matur, and it became the law of the territory. (Singular to say, the Supreme Court pronounced it to be unconstitutional for its having been submitted to the people; but the Legislature did not repeal it.) In RHODE ISLAND, the people at the Spring election returned a Legislature that (March 7th) enacted the Law in the Senate without a count, and in the Assembly by 47 votes against 27; being the third in this race of social redemption! In PROVIDENCE, a Maine-law Mayor was returned by a majority of a thousand votes. This gentleman, the Hon. A. C. BARSTOW, said at the Seventeenth Anniversary of the American Temperance Union, held May 12th, 1853, in the Metropolitan Hall, New York: "He was proud to represent Rhode Island, which first, of the States, elucidated the principles of religious liberty. Though not the first in this cause, he could claim for her the honor of having, if not the genius to lead, at least the humility and virtue to follow. A prohibitory law has existed for six years, under which 26 out of 32 towns, have steadily refused to give licence." In PENNSYLVANIA the prayer of the petitioning people was granted by the Senate, and lost in the House only by two votes. In WISCONSIN the law was demanded by 14,092 petitioners, and opposed by only 4,822; accorded by the House, rejected by the Senate. § 141. The struggle continued in the Legislature of MASSACHU SETTS-a State destined, however, to be fourth in the race. Petitions poured in. One hundred and eighty thousand petitioners prayed for the Law, and the Select Committee to whom the matter was referred gave the petitioners a hearing, and were addressed in public by the Hon. NEAL Dow, the Rev. O. E. OTHMAN, Dr LYMAN BEECHER, Rev. JOHN PIERPONT, and C. W. GOODRICH. The Committee reported a Bill containing the essential features of the Law, but stipulating for the manufacture and use of alcoholic liquor for all necessary and useful purposes. The debates were remarkable for eliciting brilliant appeal and important facts. Though this State is, perhaps, the best educated one of the whole federation, and possesses great industry and wealth, it had not, by these social means, even aided by the most remarkable Temperance movement which the world has ever seen, operating ever since the year 1813, and with unexampled success since 1826,-it had not, we say, succeeded in preserving the Commonwealth from a frightful sum of Intemperance, Pauperism, and Crime. Above $8,500,000 were annually expended on the retail Traffic, which involved a further cost for Pauperism, traceable to Intemperance, of $2,000,000. Nearly a thousand idiots were found in the State, the children of the Intemperate. Committals for Criminal Offences, in Massachusetts, in 1851. To Gaol for Crime 6,666, of whom 2,261 were intemperate = 34 pr ct. To Houses of Correction 3,175 ditto 1,589 ditto 50 The Hon. Mr POMEROY ably replied to several objectors. "The principle," he said, "had always existed in legislation: it was nothing new here. Ring the changes on 'human liberty' if you intend to rope and confine your victims ! If we deprive any man by this bill of his liberty-it is of his liberty to do wrong, for which he never had the right." It finally passed both houses by large majorities—and was signed by the governor May 22nd, 1852-to go into operation in sixty days. Four victories won within the year, and still the tide of battle rolled on. The cry was set up, notwithstanding the fact of the twenty years' agitation for No-licence, of unpreparedness and 'premature action.' By the doubting, the season of preparation is never used, and that of success never comes. Certainly we would not wed 'Rash haste, half-sister to delay.' Neither would we counsel worse marriage with the whole-sister'Procrastination-the thief of time.' Hear the instructive answer of Dr MARSH, on behalf of the American Temperance Union :-" Vast multitudes said, They were prepared for it; and what would another generation be without it? What were we fast becoming under our present License Laws, with the waves of a foreign population rolling in upon us? Nothing better, but continually worse. They wish to impose no law upon the people by force; but when a people demand a law for protection against the Traffic, they do require that it shall not be holden from them, because that, by the craft to be destroyed, distillers, brewers, and venders have their wealth. The thief might as well remonstrate against a law that grapples his hand when thrust into his neighbor's pocket,—the licentious man against the law restraining his licentiousness. In demanding protection by law, they relax no effort of moral suasion." As well talk to tigers as to the majority of the Traffickers, and ask the beast to relinquish its