The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1882-04-28

him a scapegoat, and then secured q
restoration to rank n pay.
E- The efforts of the rum papers to
liistort the facts of the recent prosecu-
ton of the amiable landlord Of the
Stevens House in Vergennes, into q
wicked persecution of an unoffending
saint by a sinful and INSCRIPTIONS
clergy. are very funny and very charac-
ieristic. The facts were simply that
Mr.. Gaines, after he plead guilty 10
thirty offences recently, announced
openly that he was going to sell all he
pleased, law or no law, and has con-
tinued to violate the law ever since,
with hardly a pretence at concealment.
indignant at such defiance of law,
started another prosecution, and took
measures 10 MAKE it a success, and such
II would have proved, Notwithstanding
the astonishing testimony of 30 many of
the witnesses, but for the wicked con-
tempt Of the law shown by the jury. To
asperse the motives of the prosecution
il always the first resort Of the friends
of the rumsellers, and we have little
doubt that Mr.. Gaines considers himself
the victim of mere personal malice
when a body of his fellow-citizens seek
to stop his outrageous violation of the
law. 1t seems impossible for rumsellers
and their patrons and friends to con-
celve of such a sentiment as a disinter-
ested regard for law and order; every
advocate Of temperance who undertakes
anything more harmful to them than
feeble talk at temperance reunions is a
malicious intermeddler, to be slandered,
lied about and bnlldozed. If possible
To hear them, one would think good
ness and purity were only imbibed in
rum, and that the rumseller was the
promoter of the Christian vir-
tues.
The fact ;s-and it should not be lost
sight Of by weak-kneed temperance men
who permit the loud talk of the rum
sellers organs in such a controversy to
influence their opinions concerning men
and measures in favor of executing the
law fact is, we say, the rumseller
lie merely a bird of prey in the commu-
nifty, a panderer to the weak and de-
PRAYED tastes of his fellow-men. He
engages in the business not because of
any desire to render service for service
like an honest artisan Or. professional
man., but because the weakness and in-
trinity of his fellows give him an
D iheIip pocket % e With il hpPfeesr e@2eqffiyShf r"llSS
himself. Ii the rumseller is engaged in
other business that ought TO support
him, that does not in the least give dig
nifty and character to his liquor selling
he remains al INSCRIPTIONS and greedy
grabber after money that docs not hon
ssily boIoD9 TO him. Can any ono deny
this? Can any one place a finger upon
any good done to society by the sale of
liquor? Can any one say that the rum
seller is a useful and desirable member
OF society? Is he not rather an injury,
a curse, a nuisance to be put down?
People want TO have clear ideas upon
this subject, and not allow the loud
mouthed run interest to do their think
ing for them or throw dust in their
eyes. Rumselling is a mean, low, dirty,
contemplate business, whether en-.
gagged In by Sam Gaines or Mike Ryan.
The evils II works are 80 great that
society everywhere has sought to re-
strain it by law, and in many of the
states of the Union it is, as in Vermont,
under the ban OF prohibitory laws. No
good man, no u who seeks to render
TO society all equivalent for what he re-
c%eiVes, will to-day engage in it; it is
left TO men SO utterly selfish and de-
PRAYED that they are willing to make
money by doing the worst of evil to
their fellow-men.
We would protest most emphatically
against the attempts made by malicious
and meLdacious %scribblers in several
papers to distort the motives of the
prosecution in the Gaines case, which
are only bolstered up by the assertion
that Mr.. Gaines is a good landlord and
a good fellow! As if his bOpraised
good fellowship were not a mere part of
his stock in. trade. Does any one sup
pose II he treated his llquor-drinking
patrons as he does the Christian clergy
and some Of the best citizens of Ver-
gennes, that he would retain their pat
ronage and pocket their money long?
The contemptible and nncalled. for at.