Marlborough Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1881.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume III, Issue 236, 25 May 1881, Page 2

Marlborough Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1881.

Sir William Fox has, it is stated, recently despatched a circular letter to all Good Templar lodges, advising them,"among other things, that it is possible the liquor traffic will be one of the subjects upon which fresh legislation will take place during the coming session. In this connection it is interesting to peruse certain statistics which have recently been republished by a New Zealand contemporary, being extracts from an article by Judge Goddard, of Maine, in the Portland J’rcss. The extracts run as follows : “ Col. Porter, Chairman of the Board of Inspectors, has sent me a new State Prison report. A comparison with the report of ISSI discloses an increase of felony, and especially of murder and other high crimes, which ought to startle our community. Look at the official figures :

Total of State Prison Convicts S 7 —<»7 207 If two murderers had not been pardoned last year our assassins’ row would have reached 23. In 1 Sol our population was 587,(580 ; in 18S0 it is (M 5,945. Increase in 29 years, G 1,2(55, or 14 percent, In 1851 divorce was exceedingly rare in Maine. Now, as cx-Govcrnor Dingley has stated to a committee of this Legislature, Maine leads all New England. He shows that 478 divorces were granted in 1878, being one man and woman out of every G 79, and ho thinks that ISSO was probably still worse. Insanity has also steadily and rapidly increased at a ratio far exceeding the gain of population. The same may be said of suicide. The large percentage of youthful convicts is painfully suggestive. Nearly IS per cent, were convicted during their minority, and more than G 4 per cent, under the age of thirty. The average age of commitment is oidy 25. Great injustice has been done to our foreign-born population, and particularly to the Irish, by the loose talk of many of our writers and speakers. Out of the 199 felons confined in the State prison proper, only 30 are of foreign birth,only 18 arc natives of Europe, and only 4 arc Irish ; 123 were born in Maine. In 1820 our population was about 300,000, and in IS4O about 500,000. During those first 30 years of the history of Maine only 2 convictions of murder or arson are known to have occurred. This is at the rate of one case to 4,000,000 inhabitants annually. In the single year 1880, the Attorney-General’s report shows 7 convictions, 5 of which were of murder, being at the rate of one conviction to every 23,000 persons. This reveals the appalling increase of 43-fold in what until 1870 was called capital crime within 40 years.” Our Good Templar friends are fond of quoting statistics in support of their views, but certainly the above figures require no argument to show that they decisively indicate that in the model State of Maine repressive legislation has failed to diminish crime. It is evident indeed that no amount of legislation will make men moral but that we must look to education and the formation of public opinion for a satisfactory solution of the question of intemperance and consequent crime. That public opinion upon the subject has made marked progress during the past century is manifest when we contrast the drinking customs of to-day with those prevailing a hundred years ago. At that time a total abstainer was j a rarity, and temperance was the j exception rather than the rule. The j test of manhood among the upper classes was the number of bottles j which could be emptied, and inebriety was considered no disgrace. The j case is widely altered now, and tem- 1 peranoe is a recognised practical j virtue among all intelligent men. The j wider spread of education has been ! the chief means of producing this im- '

provement in the morals of society, though the temperance societies can also claim a position in the matter. There is much yet to be done however, before mankind will thoroughly understand the wisdom of practising the maxim “ I3e temperate in all things.” We do not believe conviction will ever be forced on them however by making harsh and repressive laws upon the Subject. The law of progress is necessarily gradual in ns working, and the mind of man must be educated, not forced, to enable it to properly receive the lessons of past experience. In the present day there are numbers amongst us who would bitterly resent any legislative interference with what they consider their rights, and who would be driven by repressive legislation into a position entirely opposed to that which they would probably adopt were public opinion the sole check. As a matter of actual fact repressive legislation has a decided tendency to produce the very thing it intends to crush and to illustrate this, we have only to suppose that our own Province, with its numerous and well appointed hotels, were placed under the operation of law similar to that of Maine. What would be the obvious result'? Temperate men, used to their daily glass, and habitual drinkers incapable of doing’withoutthcirusual stimulant would use their earnest efforts to obtain it somehow, and we may be certain they would be successful. Either the liquor would still be consumed in secret at the home circle, or in the sly-grog shop, an institution in which adulteration is.practised as a science, and which is ten thousand times more baleful in its physical and moral effects than a well appointed hotel, in which pure liquor only finds a place. We have no doubt whatever that if the truth were obtainable it would be found that the unsatisfactory condition of the State of Maine is due for the most part to the fact that the vice has there to he practised in secret. Under such a system thedesire for drink is not in anyway lessened, but pure liquor in open houses is not to be obtained and the people have no resource but to lly to the haunts of the sly-grog dispenser. He knows their position, and is tempted to vilely adulterate his stock for a double reason, firstly because lie has no opposition ; and secondly, because bis profits must be large to enable him to withstand the penalties which will await him'should his traffic bo exposed. Wc are no advocates of intemperance ; far from it, but in our opinion repressive legislation will not have the effect of furthering the good work carried on by temperance societies, but rather the contrary. Constant reiteration of the physical, moral, and social advantages of temperance, and education of the young in its principles will do more towards this end than a thousand enactments. Tho present laws are stringent enough, and, if anything, too oppressive upon the publican, whose trade is hampered with restrictions in every possible direction. The attempt in fact has been so far to endeavor to crush him out as a class, and in our humble opinion this was beginning at the wrong end. The struggle should have been not to lessen his profits or lay him open to penalties for ministering to the real or fancied wants of his fellows, but to so lessen those wants by proving them the result of error as to render the trade of a publican a superfluity in our civilisation. We trust the Good Templars of Now Zealam' will abstain from making any move in the direction indicated by Sir William Fox, as we are convinced they will thus at least not defeat their own ends. As bodies of men and women banded together for the purpose of reclaiming victims of drink they have done excellent service, and our earnest desire is to sec their labors in making men temperate crowned with success. But let them not in their ardor mistake cause for effect, and a publican is only an effect of a certain state of civilisation, and not a prime cause of the evil of which he is we are aware usually, represented as the embodiment.

1851. 1830. 1’ereentnnc of increase. Murderers 4 21 425 Manshiyers 1 5 400 Murderous assaults it 7 133 Arson, etc. 4 !) 125 Rape I 0 soo Attempts to rape 1 i; 500 Felonious assaults 0 4 — Robbery 0 4 — I’iiacy 0 2 — Total bid'll crimes 14 (57 370 Other felons ... 74 200 —