The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1895-12-27
Local Option Again.


Mothers take the cursed whiskey ladened
draught and the child has alcohol coursing
through its veins at an age so early that we
cease to wonder that an appetite is formed
to be developed in later years.
Prohibitionists tipple the stuff who would
not think of drinking straight whiskey and
are surprised at how it lifts them upp'
Yes, lifts them up so that enough of it will
get them 'high." A few years ago certain
Woodruff man told me that one cold day in
OwOsso he bought bottle of ''tonic btters''
and pulling the cork shortly after he started
to drive home, he emptied the entire con-
tents of the bottle down his neck before he
crossed Maple River-bridge. Drunk? Yes
drunk for week, but that was all. If
there had been medicine in the mixture it
would have sickened him.
No one knows about this matter so well as
the physician and druggist, and still doc
tors will sometimes prescribe the poisonous
mixtures without knowing the formula and
consequently ignorant as to what they are
giving, l have my opinion of such doc
tor. 1t makes me hollow-eyed to think of
them. A short time ago was called to see
case of acute Brghts disease in five
years old child that had been fed on some
one of these celery mixtures so widely
advertised.
Again, a woman of so years found who
had emptied dozen bottles or more of a
similar compound, bloated, dropsical and
white. She looked like candidate for the
coffin, and she couldn't quit the stuff. 1t
seemed 'to brace her up" | suggested
plain whiskey as substitute, but she could
not think of drinking whiskey So people
swallow these nostrums and in their efforts
to avoid whiskey, they drink it under an
other name and pay big price for very
poor article with some villainous medicine
mixed in it.
This is telling argument against prohi-
bitOry enactments, for though theoretically
right, prohibition increases the sale of
liquors. Let the government quit the bus
iness, remove all restrictions relative to its
sale, and let it be furnished free as water
and people will drink as little of It, This
has proved true in all lands where they have
legislated against it.
And yet there are men, good men, stilted
men, men of one idea, and be partially ed
ucated in that, who like my friend Brewer
would rake over the Goals all who differ with
them. and blow the whole business out of
existence by blasts from their bugles. 1t
can't be done. 1t won't blow out. 1t is
here to stay, and level headed men, even
religiously good men, of large observation,
are coming to think that whiskey should be
sold with no more restrictions than tea or
coffee-of which there are many drunkards
and hold the man who gets drunk liable
to the law. 1t will stop all this treating on
which saloons thrive, and do away with the
dives where young men are roped in and
begin life of infamy.
And yet we are to have local option, with
no option about 1t, for 1t Is sure thing, and
the liquor business will be pushed like a
cats nose nearer the candle, expecting 1t to
keep quiet. 1t Is the old story of Adam and
the apple-the moment 1t was prohibited he
wanted 1t, and everybody who knows the
construction of the human mind must agree
that we are raising little Adams and Ewes
continually, and little devils will crawl
around and tempt them, and unless their
disposition is different from our progeni-
tors some of them will fall. God could have
kept the devil away from Adam but he
didn't He sets good and evil before every
enlightened soul and gives them their choice,
but the prohbitiOnists in their wisdom have
gone a step further and propose to remove
the evil and prevent the power of God-given
choice and the unwisdOm of assuming to
know more about how to govern the race is
evinced in various ways, but we will look
at few figures taken from recent statistics
at Washington.
The United States has one liquor dealer to
every ninety three male inhabitants. Maine,
tuO piOuiUiJiOu oldtc, udo q VOOdi VI VoV,Soi
Inhabitants, about 100000 men and LAS
licensed liquor dealers-one to every 11S.
IL is poor feeble state, and growing poorer
every.year. This county with trine less
than $4,000 Inhabitants, and 5000 men, has
35 saloons we'll say, or one to 225. 1t will
have more under local option.
Iowa, another prohibition state, has 6S5
more licensed dealers than Kentucky the
notoriously whiskey state, and with but
$4,000 more inhabitants.
Now these figures are correct. They are
not fancy figures, but they come straight
from the liquor department--thats what 1t
is-at Washington and would have weight
with anyone but prohibitionist. They
can't see figure-all they can see Is SEN
timent which excels the Deity In wisdom as
we have shown. WARD.
Laingsburg, Dec. "a, '95.