The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-04-15

souamsndsd ss . regulation of the liquor tramc. but it was. more popular because Of the fattensd city treasury it snade. With this knowlodge, the sarue voters who siGnally kicked out the dispeusary as stoutly refussd to vote for an increase in the tax rate to take care of the failing fund.
 A . result of this performances Troy may in the near future have . small financial pinch. Nothing serious is threatened because when the dispen- sary went away it left . plethoric treasury Go overcome present dilcul- ties. It is admitted. however. that the city would have been better of with a littls room for expansion on the tax rate. As 1t happens. merchants and professional men are paying . privi- them claim ought to be collected by further tax on property.
 The proposed tax raise was one- fourth of per cent. It Is allowed by special dispensation of the State Con- stitntion. Whenever the citizens get ready for the increase they may vote for 1t. Until then 1t is likely that the license schedules will obtain.
 Merchants Pleased.
 The revenue question in Troy Is con- sidered aside from the moral Issue in- volved. It becomes very evident when one begins to sound the representative citizen of the town. Merchant after merchant told of improved conditions under prohibition. They do not think = returning to the dispensary, beiiev- ing it step backward. Prohibition has helped the business of some of them. they say, and the trade relations are pleasanter. This applies particu- larly to the negro element of the trade, And further. the general exhibition of drunkenness of the city has been cut down.
 Planters employing negro labor give the palm to, prohibition over the dis pensary. They say. like the employers in other counties, that the negroes are dispensary ran. They seem to have less desire to Ego to town Saturdays and labor on that day has increased
 A like state of affairs was given by men who handle negro labor at the big fertilizer factories around Troy. They declare that although 1t is possible fof the negroes to get liquor somehow they are experiencing more difficulty and the ultimate price cofhes so high that drunkenness among them has been sharply reduced. IT has made the labor generally more dependable. It Is pos- sible to work the negroes on Satur- days, when an extra inducement had previously failed to hold them from the siren call of whiskey on Saturday.
 Therefore, to re-estabiish dispensary or liquor trafic in any form would get little support from this quarter.
 Judge T. L.. Boron, of the Pike County Law Court, says that there has been no trial before jury of a viola- tor of the prohibition law Therefore. test of the peoples sentiment on this score has not come. He gives 1t as his opinion that the juries will not be found wanting in this necessity and the blind tigers may expect no immu- nity on account of prejudices against the prohibition law
 A few true bills were returned by the last grand jury in session here. one white man and several negroes, but these will not go on trial until the fall term of the Circuit Court.
 There are Illegal Sales.
 Sherfn w. c. Carroll said he had no- ticed no decrease of crime generally as the result of prohibition. He gave as his belief that illegal sales of liouor were taking place in the county but every effort so far has failed to run some of them down.
 All the evidence in favor ofs prohi- bition is not, of course, without con- tradiction in some quarters A few men said frankly they could, not see the improvement that was seen by oth- CTS One citizen, a bookkeeper Of a large establishment. having customers from distant parts of the county, says he encounters these days as much whiskey-laden breath as in olden days He does not get out on the streets much, he says. and could not speak of the conduct of the men in public. He could not tell whether they disgrace themselves as they used to do, but he insists that the men are getting whis- key and seemingly plenty of it.
 But the majority appears well satis. lied with conditions as they exist. hop Ing that In the future they may still improve.