The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1873-02-05
For THE RECORD
TIE LOCAL oITIoN LAW.


MIR. EDITOR Il noticed in your paper re-
Gently some communications concerning the
proposed optional prohibitory law. Among
those adverse, il one signed A. II. Y, in which
the writer asks, :" Is 1t right that thousands
who drink moderately and occasionally should
be debarred because a few men get drunk ?"
But that question does not. properly state the
point at issue. The advocates of prohibitory
legislation do not rest their cause ON so
slender a foundation. They assume that al
cohol being poison in its pure or absolute
form, is poison according to the amount pre-
sent, in all its combinations; and that the
State has right and the power to prevent the
sale of all poisons which destroy or shorten
life, or even injurc human beings. But while
wish to set A. r. Y. right, and confine him
to precision of statement, concur with him
in opposition to the Local Option Law which
| look upon as an impracticable statute based
upon a false principle.
say ga false principle - for if alcoholic
drinks of all degrees of strength, be alike
poisons, what right have the majority of resi-
dents in any township or village to authorize
the sale of such pernicious drinks in a com
! munity where they may chance to outnumber
their more sober and abstinent neighbors?
Would any man, not an absolute idiot, pro-
pose local option law by which people should
be licensed to sell arsenic or opium to whoever
/ applied, or denied such license, Mt the capri
cious will ola bare majority of people in
township? The only ground for prohibiting
the sale of ardent spirits is that such sale is
pernicious to health, or bane to morals As
summing that alcoholic drinks come under this
censure, and the sale is wicked, and so wicked
that it may be prohibited, it is proposed to
permit this wickedness if majority of votes
and one may be majority-can be coaxed
argued, bribed or buled into it's support.
say "an impracticable statute !" for even
where the law can be made to prevent the sale
of the more bulky, and therefore less injurious
kind of stimulating drinks, such as lager, root
beer, cider and ale experience has shown that
you can not keep down the sale of whiskey,
where the alcohol is in so much greater per
centage.s You merely drive the latter to cover
at best, and to cover it you raise a huge crop
vi ilts ucCclt anu pcCltb cACtSS. L Gu uflVe
men from the lighter to the heavier drinks.
Even If this be considered good policy on the
ground that the sooner men drink themselves
to death the better, the law does not give pro-
lection to the community. Let us suppose 1t
in existence, and the elections held Lambert
vile, being the most moral town in the world,
votes by one or two majority not to have the
unclean thing in it's midst, of course the law
would be obeyed here. Nobody sells liquor
now in this town without license, and of
course they would notdo it then. The tavern
keepers would only give their guests choice
between well-water, cistern- water, rain-water
tea and coffee. Frank Moore could refuse TO
fill any prescription which read Recipe
Misturae Spirit Vini JGallici,'' because he
would know that was only Latin for brandy
egg-nogg. An would be lovely and quiet here
But let the adjoining townships think differ
emily. They vote for license, the requisite
dozens of freeholders approve, and just over
of Eden from the wicked surrounding world,
King Alcohol reigns. Your Lambertviller of
a thirsty nature-I suppose in such case lie
may be called your Observation-Disclosures over
the line at will, enters one of these dens of
iniquity, and after taking a large load comes
back armed and equipped as the law doesn't
direct, with pocket pistol containing several
"sIugs" with which he aud his friends may
be "shot in the neck :" at leisure. The more
you try to stop him, tho more he won't be
stopped. A Gordon of officers placed ten feet
apart on the boundary line could not do It,
The law therefore is as Improbable as every
prohibitory law yet tried has proved TO be.
Reform must be commenced at the source and
then it is practicable. Teach men the fearful
nature of excess the perils of moderate in
dulgcnce the danger Of the first drink. But
if you must prohibit, make the law fixed, def
mite and absolute--an iron and not an India
rubber law. Do not degrade and debase the
law itself by allowing few persons to use it
to defend and protect men in one locality in a
pursuit which other persons in another locali-
ty use the same law to punish as a crime.
may at some future time, if have leisure.
explain the effect of alcoholic poison on tho
system, the nature and character of the differ
ent distilled and fermehted drinks and the
power of poisons under all their combinations
but not now. have already intruded too far
upon your space. 80 IIupAToroTis.