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and liquor drinkers are not in sympathy with it; but that if license is granted to some of them to sell, so that the lovers of liquor may have their alcoholic beverages, they will turn around and support it. Support what? Why, that part of the law that secures to drinkers their beverages.. What else? That remains to be seen. It is too popular, they admit by their acts, to hazard the repeal of it. And when it was attempted by the counsel for the remonstrants to bring out some facts as to its enforcement, during the examination of Judge Sanger, and it was admitted by Judge Sanger that it could be executed, the counsel added that it could be executed " upon the men," as if the law was not intended to be executed upon the men. But let me add that it is executed upon the liquors as well as the men; as shown in the confiscation of them to the value of many thousands of dollars.

Public opinion, it is alleged, does not sustain the law. This has been claimed as the foundation of effort from the beginning. What appears on this subject? The Reverend Mr. Otheman testified that he had received returns from 1,025 clergymen; and that 962 were in favor of prohi

bition, 56 in favor of license, and 7 undecided. Of the 56, there were Roman Catholic, 25; Episcopal, 8; Trinitarian Congregationalist, 2; Universalist, (I am ashamed to say,) 1; Unitarian, 12; Swedenborgian, 5; and unknown, 3.

Remember the theory of the Romish Church, largely shared, as would appear from the evasive testimony of Rev. Dr. Edson, of Lowell, by the Episcopal Church; a theory that outlaws the State, claims everything for the clergy, and seeks to dominate over the consciences of men, even at the Friday dinner-table. Are you surprised to find their priests opposed to the law? The learned counsel on the other side, who knows personal habits, knew very well whom to summon here to represent the drinking portion of the clergy.

Besides this, gentlemen, I have here a bundle of letters from various quarters. One from Dr. H. R. Storer, enclosing an extract from a letter from Hon. Alfred Hitchcock, of Fitchburg, in reference to the influence of alcoholic liquors, which says, finally, that we should "perfect our present prohibitory law, and then execute it; and Dr. Storer adds, "that is pretty true to the mark." I have here some seven or eight letters from missionaries, some in this city, and some in

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other cities, uniformly alleging that a license system, engrafted upon the present law, would be a calamity. I have several letters from Universalist clergymen, uniformly expressing the feeling that the enactment of a license law would be wrong in principle. Here is a letter from Dr. Chickering, of the Suffolk Temperance Union, to which our honorable friend, Mr. Child, belongs. He declares that, while the association was organized to labor in regard to the moral and religious aspects of the cause, the secretary, in his annual reports, and in a hundred different pulpits, has urged the duty of prohibition.

Other testimony is in hand. Marvin Lincoln, Esq., inventor of the "Lincoln Arm," who travels much, repels the allegation that travellers would abandon our first-class houses if liquors were cast out. On the contrary, the disturbances they occasion, are, at present, the chief objection to such houses.

The other night, at the close of a lecture in the Tremont Temple, the Temple being full, the question in regard to prohibition was submitted. Some one moved that the audience should vote on the question-a promiscuous audience of a Sunday evening. The president of the evening stepped

forward and remarked that all the lecturers upon the subject throughout the course, had been left entirely free to express their own opinions; and he wished every one present to express his opinion, with equal freedom. The answer was an almost unanimous "aye." When the vote of those in the negative, favoring license, was called for, there was one "no" here; another over there; and another yonder; making in all certainly four, the chairman thought there were five, "noes." The Hon. Mr. Clark, of Winchester, testified that the question was put to a congregation of two thousand persons in the town of Woburn, and by a unanimous rising vote they said "no" to license, and "aye" to prohibition.

Of the remonstrances which have been placed before the House, a synopsis has been given me to the following effect; and they have generally been volunteer remonstrances against a license system: The whole number, up to March 21, was 258, from 182 different towns in the Commonwealth. The whole number of remonstrants, up to April 1, is 57,429. Besides these, there are five or six thousand others from churches, district conventions, and lodges of the Sons of Temperance, in which number there are twenty-five

additional remonstrances from the city of Boston, making a total of more than sixty thousand remonstrants-not all of them voters, some being women and some children. I understand that there are twenty to thirty thousand professed voters, who petition for a license law.

It has been objected that though the law has been executed upon the places of sale in Boston, and though the number of them has been diminished, yet the amount of drunkenness has not been diminished. The allegation is more than doubtful. The evidence is conclusive that drunkenness has visibly decreased, in various parts of the city, within the last two months. I should scarcely have expected the results which have been obtained by the application of the law in Boston, in so brief a period. We had, however, according to the report of the Constable of the Commonwealth, at the beginning of the year, sixty places in every ward, and, according to the police reports, a hundred and twenty-five on the average in each of the wards, where liquor was still sold. Now, take sixty shops and scatter them through any one of our wards, and we should have one within a stone's throw of every citizen. I should not expect great restriction under such a state of things. Hence

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