prey. influx of a foreign population, their deep sensuality; their readiness to engage, in all towns and cities, in the liquor trade; the ease with which they procure a licence, and the corrupting influence of their liquor-shops, are viewed with much anxiety by all who love their country. In five years, 1,041,238 immigrants arrived in New York alone-persons who knew nothing of our habits-who look from afar upon this as the land of licence [and these, at least, are prepared]-prepared to be the pillars of this Temple of the Demon of Blood. As one of the results, notwithstanding millions of teetotalers [and national education], we are vast consumers of intoxicating drinks-an average of six gallons a head of ale and spirits to all our population above childhood! For the year ending June, 1850, there were 27,000 convicted criminals! Of these, 14,000 were Foreigners-[and great num "The vast bers of the rest had been the neglected children of drunken foreigners]. On the day of the completion of the census, the whole number in prison was 6,702, of whom 2,460 were foreign. Of the Paupers fed by us, 68,538 were of Foreign birth; only 66,434 Americans.* For their sakes, and for our protection, then, a Maine-Law is loudly demanded." Gallant VERMONT, the 'Green Mountain State,' in December 1852, came fifth in the realization of this Prohibito-Protective Law ; the legislature submitting the time of its action to the decision of the people. On the 5th January, at Rutland, in a State Convention, the people expressed their viva voce satisfaction in the law, with immense enthusiasm, and on the 6th February, 1853, affirmed the law by their votes. MICHIGAN came sixth; and on the law being submitted to the people as to the time of its operation, they voted, by overwhelming majorities, for its immediate action. The Liquorish-party, of course, made what resistance they could-fed the lawyers, bribed the legislators, and appealed to the judges. Nevertheless, justice was finally done. In 1856, seven out of the eight judges of the Supreme Court affirmed the 'constitutionality' of the law. On the 10th March, 1853, in answer to attempts made by the Traffic to misrepresent the law, the people of MASSACHUSETTS held the largest Temperance Convention which had ever assembled in Boston, and passed some expressive resolutions without a single dissentient. After eight months' trial of the law, they congratulated each other on its possession, as a law whereby, if faithfully executed, they shut up grog shops, abolish liquor debts, guard the weak and young from temptation, suppress the chief sources of crime and pauperism, and put the sale of spirits into responsible hands for lawful purposes-just as we do, or should, arsenic and other poisons in England. "That this law is to be regarded as the Total Abstinence Pledge of a whole State[in regard to the sale and purchase]-and that it is a duty to God and humanity, for the State as for every individual, to keep the pledge unbroken; that we believe in the manifest destiny of this law, to spread, ultimately, with the spread of the Anglo-Saxon race." Considering that this race has always been disgracefully distinguished by its liability to run into drunkenness [but who calls it therefore a 'weak' race ?]-there is a peculiar fitness in its adoption of this safeguard. In the meanwhile, agitation was going on, and important changes transpiring in other States. The Massachusetts Act, unlike that of Maine, did not prohibit the manufacture and the export, but only the sale for drinking purposes within the State. Evils pre * In Philadelphia, out of 5000 tenants of the Almshouse in 1851, 2709 were drunken men, and 897 drunken women. Total Pauper-recruits FROM HOUSES APPOINTED TO REGULATE THE TRAFFIC, in one single city, 3,606. Out of 775 liquor dealers in Albany, not 100 are native Americans. dicted to arise from the execution of the law,- -as broils, fights, resistance, and injury to commerce,-turned out to be visionary: and after the lapse of five years, the only serious disturbance was one 'got up' by spreading the calumny that the author of the law was himself evading it! Even then, the parties concerned were of the lowest description, chiefly sailors and Irish, incited by more intelligent, but reckless, conspirators behind. By the operation of the law, indeed, Manufacturers and Venders were subjected to inconvenience and loss, but generally no greater than is often experienced in changes not decreed by law, but demanded by the caprice or progress of society. Public-houses submitting to the law lost this one branch of revenue, and still prospered in their proper capacity as Inns; while others, in ceasing to exist, proved that they were not necessary as inns, but, as