The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-02-03

not appear that either Mr.. Hack or Mr..
Bean has ever submitted any of the evi :
dence in his possession to the grand Jury,
or to any of the authorities, and Mr..
Bean was understood to say that he did
not intend to- Having in taeir hands
evidence that would punish half dozen
rumsellers with heavy fines OF imprison.
ment, they chose to let the culprits go
free and use their evidence simply for
the subject matter of II Sunday evening
lecture, believing no doubt that in this
way they could advance the Kingdom of
God in our midst.
II either Of these gentlemen had gone
down. the street of an evening, and saw
and recognized a man breaking into a
house, or stealing from store, or scat ter
ing obscene literature about, it would
neye have occurred to him that the best
way to suppress either of these crimes,
and to purify the CITY, would be to 60
the next day and take picture of the
store or house where the crime was be.
ing committed, or to gather up some of
the obscene literature and exhibit the
pioutres and literature at lecture. to
be delivered some weeks afterward. On
the contrary, their first impulse would
have been to go to the authorities, tell
them what they had seen and give a de-
scription Of the culprits. Should they
have taken any other course they would
have been universally condemned. It
seems to us, with all due respect to these
gentlemen, that when they saw the "gi-
gantic crime of crimes" committed and
had evidence as to who was committing
it, this would have been a much wiser
and better course than the one that they
adopted. 1t would have been much more
convincing proof of a sincere desire, on
their part, to put down the liquor traffic
1T is the duty Of every good citizen, =
to borrow the language of the Rev. Dr.
Dalton, in q recent sermon, "to help the
officers in the execution of the law, by
giving them our individual support, -
and certainly the most effective way to
give them support is to furnish them
with evidence. We do not conceive it to
be the duty of clergyman to actually
engage in the execution OF thu law, but
having voluntarily set about procuring
evidence of the violation of particular
statute, and having procured it. it seems
to us that it would be far more oreditable
and sensible to submit it to the authori-
ties as a basis Of prosecution, than to use
it exclusively for a Sunday evening
steroopticon lecture. These clergymen
must know that the only way liquor
shop can be shut up, is by the prosecu-
ton of the proprietors or the owners The
sheriff or the marshal cannot shut up
shop because he thinks Liquor is sold
in 1.-THE cannot shut it up even when
he is morally certain that liquor is sold
there Indeed, he cannots shut it up
directly at all. All he can do is to seize
the liquors and prosecute the seller. The
first has little tendency to shut the shop.
because the stock can readily be replen-
ished. The second is the only effective
method. and that is difficult because it is
generally hard to ascertain who the sell
Ter is. The ordinary purchasers will
never be complainants. The officers are
known and cannot buy. And now it az
pears that even clergymen, when they
have been purchasers and have complete
evidence that will go far to shut up the
shop, prefer to use il for stereopticon
lectures rather than present it to the
grand jury.