North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1867-05-15


Meeting dogs with restaurant sausages.-
Hope my dog is tucked away in some saus-
age skin. Wish all the dogs were made
into one large sausage, and the fellow who
owns the dog with the hairless tail, that
bit me, had to eat it at one sitting.
License and Prohibition.
In many quarters the License and No
License issue is before the people in some
form or other and with great or moderate
intensity.
There are occasional drinkers who, see
ing the evils of drinking to excess all about
them, are going in for prohibition in hon
est hopes that some good may be done.
And there are avowed, practical tempe
rance men-of the old school, who are ia
yoring the freedom to sell without license
or restraint, or else licensing with strin-
gent determinations as to who are licens-
ed, SO that men Of average good behavior
and moral responsibility are authorized to
sell the devilish stuff which, as lately
compounded of poisoned drugs and alco-
hol, seems to lead men to become outlaws
runs down their throats.
We confess to favoring the licensing Of
the best men that will undertake the sale
Of these drunk-producing liquids, believing
that greatly less of moral obliquity and
crime will follow the sale. Of liquors so au-
thorized and regulated than by any other
practice.
We would use the whole law and it's in
terpretations by the courts to regulate the
sale, to keep sellers and drinkers within
safe moral bounds, and to protect commu-
nifty from the support of those impoyerish-
ed and diseased by drink.
We grant it would be better to abstain
and to enforce abstinence upon all--were
it possible to carry numbers enough to en-
force such abstinence. Believing it i'm
possible to secure the numerical power, at
least until vastly higher general stage of
intelligence shall prevail, we shall do what
is practical if not logical, and what seems
metaphysically right, however open to
criticism.
On the first page Of the Herald we have
published The experience of some of the
leading men of Massachusetts, state that
has been trying on Prohibition and No Ii
cense these dozen years. The legislature
of that state and those who have support
ed the law from the first, now seriously
think of adopting such laws as we have in
Wisconsin and abandoning just such as
some Of our people think Of trying on.
We may be wrong. Some may doubt
our sincerity. We confess to entertaining
some doubts even of the position we have
taken and publicly record. Therefore, as
new lights are lighted and crooked, bad
ways are made good and straight by fur
ther travel on the whiskey sidewalks We
may in like manner change, reform and
soberly travel some new way.
We have been wrong very often and
have changed just as often. We now
think we did wrong for years in support
ing No-license, thereby practically insur-
ing discredit to licensed selling, and shov-
ing the business adrift among sharks and
pirates.
Having failed, and failing as we must in
reformatory measures till day of higher
mental illumination shall appear, We shall
aim to put the business in trustier hands
and there leave it.
And as to men of excessive drinking,
we shall try to throw such obstacles in
their way as shall confound their tongues
and lead them to scatter away and take to
sober pursuits and associations; as did
Jeptha when his father was in wine, we
shall walk backwards and cover up the
old man till soberness shall make him pre-
sentable.
If prohibition be failure in Massachu-
setts, what else can be expected for the
West with even stronger laws against the
traffic! Good God we cannot even sup
port dog law And if a few influential
money shavers nullify and even popular
ize a notification Of our assessment laws,
and by their example elevate perjury to
decency and dignity, what is to become of
any legalized prohibitory liquor measures
that can be adopted!
Let Major Purman set the public schools
ablaze, and keep them SO till another gem
Grafton is installed-the old passing away
with speed accelerating in just proportion
as whiskey -guzzling shall increase. We
hail the new and better era when the cold
water pump, in hands of a more intelli-
gent race, shall drown out the still-worm
of Deacon Jones distillery of olden time
We have faith in a glorious future.-G Grant
Co. Herald-John c. Corer.