Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-08-01

May, 1851, her real prohibitory law
was passed. Immediately its saIu-
tary effects were apparent. "The
traffic was rapidly checked, poor
houses became empty, houses of cor
rection and jails lost their inmates,
industry and frugality were everv-
where manifest" The Mayor of
Bangor, in his message TO the coun-
Gil, April, 1852, said: "On the 1st
of July, when l gave notice that 1
should enforce the law, one hundred
and. eight persons were selling IL
quor here; tweny of them have left
the city. Of the remaining eighty
eight, not one sells openly. The
number of inmates in our aims
house and house of correction have
been vastly reduced" Similar testi-
mony was borne from all parts of
the State.
In September, 1855, however, by
vast expenditure of money supplied
from New York, by various secret
influences, and an unsleeping organ
ization, the license men defeated the
prohibition party. Mr.. Barnes in
troduced a very stringent license law
into the legislator as a substitute for
prohibition. What was the result?
"Distilleries went to work again,
drunkenness and crime rapidly in
creased" The evil results of this
stringent license law were so fear
fully apparent, that, in 1857, the leg
islature elected were almost unani-
mously in favor of prohibition. A
prohibitory law was again passed,
and has been maintained ever since.
Writing of the effect of that law, af-
ter many years of experience, the
Hon. Woodbury. Davis, of the Su-
preme Court, said: "No observing
man who has lived in this State for
twenty years, and has had an oppor-
tunity to know the facts, can doubt
that the "Maine Law" has produced
hundred times more visible i'm
provement in the character, eondi-
ton, and prosperity of our people
than any other law that was ever en-
acted. Of over four hundred towns
and cities, l am satisfied that in
more than one hundred the law pre-
vents any sale of liquor whatever as
a beverage. In at least two hun
dred of them it is sold on the sly,
just as in the same town there are
persons guilty of lewdness and other
crimes"
Take Neao York as further proof
of the superiority of prohibition
over license. In April, 1855, a pro-
hibitory law was passed. In Janua-
ry, 1856, Governor Clark said, in his
message in reference to that law:
Notwithstanding it has been sub
jected to an opposition more persist
ent, unscrupulous, and defiant than
is often incurred by an act of legisla-
tion, it has still, outside our large
cities, been generally obeyed. The
influence is visible in a marked dim
mutton of the evils it sought to rem
edy. In 1854, the committals for
offenses of drunkenness were, in seY-
eral counties, 1850. In 1855, under
the prohibitory law in the same coun-
ties they fell to $685."
On the 25th day of March, 1856,
the Supreme Court declard the law
void. License followed. What was
the result ? The Albany Morning
Times, an anti-prohibitory paper,
wrote: '"The penitentiary is filling
up. The number of prisoners is
greater than it has been during the
past eighteen months"
The experience of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
many other States, is strikingly corr
roborative of Indiana, Maine and
New York; nay we cannot turn to
a single State but the fearful, mex
orable facts stare US full in the face,
that license does not restrain, but
rather facilitates the traffic.