New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-01-25
EXCISE EXERCISES.

There is marvellous amount of talent for
misnomer among the Democratic members or
the Legislature, which is chiefly expended in
the frantic race between the friends of the
bibulous in both Houses to repeal or modify
the Excise law. Here is Mr.. NJ c. Murphy,
from whom something better might have been
expected, who las introduced a bill which he
calls " A bill to repeal chapter SIS of the laws
(" of 1866, entitled an act to regulate the sale
"Of intoxicating liquors within the MetrOpOl-
itan Police District The bill, with this
simple title provides that the Mayor shall APP
point three COmmi sstoners of Excise. who shall
regulate the sale of Intoxicating liquors in the
city, and stipulates that no charge for license
to sell liquors shall exceed $25. Having thus
briefly and negatively declared that ale and beer
shall be sold without fee or restraint, and made
sure that the fees for selling liquor shall be
next to nothing, it enacts in the next
section that the Mayor shall regulate the sal
aries of the Commissioners, and shall have
power to appoint "such clerks as may be
necessary" These being the provisions of
the bill, it is plain it should be entitled an act
to promote drunkenness, pauperism, and crime,
to put a tax upon virtue, to provide slnecure
places for INDECENT Democrats, and for other
like purposes. From the Excise law, which
has been under Republican auspices, the re-
ceipts last year were 100000, and the expend-
itures about $4,000. Under the Murphy bill,
these balances will be more than reversed.
The Commissioners having power to Tx
merely nominal license, while the Mayor, being
empowered to appoint such clerks as may be
necessary, and to regulate salaries, something
more is TO be done by this bill than to secure
the free rum so dear to the Democratic heart
The Commissioners will be found as costly
creatures as Police Justices, who are worth
$4,000 apiece at present quotations, and there
will be a multitude of clerks at proportionate
prices deemed necessary and appointed
fresh flock of cormorants being thus set loose
upon the industry of the city, the Democracy
can revel unvexed in their untaxed rum shops.
But Murphy has been handicapped by one
Owen Cavanagh, who has been delegated to
Albany by the repeaters of the Fourteenth
Ward. He introduced bill, already law,
which is entitled IAN act to extend the time
" for the collection of Excise fees in the Metro
"politan District" and which declares "No
proceedings shall be entered into by the Com
"missioners of Excise in the Metropolitan Dis
4" trict, or fees collected, from the date of the
passage of this act to the first day Of June,
"187On Cavanagh should have named his
measure "a bill to serve as a startling example
of verbal ambiguity" and might have profted
by the example of Peter Mitchell of the Eighth
Ward, who, being liquor dealer, knew what
he was about and cOntented himself with
simply repeating his title In his enacting clause,
thereby seeking to briefly but emphatically
repeal that obnoxious chapter 57S, which has
so long been the Democratic bugaboo only be-
cause it prevented the faithful from getting
drunk on Sundays and after midnight, and
compelled the rum sellers to pay a little some
thing in alienation of the misery their traffic
entails upon the human race.
1t is evident that the Excise law is to be re-
pealed altogether. The revenue derived from
the present statute is to be wholly annihilated.
and virtue is to be once more taxed to the
utmost possible extent for the support of vice.
The barriers that Republican legislation erected
for the protection of society are to be cast
down, and we are again to be at the mercy of
the rum sellers, who scott as they ruin. But
when the ghosts of their victims rise up in
multitudes to rebuke the wicked policy by
which they were destroyed Democratic effront-
cry will be the first TO exclaim:
" Thou canst not say did it,"
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