The Cecil Whig., 1879-10-18
LOCAL OPTION.
ADDRESS TO THE TAX PAYERS
CONVENTION.
Held in Baltimore, August 18th, 1879.

Held in Baltimore, August 12th, 1879.
To the President and Members Of the Tar
Pagers Conrention Of the State Of Marylat,d:
The undersigned were appointed by the
Maryland State Temperance Alliance to
submit to your honorable body a communi-
cation calling your attention to the relation
of the Liquor Traffic to Taxation, and to
submit such facts and proofs as we were
able to show the intimacy of this relationship.
In pursuance of the duty thus assigned
us, we start out by assuming that if it can
be shown that by the licensingof this traffic
the taxes of the citizen are largely increased,
and such increase must be born alike by
those who drink and those who do not, and
that the suppression of this traffic would
largely reduce the present rate of taxation,
it is but reasonable to expect that the sub bject
should enter into the deliberations and dis
cussions of body like your own, which has
for its sole object the devising of ways and
means for the reduction of taxation.
That the cost Of Furnishing and repressing
crime constitutes large portion of the ex-
penses of Municipal Government, will We
respectfully submit, be admitted by all; and
| this being conceded, it must of course follow
that anything which will have the effect to
diminish the amount of crime and remove
temptations to its commission, would of
necessity in like proportion, diminish that
portion of the expense of Government
chargeabie to the existence of crime. 1t
will also be readily conceded that the cost Of
pduperism in its various grades constitutes
another considerable element of the expense
of Municipal Government
We now submit some evidences to show
that the liquor traffic is the great producing
cause of crime and pduperisnt.
From an address of the Hon. Noah Davis
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, New
York, we extract the following:
That habits of intemperance are the
chief cause of crime is the testimony of all
Judges of large experience. More than two
hundred years ago, Sir Matthew Hale, then
Chief Justice of England, to whom rs u
writer and Judge we are greatly indebted
for our own criminal law, speaking on this
subject, said: The places of judicature |
have long held in this Kingdom, have given
me an opportunity to observe the original
cause of most of the enormities that have
been committed for the space of nearly
twenty years; and by due observation
have found that if the murders and man
slauShters, the burglaries and robberies, the
riots and tumults. the adulteries and forni-
cations. rapes and other enormities that
navy hop BSht't III tlllb llllt, were QlFluttl
into five parts four of them have been the
issue and product of excessive dripking-of
tdreFR aud dte-hOuSe drinkinq'"
Leaping over two hundred years of Eng
lish History and Jurisprudence, l call one
other eminent Judge of great experience to
testify. Lord Chief Baron Kelley, perhaps
the oldest Judge now on the English Bench,
says in a letter to the Arch-Deacon of Cen
terbury: two-thirls of the crime which
before tle of In, of
are occasioned chiefly hy htemperancc. ~
" Not less explicit is the testimony of
those whose official duties have brought
them in contact with convicted criminals
Speaking of intemperancc the chaplain of
the Preston House Of Correction said: Nine
tenths of the English crime requiring to be
dealt with hY law arises from the English
sin which tho law scarcely discourages'
And the late inspector of English prison
says: am within the truth when l state
that i'll four cases out of five when an offence
has been committed, Intoxicating drink has
been one of the causes The reaaon for this
Is not found in English skies. A committee
of the House Of Commons of the Dominion
OF Canada, reporting in eighteen hundred
and sevcnty-five, state that out of twenty
eight thousand, two hundred and eighty
nine commitments to the iaiia Of the pro-
vinces Of Ontario and Quebec during the
three previous years, twenty,one Thousand,
two hundred and thirty-siX were cc..nmitted
either for drunkenness or fc1 crimes perpe-
trated under the influence of drink. This
IS not mere provincial imitation of the
Mother Country; for alas! in our own land
under our beloved republican institutions
the same startling facts exist. Massachu-
sets tells the same tale. The report of her
State Board of Charities for eighteen hun
dred and siXty-nine, says: The proportion
of crime traceable to this great vice must be
set down as heretofore at not less than four
titths, and her inspectors of State prisons in
eighteen hundred and siXty-eight gave the
Same proportion. Coming closer home we
have the testimony of the New York Board
of Police Justice in their report of eighteen
hundred and seventy.four: We are fully
satisfied. say thoy, that intoxication is the
ono great leading cause that renders the eX-
istence of our police courts necessary.
OF seventeen cases of murder examined
separately by Doctor Harris, Corresponding
Secretary of the Prison Association fourteen
were instigated by Intoxicating drinks
The line of witnesses might stretch out to
the crack of daom. The case would only be
y little stronger. 1t is established beyond
argument by official statistics, by the ex-
psrience of courts, and by the observation
of enlightened philanthropists, that the
prevalence of fintemperancein in every country
is the standard by which its crimes may be
measured,
Equally conclusive Is the evidence to
show that alcohol is the chief producer of
pauperisn We quote the following from
an admirable work entitled "Alcehol rs.
the State,' the author of which is the Hon.
Robert c. Pitman, Associate Justice of the
Superior Court of Massachusetts,. "The
puuper returns, made annually for long
time TO the Secretary of the State, show an
average of about eighty per cent. as due to
this cause in the county of Suffolk, (mainly
in the city of Boston;) thus in eighteen
hundred and Sixty-three the whole number
relieved is stated at twelve thousand, two
hundred and forty-eight, and the number so
made hy the intemperance of parents and
guardians, at three thousand, eight hundred
and thirty=seven, making an aggregate Of
nine Thousand, eight hundred and eighty
five" In the sixth annual report of the
board Of health Gin January eighteen hun
dred and seventy-five,) page As, under the
head of intemperance as a cause of pduper-
ism, the chairman, DR.. Bowditch, gives the
result of answers received from two hundred
and eightytwo of the towns and cities to
the two following questions: First. What
portion of the inmates of your alms-houses
are there in consequence of the delsterious
use of intoxicating liquors? Second
What proportion of the children in the
house are there in the consequence of the
drunkenness of parents
The answer to these questions is this en-
phatic testimony of the Superintendent of
Deer Island Alms-house and Hospital:
"I would answer the above by saying to
the best of my knowledge and belief ninety
per cent. to both questions. Our register
shows that one-third of the inmates received
for the last two years, are here through the
direct cause of drunkenness. Very few in
mates (there are s1ceptions,) in this house
but what rum brought them there. Setting
aside the sentenced boys, (sent here for
truancy, petty-theft, &c. nine-tenths of
the remainder are here through tho influence
of the use of Intoxicating liquors by tha
parents. The great and almost the only
cause for 80 much poverty and distress in
the city can be traced to tho use of intoxi-
eating drink, either by the husband or wife,
or both"
"In addition to circular, would say that
we have lodged and fed eight thousand and
tifty-two persons that we call tramps; and
can seldom find a man among them who
was not reduced to that condition by intem-
perance. 1t is safe to say nine-tenths are
drunkards though we have not the exact
records"
We now exhibit some statistics taken
from our last City Comptroller report, end
ing December 31st, 1873, by which an ap
proXimate estimate may be made of the cost
of the crime and pauperism i'll the City Of
Baltimore:
The cost of our city police and
police magistrates, over. 5000, 600 0O
City Jail ....... ........ 42,0S9.5
Criminal court, as stated in tho