DEACON GILES’ DISTILLERY.
К
Th e Deacon 'a Diet
<£ry in full operation!
The Deacon's Bargain.
The Devil's in scription becomes visible.
The Foreman in a rage.
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From the Salem Landmark.
“INQUIRE AT AMOS GILES’ DISTILLERY.”
Some time ago the writer’s notice waS'aff ested by
an advertisement in one of the newspapers, which
closed with words similar to the following Inquire
at Amos Giles’ -Distillery.11 The readers of the
Landmark may suppose, if they choose, that the
following story was a dream, suggested by that
phrase :
Deacon Giles was a man who loved money, and
was never troubled with tenderness of conscience.
His father and his grandfather before him had been
distillers, and the same occupation had come to him
as an heir-loom in the family. The still-house was
black with age, as well as with the smoke of furnaces
that never went out, and the fumes of tortured ingre¬
dients, ceaselessly converted into alcohol. It looked
like one of Vulcan’s Stithies translated^ from the
infernal regions into this world. Its stench filled
the atmosphere, and it seemed as if drops 6f poison¬
ous alcoholic perspiration might be made to ooze out
from any one of its timbers or clapboards on a slight
pressure. Its owner was a treasurer to a Bible
Society, and he had a little counting-room in one
corner of the distillery where he sold Bibles.
He that is greedy of gain troublethhis own.
house. Any one of those-, -Bibles wouldjfhave told
him this, but he chose to learn it from experience. It
was said that the worm of the still lay coiled in the
bosom of his family, and certain it is that one of its
members had drowned himself in the vat of hot
liquor, in the bottom of which a skeleton was some
time after found, with heavy weights tied to the ancle
bones. Moreover, Deacon Giles’ temper was none
of the sweetest, naturally, and the liquor he drank,
and the fires and spirituous fumes among which he
lived, did nothing to soften it. If his workmen some¬
times fell into his vats, he himself cjftener fell out
with his workmen. This was not to be wondered
at, considering the nature of their wages, which,
according to no unfrequent stipulation, would be as
much raw rum as they could drink.
Deacon Giles worked on the Sabbath. He would
neither suffer the fires of the distillery to- go out, nor
to bum while he was idle ; so he kept as busy as
they. One Saturday afternoon his workmen had.
quarrelled, and all went off in anger. ’>He was in
much perplexity for want of hands to dojthe work of
the devil on the Lord’s -day. In the dusk of the
evening a gang of singular looking felfows entered
the dqpr of the distillery. Their dress was wild and
uncouth, their eyes glared, and their language had a
tone that was awful. They offered to work for the
—
Ы
Deacon ; and he, on his part, was overjoyed, for he
thought within himself that as they had probably
been turned out of employment elsewhere, he could
engage them on his own terms.
He made them his accustomed offer; as much
rum every day, when work was done, as they could
drink ; but they would not take it. Some of them
broke out and told him that they had enough of hot
things where they came from, without drinking
damnation in the distillery. And when they said
that, it seemed to the Deacon as if their breath
burned blue ; but he was not certain and could not
tell what to make of it. Then he offered them a
pittance of money ; but they set up such a laugh,
that he thought the roof of the building would fall in.
They demanded a sum, which the Deacon said he
could not give, and would not, to the best set of
workmen that ever lived, much less to such piratical
looking scape-jails as they. Finally, he said, he
would give half what they asked, if they would take
two thirds of that in Bibles. When he mentioned
the word Bibles, they all looked towards the door,
and made a step backwards, and the Deacon thought
they trembled, but whether it was with anger or
delirium tremens, or something else, he could not
telL However, they winked, and made signs to
each other-, and then one of them, who seemed to be
the head man, agreed with the -Deacon, that if he
would let them work by night instead of day, they
would stay with him awhile, and work on his own
terms. To this he agreed, and they immediately
went to work.
The Deacon had a fresh cargo of molasses to be
worked up, and a great many hogsheads then in
from his country customers, to be filled with liquor.
When he went home, he locked up the doors, leaving
the distillery to his new workmen, As soon as he
was gone, you would have thought that one of the
chambers of hell had been transported to earth, with
all its inmates. The distillery glowed with fires
that burned hotter than ever before, and the figures
of the demons passing to and fro, and leaping and
yelling in the midst of their work, made it look like
the entrance to the bottomless pit.
Some of them sat astride the rafters, over the
heads of the others, and amused themselves with
blowing flames out of their mouths. The work of
distilling seemed play to them, and they carried it on
with Supernatural rapidity. It was hot enough to I
have TSoiled the molasses in any part of the distillery,
but they did not seem to mind it at all. Some lifted
the hogsheads as easily as you would raise a tea¬
cup, and turned their contents into the proper recep¬
tacles ; some scummed tile boiling liquids ; some
with huge ladles dipped the smoking fluid from the
different vats, and raising. -it high in the air, seemed
to take great delight in watching the fiery stream,
as they spouted it back again ; seme drafted the dis¬
tilled liquor into empty cnsks and hogsheads ; some
stirred the fires ; all were boisterous and horribly
profane, and seemed to ^engage in their work with
such familiar and malignant satisfaction, that I con¬
cluded the business of distilling was as natural as
hell, and must have originated there.
