A cloud of witnesses : success of prohibition in Maine.

Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cloud of witnesses : success of prohibition in Maine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A CLOUD OF WITNESSES: SUCCESS OF PROHIBITION IN MAINE. ' (From the Alliance News, June 22nd, 1872.J We have been favoured with a large batch of testimonies to the working and results of the Prohibitory Liquor Laws of Maine. These have been called forth by the adverse statements recently made in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and also in the London and provincial press, especially in connection with the recent debate on the motion for the second reading of Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s Permissive Bill. In placing these testimonies before our readers, we only wish to make one or two brief remarks. (1.) Even had the adverse statements of Mr. Powell, Mr. Plimsoll, and those who echo their croakings. been absolutely true ; and had the Maine Liquor Law proved an entire failure, causing more drinking and drunkenness than ever in the States of Maine, Massachusetts, etc., this would have been utterly insufficient as a basis for argument or opposi¬ tion to Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s Permissive Bill, which can only take effect when and where the great majority of the sober, thoughtful, and moral part of the community determine to give effect to it, and to sustain it. (2.) On the other hand, if it is proved that the Maine Liquor Law is, on the whole, well received by the people and well enforced by the authorities, and that it proves to be, whenever and wherever enforced, more and more popular, as well as more and more effective in the repression of drink selling, drinking, and drunkenness, and all the con¬ comitants and results thereof, this broad fact, once established, lends vast sanction and support to all efforts in the same direction. Hence the friends of temperance cannot but watch the workings and results of prohibition in Maine and the other prohibitory States with deep interest, and take encouragement from every wave of progress and every sign of success in Maine Law States. (3.) These testimonies, as will be seen, are not from casual visitors— travellers who enter Portland or Boston one night and leave the next day-—receiving their information and impression from the loafers and fast-goers who are ever on the alert to cram strangers with apochryphal facts and amusing anecdotes, or to lead them into secret dens of infamy, where all laws, human and divine, are defied, and all the decencies of life more or less set at naught and outraged. But the testimonies are from the highest, the most authoritative, and unimpeachable sources—in¬ cluding His Excellency the Governor of the State; all the Senators, Representatives of the State in Congress ; the Judge of the Supreme Court of Maine ; the Judge of the Municipal Court (Portland); the Judge of the Probate Court; Professor in Theological Seminary; Mayors and many ex-Mayors, aldermen, and city clerks of Portland and Bangor-—the two leading cities of the State; the Sheriff, the Clerk, and Registrar of Cumberland County (which includes Portland); the pastors of the leading churches of all denominations, and many others.