Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-12-29
Gbt 4aiIg Spp.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20. 1857.


There may be a retributive justice in the dim
mutton Of the Mayors salary to the extent OF
couple Of hundred dollars, when we remember the
addition to our taxes his administration will ult-
mately cause through the increase of grog shops.
- Worcester Transcript on salaries, Dec 70
OF the course to be pursued by the incoming
administration of the City Government, thus re-
ferred to by the Transcript, we have no means OF
knowing; but if it should really cause any in
crease Of grog shops beyond what exist under the
present administration it will justly incur all the
censure it will be likely to receive from the Tran-
script, or any other source But not knowing
what may be in the future, we shall not hasten
to PREJUDICE it--thinking it the part Of wisdom,
rather to look at The past and see whether use
full lesson may not be drawn from for we
think it is far more just to condemn the wrong
already done. than that which We only fear The
Transcript knows, if it knows anything, that
there is very little chance for an increase of grog
shops in Worcester under any Mayors admins
tration, beyond those which exist at the present
time, and which have existed during the whole
regime Of the present administration of our city
aff4rs--aa administration which came in par
erce1lesee as Temperance administration, vir-
tually pledged to a thorough reform in the mat
ter Of "grog shops" aud to the fullest enforce
ment of the Maine law.
1t would be well for the Transcript to look
little at the facts as they now exist-to take the
record of the acts of that immaculate City Sow
eminent which it helped to elect, and contrast
those acts when in Office with the pledges given
prior to the election, as the suppression OF the
sale of intoxicating drinks, and il will readily be
seen, thatit has been on this as on many other
occasions, that "the success and vigor OF the war
have not quite come up to the blgh'soundmg
phrases of the manifesto.
Does the Transcript not know that there has
not teen a. time within the memory Of the oldest
inhabitant. when the sale of rot-gut" in all the
low erogeeres from the iarthest end Of Pine Mead
ow to the southernlnost corner of Water ST., was
carried on more openly than it has been during the
pastyear. underits pet administration of ''friends
of temperanss!" Did Washington Square"
ever presenf in any previous year, larger dis
play Of pipes, hogsheads, barrels, and kegs, filled
with evety description Of fre-water that can cor
rupt Til body and madden the brain, and about
whica have daily clustered the red visaged, bear-
eyea loafers, from thirty miles around, for their
daily and weekly supplies
"A The Transcript cannot plead ignorance on this
matter. for it is known to every man, having
eyes, who walks the streets of this city, and when
it talks about an increase Of grog shops, under
the new administration, it talks of that which is
simply absurd. for the only limit to the bust
ness during the past year must have been the
dearth Of customers, from the fact that the prof
its Of the business were already divided among so
many In regard to other and more respectable
places, the same may be said, as of the down
town shops They were never more numer-
Gus, less unrestricted in their traffic, than during
the past year. The Maine law is now, and has
been, except for a week or two last Winter, dead
letter. and we defy any one to show any improve
mentin the management Of our city affairs, the
past year, as relates to the traffic in Intoxicating
drink, over that of the FUNNIEST administration
which ever existed here, either before since the
passage ofthe Maine law.
The City Government, with all their Maine law
professions, have never seen fit to try that law
upon any respectable nan, house, hotel, or other
establishment, and the sum Of all their efforts to
carry cut the pledges a temperance City Gov
ernment, is the arrest and conviction of here and
there au Irish widow, or some poor devil Of a man
who had not friend in the world. and whose
whole stock in trade would not, if sold by the
glass, amount to the purehase money of barrel
of -four.
While the Transcript and its coadjutors are re-
sponsble for the past years regime of free rum,
with the Maine law nullity, and the Board Of
Aldermen sitting, week after week, with folded
hands, and apparently indifferent to the exist
ence Of evils and abuses continually before their
eyes. it little becomes that organ to raise hue
and cry, in advance, against administration, as
yet untried which may be great deal better,
but which, certainly, cannot be any worse as far
as neglect Of the moral interests Of the city, in
connection with the subject of temperance, is
concerned.