Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1900-03-24
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SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
If one may judge from the action OF
the police authorities here in prohibit
ing the proprietors of large restau-
rants and hotels from having music
during the hours OF meals, the vice
and wick edness which an aroused
spirit of reform is about to root out
are due entirely to music. "We can't
have one law for the Bowery and
another for Broadway and Fifth ave-
nue." says Chief of Police Devery;
hence, as McGlory's piano in his Fifty
ninth street "dive" has been put tunder
ban, it is considered necessary to stop
the soxtet OF stringed instrument per-
formers at the Waldorf. OF course, the
object OF all this is too apparent for
even blind man to overlook. An
aroused public opinion has compelled
the police authorities to take some
action toward closing the "wide-
OPEN doors Of a great many places
of questionable resort. In order, how.
ever. that these unwilling proceedings
on the part of the police shall be made
as obnoxious to all classes of people
as possible, this notion that it is the
music that is the cause OF all the
trouble has been given police support.
Probably most of the reformers are
willing to admit that the music in
"dive," is about the only qualifying
merit in the place. There is certainly
no vice in the harmony of sweet
sounds, and Chief Devery is quite as
we'll aware of that fact as any one
else. He and his friends are not de-
sirous of enforcing the laws against
intemperance and vice, but are simply
endeavoring to discover means for not
enforcing them; in other words, to
make police regulation as distasteful
as possible to the virtuous as we'll as
to the vicious.
have written you before about
Coler, the Tammany comptroller whom
Tammany cannot handle. Really. he
is the most talked OF man in the city,
and is coming man. There is
hopeless break between him and the
other members of the Tammany gov
ernment indeed, between him and all
the raiders upon the treasury, OF what
ever political party. Just now Mr..
Coler is having battle with Mr..
Whalen, the corporation counsel, in
which the issue OF honest finance is
involved. The machine has tried to
call Mr.. Coler of, but entirely with.
out success. Says the comptroller:
"The organization has nothing to
do with the operations of this Office.
1t is my business. and l propose to
run it as I think right. I shall not
stir an inch from til, stand I have
taken on this claims and judgments
matter, aud ii the organization doesn't
want to stand for unqualified robbery
aud looting, it must support my &C.
ton. Whether it supports me or not,
I shall continue to stand just where I
stand now." Mr.. Coler seems, cut
out for his work, aud there is All
abundance Of work cut out for men Of
his character. 1t would not be SUR
prising to see Mr.. Coler q candidate
for mayor on a reform platform at the
next city election, for he is already
being talked Of in that connection.
A bill is in the Legislature to prohibit
the use Of nets in the Hudson, Har.
lem and East rivers, and as far ont into
the Atlantic ocean as the control of the
state extends. 1t is presented by the
Protective League Of Saltwater Fish
ermen, who say in an open letter that
''there are more than 100, 900 rod and
reel and hook and line fishermen in
the city, and more than 10000 have
sigued the petition" The bill should
go through, but not on these grounds
The real reason why fishing of the
menhaden catchers with their mile
long purse seines," should be for
hidden, is that they not only capture
bluefish, weakfish, shad and all other
large fish that afford sport, but also
that the vast depletion of the men.
haden deprives these big fishes of
their food, aud consequently operates
to decrease their numbers, and to
hasten the exte mination of all food
fish, simply to make money for the
fish oil factories.
The Dewey Arch fund still drags
Notwithstanding the most desperate
means to give it life. The latest
scheme was to make Hon. Levi P.
Morton, Whitelaw Reeds rich father
in-law, an honorary president in the
hope, suppose, that his name would
Land kono and h;o har..1 xror11 A.,
freely. They are talking, too, Of q
theatrical benefit performance and OF
an art exhibition in the old Stewart
mansion, which has had so much
tragedy connected with it since its
ruined builder blew his brains out
when the heartless owner moved in.
Here is . bit Of prediction: No
million dollar arch will be built in
Dewev's honor.