tippling-houses, had been nuisances. In the country towns, dram-shops, almost universally, were quietly closed. In some of the larger commercial towns, owing to that Foreign influence and Trade connexion' which sustains the prohibited Slave-Trade in New York, the law which prohibited drink-traffic was not enforced. In BOSTON, for example, things went on much as before: though a strong protest against the neglect was drawn up by a large majority of the council. In fact, just prior to the passing of the law, above 700 licences were granted for a year by the city government. The author, in this year (1853), was personally cognizant of much dissipation and intemperance in Boston: and found its social condition, in many respects, an unenviable contrast to that of towns where the Magistracy virtuously enforced the law. Citizens in the interior had only to visit Boston, in order to discover the practical merits of the law, by the logic of contrast, § 142. In NEW YORK State the agitation continued unabated. Petitions poured in upon the Legislature at Albany-one of them is noteworthy, from being signed by 20,000 females. In September 1853, the author was present, as an English representative, at the World's Temperance Convention in the city of New York. It was never his fortune to witness such magnificent and unanimous meetings as then assembled within the vast Metropolitan Hall-including hundreds of delegates,the very elite of society-from the sea border to Wisconsin, and from Canada and Nova Scotia to New Orleans. Shortly afterwards, he was present, by invitation, at the State Convention at Boston, where, in that centre of intelligence and wealth, he found the leading minds of the country unanimous in their earnest support of the Law. The Hon. HORACE MANN, the Venerable Dr BEECHER, and his son, Dr EDWARD BEECHER, Professor STOWE, LLOYD GARRISON, Judge HOAR, Dr GANNETT, THEODORE PARKER, and the Rev. JOHN PIERPONT, were amongst the distinguished persons taking part in the proceedings. Political questions, in the enthusiasm enlisted in this absorbing topic, were laid aside as of minor moment. Men of opposite creeds and parties coalesced on this point. In short, we witnessed the prestige of the ultimate, universal triumph of this cause in the United States-a triumph as certain and necessary in social development as the revolution of the planets and the succession of the seasons. The beautiful State of OHIO had been strongly moved by the Prohibitory question: and amongst the agitators we may name General CARY, of Cincinnati, a man of singular eloquence and power-a lawyer by profession, but, by good fortune, able to devote his talents and energy to a 'cause' which involves the wholesale prevention of broils and disputes-the rectification of the wrongs of a Nation. Petitions, with 250,000 signatures, were presented to the Legislature of 1852-3. Ohio subsequently suppressed the sale for use on the premises. : In WISCONSIN, this year, the Maine Law was lost by a single vote while INDIANA passed a law bordering upon it in stringency. The old law in Wisconsin made the vender responsible for damages; while, by another law in Iowa, every dram-shop is declared a nuisance, which may at once be broken up and exterminated. But these enactments all spared the liquor-and hence not one of them has answered its end-or superseded the necessity of a Maine Law. All other laws allow the vender to transplant his machinery and material of mischief-which is the same folly as if a Victorious General should liberate his prisoners as fast as they were made-a course that, in recruiting the forces of the enemy, would speedily put an end to his own victories. § 143. The year 1854 was a year of mingled success and disappointment. In March, a Prohibitory Law passed the NEW YORK Legislature with very large majorities, but was unexpectedly vetoed by Governor SEYMOUR. This created great excitement, and lost him his office at the fall election, MYRON H. CLARK being triumphantly carried by the Temperance party. In various States sharp remedies were attempted for abating the evils of the Traffic. In Greensboro', ALABAMA, the liquor licence was raised to $1000; in Marion, Alabama, to $3000.~ In PENNSYLVANIA, the question was submitted to the people, and lost only by a majority of 3,000 votes against, in a poll of nearly 300,000. 'Old Berks' and the Dutch counties defeated it; but in nearly all the counties of English descent the vote was favorable. By way of compensation for the New York disappointment, there was an important success achieved in New England-in that Vestal State, which power could not subdue After a reign of two centuries in Old CONNECTICUT, the Licence System was abolished; and on the 16th June, 1854, a Maine |