The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-18 00:00:00

The lion. Neal Dow.

This gentleman, the author of the prohibitory liquor
law, called after his native State of Maine, and during the
American civil war a Federal General who had the mis-
fortune to fall into the hands of the Confederates, is now
on a second visit to Europe. He arrived in London last
week, en route for the Continent, and the metropolitan
auxiliary of the United Kingdom Alliance hastily organised
a reception, by convening its leading supporters to a
soiree held at Radley's Hotel, New Bridge-street, Fleet-
street, on Monday evening. Here a most cordial recep-
tion was accorded to the Hon. Neal Dow, by between
100 and 200 persons, including Mr. W. Saunders, who
presided, Professor Newman, the Rev. Dr. Edmunds, Dr.
Ellis, Mr. S. Popo, the Rev. Dr. Burns, Mr. J. Hawkins,
M.R.C.S., Mr. James Gale, Captain Bayley, R.N., Rev.
Dawson Burns, Mr. G. Dibley, Mr. E. Lloyd, Mr. J.
Riley, Mr. J. R. Taylor, Mr. J. H. Raper, Mr. Ludbrook,
Mr. W. West, Mr. H. Jeffery, Rev. G. W. M'Cree, Mr. R.
S. Dixon, Mr. J. Bomond, Mr. Job Caudwell, Mr. Hartley,
Mr. J. Mumford, Mr. J. Hilton, Mr. R. E. Farrant, Mr. W.
Fithian, Mr. W. Malthouse, and many other prominent
friends of the temperance cause in London. Many ex-
pressed regret by letter that the shortness of the notice
precluded their attendance.
The UItAIRMAN, in his opening remarks, while not
doubting the ultimate success of the Alliance in its effort
to carry the Permissive Bill, admitted that that success
was so distant as to be scarcely within sight, as ho said, of
the imagination.
Mr. DSBLEY road the following address :
" To the Honourable Neal Dow, of Portland,
Maine, United States.

"Dear and Honoured Sir, —With no ordinary pleasure
we received the tidings of your arrival upon our shores ;
and now that we aro permitted to meet face to face, we
give you in all sincerity a hearty English and Alliance
greeting.
"Your name, as identified with a great principle of
legislative protection, is known throughout the civilised
world ; and in proportion as that principle is incorporated
with the political institutions and social life of mankind
will your memory be held in wider and warmer esteem.
" But without forgetting your peculiar and transcen-
dent position as the Father of the Prohibitory Law of
Maine, wo desire to indulge for an instant in some more
familiar, yet we trust not less, welcome strain. We greet
you, dear and honoured sir, in the spirit of a brotherly
friendship that distance cannot weaken or time corrode.
We congratulate you very cordially on your preservation
through the manifold dangers of war, and on the return
to your beloved country of the priceless blessings of peace.
We shall rejoice to learn that this journey is rendered
salutary and prosperous by the smile of a benign Provi-
dence, and that during your absence your home is divinely
guarded from every ill. We know that when you regain
the other side of the ocean laborious days and nights
await you, to be expended in the service of a pure and
Christian philanthropy, and in all your "works of faith
and labours of love "—when the task is heaviest and the
strain on mind and body at the hardest—may you be en-
couraged, if need be, by recalling the assurance now effec-
tually extended, that you will ever hold a fraternal place
in our remembrance, our sympathies, and our prayers.
" Signed on behalf of the London Auxiliary of the
United Kingdom Alliance.

" JOHN RILEY, Chairman of Committee.
" GEORGE DIBLEY, Hon. Secretary of Auxiliary.
•` JOB CAUDWELL, Treasurer.
" DAWSON BURNS, Metropolitan Superintendent."
Mr. S. POPE delivered an address, and referred to the
visit made to this country nino years ago by Mr. Dow, who
since then had passed unscathed and scarcely changed
through the turmoil of war. Mr. Pope expressed, amid
cheers, the warm attachment of all present and of all con-
nected with the Alliance to Mr. Dow, who, he stated'
would, on his return from the Continent in the autumn,
address public meetings in this country. Mr, Popo also
took occasion to dissent from the views of the chairman
as to the remoteness of the success to be achieved by the
Alliance.

Professor NEWMAN delivered an address, in which he
expressed the opinion that the greater part of the miseries
of mAnkind had arisen from the fact that the public affairs
of nations had been generally conducted by mon of a lower
moral quality than the average cultivated classes, and that
for some time this had been aggravated in England by that
false doctrine which taught that the public authorities
ought not to seek the moral benefit of the people—that was,
should not propose it to themselves as an object to be
aimed at directly. That doctrine might be described as
Bouthamism, which did not look to the state as a moral

agency. The professor also took more sanguine views than
did the chairman of the probable success of the Alliance.
Tho Rev. Dr. Bunss having spoken,
The CHAIRMAN explained that ho had no want of
faith in ultimate victory, but there was no immediate
prospect of it. •

After other addresses,
General NEAL Dow, who was received with enthusiastic
cheering, returned thanks, and in doing so anticipated the
success of the Alliance from the history of the prohibitory
movement in America. He had that afternoon, he said,
conversed with a clergyman who, although a total ab-
stainer, did not see his way to join. the Alliance on the
ground that it would interfere with " the liberty of the
subject." That was spoken cf in this country as though
it were a thing unknown on the other side of the
Atlantic, where the people boasted of liberty, political,
religious, civil, and personal ; but their belief was that
true liberty did not comport with drunkenness, de-
gradation, poverty, and crime, and that no man had
a right to the liberty to do that which was, incon-
sistent with the general good. Americans were often
amazed at the ignorance of. American affairs dis-
played by educated persons in England; but the Ameri-
cans could not plead guilty to a similar ignorance of Eng-
lish affairs, for the business and political relations of
Americans with England were more important than their
relations with all the world beside. Even the Chancellor
of the Exchequer had recently spoken of American coal
being largely mixed with anthracite, which was like say-
ing that English wheat was largely mixed with potatoes.
(Laughter.) Having referred to opinions expressed in
this country during the American civil war, Mr. Dow said
that Americans would regard it as a national misfortune
if leading Americans made such mistakes about English
affairs as Englishmen made about American affairs.
Liberty was as much understood in America as it was
here, but no good or intelligent man there wished for
liberty which was inconsistent with the public good ;
and as drunkenness, degradation, pauperism, and crime
depended entirely upon the traffic iu intoxicating drinks,
Americans regarded that traffic as inconsistent with the
general good, and they therefore resolved to strike it down.
(Cheers.) The Maine law contemplated interference-with
no one's personal habits, but only with the traffic, which
was inconsistent with the general good; to the inconveni-
ence which resulted, if any did, the Americans were wil-
ling to submit; and the same principle was applied to
everything of the same character as the liquor traffic, so
that there was no need to seek any one's consent to the
principle of the Maine Law. (Cheers.) In America no
clergyman could sustain his position unless he were a total
abstainer, and the keeper of a gaming house would as soon
be admitted into the church as the keeper of a grog-shop.
In conclusion, he anticipated for the drink traffic here the
fate of slavery in America.
Mr. RAPER and other gentlemen afterwards addressed
the meeting.