The Late Neal Dow.

Manawatu Herald, 9 October 1897, Page 2

The Late Neal Dow.

The death is announced of General Neal Dow, the well-known American advocate of Prohibition, aged 98.

Neal Dow was an ardent advocate of total abstinence and prohibition and was born at Portland, Maine, on March 20rh, 1804, of Quaker parentage. While Mayor of Portland in 1857 he drafted a bill to prohibit the liquor traffic, known the world over as the Maine Law, and on his parsonal application to the legislature of that year it was passed through all its stages in one day, without change even of a word, and took effect upon its approval by the governor. Under this law, liquors intended for unlawful sales are confiscated and destroyed, and those who sell or keep them for sale are fined and imprisoned ; and the places where they are sold and kept are declared to be nuisances. In 1884 prohibition was pat into the Constitution of the State by a majority of 47,075, the affirmative vote being three times larger than the negative. By special invitation of the United Kingdom Alliance he made three visits to England in aid of the agitation for prohibition there, and spent nearly four years there and on the Continent in gratuitous' labour in that movement. Mr Dow has been twice Mayor of his .native city, and twice a member of the Maine Legislature. He served in the Civil War as Brigadier General, commanding in the department of the Gulf, holding at different time 3 three separate commands. "He was twice wounded and once taken prisoner, when he was confined for eight months before an exchange could be efiected.