The Press., 1897-07-08
w. C. T. U.
Lady Somerset as a Witness.

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 One day last month Lady Henry Somer- set appeared before the royal commission on the licensing laws commission ap- pointed by Parliament and presided over by Lord Peel the former speaker of the house of commons. .....
 One of the London daily papers says "As an expert student, Lady Henry was an eminently proper witness to call, and her appearance enlivened the commonly prOsaic sitting of the commission. Lady Henry occupied the witness chair from II to 4:3O, and 8 capitol witness she made. None of the parliamentary experts engag- ed were able to furry her or catch her mapping. Indeed, she succeeded in turn ing the questions upon her interrogators with neatness and dispatch that many times drew wholesale laughter from her auditors"
 Ten brewers were on the commission, and saloon kept by one of them had been watched for twelve hours by Lady Somerset's orders on the day previous, so that she was able to show the numbers coming and going and the demOralization resulting from the attractions of this re- markedly well conducted public house. Lady Somerset based her evidence chiefly on the argument that the licenses being given and protected, 1t had always been understood that competition in the Ordi- nary sense of "pushing the trade" among publicans was absolutely unfair, and not contemplated by the state, so that, there- fore, unless the drink traffic was conduct ed on the same lines as a post-offlce or ! telegraph office, or any other employment which was eountenanced by the state be- cause there was demand to supply but not demand to create, 1t was absolutely contrary to the legislation that governed the traffic. This was apparently a new point of view. Her point was that the number of licenses should be diminished. Lady Somerset had the best possible maps prepared, of all the congested parts of London, with the public houses colored thereon, and these were handed to the commissioners. Almost all of her evidence was, therefore, shown through the eye as we'll as the ear, and this had 8 remarkably good effect.
 It was stated by leading men of the commission that the argument made by Lady Somerset had given them light on the subject that had not been before elic- lifted, and several said that the temper lance cause had, in their opinion, gone up ninety per cent. As matter of course Lady Henry Somerset believes with Sir l Wilfrid Lawson In the local control bill put forward by the liberal party, 1. G., that the residents of locality should have the right given them to determine whether they should have saloons or not, but as Lord Salisbury distinctly stated some months ago to the most influential temperance delegation that had been be- fore the house of commons in years, that he could "do nothing for them," the practical question now is how to secure a reduction in the number of licenses, and 1t was to this that Lady Somerset address ed herself.
 To change memorial day, J. Y. Niles, of Topeka, past assistant adjutant- general of the Kansas department, G. A. R., has prepared a resolution against the desecra- tion of memorial day which he will pre- sent at the national encampment of the organization at Buffalo in August, for adoption. The resolution is approved by National Commander Clarkson. It is as follows:
 Whereas, There Is 8 growing tendency to deprive the Sabbath of the grand army of the republic (memOrial day) of its sacred character, and turnit into day of secular enjoyment by making 1t a day de- voted to picnics, horse and bicycle racing, and ball games and Whereas, such use of the day Is entirely foreign to the hopes, wishes, and desires of the patriots who proposed its inception, as well as of their comrades who still remain therefore, 1t is Resolved, That the c Ongress of the ) United States be requested and petttioned by this thirty-first national encampment to change the day now called Memorial day from the 3Oth of May, of each year to the last Sabbath, or Lords day, in tht month of May in each year, to the enc that this day of all days sacred to the sur vlvOrs of the war for the Union and theil widows and orphans, as well as those who have fallen, shall be more suitably and properly observed.