The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1855-04-28
The Meetings ON the Liquor Law.


giving shape and force to the sentiments of the
people of the city with reference to the liquor
law. That which met on Thursday was for car
rying out the law and enforcing prohibition.
1t was mainly composed OF ladies, of both
sexes, and children, of clergy men, theorists, and
that class of respectable persons whose princi-
pies forbid their going to the theatre, and who
therefore seek q milder form Of dissipation at
lectures, temperance meetings and sedate tea
parties. 1t was addressed in q creditable man
ner by an unknown professor, named Mattison,
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the Rev. DR..
Tying, and Mr.. W. III. Burleigh. There was
nothing particularly new in what they said.
They looked generally for the regeneration OF
the human race, and the abolition Of sin, and
regarded the Prohibitory law as a means of
Fastening the time when all creation should
break forth into "notes Of thanksgiving and
songs of exaltation to the Almighty" With
few other remarks of this order, rather prettily
phrased ard decorously applauded, they follow
ed each other off the platform, and the ladies
and children were taken home in perfect safety
and very gratifying state Of gentle enthusi-
asm. This was one meeting.
1t was composed of the bone and sinew of The
city--of working men and grocers, of mer-
chants and landowners, Of rich and poor-but
all directly concerned in the growth and
progress of New York. 1t was in every
way contrast to the. meeting Of the night
before. There were no ladies in Tammany,
come to dfsennuyer themselves; no children
enjoying the speeches as pleasant soporifcs;
and very few of that beautiful class of theorists
who figured so largely the night before, and
who are constantly on the qua vire for some
new intellectual or moral movement. The
audience WIS wholly Of practical cast. Men
were there whose prosperity is bound up with
that of the city. II it thrives they thrive if it
he ruined, they must go to pieces Men accus-
toned to work with pen, or arm; mixing daily 10
the real business OF life, meeting their fellow
men doing likewise, and knowing the wants, the
hopes, and the faults Of the people proper; used
TO form sound judgment on practical ques-
lions and rapidly weighing the merits OF law
OF stroke of policy. True, self-interest had
some share in the influences which brought them
there's but VIII o is not interested in this liquor
business? Where is the man, except these
live on the interest of their unrealized hopes,
funded, who will not be a loser if the liquor law
should go into effect?
Now which meeting best represents the sense
of the city? Is New York the abode of women,
children and dreamers or of working men, mer-
| chants and house owners2 Which of the two
classes has right to speak for the Empire city?
! Forty millions of property cannot be de-
| stro y cd because few ladies and half dozen
| clergymen who had far better have been at
home writing their sermon for tomorrow, or
| else sitting by the bedside of some sick parish
Toner, choose to think that the sale Of liquor
| York cannot be untenanted because certain ex-
permental philosophers choose to think that
the sale Of the juice Of the grape is the cause
Of crime. 1t is very natural that at first the
prevalence of vice should have led the masses
in the country parts to advocate extreme
measures: villagers have always been fanatics;
but some better plan than the Prohibitory
Liquor law will be found, sooner or later, and
the tetotallers had better make up their minds.
THE LIQUOR CARNIvAL-SUNDAY INrHMpE-
RANcE-FRsT FRUITS OF THE New LAw-The
reaction caused by the arbitrary and tyranni-
cal character of the new liquor law is begin
ming to produce its fruits The hotel keepers
otNew York, acting upon the opinions of the
District Attorney and the Corporation Coun-
sci, have come to the resolution of keeping
their bars open on Sunday after the first of
May. 1.-THE legal opinions given by those func.
tionaries be correct, no one can doubt their
perfect right to do so. The hotel keepers are
smarting under the sense of an unjust and des-
potic attack upon their interests and ii is natu-
raj that they should not be over nice or particu-
lar about the means which they may employ to
defeat it, 1t is their object to cast as much
ridicule and discredit as they can on the bill
by exposing to practical test its manifold in
consistencies and absurdties. Before it passed
the Legislature, and in compliance with the re-
concentrations Of our present reforming May
or, most Of the hotel keepers of the city
evinced a praiseworthy disposition to conciliate
public feeling on the subject by closing their
bars on the Sabbath. They showed that by
concert on their part and readiness to second
the efforts of the public authorities more could
be done to repress the evils resulting from the
unrestrained sale of liquors on the Sabbath
than by the most despoMc penal enactments or
corporation ordinances.
We regret to find the hotel keepers abandon
ing this high ground. If there was policy as
well as correct feeling in their conduct on the
occasion referred to they are more than ever
called upon now to persevere in it. At a time
when the blunders Of legislative incapacity, or
perhaps the treachery of some of the professed
| Jc 80 bau 1oft he g.
Rod of two months without the protection of any
| I.4;r No =: