Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-10-30

Pankhurst, the English suffrage leader,
the situation promises all sorts of in
terestng developments. How impor-
family the issue is now regarded may
| be judged by the ludicrouS efforts of
| the various candidates for mayor at
| next weeks election to maintain neu-
trail position on the issue.
While the statement that New York
spends a million dollars day for
drinks has often been quoted to indi-
cate that this city is more addicted to
liquor than the ordinary community,
the fact is that NOT more than fifty
thousand persons out of this commune
ty of nearly five million are habitually
Incorporate, or only about one per
cent. Of the population, according to
figures presented by Mr. H. F. Fox, an
authority on charitable and phlan-
thropic subjects, before the Worcester
Economic Club. According to these
statistics not more than twenty per
cent. OF the groWnup male population
OF the country are total abstainerS and
not more than five per cent. are drunk
ard@ The great majority of total alb
StalnerS are found in small towns and
rural districts and it is estimated that
fully ninety per cent Of the men over
twenty~One in the big cities drink aIco-
holic beverages to a greater or less eX-
tent This is given as the reason why
none of the very large cities of the
country have joined in the prohibition
movement except where it has been
forced upon them by the votes Of
smaller cities and rural districts. 1t is
also held to account for the difficulty of
enforcing prohibtory laws in such
communities. Five thousand pOpula-
ton is given by the statisticians who
have been stunying the subject as the
dividing line above which public senti-
ment fails to support such regulations.
II the old adage about doctors dis
agreeing and patients dying be true,
tins city has reached a medical milleni-
uni where there is no disagreement at
all. Certain it is that the municipal
death rate of late has been steadily de-
crcasing until New York now hopes
soon to establish the lowest death rate
of any city of great size in the world
TO considerable extent this is doubt
'~''' ~
ing its right to he called the medical
center OF the country just as Boston is
known as the literary center, because
of the opportunity afforded by it's
schools and hospitals for study and re-
search. Medically speaking the city is
expanding most rapidly homeopathical-
~, the Flower Hospital. the leading
homeopathic institution in the city re-
porting an entering class larger than
any in its history. Then. too, since the
establishment here of the Rockefeller
Institute of Research many men of es-
tabllShed ability who would formerly
have gone abroad to study and expert
ment are carrying on their work here.
The work of the Health Department
mas also been greatly enlarged in the
last rev years, and in the expansion in
these as well as other fields may be
found the explanation of Father Knic-
kerbocker's success in his ambition to
be the hcalthest big city in the world
Honor, apparently, has little value in
New York, especially if it be in the
form of court At any rate the great
slXty-1oot gllt-topped pillars which
constituted the brilliant Court Of Hon.
or erected on Fifth Avenue at cost Of
nearly $4,000 for the Fulton
celebration have been offered for sale
singly or collectively, and as yet with
out results Such prices as have been
offered amount to hardly one per cent.
OF the cost of building the Court-hard-
ly equal to the value for kindling of
the wooden construction. To dispose of
these big white pillars indeed is a good
deal like buying to get rid of the prov
erbial white elephant. They could
! hardly be used to decorate ones lawn,
| and could appeal only to the million
aire with very large country place.
1t is likely that having served their
two weeks of decorative usefulness
| they will go the way of most similar
decorations-to the rubbish heap.