The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1885-03-19
The Prog. Age on Prohibition.

If the people of the State knew or cared much
about the additional penalties which the prohi-
bition fanatics brighten the republican party in
the legislature to adopt, the outrageous and in
sane amendment passed by the legislature Just
adjourned, would doubtless be Indignantly crit
icised. But it has been seen, long time past,
that the severer the law was made. the less it
was enforced; and the new bills of pains and
penalties only serve the more to disgust rational
and influential temperance people and render
all the laws on the subject dead letter. The
laws which have been upon the statutes for the
past twenty years, If enforced. would have pre-
vented all traffic in liquors and compelled all
the people of the State to become total absti-
nents, but the result has been that liquor selling
has gone on in our cities and towns, interrupted
only by occasional spasms of enforcing the law :,
and everybody high or low who have wanted
liquors have been able to obtain them
This amended law increases the penalties for
selling liquor and empowers judges of the courts
to impose fines or Imprisonment; increases the
penalty for drunkenness; makes drumming for
liquors IA crime; prohibits the advertising of
liquors in the papers; compels State constabes
to give $500 bonds 10 discharge their duties !;
provides for other special officers to enforce the
law, and requires AN official publication by
clerks of courts of the way liquor cases are dis
posed of. Forty amendatory acts of the liquor
law had previously been made; several of them
providing for better enforcement, and what
HlOsbftt IL tlltIt tildt tiliS new dCl III ploNC
any more effective! But the more of such leg
i>iation the sooner an end will be reached, and
rational legislation will take its place. Prog.
Age.
Is there any question upon which the Demo-
Gratis are in harmony? The views of the editor
of the Prog. Age, above expressed, are di-
rectly opposed to the sentiments of his distin-
suished fellow Democrat. Gen. Neal Dow. The
latter'S conversion to Democracy is so recent,
however, that probably few of our readers have
heard of it, but it is a fact that he has publicly
proclaimed his departure from the Republican
party and his determination to labor unceasing-
~ for the entire demolition of that party. Gen.
BOWS vagaries are easily accounted for, while
the editor of the Age is just as much in favor of
prohibition to-day as he ever was. The en-
fOrcement of the amendment relating to adver-
Using liquor will cut off part of the revenue
of the Prog. Age, and this is no doubt the secre t
of the above exhibition of spleen on the part of
our free-rum contemporary.
webb telegraphs the Boston journal of
the very hungry and very thirsty ottice-seekers
at Washington:
Some of the applications are gotten up in
very elaborate style. One man wanting place
under the Department of Justice had wv .
ledgerS of about Il hundred and fifty pages
each. bound in antique style, which were filled
with Endorsements and all sorts of recOmme nd
ations. Others presented their credentials
printed in pamphlet form, and some handsome
ly bound with the name of the applicant and
place wanted in git letters on the back.
The Maine Central as a corporation is not
concerned in the railway negotiations referred
to in the despatch from Halifax, but leading
stock owners in the Maine Central have made
propositions to the Nova Scotia Government,
as elsewhere noted, the acceptance of which
will increase our trade with the Lower Prov
ince and augment the business of the Maine
Central.
The cotton wagons in the city are called
floats because they are often stuck in mud
holes. New Orleans Correspondent Machas
Union
This reminds Us of the boys definition of salt
something that makes things taste bad when
YOU don't put it on them.
The New England Fair will be held in Ban
gor this year, in connection with the Eastern
State Fair. This ensures big thing for East
ern Maine. and we are sure that Bangor will
prove equal to the occasion.