The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-02-26
RUNS RULE.
The Natural and Inevitable Results Of
the Unrestrained Traffic in Strong
Drink.


The Natural and Inevitable Results Of
the Unrestrained Traffic in Strong
Drink.
The daily papers of recent date have
contained accounts of number of
daring burglaries committed in the
towns along the line of the new Croton
aqueduct. Midnight robberies have
succeeded each other with such start
ling rapidity that in some neighbor-
hoods the people have become almost
panic-stricken. Other crimes, ofgreater
or less degree, are also alarmingly
frequent in the same neighborhoods-
A number of murders have taken place
recently, and gambling, brawling and
scenes of debauchery and shameless
revelry are of constant occurrence
Things have come to such pass that
according to the Yonkers Statesman,
local paper, property in these neigh
borhoods has greatly deprecated, and
the better class of inhabitants are NOV
ing out. The same paper lays the re-
sponsibility for all this crime and de-
moralization at the door of the saloons
The work on the new aqueduct has
called into these communities large
number of working-men, chiefly for
eigners. The most of them are with
| out families and are congregated to-
gether in large clearinghouse away
from all immediate legal and social re-
straints. The harpies of the saloons
have seen in this situation their OppOr-
tunity, and have flocked to the region
in great numbers. They have been
aided in their designs, in many in
stances, by the local authorities, who,
instead of refusing them licenses or
driving them away, have permitted
them to carry on their nefarious work
without let or intolerance. Speaking
| of the condition of affairs in one town,
the paper mentioned says:
Nearly every body who has desired has
been licensed upon the payment of pettT
| fee Very few persons have been refused.
Rum and beer shops have multiplied four
fold. Some of them are known TO the neigh
| borhood as brOthels: others nre brothels and
| rambling hells combined; cock pits are main
| tanned in some of them under a thin veil of
| secrecy, while ferocious and brutal dog
| fight has taken place in one of them and has
been described in disgusting detail in the
New York City sporting papers without in
any way awakening the local authorities
Many of tht "a are open all night, thus fur
nishing a comfortable and safe retreat for
! the midnight prowler. Some of them do not
close from the opening on Saturday morning
until the close of business on Monday, the
| interval being devoted continuously 10 gam
bling, drunken debauchery, and wild rev.
elry."
This paragraph carries its own COM
ment. 1t is simply vivid picture of
community where rum holds full
and undisputed sway. Between the
shameless indifference of the local au-
thorities and the greed and rapacity
of the saloon-keepers, the interests of
public morals and common decency
come to naught, the workmen are
robbed of their earnings, debauched
and ruined. With the rum-dealers
have come those birds of a feather,
the tramps, gamblers, thieves, dog
| fighters and abandoned characters to
prey upon the community and COM
plete its decentralization. All these
| things follow the unrestrained traffic
in strong drinks ss aetural and in
evitable results The liquor business
thrives on rottenness. Its constant
tendency everywhere is to reduce COM
munities to the condition described in
the paragraph we have quoted. Re-
lieve the liquor traffic everywhere of
all moral and legal distractions, of the
pressure of the Christian church and
the Christian home, and it would
sweep the country to q speedy and
awful ruin in a holocaust of vice and
cIime.-N y Observer.