The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1885-02-12
IN. Y. IndependeDt.1
Licence to Greg Shops-Is it Right!
BY THE HON. NEAL DOW.

pHTdllCo uleu anu GeIu pSIduCt WuHeH
are agreed upon in demanding, they
can have. The reason that the tenn
perance cause does not make more
rapid progress is its friends are not in
accord as to what is wisest and best to
do" And that is true. A curious in
stance of this disagreement is that be-
tween temperance men and those who
pose as such before the community as
to the policy of license to grog shops.
A famous divine said not long ago:
I'm any community where public
opinion will not sustain prohibition,
high license is the best policy to adopt.
So far as it regulates and restrains the
liquor traffic, it is in the interest Of
temperance, and so>far is good thing
and l approve and support it."
l suppose that remark states the
whole case in favor Of license. but it
begs the question as between the friends
andopponents of that policy 1t assumes
that license can and does regulate and
restrain the liquor traffic, and dimin-
ish the evils arising from it. This as
sumption is entirely unwarranted by
the facts; indeed there is no fact in
this country, and never has been one,
to justify the opinion that license to
the liquor traffic diminishes the guam
tity of liquor sold, or reduces the evils
to the community, coming from that
traffic.
Under the policy of aicense every
where there are as many grog shops
established by warrant Of law as will
fully supply the demand for intoxi-
eating liquors. No advocate of license
has ever denied this. Nor will any
one who has any practical knowledge
of the matter deny, that in every To-
cality in this country where grog
shops are licensed, there are always
many low shops where liqnors are
freely sold without license. No one
who is ignorant of this is qualified to
express any opinion upon the matter.
| am sure that no intelligent man.
who has any knowledge of the facts
IN any community where license pre-
walls. will deny that the demands for
intoxicants are always and fully aet
and that the evils to society from the
liquor traffic are in no degree dimin-
ished.
There is no country in the world
where the policy of license has been
more carefully studied than it has
been in England for a great many
years; nor is there any other where
the law Of license has been more Wig
orously or uniformly enforced. Yet
England is confessedly the most
drunken nation in the world, with
more poverty, pauperlsm, wretched-
ness and crime coming from the liq-
nor traffic than any other. Its work
houses are overfowing with drunken
paupers; its prisons are crowded with
drunken criminals; it's slums and gut
ters are swarming with wretched and
brutal men, women, and children, vic
tins Of the grog shops; and its vast
insane asylums are full of lunatics
three-fifths OF whom, Lord Shaftes-
bury says, are victims of intemper-
ance. The wages of labor there are
largely wasted in drink. Vast num-
bers Of the working people are crowd
I'd into novels hardly fit for pigs,
They are clad in rags, and go supper
less to bed-if heaps Of straw upon
the floor can be called beds-the pangs
Of hunger assuaged by the benum bine
influence of drink, the money spent
for which would be sufficient fol
wholesome food, decent clothing, and
comfortable housing.
The London Times says:
Shrinking battles us, confounds US
shames us, and mocks us at every
point. 1t outwits alike the teacher
the man of business, the patriot and
the legislator. Every other institu-
ton founders in hopeless difficulties
but the public house (grog shop) holds
its triumphant course. The admins
traitors of public and private charity
are told that aims and oblations GO
with rates. doles, and pension, to the
all-absorbing bar Of the public house:
Under the accumulating influence of
alcohol, the honest man turns knave,
the respectable man suddenly loses
principle and self-respect, the wise
man is utterly foolish, the rigidly
moral man takes plunge into liber-
tinism. Let US do something toward
staying the huge mischief which, one
way or another, confounds us all, and
may-for we cannot be sure-crush
and ruin any OF us"
Let us do something toward dimin-
ishing this dreadful mischief, the
Times exclaims. What shall it be? is
the anxious demand. High license" "
our friends reply, who claim to be ex-
ira wise and practical on this matter.
But England has high license now,
and has had it for many years. The
public houses are hampered, restrained
and harassed by an intinity of details
as to how liquors shall be sold. to
whom only they may be sold, in what
hours only the shops may be kept
open, in what respectable shops only
liquors may be kept for sale, what the
mlnimums Of the rental shall be. and.
more and above all, the 'publicans"
must be Of good character, to which
respectable citizens must testify. But
for all that, the Times exclaims: ''Let
us do something toward staying the
huge mischiefs coming from the
grog shops-''which battle us at every
point" "Yes. by all means do some
thing" our wise friends reply. TRY
high license; that's what we approve,
it the wisest and best thing
to do," under the circumstances.
High license" in this country is
in Illinois, to head off the popular
clamor there for prohibition, which
had become very powerful and seemed
to endanger political party. This
popular demand for protection from
the grog shops was too widespread and
to be ignored, and to yield
to it would endanger the standing of
a certain political part; and large
and Influential body of clergemen were
induced. somehow. to approve and sup-