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Ten Nights in a Bar Room Summary
Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There by Timothy Shay Arthur is an 1854 temperance novel that illustrates the destructive effects of alcohol on individuals and communities. Through the narrative of an unnamed traveler, the book chronicles the decline of Cedarville and its inhabitants due to the influence of the local tavern, the Sickle and Sheaf.
Ten Nights in a Bar Room Excerpt
Short Summary: This novel serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of alcohol consumption, depicting the moral and social decline of a town centered around its barroom.
"Ten years ago, business required me to pass a day in Cedarville. It was late in the afternoon when the stage left me at the 'Sickle and Sheaf,' a new tavern, just opened by Simon Slade, who had retired from his old trade of miller, and, with the profits of years of toil, built and furnished the largest and most pretentious building in Cedarville. That was ten years ago. Today, I passed through Cedarville again. What a change had come over the place! The 'Sickle and Sheaf' was closed, and a sign hung upon the door, announcing that the house was for sale or rent. I learned, upon inquiry, that Simon Slade had died a miserable drunkard, and that his son had become a wanderer and a vagabond. The tavern had been a curse to him and to his family. It had been a curse to the village. It had sown disease, and vice, and poverty, and death, broadcast over the land. It had cursed the old and the young; the rich and the poor; the happy and the wretched. It had filled the jail, the almshouse, and the graveyard. It had crowded the bar of justice with criminals, and the chambers of sickness with victims. It had done all this, and more; and yet, men had praised the beautiful tavern, and said it would be a fine thing for the village. I sat down to write out some of the scenes I had witnessed during my ten visits to Cedarville, and the revelations of those visits will be found in the following pages. If they lead any to pause and reflect before entering the path that leads to destruction, the end I have in view will be accomplished."
This passage from the opening chapter sets the stage for a narrative that delves into the tragic consequences of intemperance, as observed by the narrator during his visits to Cedarville."
