New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-12-15

-'pas " IN IL" imposing tax OF $lOV OF 80 on
each place where Alcoholic Liquors are sold. We
are quite wiling that the friends of moderate resu-
!ated drinking should impose such tax, and ia
deed we believe they cannot well avoid it. For all
men do see that the present Alcoholic saturnaa Is
difusipg habits of Intemperance more rapidly than
they were ever before diffused. We believe that
habits of drinking and of drinking to excess, never
before gained ground rapidly in our State as they
have since the Court Of Appeals crushed the Pro-
hibtOry Act and opened the ioodgates Of absolute
Free Trade in Rum. If the logic Of such statesmen
as Horstio Seymo and John Van Buren, be sound
If their fundamental aIioms be not mistaken and
delusiye-'ben the last year should have been the
very Pentecost of Temperance Reform in our State.
What it has been, those wh) have eyes can see.
But in truth, none of these stump oracles of Free
Tipping has ever yet dared to grappe with the
vital principle Of Liquor Prohibition. They have
not dared to tell their hearers what il is. They
haraDeue and declaim on the futility Of sumPtuary
legislation, regulating mems food and drink BY law,
&c, &c, carefully evading the real matter in dis
pute- Our Prohibitory At interdcted or punished
not the act of drinking but that of selling. Its
fundamental principle was simply this: Man has no
right TO pandtr for gain to the rieious appetite Of has
meighJOr. Admit this with the essentially no1ious
or hurtful character Of Alcoholic beverages, and
oucsnnot even pausibly oppose Liquor Prohibition.
Deny it, and you condemn all legislation against
gambling, lewdrsss, and every form Of vice.
We have no faith in any legislation upon the
Liquor Traffic which does not lay the ak to the
root Of the tree; we have faith in this only when
there is virtue enough in the community to sustain
and enforce it. Rhode Island has to-day Pro-
h bitOry Act, which the Courts have injured ma
terialy and the People are unable or unwilling to
repair and uphold and that act is practically rather
damage than benefit to Temperance. Vermont,
on the other hand, has q very similar law, which
her Courts have steadily upheld and her People
generally enforced This act, thus sustained, Is
a great public blessing it does not absolutely drive
Liquor from the State, but it has rendered drunk
enLess rare and in fact hardly possible. We have
recently traversed her eastern Counties without
seeing or bearing of place where Alcoholic Bev-
erages are openly sold towns which formerly had
dozen taverps have now but one or two; and the
chilled traveller who enters enc OF these no
longer finds the fire monopolized by crowd Of
neigbbt rhood soakers. There are not this day In
Vermont five men lOunging about bar-room fires
where there were hundred even ten years ago.
ProbbitOry legislation, with Temperance Judges to
back it, has wrought this change; it will DO so IN
other States which have the intelligence and virtue
to sustain it, and where the Liquor Interest il not
strong enough to snap the green wlthes Of Law, as
we have learned by sad experience that it is in thus
State. WepropOse, therefore, to resume the work
Of creating public sentiment in our State adverse
to Alcoholic beverages and the Traffic therein and
whenever that sentiment shall be manifestly strong
enough, with Court of Appeals to back it. we
shall be ready to renew the struggle for Probip'
itory Act Meantime, we leave the question Of
License or Free Trade in Liquor to the advocates
of moderate drinking, deeming it one in which Pro-
bibitoniss can feel but subordinate interest.