Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1870-06-16
Temperance in washIr on

Temperance in WashiP on
! Senator Pomeroy has introduced bill
designed to prohibit the retailing of liq
uors in the District of Columbia. Drag
| gists may sell alcohol, under restr;c.
| tions, one o. which is that they shall
keep a registry of the bdyecs thereof
Liquors are not to be sold TO minors MOI
! to any man after notification by rela-
tives that he is Incorporate. The sellei
OF liquors is to be held responsible for all
| injuries committed by persons to whom
they sell liquors while under the influ-
ence thereof; and the bill provides that
a person who refuses or is unable to re-
strain his appetite and his passion is to
be sdiudged insane and confined in a
lunatic asylum.
The last clause is the best feature oi
the bill. We have little faith in nrohib-
itory laws so long as theic administra-
ton is left to men who have no respect
for law. So long as it is the custom for
officials to wink at the evasion or abso-
lutte defiance of law. "for considera-
tion,' so long will laws, AID especially
prehibitory laws, be of little account in
this country. OF course We commend
whatever law helps to restraid and co.,
troll men who cannot control themselves
90 IOllS dS tl6H Will AlNuOt thCAC VIII
be men to sell it. We see no more equity
in holding man who sells liquor re-.
sponsible for The &C ofthe man who
1lys it VIII lie uuder its influence, than
we do for holding the man who sells his
neighbor an AK, responsible for the DAM
age he may do with that AK, while he
holds it in his head. If a man cutters
our orchard and cuts down or wantonly Y
mutilates the trees thereof with the AK,
it is as reasonable and just to hold tue
man who made and sold the ak respon-
sible for the damages done Herewith as
it is to hold the man who mates and
sells liqdor responsible fof the acts OF
toe man who buys il. Such legislation
is absurd, and contains in it ,ne elements
of failure.
The fact is, laws must be based upon
common sense. And q law which de-
pr;ves one man of just responsibility
and burthens mother with il, wi"
prove null aud void, practically. Any
man has as mucn right, abstractly, to
sell liquor as any other man has to buy
and use it, Ifwes sell Daniel Mcfarland
or any other man, n revolver and
cartridges, according to the tneo-y OF
this bill, we ought to be held responsi-
bic for the lives OF the men he kills
sense or Justice in such theory. But il
Daniel Mcfarland uses the revolver and
cartridges without resi- siraint, and shoots
Albert ID. Richardson, or any other man
or, in the words OF t2e bill, il he re
fuses or is unable to restrain bis appetite
and his passions, he should be adiudged
insane and confined in lunatic
asylum.
The recognition of the individual re-
sponsibilitv of each person for his own
acts is the ohly common sense basis Tor
legislation. If John Brown kuOws tuat
i, he goes too near the Niagara current
he will fall in and that if he falls in he
will be swept over the falls and Destroy
ed ought lie not o be restrained il he
goes thither? Or ought the river to be
restrained? II John Jones hangs him
self with his night-shirt should the wife
who made it for him he held responst-
BILE for his life? If John Smith knows
that Intoxicating liquor will make him