The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-05-06
Temperance Notes.

The petitions for the enactment of prohib-
| itory law in Canada have been received by the
House of Commons, and a motion has been
introduced in that body for the appointment OF
a Committee of Inquiry to look into the opera
ton of such laws in the United States and else
where Premier Mackenzie has expressed
himself as personally favorable to such legisa-
ton.
The Buffalo Young Mems Christian Associa-
ton is organizing Friendly Inn, on the Holly
Tree plan, where working men and women can
obtain good food at reasonable prices, and can
also spend any leisure time in entire freedom
from the debasing influences which surround
saloons.
In East Douglas the temperance pledge has
been put in circulation, and about four hundred
signatures have been secured.
The Ohio Constitutional Convention, after a
debate of several weeks on the temperance
question, hsve agreed to submit en- article to
the popular vote, to be voted upon separately
from the Constitution. The vote is to be
''Lcense" or "No License" If License
prevail, the Constitution will provide that
licenses to traffic in Intoxicating liquor may
be granted, but the section shall not be so con-
strued as to prevent the Legislature from max
ing laws to restrain and regulate sales and to
mo License prevail the Legislature will have
power to prohibit the sale by whatever penal
ties may be deemed appropriate.
Prosecutions under the Baxter law continue
the order of the day in Indiana. From the
town of Ekhart alone seventy-eight cases
against liquor dealers are docketed.
Van Pelt, the converted saloonist of Ohio,
who has been laboring with so much zeal, was
reported to have gone back to his old ways aud
opened a saloon in Cleveland. The story proves
to be false, however, and is denied by Van
Pelt in very vigorous and very ungrammatical
English. He is still at work, and is undoubted
ly in earnest in his temperance labors.
All the saloon keepers of Keokuk, Iowa,
have signed pledge not to sell to minors or to
persons injured by the excessive use of intox.
catng liquors, and they make formal call fol-
such assistance and information as shall help
them in carrying out this purpose.
The women of Ftchburg. Mass, are active
ly engaged in getting signatures, not among
liquor dealers, or among the lower classes ad-
dIcted to intemperance, but among the middle
class who, without the temptations to which
the poor are exposed, drink their wines and
liquors. They believe that this class must be
reformed first.
One woman in Perrysburg, Ohio who has
drunken husband, has gone crazy during the
| crusade, and while her saner sisters are praying
and pleading, she occasionally enters the sa-
looms, armed with a club, and smashes the bot
ties and glass ware She makes the most elo-
quent aud impassioned appeals to by-standers,
and is, in spite of her arrangement, one of the
most formidable foes of the saloon keepers
The temperance people of Westboro' have
bee actively at work for six weeks, with graft
flying results. The plan of saloon visitation
has not been adopted.
AT Ann Arbor, Mich, the ladies, after long
consulting and preparing, have commenced the
crusade and are visiting the various saloons IN
the city.
In Warren and Harrison counties, Ohio ev-
cry saloon has been closed
The fifteen praying women who were recent
ly arrested in Portland, Oregon, on the charge
of disturbing the peace, were released by the
conrt on the ground that under the Constitu-
ton of the United States every person is at
liberty ito worship God according to the die
tates of his own conscience"