TEMPERANCE IN CAROLINA.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2392, 2 December 1881, Page 3

TEMPERANCE IN CAROLINA.

The American correspondent ef the “ Argus ” writes:—The state of North Carolina has just been passing through one of those political storms which rage with exceeding violence in the United States afe times, and for the moment seem like veritable cyclones, destined to alter completely the condition of the political field, but which often pass by, and leave very little permanent trace. North Carolina is a state with few large towns, and an agricultural population pretty evenly divided between the lowlands, which are quite fertile, and the “ back country '• or hilly region of the west, which is sterile, and has its chief source of revenue from, the pine trees, which yield lumber, tar, and turpentine. Hitherto, all parts of the country have been famous for hard, drinking. Nearly every farmer had hi* own still, with which he made a few gallons of corn whisky for home consumption, while, in spite of the revenue officers, a large number of unlicensed stills were constantly in operation in the hill country. The people are as a rule ignorant—many of them to the verge of brutality—and the standard of morals is ordinarily very low. But, as is not uncommon among people of this class in the United States, there is considerable religion* feeling, or, more properly speaking, susceptibility to religious excitement, as to whichj in this case, the whites quite equal the Negroes. In this community last year a few zealous people started a movement for the suppression of the manufacture and sale of liquor. By the aid of a half-dozen fervent orators, they succeeded in creating a furious excitement. Meetings as wild as the early assemblies of the Methodists were gathered in all parts of the state ; large numbers not only signed the pledge of total abstinence, but entered into a mutual agreement to refrain from making or selling liquor of any kind, and to refuse to deal with anyone who made or sold it—in short, to undertake a sort of total abstinence Boycotting. The various local meetings founded societies, and from representatives of these resulted a state organisation, which went into permanent session at Baleigh, the capital of of the state, where tfc • Legislature was assembled. Now, the Legislature was almost wholly made up of Democrats, a party which in every northern state, where the question has arisen, has set its face like a flint against every form of what its orators call sumptuary laws. North Carolina Democrats, moreover, may ordinarily bo counted on to consume a large daily ration of whisky, and to look down on temperance people as a sort of defectively organised beings, lacking in capacity for one of the regular and beneficent functions of human life. Upon such a body a temperance crusade might be supposed to be an utterly Quixotic enterprise. But the North Carolina temperance men made their assault with the vigor and recklessness of enfant» perdus, and like many another forlorn hope, carried the enemies’ defences with a rush. By threats of politics! warfare, they succeeded in obtaining the passage of the most strenuous and minutely severe prohibitive law ever conceived in the United States. The manufacture of alcohol'c liquor of every variety was absolutely forbidden. The sale of it was only allowed to licensed druggists and physicians, who were permitted to keep only a veiy small quantity on hand, and to sell it only upon prescription from some unlicensed physician. The children of darkness, however, as i* not uncommon, proved their superior shrewdness in this case. The democratic leaders inserted in the law a provision that it should not go into effect until it had been approved by the people at a special election, to be held, in August. Meantime, while they were proclaiming the excellence of the temperance movement and denouncing liquor drinking as the fountain of all ills, public and private, they omitted to call their State Convention, and to commit their party to the approval of the law. The Republicans were equally shy of any formal pledge, and when the canvass for and against the law opened the temperance leaders found themselves without support from either party, but also without opposition. They imagined that they would hare no difficulty in gaining a heavy majority for the law. But, at the last moment, the negroes, who had not been strongly enlisted in the movement, took alarm. They suspected that this was an attack on their liberties, and they were, in any case, indisposed to give up their drink, though they used it much more moderately than their neighbours. Seeing this, the democratic managers, who had found the law a most unwelcome dose, resolved to quietly sustain the negro opposition to it, and to see that they had a fair chance to vote. The result was that the law wei rejected by a very heavy vote. The negroes, for the first time in many years, enjoyed the right of suffrage without hindrance from violence or fraud, and under the leadership of white democrats, while the mass of the democratic party saw a measure passed by their own representatives defeated at the poll. Thegeneral result may be described as an effectual shaking up of the political elements in NortK’ Carolina, which cannot fail to have some t fluence upon the future condition of State.