Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-07
THE CIYIL DAMAGE ACT.


 Towards the close of the last session of the Massachusetts Legislature an act which has since become best known as the Civil Damage act was passed. It provides that ''Every husband, wife, child, parent, guardian, en- ployer or other person who shall be injured n person or property or means of support by any intoxicated person, or in consequence of
 intoxication, habitual or otherwise, of any
 person, shall have right of action in his or
 her own name, severally or jointly, against a person or persons who shall, by selling or giv-
 ing Intoxicating liquors, have caused the in
 toxication, in whole or in part, of any such renting, leasing or permitting the occupation of any building or premises where such in toxicating liquors are disposed of with their knowledge shall be personally liable.
 This act has become very unpopular in Massachusetts. It is freely admitted that con siderable may be said in favor of regulating
 the sale of intoxicating liquors by making the liquor seller liable for damages which his sales
 produce, but to recognize 8 mans right to
 sell by exactipg of him license and then not
 only make him liable for effects that his liquors
 in the hands of incorporate men may pro-
 duce, but even extend the liability to the own
 CTS of the premises, who may be thousand
 miles away, is considered by many highly ab
 surd and injurious. So widespread and deep is the feeling against the law that an earnest
 effort is now being made for it's repeal. En-
 gagged in the effort are many conservative sta ble and practical men, and their testimony as
 to the working of the law is worth the atten-
 tion of those in this State who advocate 8
 Civil Damage act.
 Hon. Francis F. Parker, representing 8
 large number of trust estates, declares that
 the law proceeds from an intention to make
 liquor selling disreputable, but thus far has
 been imperative. 'It will not" says he,
 tprevent single crime, but it will close the
 doors of one or two hundred trust estates in
 Boston to the liquor traffic, and open the same
 number of those of other owners, but proba-
 ply of less respectable character, to the same business" The Hon. John O. Ropes
 asserts that the law has had much greater effect than many may have supposed, in
 that it has touched the fundamental prin- ciples of government by attempting to punish
 6 man for what he has never done. Should the law be continued in force he is of the opinion that there will be disturbance that
 will not be settled until this legislation is re- yersed, as no act can make the lessee of premises the agent of the landlord unless it overturns the present order of things. If the sale of liquor is crime, he, too, would have it forbidden by law, and thus free the statutes from enactments which should not be incorporated with them. He agrees with Mir. Parker that the tendency of the law has been to make the places in which liquor is sold less respectable, as the only protection of the landlords is to refuse the use of their property for the sale of insoxicants. He is also of the opinion that the number of drinking places has not de- creased Mir. William s. Dexter expresses the opinion that the law tends to increase the number of unprincipled landlords and should therefore be repealed. NIT. Charles U. Cot | ting favors the repeal of the law, passing his action upon his observation that the sale of liquor has not lessened under it, upon the fact that trustees are placed in such position that they are obliged to let their tenants go into the premises owned by those who are willing to take the risk, and that the morals of the community are not bettered by it. And
 there is much other similar testimony against the obnoxious Law. Its friends, on the other l hand, say that it has not appreciated the value of real estate; that the lessor and lessee of premises in which liquor is sold are alike in ! terested in the profits of that traffic, and if one cannot pay for the damage done by in toxicants sold there the other should be made to do so; andthat the law has fulfilled. It's pur- pose in that it has frightened the landlords | and made them cautious
 We shall look with interest to see what ac- | ton the Massachusetts Legislature will take l concerning the law. Both sides of the ques- | tion have been and will be ably argued, and If the law is repealed It will probably be be- cause It ought to be, or at least because 1t is
 not supported by sufficiently strong public sentiment. All experiments h the regulation