I gathered from their tjalk that they were going to
play a trick upon the Deaton, that should cure him of
offering rum and Bibles to his workmen ; and I soon
found out from their conversation and movements,
what it was. They were going to write certain in¬
scriptions on all his runf casks, that should remain
invisible until they weie sold by the Deacon, but
should flame out in characters of fire as soon as they
were broached by_hiajptailers, or exposed for the
use of the drunkards. ,
When they had filled
»
few casks with liquor,
one of them took a gi®at coal of fire, and having
quenched it in a mixture of rum and molasses, pro¬
ceeded to write, apparently by way of experiment,
upon the heads of the: different vessels. Just as
it was dawn, they left off work and all vanished
together.
In^ the morning the Deacon Was puzzled to know
hQw’rhe workmen got- i,ut of the distillery, which he
found fast locked as Me had left it. He was still
more amazed to find trot they^ad done more work
in one night, than coulp have been accomplished, in
the ordinary way, in three weeks. He pondered
the thing riot a little, 4nd almost concluded that it
was the work of supernatural agents. At any rate,
they had done so mudh that he thought he could
afford to attend meeting that day, as it was the Sab¬
bath. Accordingly ha went to church, and heard
his minister say that Qbd could pardon sin without
an atonement, that therwords hell and devils were
mere figures of speech^ and that all men would cer¬
tainly be saved. Heiwas much pleased, and in¬
wardly resolved he weuld send his minister a half
cask of wine, and, as ft happened to be communion
Sabbath, he attended meeting all day.
In the evening the men came again, and again
the Deacon locked tliiim in to themselves, and they
went to work. Thew finished all his molasses, and
filled all. his rum banjfols, and- kegs, and hogsheads,
with liquor, and mamted them all, as on the pre¬
ceding night, with iiwisihle inscriptions. Most of
the titles ran thus iija Consumption sold here.
Inquire at Deacon Giles' Distillery." ” Convul¬
sion* and epilepsies. Inquire at Amos Giled
Distillery." “ Insanity and murder. Inquire
gt Deacon Giles' Distillery." “ Dropsy and
rheumatism.” “ Putrid frver, and cholera
in the collapse.' Inquire at Amos Giles? Dis¬
tillery." “ Delirium Tremens. Inquire at Dea¬
con Giles' Distillery."
Many of the casks had on them inscriptions like
the following : Distilled death and liquid
damnation. The Elixir of Hell for the bodies of
those whose souls are coming there. Some of the
demons had even taken sentences from the Scrip¬
tures, and marked the ; hogsheads thus: “Who
hath woes? Inquire at Deacon Giles' Distillery."-
“Who hath redness of eyes? Inquire at Deacon
Giles’ Distillery.” Others had written sentences like
the following : A potion from the lake of fire
and brimstone. Inquire at Deacon Giles’ Dis¬
tillery ! All these inscriptions burned, when visi¬
bly “ a still and awful red.” One of the-most ter-,
rible in its appearance was as follows: Weeping
and wailing 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 m take 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 the 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 them, than the
invisible inscriptions flamed out on the cask-head to
every beholder. “ Consumption sold here. Delirium
Tremens , Death, Damnation, and Hell-fire .” The
drunkards were terrified from the dram shops ; the
bar-rooms were emptied of their customers ; but in
their place a gaping crowd#filled every store that
possessed a cask o'f the DeScon’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 rum-sellers, and grocers, and tavern-keepers
Entered according 40 act of Congress, in the year 1835, by Jqnff' in the Clerk’s office of the Southern District of New-York, for the Design* and Engravings.
were Ml of fury. They loaded their teams with
the accursed liquor, and drove it back to the dis¬
tillery. All around and before the door of the
Deacon’s establishment the returned casks were
piled fbe upon another, and it seemed as if the in¬
scriptions burned brighter than ever. Consumption,
Damnation, Death, and Hell, mingled together in
frightful confusion; and in equal prominence, in
every case, flamed our 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 traflick 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.
The Deacon had to turn a vast quantity of liquor
into the streets, and burn up the hogsheads ; and his
distillery has smelled of brimstone ever since ; but
he vyould not give up the trade. He carries it on still,
and every time I see his advertisement, “ Inquire at
Amos Giles' Distillery I think I see Hell and
Damnation, and he the proprietor.
A PARODY.
In Salem, when the sun was low,
Deep silence held each street and row,
And solemn was the distant flow
• Of Ocean rolling heavily.
But Salem saw another sights
When lurid fires and candle-light
Gleamed biuely out at dead of night,
From Deacon Giles* distillery.
And redder yet those fires shall glow,
As Salem’s frighted streets shall know,
When gibb’ring fiends their embers blow
In Deacon’s Giles’ distillery.
The twilight deepens — come! ye brave,
Let loose from hell— (the Sceptic’s grave,)
Your dusky plumes in triumph wave
O’er Deacon Giles’ distillery.
Then rock’d the still — with riot riven,
Then worked the fiends for Bibles given ;
And louder than fresh bolts, from heaven
Loud groaned the old distillery.
’T is morn — nor did yon lurid sun
Behold the fiends ; — their work is done ;
Each clutched his book and out he run
From Deacon Giles’ distillery.
They part, alas ! too soon to meet :
Then* foreman, though an arrant cheat,
Ne’er leaves his business incomplete j .
He works beyond the sepulchre.
Stereotyped by J. 6. Redfleld, 33
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