Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-30

prisonment added for a second offense.
Bowie knives, slung-shots. hrass-kuuckles
and all other similar weapons are also pro-
hibfted under equally severe penalties. You
VIII remember reading about the Texas
custom of having revolvers checked at the
theaters, and how every man was COM
PEELED to leave his gun with the attendants
before he was allowed to enter a ball. That
custom still peryails in certain places on
the frontier. where people think 1t is nee
essary to carry arms for self-defense. At
the same time the law requires that they
shall be discarded when the owner comes to
town, and people who carry them are not
arrested or fined, provided they obey these
regulations.
There is no more shooting up the town.
In Texas. Hold-ups are unknown People
do not carry money any more as they did
formerly. There is a bank In every town
and checks are used instead of currency.
Some of the Blue Laws.
Cattle-roping contests and other cruel
sports are forbidden. under heavy penalties
There are as many "blue laws If not
more, In Texas than in any other state in
the Union.
There is a law prohibiting card playing.
except in private houses, and even then IL
must not be habitual nor for stakes. IL Is
unlawful for any householder to have q
room for that purpose. This law Is strlctly
enforced in 30 per cent of the counties Oh
Texas.
pany was arrested and the members hned
$50 each for playing cards In their private
the railway tracks, which the court
held to be public place in the eyes OF the
law. In another train four of the Weaitnl-
est cattlemen in the state were arrested for
viola ton of the anti-gambling law While
playing euchre in a car on their way 10 a
convention. The courts have held again
and again that 1t is unlawful to play cards
on a railway train.
1t is forbidden to play dominoes or shake
dice for drinks or other articles of value.
There is heavy fine for playing pool or
billiards to see who shall pay for the game.
A may invite friend to play pool or
billiards, but they must determine who
shall pay for the game in some other than
the usual way.
Under the local option law nearly three
fourths of the counties in the state have
declared for prohibition This includes
nearly all of the rural districts. Most of
the cities have declared for high license.
and charge from $3.50 to S1.eO for the priv
ilege of selling spirits. One half of the
time of the courts is taken up in Furnishing
violatorS of the liquor law. In the cities
like Fort Worth and Dallas it is impossible
to get a drink Of liquor on Sunday. Gam
bling has been suppressed almost entirely
throughout the state.
The Liquor Jug Trade.
There is, however, large jug trade"
as 1t Is called. carried on between the
licensed cities and the prohibition counties
The courts have decided that a man may
buy all the liquor he likes at a place
where licenses are granted for consumption
in places where prohibition is enforced Sew
eral liquor houses in Dallas, Fort Worth,
Houston and other cities do Jug trade
almost exclusively. and have large num-
bers of clerks engaged in putting up TASKS
and bottles to ship by express to customers
In the country towns. One dealer has
forty men who do nothing but put up ex-
press packages of liquor. and If you will
look into the express car on any train you
VIII see wagon loads of them. A great
deal of money is brought into the cities
in that way, and the country merchants
are complaining about it, but everybody
admits that notwithstanding the lug
trade, the prohibition law is wei enforced
and is growing in favor There is less
crime than formerly; murders are rare
nowadays; shooting has gone out of style
If citizen of any town in Texas should
be shot these days it would create more
excitement than in most of the cities of
the north, while few years ago such af-
fairs were commonplace. / heard it as
serted yesterday that there were more muir
ders In the city of Chicago last year than
in the state of Texas
These moral reforms are attributed chiefly
to religious revolution, which has been
going on here for the past five or six years
There have been revivals all over the state
among the Methodists, Baptists
and Campbellites every summer for five
years. They have been conducted by pro-
fessional evangeliStS; services have been
held in tents because the churches were not
big enough to accommodate the audiences;
the converts have been numbered by thou
sands and great moral upheaval has been
he rqS11It.