The Portland daily press., 1881-02-02

WIN q CosW ccTliucdlc slgDeu Dy ctan ey Pullen,
Editor, All railway, steamboat and hotel managers
VIII confer favor upon by demanding credentials
OF every person claiming to represent our journal
-
A Mild Remonstrance.
A communication from General Dow,
published in another column, explains and
defends the proposed amendatory act to the
prohibitory law which he and others have
brought to the attention of the Legislature.
Were additional legislation necessary, Cen
eral Dow's suggestion would doubtless COM
mand attentive consideration, and might be
made law. The Press doubts the good or
the expediency of further legislation for the
suppression of the liquor traffic. If any
change is to be made it should be made in
the other direction; the cider clause, for ex-
ample, might with benefit be repealed. We
have law enough now. What we need is
enforcement of it. A demand for more law
comes with especially ill grace from men
whose votes or influence went to he defeat
OF Candidates committed to the policy of pro-
hibition and were given in aid of the election
of candidates who were notoriously opposed
to the existence of our liquor laws or entire
~ Indifferent to their enforcement.
Those who climbed upon the back of the
Republican party of Maine last September
and helped the enemy in its front to pull it
down are in no condition to honorably ask
favors of it. 1t was they who gave us
Plaisted. Let them look to him for the en-
forcement of existing and sufficient laws.
mott to Republican Legislature for further
legislation.
That is the political view. Let us look at
the question from higher and fairer stand
point. The history of criminal legislation
shows us that the increase of penalty does
not diminish, but does encourage, the preva-
lence of crime; for it adds greatly to the per-
centage of acquittal. The tendency of
judges and juries is toward leniency when
the penalty for offense is very harsh. Years
ago in England men were hung for petty
larceny, were carted to Tyburn for stealing
loaf OF bread when they were starving.
Then larceny was the great curse of England; ;
but convictions were comparatively few. The
laws have been greatly modified since. The.
result is that there are less thieves, relative
ly to the population, in England, and more
convictions for theft, relatively to indct-
ments brought, than there were hundred
years ago. The PRESS doe3 not attempt to
liken the larceny of loaf of bread by
starving man to the sale of liquor. 1t will
not do that injustice to the hungry. But it
does see that excessive punishment leads to
increase of crime and fails to do away with
the evil it attempts to suppress. There are
still thieves in the world. In order to sup
press theft must we go back to the old Eng
hsh laws and hang them? Experience
teaches us that mild laws have aided Justice
and harsh laws have impeded its execution.
The method to do away with intemperance
is not to make sympathy for the rumseller
or the rum-drinker by imposing upon the
one extraordinary punishment or lavishing
upon the other excessive sympathy Gush,
as well as undue everity, should be avoided
We might attempt to suppress murder by
rebuilding the gibbet-but the attempt
would be failure.
The PRESS desires the extirpation of in
temperance in the use of alcoholic drinks,
as well as in some other things. Il knows
tliat much in that way has been done in
Maine. 1t hopes much more will be done.
1t does not believe that more stringent leg
islation will effect the desired object. Cen
eral Dow says that there are now in Port
land 130 rumshops. We doubt if that fig
ure was ever reached before. The increase
has been made under the most stringent
legislation ever enacted. The more law we
have the more rum shops we are cursed
with. In the State of Maine there has been
during the last twenty years, an alarming
increase in crime-that kind of crime which
is usually and correctly attributed to the
abuse of alcoholic liquors. And during the
twenty years many "acts additional have
been tackled to the old prohibtory law.
There is much talk in this State of the in
crease OF divorce. 1t has been greatly in
creased, and in the vast majority of cases
the pleas urged by petitioners have been
drunkenness and desertion," adultery
failure to support the family" and other
vices which are usually and properly sup
posed to come from the unwise use of lq-
uor. Divorce statistics do uot speak loudly
in favor OF the amendments to the prohibi-
tory law.
1t is because the PRESS wishes to bring
about sobriety that it says these things. 1t
believes that we have law enough if it be
enforced. The penalties are now suffi-
GENTLY heavy. If hanging could not sup
press murder heavier fines and longer terms
of imprisonment cannot suppress rum
selling. The PRESS also has profound
belief in the moral snasion at which the
more radical prohibitionists sneer. 1t has
been demonstrated that the way to make a
man Christian is 70 convert him, not to
lock him up in a torture-chamber and sub
ject him to the rack and screw of the In
quisition.
While freeing its mind the PRESS has
another thing to say. 1t believes there is
too much coddling of drunkards. They. as
well as the drink-sellers ought to be brought
to book. Society here has taken the part of
the kindly policeman who twines arms with
street disturbing drunkard, leads him
home, opens the door with latch key dex-
terously extracted from an otherwise empty
pocket, and tucks him into bed unless an
abused and patient wife relieves the guar
| dian of the peace from the necessity of do
ing that act of charity. Fellows of that
kind 1.-THE drunkard, not the policeman)
ought to be shut out of society and made
the objects of general condemnation. Let
them and the rumsellers share the shame
Let us not listen too readily to the plea of
ungovernable appetite. If we admit that,
we must not only acquit the urchn who
steals an apple from an exposed fruit-stand
which might be just-but we must sub
| ject the fruit-seller to thousand dollars
fine and years imprisonment for expos
ing his wares-which would be unjust.
That original fruit-dealer, the Devil, is yet
unclaimed, and the descendants of Adam
are still under ban. The Millennium is in
| the future and we do not helieva the Jepis