Year: 1871




GENTLEMEN:-On opening The Cecil Whig
of Saturday, 9th inst, find the list of
signers to tavern applications for Cecil
county. There appear no less than Al
applications for said county, and among
those subscribers, 1 find the names of some
who have subscribed thrice. As this thing
has been done in the light of day, crave
your attention while the inquiry is made,
how it will bear the light.


The subject might have been taken up
and handled ina way of satire, to which it
is entirely exposed; but ridicule is an
uncourteous and ungentlemanly weapon;
an honest, candid, and respectful appeal is
more to the writer's taste.


Consider, gentlemen, what you have
done: you have not merely recommended
certain houses as proper for public accom-
modations. That is matter of no account;
it is thing would do myself, in proper
place. Your recommendations arc entirely
of another character. You ask the Court
to open, or keep open, Al places in Cecil
county, for the sale of intoxicating liquors,
places where it can be easily and conven-
iently procured in small measure, and to
be drank on the premises, SO as to save
customers from the deliberate purpose and
disgraceful necessity, of carrying jug to
hold it. This is, of course, the most
seductive way of obtaining strong drink.
Here we have the simple and sole fact
implied in license. 1t is license, not to
keep puble house, (Which needs no license)
but to sell spirits. You advise the Court
to allow the selling and drinking of rum at
these places. You are favorable-yes, in
this day of light and progress-you are
still favorable to the sale and use of that
which makes drunkards. I would not
waste one word to prove that the drinking
of ardent spirits is foul, noisome, tremen-
dous plague; an unmitigated evil, the
parent of all misery, the filthiest bloteh
upon the community. would not conde-
scend to answer the argument of a man
who, in the year 1871, would coolly attempt
to prove that rum-drinking, either habitual
or casual, is an innocent and allowable
thing. The day for such controversy has
gone by-we hear no more of it. Nearly
every one has made up his mind, either to
hold on to the cause of intoxicating drink,
in spite of everything, or else to spurn it
from him as horrible evil, or thing to
be carefully avoided. Some of you, per-
haps, have signed these papers without due
consideration, or else to get rid of one who
was too importunate. The mischiefs re-
sulting from negligence are as momentous
as those which are the fruits of false inten-
tions. 1t is unpleasant, perhaps you say,
to refuse favor to neighbor and acquaint-
ance from whom we have often received
favors. 1t is troublesome to have to make
up an excuse; and of all things it must be
hard to put off tavern applicant, espe-
cially since their cause is growing more and
more desperate every year. They 60 up
and down in hungry quest of nam%-any
sort of names will do. An inexorable law
of the land, demands at least two bobtails
hanging to the kite, and SO nearly are they
cornered, that they sometimes have to sign
for one another, or, as in the present
instance, some of you have signed three
times; so that 70 persons have signed for
Al applications, and among that number
there is one, at least, who is prominent
member of one of cur religious denomina-
tions. What mockery of religion to find
those who are connected with these insti-
buttons, signing applications for the con-
tinuance of business fraught with such
immense mischief to mankind! But, gen.
| tlemen, we can never get along in this
world without moral courage. 1t is best
to walk erect along the path of life, and to
all such opportunities as these, it is wisest
to give the plain, blunt reason, and not
shirk about for lame apologies. Let us
consider, gentlemen, for moment, some
of the baleful consequences of your acts.
1t will be hard to speak them out, fear,
without giving offence, which l do not
intend. I will therefore put it as my own
case, as if had joined in signing one, two
or more of these papers, and were now left
to consider the probabilities of my actions.
I certainly should fear that was respon-
sible for all the misery, disease, poverty,
death, disgrace and heart breaking which
would grow out of the drinking of rum at
those places, for which had interested
myself. For every poor drunkard who
should come reeling out of one of those Al
bar-rooms, should feel accountable before
society and before the Almighty Judge
and if in the course of the ensuing year,
l should be called to attend the funeral Of
any hapless neighbor, whose end had been
hastened by the use of strong drink
obtained at any of those places, should
be haunted by the accusation that had g
hand in that tragical result. Nor could
shift the responsibility, or dissipate it il
the crowd; to every one it belongs. L
must cling forever to him whose signature
makes up the number who have signe(
these applications.


l forbear to write further, and woult