Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/808

788 borne by the family of the drunkard, whose condition, already wretched enough on account of the vice to which he is addicted, is thus made still more deplorable. Imprisonment for a first offense is not permitted, and in any case seems a punishment disproportioned to an offense in the commission of which the defendant has done himself more harm than he has the public; and this is especially true when the arrest has been made, as frequently happens in the winter, out of pure compassion, to save the defendant from injurious exposure to the cold. Besides, short sentence to imprisonment can be no satisfactory offset to the expense already incurred in the arrest, for, as a prisoner on short sentence, the convict becomes the occasion of an additional item of expenditure. To discharge him without sentence is the only other course open, and this it is useless to discuss if it is to be admitted that an arrest should be made at all.

The experience gained from the cases mentioned, although they have not been exceedingly numerous, has yet been sufficient to teach me some facts, and to occasion a good deal of thought on the matter of temperance legislation. I have noticed that the number of arrests for drunkenness has not varied with the number of places open for the sale of intoxicants. In fact, in one year, when no licenses for their sale were granted in our town, the arrests were unusually numerous, and this was due to the fact that there were a large number of imported laborers employed in certain railroad-work in the neighborhood, and that from among them the "drunks" were furnished. From this it would seem that the habits of the community have more to do with the consumption of intoxicants than the number of places of sale. The nationality of the persons arrested looks in the same direction The simple "drunks" have been for the most part Irish; the common drunkards, American, who have been almost exclusively permanent residents, perfectly well known to the overseers of the poor, the peace officers, and the magistrates. I can not recall that a German has ever been before me for either offense, and this although there is a large German population in the village where I reside. From all the foregoing I come to the conclusion that the present license law in Massachusetts does not, and that the prohibitory law when in existence did not, affect the drinking habits of more than a very small portion of the community. The question is, What legislation is necessary or desirable under these circumstances?

The unusual characteristics of the presidential election of 1884 have thrown into peculiar prominence a movement to make prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors a national issue. The object of this movement is to get incorporated into the fundamental law of the Federal Union, by way of constitutional amendment, a provision for such prohibition or requiring such prohibition by the States. To one who has made even a superficial study of the Constitution of the United States this must seem a wide departure from the spirit in which that