The Brookhaven leader., 1884-01-24
The Liquor Traffic.

Two speaking diagrams have recent
ly been put in cirlulation. They are
maps of certain parts of Boston, desig-
nat ne, by black blocks, the liquor sa-
looms in the districts. They are hardly
more than huge blot. In district
near the Albany depot, about six hun
dred fifty feet square, eighty-two sa-
looms flourish. In little larger dis
trict. near the Lowell and Eastern de-
pot, one hundred and seventy-tive sa-
looms are seen. These little diagrams
show more plainly than words can do
what grasp the liquor interest has
upon our city, a grasp that no ordinary
effort can shake of. If one wishes to
have his eyes more thoroughly con-
vinced, he has but to take stroll down
Merrimac street or Kneeland street aft
er seven o'clock of an evening.
1t seems hardly out of place to ask
for whose benefit is this enormous traf-
fic? Few, if any, kinds of legitimate
business exist that can not give reason
for being, that can not justify their ex-
istence by supplying some necessary de-
mand, or ministering to the harmless
pleasure of their patrons. Directly. or
indirectly, all legitimate business bene-
fits a community. If r. HI. White &
Co.. or James X. Osgood, did not di-
rectly benefit our city by answering a
need among the people they would yet
indirectly benefit it by the enormous
tax on their unsold capital, which they
turn into the treasury. The liquor
traffic confers no such benefits. 1t
answers demand, but demand of the
lowest and basest appetite of which
man is possessed. The saloon-keeper
invests no capital, and in few instances
paws any tax besides the license. In
spite of this license, high license as it
is sometimes called, the saloOn-keeper
pays the smallest tax in proportion to
the business done of any business man.
On the contrary, the whole community,
even those conscientiously opposed to
the business, are heavily taxed in sup
port of the results of the traffic.
1t seems incredible that the people of
a great city can be so patient and long
suffering. That they will consent to
pay taxes for the support of paupers,
made paupers by the liquor traffic;
that they will consent to pay taxes to
build jails and prisons to guard crimi-
mails urged to crime through the liquor
traffic; that they will consent to pay
the bills of Judges and juries and police
officials, whose time is consumed caring
for the victims of the same traffic, is
one of the anomalies of human nature.
Wars have been fought to lift burdens
of less weight from the shoulders of an
oppressed people. Revolutions have
been successfully carried out to effect
a less change than the shifting this load
of taxation where it belongs. The
French people were hardly more taxed
to support the luxury of the mobiles. in
which they had no part. than are the
Temperance people taxed to put money
into the hands of few brewers, dis
tillers and dealers.
These are significant facts: Vineland,
n. j., has population Of $4,000. II
has no saloons or drinking places, its
police force consists of one man, to
whom it pays $75 year. 1t has nc
Police Court. Its bill for the support
of paupers is $400 yearly. Yonkers,
n. Y, has 1000 inhabitants and 215
licensed and unlicensed dram shops. II
costs S37, 900 each year to keep public
order. Its Police Court is maintained
at cost of "a. 800, and its bill for the
support of its poor is over $4,000.
Yonkers, with its one saloon to every
seventy-five inhabitants, pays ninety
times as much for the support of its
City Government as Vineland with nc
saloons. Vineland is a remarkably
pure city, but it is not an extravagani
statement to say that if no liquor could