The Portland daily press., 1892-07-07

such places, one of them a wholesale
shop. From Union street to Exchange
street remember five such places, one
OF them wholesale shop on large
scale. Down Exchange street on the
right and left into Fore street were sew
eral such places one of them on the right
a wholesale auctioneer's shop. [ have
often seen auction sales of rum on Ex-
change street. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty
puncheons of rum with a red flag Ia sign
OF danger) selling rum to the highest
bidder. West India rum, New England
rum, Rectifed rum, all warranted to kill.
Opposite the foot of Exchange street a
famous wholesale shop. Opposite the
head of Central wharf two wholesale
shops and one notorious grog shop. AT
the corner of Fore street and Central
wharf large wholesale concern; and at
at least one such on Central wharf. On
Long wharf large wholesale establish
ment, perhaps more. On Fore street
opposite Long wharf and Commercial
wharf, long string of grog shops, q
famous one at the corner of Market and
Fore streets, and about the same all over
town except in the parts of it occupied
by respectable dwellings. All these
shops gathered in great deal of money
II Jill Jul PSOpAO3 SOiy 1AOhi Jul wa IA
ing people, giving no valuable return for
it. The wages that should go to the
wife and children at home, went into the
tllls of the grog-shops; the wife at home
being ragged and barefoot and the child
rem in the same attire, winter and sum-
mer, being about our wharves and car
penter shops, picking UP chips and in the
residential parts of the town with baskets
begging for cold victuals
Eleven o'clock and four o'clock were
the grog-times every day; the town bell
used to ring at those hours to call the
working people to their grog, as on ship
board in those days the crews were
called together at SO many bells around
the grog-tub. Our respectable men who
are not sure but the grog-shops would be
a good thing, know nothing whatever of
their relation to the poverty, pauperism,
vagabondism and crime of the communi-
ty, because they know nothing of the
in Maine in the old rum time. Every re-
spectacle family in town in those days
had regular customers (children) begging
for cold victuals.
Three or four months after the Maine
law I met Gen. Appleton in the
street, his face radiant with smiles.
He said moment before he met
one of the two little children
who had been regular customers at
his house for cold victuals, but who had
not been there for some weeks. He said
to her: "Sally, where have you been?-
We've not seen you for long time.o
80, SIR" she replied, s'we have warm
victuals at home now. Fathers wages
are not going to the tills of the rum
shops any more.' Where is he who will
not admit that this was better than the
way it was in the old rum timeP
Some very respectable people think
that grog shops are good for the business
OF the town. Will some one please ex-
plain to us how this can be? The liquor
traffic earns nothinsgg-not a penny; all the
money 1T gets comes from the earnings
of other people. Grog shops cannot earn
a penny even for the support of the pro-
prietor, much less as an addition to the
common stock of wealth. They are like
gambling shops in this respect, living
upon the earnings of others, at the same
time making these workers less inclined
to honest industry, and at last uniting
them for it. Then they become loafers,
tramps, beggars, thieves, living, as the
grog shops do, upon the earnings of 9TH
ers. There is nothing in political, social
and domestic economy more true and
sure than this-that nothing is so much
calculated to retard the growth and pros
perity of town as grog shops, wherever
they exist They waste the wages of
laborsand the profits of legitimate indus
try of whatever kind; they absorb the
money that otherwise would go to the
shops where the thousand things are
sold that minister to the necessities and
the comforts of the people and the adorn-
ments of their homes. In proportion as
grog shops flourish all other branches of
industry languish and die.
NEAL Dow