Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1883-05-02
Nenlpfranre.
Prohibition-.-Its Success and It's
EaiInre.

fHtluTps
1T REV. oxo. r. srALprSo Do, MANCHESTER, EprroR
SEw HAMPSHIRE JOURNAL.
The temperance cause, 80 far as the en-
forcement Of prohibitory laws is concerned,
has made very little, II any, progress in our
Eastern States for years past In many Of
the smaller places the traffic in liquor was
largely, If not altogether, suppressed at the
fret enactment of these laws. And for the
most part prohibition in these rural places
has proved efficient down to the present day.
Within these Limitations she principle Of
prohibitory legislation has proved grand
success. We do not think 1t possible to over
state the benefits which have come to whole
communities from this legislation.
But when we pass from the country COM
munities to those Of the cities, there is
vastly different story to be told. II there is
town with population OF ten or more
thousand inhabitants in New Hampshire,
Vermont, or even Maine, where the pro.
hibitory law is enforced, that town is con-
spicuous exception to the rest. In all, or
nearly all, of these cities the liquor business
is carried on with utmost freedom. Here
and there an arrest is made, but such q pro-
oeeding has no more effect in lessening the
evil than the dipping of bucket into the
Merrimack would lessen the fulness of Its
flow. There are men who will refuse TO be-
lieve that there is any such failure. Mr..
Neal Dow, speaking for his own State, has
been affirming for quarter of a century
that the liquor traffic is practically sup
pressed in Maine. The other day he chal-
lenged any man to give an instance of fail
ure. In response writer, whose letter
appeared in late number of the NeU York
Tribune, says that in the very block, in the
town of Brunswick, where on Fast Days for
years past temperance men have been wont
to gather to give thanks to God for the sup
preston of liquor-seling,-in that block,
"for dozen years, more or less, there has
been large apothecary shop where every
body knew strong drinks to be sold." "On
the same street, the principal one of the
town, were at least two other well-recognized
establishments, where students were able to
procure any given amount of spirits" ain
Augusta, the nursery of the Maine Liquor
Law, the grog-shops are notorious, and it
would be difficult in crowd to throw
stone without great risk Of hitting liquor
seller" The writer goes on to say that the
law, so far as shutting up the liquor places
in Portland is concerned, is failure, also in
Bath and Lewiston and, to our own per.
sonal knowledge, he might have added
to the list Biddeford.
When it comes to the larger towns and
cities of New Hampshire and Vermont, we
"speak that we do know, and testify that
we have SEEM" No temperance man living
in Dover, or Manchester, or Portsmouth, or
Concord, or Nashua in New Hampshire, or
Burlington, or st. Adams, or Rutland, or
Montpelier in Vermont,-no such man with
one good eye in his head will deny that
liquor is as easily procurable in any one of
these places where he lives as it was years
ago before temperance had crept into the
Statute-book Nothing is to be gained by
blinking this fact. What we want in the
discussion of the temperance question to-
day is the honest truth. There has been
enough of clustering, enough Of assertion,
enough of prophecy. 1t is high time that
the truth were found. 1t requires no lam
tern Of Diogenes to reveal it. 1t is as pat.
ent as sunlight by day, and electric
light by night, can make it. There are
towns in New Hampshire of less than twelve
thousand inhabitants where there are from
eighty to hundred places in which spirits
are sold as freely as the merchants sell their
silks and sugars. And this has been the
condition of things for twenty-five years
past. Law after law has been enacted,
each more stringent than the last, and PEN
atty heavier, but these towns and cities
have been as unaffected by all this legisla-
tion as have Damascus or Thibet.
These, then, are the facts in the case.
Summing up the results of prohibtory leg
islation in New Hampshire and Vermont,
we say:
FIRsT-Prohi5ition in the places of scant
and scattered population has drought inmeas
uraJle good. II has been a magnificent success.
SEcoND-Prohibition in the cities and largest
tOions has been, and is, a complete failure.