St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-05-02
Gbe CALIFORNIAN.
PRESS COMMENTS.

Gentlemen, buf Skilled PoHucIaHS
The appointments of Van Colt and
Erhardt, YOU will find, will turn out
to be good ones They are honora-
bic business men and honorable gen
tIemen They are also skilled politi-
cians-[ Washington dispatch to Bos-
ton Record.
More Steam Called For.
Already democratic and mugwump
civil service reformers are jumping on
Assistant Postmaster General Clark
son for turning out incompetent post
masters at the rate of $50 a day.
The fact is that Mr. Clarkson will
have to go it at a livelier pace if he
doesn't find himself with a large
army of democratic incompetents on
his hands at the close of the present
administrations Cincinnati Com
mercial Gazette.
Abolish the Store Court.
The greatest drawback in Vermont
at this time is the tendency to hang
around the taverns and groceries and
crOak. If the amount of energy eX-
pended in this way was devoted to
booming New England, in the true
western style, affairs would wear a
new face speedily. Our taxes are not
greater than those of other sections
enjoying like privileges and advan-
tages, and if our young men would
settle down contentedly to business
in Vermont, determined to make the
best of their opportunities, instead
of going to the cities and the West to
hardships and privations they know
not of, we should find a different
state of things here Woodstock
Standard.
Time to Cry Halt.
Now that the fears concerning the
safety of the Danmark's passengers
have been allayed, it is time that
some attention was directed to the
officials of the line to which the
steamship belonged. The fact that
she carried $50 passengers while her
last inspection allowed her to carry
but 255, should not pass unnoticed.
This over-crowding of passengers is
one of the most notorious features of
the ocean immigrant traffic. The
steamship Spain of the National line
carried on May /, 1888, according
to the New York Star, 1900 passen-
gers. Her permit allowed her to car
ry but $50, and she had only seven
life-boats and 300 life preservers.
Cases of this sort have become so
common that they occasion no re-
mark But the company thus vio-
Iating the law lays itself open to Sc
we're punishment, and the penalty
should be each time exacted- Bur
lingtOn Free Press.
The Prohibitory Law VIII Stand.
Every candid and outspoken man
must admit, what the Herald has
shown by facts and figures taken
from official records, that the law has
not prevented residents of Rutland
county at least from obtaining all
the liquor they cared to drink. 1t
has not prevented the sale of liquor
in this county from being as large as
it would have been under a stringent
high-icense law honestly enforced
Rutland Herald.
The Herald, starting out to make
point against the prOhibitory law,
has shown that the illegal traffic in
liquor in Rutland county is very
large. That it is aSlarge as it would
have been under a stringent license
law, the Herald has not shown and
cannot show. AS there has been no
license law in Vermont for over thir-
ty years, it is impossible to say how
much liquor would be sold in Rut-
land county with open bars in the
hotels and saloons, and liquor freely
advertised and offered to all That
there are cities and communities
where prOhibitory law cannot be
enforced to any extent, and where a
high license law is a more effective
restriction of the traffic than a pro-
hibitOry law, we do not doubt. But
we should be sorry to believe that
there is any such community i'll Yer
mont. The attitude of the liquor
sellers toward the prohibitory law is
a pretty fair test of its efficacy. They
are bitterly opposed to the law, we
venture to say, even IN Rutland, and
would much prefer high licenselaw.
But if the prohibitory law does not
operate as a restriction to any ex-
tent, why should they not prefer it
to license law, which, according to
the Herald, would not increase their
sales, while the license fees would
lessen their profits! The fact is that
even when the prohibitory law is
slackly enforced it puts the traffic
under ban, and lessons the amount
of liquor sold. In all cases where the
license system has followed the pro-
hibitory law, save only where the
latter has been absolutely dead let
ter, there has been Il marked increase
in the consumption of liquors and in
the amount of drunkenness. We
have no doubt that such result
would follow such a change in Rut-
land county There is, however, no
likelihood of such a change in Yer
mont. The Herald has undertaken a
bigger contract than it can carry
out, in its effort to upset the liquor
law of this state Burlington Free
Press.
NEWS IN GENERAL.