Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-07-03
WHEETING W. va. MONDAY MORNING. JULY g. 1882

taken before the municipal court (that OF
lowest jurisdiction. and as most general
thing appeal to the Superior Court, and to
a Jury trial. Public sentiment does not
seem to regard an infringement OF the
LIQUOR Law q crime in the same sense as a
theft or an assault is 4 crime, and prosecut-
ing attorneys seem to be OF much the same
was of thinking. Therefore, not all these
LIQUOR cases come to trial. The docket gets
filled with miscellaneous horde OF cases,
and when nthey are pat on trial,
The yiOlstor OF the Liquor Law
is let off ON payment of costs, his case is
laid on file, the complaint is not proved,
some fiawlis found in it. or the case is laid
over from term to term because of the ac-
cumulation of more important" matters
adulteries. larcencieS, frauds, malpractice,
cruelty to animals, neglect to shovel off the
Sidewalk, allowing a hack to stand more
than twenty minutes in one place, ped
ding shirt buttons without a license in
order to buy medicine for sick wife, dis
tributipg hand bills in order to get meal
every other day, etc.
There is a great lack of respect for liquor
laws in Boston. None have yet been en-
acted which were universally satisfactory.
The license law was thought to
be the great panecea for the OFF,
cial corruption, poor rum and contempt
for law, which were said to thrive under
prohibition, but even this has not stopped
the mouth of accusation. 1t has not
hindered the criticism and even abuse OF
people who have honestly endeayored to
apply the law to the facts OF life and the
system of business in vogue.
The only means Of comparison between
the two systems is the records OF police de-
partments and courts. These have been
yery carefully compiled by Col. Carroll ID.
Wright, chief of the Massachusetts Bureau
of Statistics of Labor. l think he was
originally Prohibitionist. He is now in
favor of q stringent license law. After the
present license law had been in four years,
he gathered from official sources all the
statistics he could find showing the NUMBER
of arrests for drunkenness IN various
various years. The result showed that,
notwithstanding the increase in popu-
lation, largely by immigration, and the in
crease Of the facilities and reasons Tor tray-
cling,
Fhe Number or Arrests
for the cline of drunkenness was less un-
der license law than under prohibisory
law. 1t was contended in answer to this
that municipal authorities were generally
opposed to prohibition, and would, there
fore, seek to make as good a showing as
possible on the side of license. But this
seemed to be false logic in the present case,
for the most striking figures CINE from
Lowell, filled with factory operatives and
many mechanics, where there was stall
wart prohibitory mayor to enforce the
license law without any temptation to make
it appear an improvement upon his own
theory of legal systems.
In Boston DR.. Daniel A. Green, the NOM
iree of the Republicans, is mayor. He
read the report OF city coun-
ell investigating committe, which
considered charges against the
police commissioners, and he removed
them for cause" without stating the
cause. Their successors have taken office.
They are Col. Nat. Wales, a splendid dis
ciplinarian; Benjamin Burle; gh,. who has
had much experience in the police depart
ment, and ex-Alderman jerks. The first
two are Republicans; DR.. jerks isa Demo-
crat, who voted, however, for DR.. Green.
There is much curiosity to know whether
they will change the system OF administer
ing ihe license law, and whether they will
escape the tongue of criticism, abuse and
slarder. will now leave Massachusetts,
for the present. My next letter will be
from Portland, Maine. }. f. B.