The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-04-04
THE PR ESS.
THURsDAYMORNING, APRIL 4, 1872.
The GrOg ShOps-NO. &.

That is true word, spoken by the PRESS on
Monday, that there are Immense difficulties
to be encountered in fighting the adversar in
the shape of a liquor seller" and it has been so
for many centuries. The general government
has more trouble with the liquor dealers in the
internal revenue department. than with all
other branches of the service. The frauds per-
petrated upon the government by that interest.
and the violent resistance to law by it are more
than in all other branches of the revenue SER
vice since the adoption of the constitution.
In Great Britain, since the time of Edward
vi. there have been enacted six hundred and
fifty-four separate and distinct statutes, relat-
ing to the grog-shops. These statutes have all
been in the direction of more stringent regu-
lations, and of more forcible repression. The
tremendous evils of the liquor trade have been
deeply felt and often acknowledged there, and
Parliament has had more trouble with it, by
far, than with any other department of domes-
tic affairs. And noac, in that country, this sub
Ject has come to the front in political agita-
ton, and occupies public attention as no other
does, unless it be the Alabama difficulty and
the American case" At the last session of
Parliament, more than 800, 900 names were sent
in on petitions for the enactment of a 'slocal
option act that is an act permitting the peo-
pie, in their several cities, towns and parishes,
to vote upon the subject of licenses, and that in
every locality where the vote is against license,
there, there shall be absolute prohibition.
And while I am writing these lines, every
part of the United Kingdom is actively travers-
ed as never before, by agents in great numbers
of the temperance societies, in order to procure
petitioners in favor of what is called there, Sir
Wilfred Lawson's Permissive Bill In 1888
was passed by Parliament, law known as the
Beer Act, the object of which was to diminish
the consumption of distilled liquors by facilitat-
ing the consumption of ale and beer. The Duke
of Wellington, the Earl Derby, and Lord Brough-
am carried that measure through in spite of an
active and earnest protest, because they de-
clared it would diminish the drunkenness of the
country. But all of them lived to acknowledge
and lament their mistake. 1t did not diminish
the consumption of distilled liquors, but added
many, many millions of gallons of other alco-
holic liquors to the enormous quantities already
consumed by the people, and increased the
drunkenness of the country to a frightful ex-
tent, so that now, England is spoken of even
by Englishmen as the most drunken nation in
the world. Lord Brougham lived to regret very
much his agency in the passage of the beer bill,
and gave his warm approval of the Maine law,
and became Vice President of the United
Kindom alliance for the legal suppression of
the Liquor Traffic-THE GRAND ALLIANCE, as
he called it in his opening speech, when pre-
siding at one of its meetings in Free Trade
Hall, Manchester, packed to its utmost capaci-
ty, with seven thousand people. .e' .=--H
Yes, the old adversary, in the shape of a
lquor-seller," has assumed his very worst shape.
in liquor-seller, he is in his last ditch; he will
make his deadly fight there, knowing very well,
that if he is beaten in that strong hold, the
'sPit' itself, may easily be taken afterward by
storm. In all the New England States, it will
be found, that since the earliest colonial days,
many more laws have been enacted to repress
the adversary in the shape of a liquor-seller"
than to discourage and repress all other evil
doers combined. In this great struggle for God
and Humanity against that adversary" some
progress has been made within the last quarter
of century, think. n. ID.