The Cecil Whig., 1871-04-01
For The Cecil Wing.
THE NORTH EAST RUM QUESTION.
North EAST, March 81, 1871.

NORTH LAST, March Il, 1871.
MIR. EDITOR will you be SO kind as to
allow humble individual space in your
valuable paper to reply to an article headed
"Defense of the Rum Traffic. over the
signature of North End" which appeared
in The Wig of last week ? if so we would
say that North End has undertaken to
show that the prohibitory liquor law, which
did exist, at one time, in North East, was
an injury to said town and its inhabitants.
We propose to show, that if the friends of
the liquor traffic cannot produce better
argument for its continuance than North
End has done, it is high time the traffic
should cease.
North End says that the prohibitory law
was the means of driving the liquor traffic
kept mostly by men whose sole object was
to make money from which assertion, we
presume, he infers that the shanties inside
of the town are kept by men whose object
is not to make money. He also referred to
appropriate names which were given to
those outside rum mills. Would to God
that all rum holes had their appropriate
names ! let them be in town out of town.
These names, he says, will give you some
idea of the places that bore them. Very
true, North End the very names they
bore, prevented respectable persons from
visiting them. But none bore the name
of Cred Toad That is the name given
to school-house. lie could safely say that
we had more drunken men during the four
years of prohibition, than we will ever
have in any four years to come, providing
they do not take the license from the
borough. We cannot safely sag any such
thing but, on the contrary, can safely
say, that there is more drunkenness and
profanity practiced here, on an average, in
one week, than there were in ten during
the time the nuisance was removed from
our town. We assert that which we are
prepared to prove by respectable witnesses.
North End says that the only way to keep
the disreputable rum mills out of exist
ence, is to allow one or two hotels to be
can afford to keep the better class of whis-
kies, and will do it. Now we would like
to know what he proposes to prove by such
an argument? Does he wish to prove that
if respectability could be attached to whis-
ky-drinking, that there would be less
whisky used as a beverage? and does he
wish to prove that the kind Of whisky that
the people are gulping down, at his respec-
table hotels in North East, does not pro-
duce the same effect as did the whisky that
was sold from these shanties, which were
on the outside of the town? If SO, let him
bring on his witnesses whom he will have
no difficulty in finding, if he will take a
walk out on our streets, especially on Sat
urday nights. He admits that it was a
curse to have whisky sold on our borders.
| We would ask him, Is it a less curse to
have it sold in the very heart of our town?
North End also tells us that it is sad mis-
take to cry down the hotels. 1t is not the
hotels, or the hotel-keepers, which we pro-
pose to cry down. 1t is the rum traffic we
are after, and if the hotels are wholly
dependent upon the liquor traffic for sup
port, and if the evil which grows out of
said traffic is greater than for community
to be deprived of hotel, then we would
adopt the motto of North End, and say of
the two evils choose the least, and let the
hotels slide. We tell you that it is mis-
take about a town being dependent upon
hotels and whisky for prosperity. We
| tried the experiment in North East for
nearly four years, and found that it did
not injure us III the least to be without the
great conveniences which North End would
have them to be !; although we had some
private boarding houses. And as the peo-
pie will always consult their own interests.
when they have the privilege to do so at
the ballot-boX, we want no better proof of
the advantages which accrued from the
prohibitory liquor law, than the overwhel-
ming majorities that were given from year
to year in favor of said law, until the inhc-
rent rights Of the people to decide at the
ballot box, whether or not a nuisance should
be tolerated in their midst, was wrenchcd
from them by the rum power. But the
people will eventually have their rights
Hear him again. He says those that are
doing their utmost to remove the license
are actually doing an injury to the town
and its inhabitants. That may do to "tell
the marineS,' or Ilottentots, but not to the
intelligent readers of THE Wig We
would ask him, What are the people of
North East and vicinity depending upon
fo" their prosperity? Is it not the McCul-
lough Iron Company's works? And what
would become of North East, if these
. works should cease operations? Now, we
ask, who are doing the most to remove the
rum traffic in our midst? We answer, the
very gentlemen who compose the said Iron