The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1885-08-06
Sentence of Saloon Keepers.

sentence OF Saloon heeperS.
Hon f. M. Hubbard, District Judge
of the Eight Judicial District of Iowa,
in passing sentence upon some
liquor-dealers for violation of the pro-
hibitory laws Of the State, said:
While there are greater crimes,
known to the law which are punisha-
BILE with great severity, there are none
which involve more of those qualities
known as despicable meanness and au-
dacity than the selling of Intoxicating
liquors.
There is something in the taking of
human life by violence so instantane-
Gus that it shocks and terrifes the
minds of all, and yet we look upon
the man who takes human life quite
as surely, but by slow lingering
process-if not without condemna-
ton, at least with horror. You who
stand before the Court for sentence
are in every moral sense murderers,
and you are within the spirit, if not
the letter, guilty Of manslaughter;
for the law says that whoever acceler-
ates the death Of human being un-
lawfully is guilty Of the crime. Your
bloated victims upon the witness
stand, and who undoubtly committed
perjury to screen you from the law,
not only abundantly testify that you
are accelerating death, but that you
are inducing men to commit still
greater crimes than your own.
You still maintain the appearance
of respectability, but how morally lep-
rous and scrofulous you are inwardly
The ruin, poverty, and idleness which
you are inhicting upon this commu-
nifty declare, as from the housetops,
that you are living in idleness, and
eating the bread of orphans watered
with widows tears; you are stealthlly
killing your victims and numbering g
the peace and industry Of the commu-
nifty, and thereby converting happy,
industrious homes into misery, poverty
and rags.
Anxious wives and mothers watch
and pray in tears nightly with DESC
late hearts for the coming home of
your victims, whom you are Turing
with the wiles and smiles of the devil
into midnight debauchery.
In fine, one can have no adequate
conception Of cataract until he has
seen Niagara, nor of the terrible fury
and grandeur Of storm in mid-ocean
until he has witnessed one; so no one
can know the utter degradation and
total depravity to which his species
can be brought until he looks upon
the desolate ruin caused by your hell
ish traffic.
You are persistent, defiant law
breakers; and shamelessly boast that,
in defiance of the law and moral sense
of the community, you will continue
in your wicked and criminal practices.
It has therefore now become the
imperative duty Of this Court to let
fall upon you so heavily the arm of
the law, that you shall either be driv-
en- from your nefarious traffic, or
ruined in your fortunes or wicked
prosperity. You have become
stencil to the nostrils of the communi-
ty, and all good men are praying that
you be speedily reformed or summari-
ly destroyed. By the providence Of
God and the favor Of this Court, these
prayers shall be speedily answered by
signal and exact justice for your
crimes.
And finally, let me entreat you, if
you are not lost to every sentiment of
humanity, to desist from yout crimi-
nal vagabond traffic and betake your
selves to some honest calling for a
and you may yet become
virtuous, useful citizens, and entitled
to the respect Of a Christian commu-
nifty; while if you persist in this way,
your ruin is certain, and you will re-
ceive, as you deserve, the execration
of mankind.
You may think that the sentence of
the Court is harsh and unjustly severe,
but the Court assures you that, COM
pared with your crimes and the DESC
lation you have already brought upon
the community, it is mild in the ex-
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