The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-03-05
From Harper's Weekly.I
Temperance and Prohibition.


Temperance and Prohibition.
So long as it is unquestionable that
four-ffths of the crime in this country
spring from the use of Intoxicating Q
liquors publicly sold-that as nearly as
can be computed, not less than fifty
thousand persons die annually of drunk
enness--and that is a serious question
whether the sixty millions of dollars an
nually raised by the internal revenue
and by the tariff on importations of
liquors do not cost the country two or
three hundred millions in the conse-
quences of the use of liquors, it is clear
that the question will not be settled by
calling the temperance movement Puri-
tanic, or by vehement rhetoric about reg
ulating eating and drinking by law. Mr..
j. N. Stearns in his remarks before the
Judiciary Committee of the House of
Representatives upon the petition for
the appointment of national commission
OF inquiry concerning the liquor traffic,
said that the country is only upon the
threshold of the question. During the
last year twenty-one States have been
legislating upon it, and more Governors
of States have called attention to the
subject than ever before. Mississippi
and Indiana have passed very restrictive
license laws, and Indiana has closed nine
hundred grog-shops under law pro-
nounced constitutional by the Supreme
Court. In Ohio the women, who as wives.
daughters, mothers, and sisters, are the
immediate sufferers from the brutality of
drunkenness, have begun to go in bands
to the drinking-shops to pray and remon-
strate; and in Boston the State police
have CLEANED OUT the wine-cellars of
the fremont House and Young's Hotel,
two of the most noted hotels in the
city.
Just at this time, also, comes General
Harneys testimony that the chief diff
Guilty in our relations with the Indians is
whisky, and that the remedy is fer the
nearest officer to hang every whisky
dealer. Most opportunely, also, MI.
Meyer Stern, one of the New York Com
missioners of Charities and Correction,
has lately made a report upon the legal
treatment of habitual drunkards, show
ing that during the last three years six
teen times many women as men had
been committed for drunkenness and
that while of five hundred men one was
re-arrested hundred times for the same
otfense, of niue thousand female drunk
ards twenty-nine were re-arrested a
hundred times. Mr.. Stern very truly
says that the present law fosters rather
than prevents drunkenness. The casual
offender who is not habitual drunkard
is sent to the work-house for ten days.
In the case of every woman this is final
and absolute ruin. Ten days association
with the worst of their sex under the
ban OF the law destroys heart and hope,
and the poor creatures sink into desper-
alton. A reprimand or a fine would be
nh P,,A4 I
drunkard, if he is to be imprisoned at all,
should be secluded long enough to give
him chance to reform, and therefore
should not be committed with common
criminals.
These facts all show the activity of the
public interest in the subject. The point
which must now be settled is the actual
effect of prohibitory laws. That they are
evaded, and that drinking continues in
spite of them, is not denied. But that
is not the question. Theft continues
despite the laws, and the laws
against theft encourage secrecy and
deceit in thieving. The question is
whether, upon the whole, prohibitorv
laws have good effect in diminishing
drinking and promoting order Is the
peace more cheaply preserved in prohib-
ltory communities Are jails and poor
average of welfare higher? Such are the
questions tnat should be answered.
Yet it is now impossible to reply salts
factorlly, because of the want of authen-
tic statistics. The New York Tribune
says that the most trustworthy testimony
shows that after twenty years expert
ence, prohibition in Massachusetts, is
failure in the cities and large towns
General Butler says that he thinks
liquor is not sold in the majority of
towns in Massachusetts. Mr.. A. M.
Powell, in his remarks to the Judiciary
Committee, says that in a prohibitory
county in Maine, of twenty or twenty
five thousand inhabitants, he found an
empty Jail, without prisoner for year,
and the last inmate woman imprisoned
for selling liquor illegally. Governor
Perham told him that in his county of
Oxford in Maine, with a population of
thirty or thirty-five thousand, he could
empty two-thirds of the time during six
years. In Vineland, prohibitory town
in New Jersey, as Mr.. Lands stated
before committee of the Legislature,
there is q population of ten thousand
five hundred, and last year the police
expenses were twenty-five dollars and
in 1872 the poor-rates, among a miscella-
neous population, were three hundred
and fifty dollars. Mr.. William E. Dodge
stated before the committee that last
year about seven hundred thousand dol !
lars were collected by the Excise Com
in the city of New York, and
that police officer had told him that if |
the liquor shops were absolutely closed |
at ten o'clock at night. so that no liquor
could be sold, it would reduce the police
by one half. Now, he says, there are
about fourteen hundred policemen, who
are paid about twelve hundred dollars a
year each, and by the reduction the
whole sum received by the Excise Com