We note as a sign of the times a really
large meeting in the Guildhall on Monday, to applaud the Hon. Neal Dow, of Maine, and the Maine Liquor Law. Mr. Dow, who was the author of that law, made a speech of the ordinary kind, but it was stated at the meeting that 40,000/. had been collected to agitate for a Maine Liquor Law in Great Britain. We do not believe that teetotallers commit less crime than other people,—eitle Turks and Ilindoos passim—but for those who do, a law making ruin-selling penal is the only logical end of agitation. If it is a crime to sell alcohol it ought to be suppressed, not merely lectured against. With household suffrage, a Maine Law party would, we believe, weigh heavily at elections, the half-educated having always a great idea of protection against themselves.
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