The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1874-08-06

DAO LOU Olo hAuoOIdOO 1A4o pOlub u
little further. In December, 1872,
with our stringent license law, there
were in Indiana, 261,S69 polls,
1904 saloons, and 345 convicts com
mitted. In December, 1878, under
the so-called Baxter Law, with its
local-option provision, etc., there
were 265,854 polls, 1.487 saloons,
and $50 convicts committed. Thus
it will be seen that while saloons in
creased six times faster than the polls
under stringent license law, under
the Baxter Law, with its prohibitory
feature of local option, etc. saloons
decreased nearly one-third, and pau
perism and crime decreased about
in the same proportion.
Take the State of Maine. In May,
1851, her real prohibitory law was
passed. Immediately its salutary
effects were apparent. "The traffic
was rapidly checked, poor houses be-
came empty, houses ofcorrection and
jails lost their inmates, industry and
frugality were everywhere manifest
The Mayor of Bangor, in his message
to the Council, April, 1852, said:
"On the LIST of July, when I gave
notice that 1 should enforce the law,
one hundred and eight persons were
selling liquor here; twenty of them
have left the city. Of the remaining
Lightweight, 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, 1856, however, by a
vast expenditure of money supplied
from New York, by various secret
influences, and an unsleeping Or
ganization, the license men defeated
the prohibition party. Mr.. Barnes
introduced very stringent license
law into the Legislature, as substi-
tute for prohibition. What was the
result? 'Distilleries went to work
again, drunkenness and crime rap
idly increased" The evil results of
this stringent license law were SO
fearfully apparent that, in 1857, the
Legislature elected, were almost un-
animously in favor of prohibition. A
prohibitory law was again passed,
and has been maintained ever since.
Writing of the effect of that law,
after many years of experience, the
Hon. Woodbury. Davis, of the Su-
preme Court, said: mo 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 q
hundred times more visible improve
ment in the character, condition, and
prosperity of our people than any
other law that was ever enacted. Of
over four hundred towns and cities,
I am satisfied that in more than one
hundred the law prevents any sale of
liquor whatever as beverage. In at
least two hundred of them it is sold
only on the sly, just as in the same
towns there are persons guilty of
lewdness and other crimes" This
most decisive testimony is confirmed
by Senators Hanlin and Morrill,,
Attorney General Frye, and many
other leading men of that State.
Take New York as q further proof
of the superiority Of prohibition
over license. In April, 1856, pro-
hibitory law was passed. In January,
1856, Governor Clark said, in his
message in reference to that law:
notwithstanding it has been sub
iected to an opposition more persis-
tent, unscrupulous, and defiant than
is often incurred by an act of legis
lation, it has still, outside our large
cities, been generally obeyed. The
influence is visible In a marked dim
mutton of the evils it sought tC
remedy. In 1854, the committali
for offenses of drunkenness were il
several counties, four thousand ninC
hundred and sixty. In 1856
under the prohibitory law in thu
same counties, they fell to two thous
and eight hundred and ninety eight.
On the the 25th of March, 1856
the Supreme Court declared the Law
void. License followed. What wa
the result? The Albany Morning
Times, an anti-prohibitory paper
wrote: "The pentitentiary is filling
up. The number of prisoners i
greater than it has been during tn
past eighteen months.
The experience of Massachusetts
Connecticut, Rhode Island, an,
many other States, is strikingly cor
roborative of Indiana, Maine and NeV
York; nay, we can not turn to singl
State but the fearful, inexorable fact
stare us full in the face, that wher
license has obtained, the consumI
ton of intoxicants, with intempel
ance and all its attendant evils, hav
E increased much faster than the IL
crease of population, conclusively dt
, monstrating that license does nc
restrain, but rather facilitates, th
traffic. 1t can not be otherwise; fc
o the nature of the license law is t
f place men in a position to follow
o h,1cinnss which lends inst as sTIrel