Litchfield enquirer., 1870-02-17

SoSSOsoA04Ss W0 uO uOC Dell6v0 that a third of the legal voters of Connecticut are genuine total abstinents. Yet majority of our legal voters procured the passage of the prohibitory statute. and occasionally attempt it's enforcement. In short, large portion of that majority try to force an ab- stinence on others they do not think of practicing themselves. They seek, in ef- feet. to stigmatize the liquor seller as in- famous, and to punish him as criminal, for doing for others what they are con- stantly asking him to do for them.
 As we view this matter, there are two fundamental errors in our present law: 1st, It recognizes no grades of criminality in the business of rum selling 2d, It under takes to regulate by one general statute the practice of localities in totally different stages of temperance opinion, and of tenn perance progress.
 l. We do not believe that sale of a glass of liquor to the respectable citizen or traveller. is of the same grade of criminali- ty. as sales to minors, to habituai drunk ards or to persons whose families are struggling in poverty. For example. rath CT than with any view to perfect classified tion, we will make three grades of liquor sellers: 1st, Those who keep mere grog- geries. the staple of whose traffic is sales to boys, drunkards, and common laborers with needy families. 2d, Reputable hotel keepers, and the like, who sell in the main to respectable class of customers; men who drink pretty steadily without being drunk ards, travellers, fast young men. &c. 3d, Druggists, &c., who sell to the respectable class of liquor consumers, constantly, and to nine-tenths of the whole community, occasionally, but seldom to the drunkard, or needy common laborer-who sell by the quantity, great or small, and never to be drunk on the premises
 2. Having thus classified the trafickers in spirituous liquors, it becomes evident ought to be effected everywhere, and at once. We maintain, indeed. that the poor man has the same right to this kind of in- dulgence, as the rich; but no man has the right to buy anything he can possibly do without, when his family is in need of bread. A State law might, therefore, be passed, punishing with great severity all sales to minors, to drunkards, or to labor CTS, whenever their families, or perhaps the town authorities on their behalf, give notice that such indulgence is actually de- priving them of the necessaries of life. It must be equally evident that there could be no reasonable hope of an immediate suppression of the second grade of traffic in cities, nor in many portions of the coun- try. The third grade, we firmly believe, neither can nor ought to be suppressed. except in those exceptional localities where the great majority of the population are strict teetotalers, and where there are le- gally appointed agents for the supply of the legitimate demand for medicinal and mechanical purposes. Our belief is that every locality (say School Society or Vot- ing District) should be allowed to regulate. in it's own way, the two latter grades of the liquor traffic. Give each locality full power to limit, license, or prohibit the sale of liquor within it's precincts. Thus, in this village. where teetotalers are in small minority, where in half the churches total abstinence is neither believed in, practic- ed. nor eyen preached, ,any attempt to pro- hibit the third grade of liquor vending would be absurd; while we know that in many localities in the county absolute pro- hibition would be both right and practica- ble. Whether it would be possible in our village to attack the second grade of traffic with such thirsty business as Justice go- ing on here, term after term, would be a matter for serious considerations. In-most of our purely agricultural towns such reform would certainly be practicable.
 Under some such arrangement as that above indicated, we believe that the pres ent era of Free Rum might at once cease; that, with the natural growth of total absti- hence feeling and practice, a wholesome legislation might progress, never before, but always in the wake of, that reform and thus the Country, and probably the City, would gradually attain to a real Pro- hibition. But under our present law, we look for only short spasms of reform, to be followed by long periods of relapse. The movement usually begins with the harshest measure known to the law--its "seizing" process. The low groggery loses its sole barrel of the vilest and cheapest article known to the traffic; the hotel loses more and better liauor; while thousand or more dollars worth is seized at the druggist s-the worst offender al. ways running the least risk. Then follow the legal proceedings; queer justices ren- der queer decisions; queer jurors, queer verdicts; and the seized li- quors at last find their way back into the hands of their original owners. Pretty soon, the low groggery gets another barrel