MAINE. 



513 



per gallon. Winter apples were harvested in 

 excellent condition. Greenings, Baldwins, and 

 Bellflowers sold at $1 per barrel. The hay crop 

 was rather more than an average one, the wet 

 weather of May and June having given to the 

 grass the moisture necessary for its develop- 

 ment. Never was the crop secured in better 

 condition. The price it commanded was $10 

 and $12 per ton. Barley, oats, and rye have 

 been sparingly sown, wheat having been sub- 

 stituted for them. Oats have yielded thirty 

 bushels per acre. 



On May 7th the German steamer Chnbria, 

 with a large number of Russian naval officers 

 and seamen, anchored in the harbor of Ells- 

 worth, where she remained over five months, 

 and then departed for Philadelphia. This was 

 at the time when there was a prospect of hos- 

 tilities between Great Britain and Russia. The 

 officers and men finally took charge of steam- 

 ers bought at Philadelphia. 



The State Temperance Convention was held 

 at Augusta on January 23d. The Governor 

 of the State was chosen President of the Con- 

 vention, and the following resolutions were 

 adopted unanimously : 



Resolved, That the friends of temperance in Maine, 

 in mass convention assembled, render thanks to 

 Almighty God for the large measure of success which 

 has attended the efforts to banish from the State the 

 gigantic evils arising from the use and sale of intoxi- 

 cating liquors. To the various secret and open tem- 

 perance organizations, to the temperance reform 

 clubs which have done so grand a work within a few 

 years, to the churches and ministers of the State, 

 and to the hosts of temperance workers and temper- 

 ance friends, a debt of gratitude is due for their 

 earnest and self-sacrificing labors to advance a cause 

 so closely identified with the well-being of the peo- 

 ple. 



Resolved, That the too prevalent belief that intoxi- 

 cating liquors are not only indispensable as a remedy 

 in serious diseases, but also beneficial as a restora- 

 tive in slight indisposition, is one of the most seri- 

 ous obstacles to the complete triumph of the temper- 

 ance movement. Wo rejoice to know that so many 

 eminent medical men are coming to the conclusion 

 that the cases in which alcohol can be administered 

 to advantage are so few, and the abuses to which it 

 is subjected in its use as a medicine as well as a 

 beverage are so many, that it ought to be adminis- 

 tered as cautiously as any other poison, even if not 

 discarded entirely from the list of remedies in dis- 

 eases ; and we appeal to physicians and all others 

 who desire the triumph of the temperance cause, to 

 give the weight of their influence in the formation 

 of an improved public sentiment in this direction. 



Resolved, That whenever a preponderating public 

 sentiment regards alcoholic liquors as indispensable 

 as a medicine, and it is thought necessary to pro- 

 vide for their legal sale for such purpose, no provision 

 can be devised liable to so few abuses as the system 

 of town agencies, by which only one place of sale is 

 allowed in any town, and this under the manage- 

 ment of an agent appointed by the municipal officers, 

 and removable by them whenever he abuses his 

 trust, without any pecuniary interest in the profits 

 of sales, and required to keep a record of every sale 

 open to public inspection. 



Resolved, That wo earnestly protest against the 

 passage of the bill now before the Legislature, au- 

 thorizing druggists to sell malt and intoxicating 

 liquors for medical purposes. No law, however 

 guarded, which authorizes any class of men to sell 

 VOL. xvni. 33 A. 



for their own profit intoxicating liquors, whether 

 mixed or unmixed, under the guise of medicine, can 

 guard against wholesale abuses which will danger- 

 ously impair the efficiency of the prohibitory law. 

 And a law like the one proposed which legalizes u 



guard against wholesale abuses which will danger 

 ncy of the prohibitor 

 proposed which lega 

 large number of places of sale in every city, which 

 exacts no bond oi the persons so authorized, which 

 does not allow the withdrawal of any license by 

 municipal officers, which requires no registration of 

 sales open to public inspection, which contemplates 

 no nnalysis by a State assayer of liquors sold, and 

 above all which makes it for the pecuniary interest 

 of every druggist to sell all that his conscience will 

 permit will eventually injure the standing of drug- 

 gists, and open this State to dram-shop evils from 

 which it has largely escaped after forty years' fight 

 against King Alcohol. 



An address to the State Legislature, then in 

 session, was adopted, which presents the state 

 of the public mind on the subject of temper- 

 ance and the views of its advocates, and the 

 measures which they desire to be enforced by 

 laws. It was as follows : 

 To the Honorable the Legislature of Maine : 

 _ The State Temperance Convention, now in ses- 

 sion at Augusta, most respectfully represents that 

 the effort made in Maine to redeem the State and 



of the most important movements of this or any 

 other age for the promotion of the welfare and hap- 

 piness of the human family in every relation of life. 

 As the evils of intemperance in many ways are 

 greater than those coming from all other sources of 

 evil combined, so the emancipation from those evils 

 will be the greatest blessing that can be bestowed 

 upon any people. 



This purpose can never be accomplished except 

 by putting away the cause, to wit, the traffic in in- 

 toxicating liquors. With this view, more than a 

 quarter of a century ago the people of Maine, through 

 their Legislature, abolished the policy of license and 

 adopted that of prohibition. From that day to our 

 time several additional laws have been enacted, all 

 in the direction of greater stringency and severer 

 repression. The result has been to banish the liquor 

 traffic entirely from all the rural districts of the State, 

 and from the smaller towns and villages ; but it lin- 

 gers yet to some extent in the cities and larger towns, 

 where it is carried on secretly, and almost entirely 

 by the lowest and vilest part of our foreign popula- 

 tion. It is impossible for any one who has not seen 

 them to form any just notion of the degradation and 

 the wickedness of the men who are now engaged in 

 the unlawful sale of liquor. They are only to be 

 restrained by sharp and stringent penalties, which 

 they will hesitate to incur for the sake of the profits 

 to be derived from that horrid trade. One of our lead- 

 ing judges recently remarked, in open court, that 

 the men who deal in liquor now do it deliberately, 

 with a calculation as to the profit on one side and 

 the penalty on the other, and the balance they sup- 

 pose to be on the side of taking the risk of detec- 

 tion and punishment. 



The Convention represents that there was never 

 a time when public opinion in Maine was so thor- 

 oughly aroused or so firmly set against the liquor 

 traffic as now. Both the great political parties of 

 the State have declared against it in their annual 

 State conventions, in the most formal and solemn 

 manner, and the people are fully prepared for any 

 measure which may be necessary to extirpate the 

 liquor traffic from the State. The Convention rep- 

 resents that all English-speaking people, the world 

 over, are looking to Maine and watching with the 

 greatest interest^ and anxiety the progress of the 

 struggle here asrainst " the gigantic crime of crimes " 

 Every successful move in this State is hailed with 

 joy by them, and they are inspired by it with re- 



