Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-10-28

fame throughout Christendom, her jails ha
held as many criminals as before, and ht
courts had been as full of poor wretched mo-
tails answering for outrages on person and prol
erty as before-would not the Rum interes
have verified the fact by accurate figures, an
used it triumphantly to stay the plague whic
is shifting its profitsl Here that interest
lame. The figures are against it-tremen
duously against it, like the hand writing o.
Belshazzar's palace-wall, The trade is par
TALLY cut off in Maine, and Crime is cut OF
almost if not quite in the same proportion
The undeniable figures showed this in 81!
months, and continue to show it.
Now, intelligeet and ingenious trafficer
wholesale or RETAIL in Alcoholic drinks, w,
must find some cause for this glorious fac
beside the prohibition of your business, or elst
confess yourself the author of Crime and the
enemy of Society. 1t won't do for YOU te
say, even if You could prove it, "The quaint
ty drank is as great "as ever" The Object
of the law is not to prevent people from drink.
ing this or that, but to prevent Paupersn
and Crime-to protect the public peace. II
the statistics of Pauperism and Crime are in
favor of the Law, let the amount drank be
what it will. If drinking be not diminished
then, surely, nobody's liberty to drink has
been much damaged. We don't care hon
the Law brings about the blessing, so that
we get it; and We do get it, more or less
whenever we get the Law. Wherever the
law has been enacted, and had trial, there
it has been more or less enforced, and always
with visible, palpable diminuton of Pau
perism and Crime, of immense pecuniary
and incalculable moral value This is as
much an accomplished fact in the politics of
the world as Steam Navigation or Railway
Locomotion is in the mechanics of it.
Thus the Rum advocates, having signally
failed in their matter-of-fact argument and
utiliLarian logic, have no stronghold left but
the abstraction of personal liberty. That
sound principle, they tell us, must not be Vi
olated, no matter how powerful the motive,
or how great the good to be secured by its vi
olation. 1t is refreshing to meet with such
devotion to principle; but unfortunately, the
great good which is to be sacrificed to it, in
this case, is not that of the devotees, but of
other people. The principle may be wor-
thy of all this worship; but we cannot
help remarking that their worship of it is
none of the purest. Their godliness smells
terribly of gain. Now, let us see whether
Society must submit to double or quadruple
load of Pauperism and Crime, rather than to
invade the traffic which is the cause of it.
1t is not contended that Alcoholic Bevera-
ges are necessaries of life. They are at best
Injuries. 1t does not follow that, because
the law has laid its prohibitory finger on a
luxury, it has established precedent for in
vading the necessaries of life, nor for invading
other luxuries which have no injurious effect
on Society, or are not productive of Pauper-
ism and Crime. But, the law in this case
does not prohibit the use of the luxury; it
only prohibits the public production and dis
tribution. The personal right to poison one
self-whatever that is worth-is left as intact
and sacred rs ever, in the abstract; and, as we
are talking of an abstraction, this is significant
The whole extent of the invasion of personal
right or liberty is this, that one man shall not
be allowed to minister to the luxury of Others
whenever by so doing he Injuries Society at
large both in means and morals. In this
general statement we recognize principle Of
law as old as Society itself, if not as old as the
everlasting hills. Personal liberty apart from
it would be worthless. 1t invades no mans
privacy more than any other law; it simply
prohibits public branch of business which
sacrifices public good to private gain in the
enterprise of pampering an abnormalappetite.
The Maine Law occupies no untrodden ground
No landmark of liberty is ovcrthrown to make
way for it. Laws on the same principle have
existed wherever Civilization has f1ourished
The only popularity in this case is the great
extent of the practice prohibited and the pro-
portionaly urgent demand for the law.
If the legislative power has no right to en-
act such law, then what right has it to med
die with Pauperism and Crime at ala Is
Society limited to the cure of these evils, and
precluded from prevention? Then it might
as we'll give up the hopeless enterprise first as
last-let the unfortunate and the incompetent
feed and clothe themselves as they can, and
the rogues run at large and satiate themselves
with vilainy. Personal liberty just as much
requires the overthrow of all laws which pre-
vent the mercenary from seducing and vic
timizing the weak and unwary, as the Maine
Law. five yield the opponents of the Maine
Law their sacred principle" we must estab-
fish the unrestricted right of tempting and
being tempted, as the arch-enemy would have
it; and, that being done, what revenue would
long suffice for grated palaces, and the expen-
sive and tedious processes by which Justice
fills them! Common sense proclaims, like
the voice of the infinite multitude of waters
that Society has divine right to relieve itself
and slough off this whole business of swilling
the human mind into faulty by poisonous
drink. Individual right against social power
depends upon the nature of the thing to be
done--the balance of the good and the evil
| there is in it. Now in this age of the world
as in none before, Alcoholic Beverages have
undergone the scrutiny of science. The Psy.
biologist the Chemist, and the Psychologist
have traced the subtle spirit through all tbs
nerves and fibres of the human frame, and
noted nothing to compensate its inevitable
mischiefs. The Political Economist and Sta
| tician have watched the effect of this business
on wealth, and found it every way destructive