will
thus
"accommodate the public." It may be at the loss of my never-dying
soul, but I have a family to support ---the business pays---and the
public
encourages it.
I have paid my license and the traffic is lawful, and if I don't sell
it
somebody else will. I know the Bible says: "Thou shalt not kill," and
"No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven," and I do not expect
the drunkard-maker to fare any better, but I want an easy living and I
have
resolved to gather the wages of iniquity and fatten on the ruin of my
species. I
shall therefore carry on my business with energy and do my best to
diminish the
wealth of the nation and endanger the safety of the state. As my
business
flourishes in proportion to your sensuality and ignorance, I will do my
best to
prevent moral purity and intellectual growth. Should you doubt my
ability, I
refer you to the pawnshops, the poor house, the police court, the
hospital, the
penitentiary and the gallows, where you will find many of my best
customers have
gone. A sight of them will convince you that I do what I say. Allow me
to inform
you that you are foul and I am an honest saloon keeper.
J. J. McMurtrey