Prohibition Fallacies. (PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT).

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 24, 22 July 1899, Page 3

Prohibition Fallacies. (PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT).

Man fears the lion's kingly tread ; Man feais the tiger's fangs of terror ; But man himself is most to diead When mad with social error.

In the city of Portland, at the Internal Revenue Office, the alphabetical list annually made of the names and places oi business of those who were for the time being licensed to sell liquors in the State of Maine, was every year previous to the present one, (1889) open to the inspection of every citizen. The list for the year ending Apiil 30, 18H6, shows that 1,047 persons paid the special retail spirituous liquor- dealers' tax and that 8S persons paid the malt liquor-dealers 1 tax, making a total of 1,155 persons wbo had been licensed to engage in retailing intoxicating liquors throughout the state during that year, and for the year ending April 30. 1887, the number was 1,260. As the population of the state at the taking of the last census was 348,936, there was the proportion of one licensed grog shop to every 515 persons, composed of men, women and children, throughout the state. When such a large number of men can be found publicly and boldly to flout the state Prohibitory Law, can any fact more conclusively shbw how empty and misleading is the Prohibitionists' boast that their law is a great success in Maine ? If the law ever had any prospect of being successful it ought before this, its thirty-fifth year, to ha\ c succeeded in stopping liquor selling in that state, or to be at least approximating towards such a consummation ; but the facts are against that prospect ; for, while the increase of .population is only about one-third of one per cent, per year, the increase of licensed groggeries duiing the year end' ing April 30, 1884, was 1,046, being less by 38 than in 1885, when the number became 1,084. And the number for the year ending April 30. 1885, was 41 less than the number for the year ending April 30, 1886, and for 18S7 it was 125 greater than for 1886. This shews that the increase of these groggeries is twelve times greater than the population. That there should have been an increase in the number of the licensed groggeries in the year 1886 over the number there was the previous year is the more remarkable when wo consider that in February and March, 1885, a" very vigourous crusade was instituted by the Law and Order League under the direction of the Rev. Mr Munson against these groggeiies. The expected visit at Portland of more than 100,000 members of the Grand Army of the Eepublic from all parts of the Union to take place early in the summer pi 1885 wns Ihe incentive to this crusade. It would not do to let these visitors earrv to their homes a clear knowledge of the drink habits as th«v iexisted in Portland, so a list of the liquor sellers was obtained from the Revenue OfhVe, and in a few woeks piany hundreds of persons were prosecuted for selling liquors, but in spite of these prosecutions the number of licensed drinking places continued to increase. This continued 'increase bears out the statement of the prison inspectors for .the state of Maine, marie in their report for the year 1884, in wbich they say that drunkenness is in-pi-easing in that State.' In further corroboration of that report, it may be mentioned that the number of committals for drunkenness to the jaite throughout the state was 1,320 in theyear 1884, and rose to the number of 1,761 in 1885. an increase of 441.

A German chemical expert has published & despnption of his niethod of preseivmg ,food stuffs. He inoculates the foods' wito the proper microbes, and claims that eatables bo treated wiil remain pure ana -wb»lesoiiie for any number of yearsMistress (severely)—" If this occurs /tgain, Jane, I shall be compelled to get another servant." "I wish you would, mum* there's enough work for two oius,"