Litchfield enquirer., 1870-02-17
Temperance Legislation.

In MT. Greeley's '.Rscollections of a Busy Life, !" he gives the following anec- dots, connected with his brief Congression- al career:
 We were temporarily successful ill vot- ing in Committee to stop dealing out strong drink to the sailors and marines in our navy, tn ough this, too, was ultimate ly defeated; but in the first flush of our de- lusive triumph, member sitting near me, to . friend, who 1T believe) had voted the same way,-"Gid, that was glorious vote we have just taken" "Yes, glorious" was the ready response. "Gid," resumed the elated reformer, let's go and take drink on the strength of it." Agreed" was the willing echo; and they went.-Pogs 22S.
 Now this, not to mince matters, is hy- pocrisy: and it is this very hypocrisy that kills the prohibitory law. Congressmen can easily enough lay their virtuous hands on the common sailor and "stop his ..grog" (the only semblance of a luxury, except to-. bacco, he knows); but do they ever inter- fsre with the wine of the Rear AdmiralP Didit ever occur to them to enact a pro- hibitory law for the District of Columbia, or does any one imagine that any amount of statute laws would ''stop Aeir grog?" The simple fact is that the social condition of the country at large is not such as to warrant making the sale of Intoxicating liquor, to anybody, under any circumstances, a crime, punishable if perseyered Tn with imprisonment in the penetentiary; yet such is Prohibition as it now stands. Our political aristocracy, our social aristocracy, . large share of our religious aristocracy, break that law, wherever it exists, without hesitation. The gentleman who purchases his stock of the wholesaler, @ church war den, would knock down the person who should ask him to turn informer and en- force the statute; even if he becomes in- toxicated. he does not think of blaming his respected friend. the church-warden. But Patrick O'Raferty, who buys his pint of ''the cratur" of his cnuntryman. Maloney, gets gloriously drunk, and brings up in the lock up. is expected to turn States evi- dence against Maloney, and is abused as an Irish beast if he prevaricates under oath, and lets his friend escape! Yet the gen. tleman and the church warden, O'Rafferty and Maloney. are equally guilty before the lAw. No Litchfield hquor-seller could be brought before Litchfeld county jury for that offence, without being brought before men who daily solicit him to commit that very crime. It would seem as if an honest luror m such case would rise in his seat and say. "Tour Honor, must ask to be excused from the trial of.this cause. have bought liquor of the prisoner every day since came to this place. and no not feel liks trying him for doing for others what he is all the while doing, at my request, for me" Such is not, indeed, the manner of jurors. All they usually say is, "Not Guilty" Were Justice of the Peace to bay a quart bottle of whiskey of drug. gist on Monday, and then sentence him to Imprisonment for that very sale, on Tuesday, he would be considered an odi. ons hypocrite; yet how much would his hypocrisy he lessened by the fact that the case before him did not grow out of the sals made to him on Monday. but ont of a sals made to his neighbor OF Saturday; Nor are the magistrate and the juror the only persons at fault in this matter. Our highest and our lowest classes are not as a general thing total abstinent. It is only