The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-05-03
The mckinley Tariff at Home.

subject home to our own
doors If we want to get realizing
sense Of its bearing upon our every day
life We have brought the Mckinley
tariff right home to the doors OF Jer-
sey citizens by the chats with our
leading retail merchants, which we
print IN another column. From these
our readers can estimate the exact
benefit they are going to derive per
sonally and individually from the
tariff, and they will find many side
lights thrown on its relation to the
prosperity of their neighbors.
Our lady readers viii be pleased to
hear that while there is no reduction
yet in the plain utilitarian calicoesa and
ginghams and the like, which have
for years been manufactured almost
exclusively in this country for domes-
tic consumption, all the finer articles
Of feminine wear are to advance ma
terially in price. Velvet, silks, feath-
ers and flowers, and host OF other
goods will be uuattainable by women
Of moderate means. Rich women,
who can afford to squander money,
will. perhaps, be pleased, but the
great majority must content them
selves with such plain attire as will
remain within their reach.
Men win find that clothing is to be
dear and of poor quality. TO escape
the exorbitant impost on Atwood
goods, the European manufacturers
are beginning to ship mixed cotton
and wool fabric to this country.
Everyone knows what mixed cotton
and wool amounts to in the wear, and
so everyone who cannot pay fancy
price can judge of the sort of stuff he
viii presently find sold to him at
Mckinley prices.
Shoes. we are told, are to be cheap
for while. But whyg Because the
tariff has closed the South American
markets to the manufacturers, and
the home market is glutted. What
does this means 1t means, in the near
future, starvation to O. host of Ameri-
can workmen.
But it is useless to specify further.
The gentlemen whom our reporter in
terviewed speak as experts, and their
views are fully given in another col
ulnns Read what they have to say.
Unnatural Laws and Their Conse-
qucnces
The Philadelphia Grand Jury in a
presentnlent on Friday read one OF
the best lectures to legislators on the
subject of fanatical and extreme en-
act;nents we have ever seen formu-
lated.
Philadelphia is governed by an ex-
else law Of extraordinary stringency.
The number of saloons is cut down to
. very small ratio to the population,
and the license fee is raised to an alb
normally high figure. The enforce
men of the statute is entrusted
to the Court of Common Pleas, a
tribunal of excessive rigidity, and, as a
consequence, the saloon business is
brought within limits which ought to
delight the heart of the most earnest
foe OF rum.
And yet the system is failure. 1t
fails in and because OF its excessive
and unnatural severity. We cannot
describe its failure better than the
Grand Jury does in the following sem
tences:
The consumption of liquors has not been
diminished in consequence OF it, on the contrary
brewers, dlstillers and importers increase their
plant or stock. and a new, large and profitable
bottling BUSINESS has sprung up. a thoroughly
uudemocratic aristocracy Of tavern keepers has
been created, while others, just as honest and
respectable. are deprived OF the possibility to
make livelihood according to their own way. to
which they have been brought up.
a long passages next devoted to the
Decentralization resulting from the en-
pIoyinent Of spies to ferret out viola
tions Of the law. Such individ-
uals, we are told, are hired by
societies pretending to elevate the
morals Of the community. The soci-
cites furnish money for the spies to
tempt people to break the law. As
they are generally scamps Of the low
est order, sometimes ex-convicts, the
scandals which result are oftener far
worse than any Of the ordinary Incl
dents Of the liquor traffic.
But there is still worse phase of
the unnatural oppression Of the law.
We will quote the Grand Jury
again:
Bad as this state Of things is It Is not the
worst. The construction and Interpretation Of
the high license law have introduced and forced
Into private families the bser and the whiskey
bottle Formerly the head Of the family used
10 visit tavern to get stimulant or q refresh
meat; now he keeps it at home and the whole
sqni:y partakc OF II
This ii the experience of Scotland
III over again A man dying Of cholera
sonld not buy glass Of spirits in all
Bcotland on Sunday, and yet it is no
,orious that halt the population di-'