The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1890-01-25
The Peoples Column.
COMMISSIONED
High License.

| Some persons seem to have the MOTTO,
that high license law will be great re
formatory measure How Can it be? Will
the whiskey sold under such law be les
apt to produce drunkenness, or will tn,
drunkenness be of a more refined characteS
| The higher the license, the more liquor W.
have TO be sold to pay it, and the more al
| will have to be resorted to in order to entict
young men to enter into an apprenticeship
| TO drunkenness, 10 train them into the arts
| and mysteries of Bacchus. The minors will
not be slow to learn that there is a way to
get as much whiskey as they want and
experience proves that the devotees of rum
will not give evidence against the rum.
seller.
1t all comes back to the old question, SIS
it right to encourage traffic that produces
more evil than good, for the sake OF
money!" els it right to sell indulgences to
commit crime on the payment of sum OF
money!" That is the question to which it
resolved itself.
License to sell whiskey. whether high or
lO" 10 W sell Uut dTIlCl6 10 every
body that wants it, and the apparent re
strictions are only blinds to deceive the
unwary and can never be enforced, as we
have had abundant reason to know.
We hear the doctrine that the man VIII,
pays the high license will see the law en-.
forced. They are not the best couservators
of law. They will hardly inform on them
selves and there is brotherly feeling be
tween them.
There is another ground on which they
are entitled to considerations;
A man that can raise money enough to
pay high license is to be trusted, but there
is some doubts about that. Money some
times is raised by very doubtful means.
The money scrapers and the money wrench
ers have but little conscience and though
they might raise thousand dollars to buy
a license, many a man who would be puz-
zled to raise fifty dollars is more to be
would give the moneyed man the monopoly.
The brotherhood would fix their rates and
extort six times the price of their liquors
from their thirsty customers. 1t used to be
said that half gill was an average drink,
that is sixty -four drinks to the gallon.
Some persons who have experience in the
business say that there are seventy drinks
in gallon, but let us say fifty at ten cents
would be s., and house with the monop-
oily of the business could sell cask of 40
gallons in week which would be $500, or
$40, 900 year, without those who paid the
money receiving one cents benefit, and in
many cases the money paid was the small
est part of their loss. Such a house in a
The only man benefited would be the rum
seller, the monopolist. Let an elegant saloon
be established with attractions to draw in
the young men, laborers and mechanics to
spend their evenings and learn the secret
habits of those who indulge drinking strong
drink, and their earnings will be trifled
away and habits formed which will never
be stricken off. The notion of building
homes for them selves will be given up and
the hopes of their friends blighted, and their
gray heads 60 down in sorrow to the grave.
1t entraps young men of the greatest prom
Use. l can recollect an expression that l
have always heard in regard to mechanics
and others who have excelled in their bust
ness or profession: HE is clever fellow,
the worst enemy to himself"
Young men of social natures who ENJOY
the society of their friends, and young men
of genius who are subject to seasons of mel
sncholy are apt at such times to resort to
strong drink, the most broken of all reeds,
the remedy being worse than the disease.
Burns and Poe were of this class.
can recollect when within the neighbor-
hood where I lived, within this county,
within a radius of ten miles there were
the large Conestogo wagons were on the
roads distributing the fiery fluid around
and eating up the substance of our people
without an equivalent. A reformation COM
menced sixty years ago operating slowly
but surely. All the twelve shops referred
to have been closed for years, and it is a
rare thing to see drunken man in the
neighborhood, or family reduced to pow
erty by strong drink which was so common
in former times.
There has been great improvement all
over the county and it is showing itself in
the decreasing expenses of the county, in
the improving conditions of lands, towns
and villages and all the arts of life. Those
who have unfortunately acquired fond
ness for strong drink will have 1t, and the
facilities being good around our borders for
getting it. those persons are likely to con-
tinue, but 1 have seldom seen hard drinkers
that would like their sons to become drunk
ards. I hope never again to see high or low
license prevail again in this county. 1t
would be step backward and one of the
greatest curses that could befall us. There
is no doubt that majority of our citizens
are opposed to all kinds of whiskey license.
and it would be a great outrage to NEEDLE
with the prohibtory laws OF this county.
NJ.
Leeds, Cecil Co., Nd, January 81, 1890.