IS THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW A FAILURE?

Southland Times, Issue 2237, 17 December 1875, Page 2

IS THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW A FAILURE?

♦ The Hon. W. Pox, ex-Premier of New Zealand, on his way to the old country recently, determined to ascertain how far the Maine Liquor Law was a success or not, and for this purpose he visited a number of places where it is in operation ; and more than that, having obtained a letter of introduction to Mr Murray, the British Consul, at Portland, who had stated that the law was a failure, with the view of ascertaining from that gentleman his reasons for entertaining that opinion. "I begged him (says Mr Fox) to tell me whether the facts stated by General Neal Dow and others, as to the diminution of crime, employing of persons, &c, were true or not." Mr Murray candidly admitted that, if true, they went far to prove the success of the law. Then said I, " Will you tell me if they are true or not?" Mr Murray admitted "that he could not, and that he had no evidence to disprove them." So much then for Murray's idea of the failure of the law, and which some of the English papers in the interests of liquordom have made so much of. We give below Mr Fox'a own testimony to to the working; of the law : — I left Boston one evening in a large steamer containing 300 people, at least. I scrutinised the condition of the passengers very closely, and during the voyage was not able to detect the sign of liquor on any man in the steamer. Late in the evening I got one of the stewards in * corner where we were not seen, and sa,id, " Is there no bar en this boat ?" " No," he said somewhat roughly, and turaed hi« back on me. I got in front of him, and said suggestively, " Couldn't you find me something to drink if I wished it ?" " No," he said still more roughly ; "not if you wished it ever so." I arrived in Portland about four o'clock in the morning:, deposited ray luggage at the hotel, and started out on my rounds, having made up my mind to perform the duty of amateur detective as long as I was in Maine- I went " poking my nose " in every place where liquor or drunkenness was likely to be, but nowhere could I meet with either. I kept that up till breakfast time. I west down to the wharveß and quays more than a mile loag, where all the steamers and shipping are moored, and where drunkenness would be probably moßt rife, if there were any, and before breakfast, I repeat, was quite unable to detect any signs of it< In the afternoon I devoted myself to another detective campaign, till alter dark ; and with the exception of seeing three bottles of wine on the hotel tables at dinner (the private property of the drinkers, and therefore no infringement of the law), I did not detect a single trace of liquor, nor see an intoxicated person, nor any place where it was being sold. I spent some ten days in Maine and in Vermont, and found exactly the same state of things. I tell you the facts, and leave you to draw your own inference. Now, compare this state of things with that which prevails in any town of the same size in this country.