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and it is only fair they should see that the new policy, though it assures enormous profit to the State, must at the outset cost money. The question is whether we should see our forty mil lion dollars of canal property lie idle andour trade go off to the Canada rivers;or whether we should spend two or three millions in putting the oanalB in first-rate order, and coTying goods at a bare working cost, or even at a nominal loss, until by this means we have again made Central New York the great highway of the continent, and. this great metropolis its confessed and unapproachable chief city. The Demooratio party boldlytake the affirmative of this question. With manly faith in the people they submit to the popular vote a law empowering them to perfect this new polioy of low tolls; and side by side with the law they present the inevitable bill of costs. In former yeara, under ^Republican rule, canal breaks were constantly occurring. This year we have none. The money expended in extra repair was needed, and has been well spent. Every canal forwarder, every great merchant, the people of both parties along the canal line, approve the new policy, and are willing to meet the immediate enhanced cost. In Kings County the increased burden caused by the extra repairs and the reduction of tolls fallslighter than anywhere else. For this countyis the true terminus of the State canals. At our docks and wharves most of the canalboats J*e. Here is their Winter home ; here come the thousands of tons of golden grain of the great West, which the fruitful bosom of the canals bears to the great port of the continent for distribution hence all over the world. Thecanal interest is vital to Brooklyn as to Buffalo itself. For no purpose can we afford an extra State tax better, than to increase the canal iraffio at our South Brooklyn wharves* The enhanced valuation of this couuty we have already fully discussed. That makes the burden of the added State tax greater than it otherwise would be. The State authorities acted churlishly in insisting on adding the fancy enhancement of Brooklyn valuation to the real valuation. By this means the total tax of our county, after being legitimately swelled from eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars to twelve hundred thousand, is further advanced to fourteen hundred thousand—a eum, which, before the war burdens and the Special Commission jobs fell upon us, used to defray the whole'government expenses of city and county, and our State tax.» Inview of this largely increased State tax, jthatotal taxation of this Fall will be greater than it was last year. The city tax may show a small reduction, but the county expenses will be at lea3t as heavy as last year, and the additional contribution to the State will thus be seriously apparent in our total tax levy. Henceforth there must be greater concert among our local authorities, and a combined movement for reform and simplification ofour local government. The Eagle has foughtthe blunders and extravagances in detail, until experience now demonstrates the necessity of more comprehensive campaigning; and henceforth wo mean to name names, and make positive and radical demands for wholesale reformand reduction of this ever-swelling mass of local expenditures and liabilities.Common Sense on the Questions of Temperate and Excessive Drinking*Last year Mr. Clifton Tayleure brought Joe Jefferson to the Brooklyn Academy to give us his inimitable representation of the good-for-nothing drunkard in “Bip Van Winkle.” Last evening the same manager produced Mr. John S. Clarke at the Academy, to give us his comical portraiture of a drunken man in “Toodles.” Both embodiments lifelike, and both decidedly amusing.wereBut after the one or the other it is impossible to help thinking that the moral lesson is defective. The acts of an inebriated man are often comical, and it is dramatically correct to to picture them. But as the children laughed and the . elders smiled last night at the grotesqueries of Toodles, the thoughtful spectator could not help remembering that the comical side of intoxication isnot the only or the chief view to take of it.It is not edifying to young people to learn only to langh at the drunkard’s absurdities. Pity anil disguBt are the truer sentiments with which to regard the spectacle of intoxication. Horror rather than amusement is the feeling with which the condition of the inebriated man should be regarded by our youth. A kindly, sympathetic feeling of good-natured ridicule is not the right or safe emotion with which we can teach our children to look upon the poor wretch who becomes the victim of the debasing appetite for excessive imbibition of stimulating liquors.There is groat danger lest the excesses of Maine Law fanatics should lead good-natured people to be too charitable to drunkenness— to look on it as a venial offence against society, and os a comical condition to be in, rather than as a loathsome and disgUBting state forany otherwise rational being. * The popularcommon sence revolts against the cant of the fanatics, who see a deadly sin against God and Nature in drinking a glass of wine or lager bier. The danger is that this honest feeling of revulsion against cant and sniveling shammorality should lead us to look too tenderlyon the appalling vice of drunkenness. Theadulterations whioh infest the liquor trade. If we can revert to purer liquors, and stop thebad habit of forcing liquor down unwilling throats by iteration of invitation, we shall make drunkenness among the rarest of vices.An educated European gentleman would almost as soon steal as get drunk; and yet he drinks liquor daily, as naturally and as moderately as he eats food. Surely that, is better than to have the two extremes, of dyspeptic fanatics who oannot drink at all,tod therefore curse all who can and do drink;tod of disgusting voluptuaries, who poison themselves by imbibing drugged liquors to the point of frequent intoxication. Better drink temperately of mild stimulants, as they do in Prussia, than to have half of our people nervous and dyspeptic for want of a wholesome stimulant, and the other half crazed bybad rum.Two puerile Puritan*.In a conspiracy for self-oelebration we believe that the editor of the Independent, an irreverent Koverend Fulton, of Boston, and an anonymous sniveller, who is oalled “a wealthy and well-known merchant of New York,” are entitled to all the eminence which assurance, assiduity and a supreme ignorance of the indifference which the wide wide world feels conooming their haunts and habits, are apt to effect. The revolution in Fiance, the October elections, the Alabama claim, the conversion of the globe and the Bussian question, together with every other matter of moment to mankind, are set aside for the hour to consider the private tippling of three persons, who rnsh from beer to brevier and from liquor to law, with an energybom of an estimate of themselves, which eaohfeels severally, and no one else feels at all.It is the old, old story of conduot contravening creed. The renewed development of men casting stones who are not without sin; the weakness of reformers for keyhole observation and stentorian revelation of inconsequent details. The way of it is this; Down in New England and, of course, in Boston, liveB and moves a lineal descendant of the beast Balaam bestrode, who has assumed human. form in order to harmonize with his brethren, but whose betraying bray intones temperance for filthy lucre, and who makes money by minding other people’s business, in lieu of having none of his own. Coming casually to New YoTk, he fell in with a confi dence man, who seems to have deluded him into the idea that the Independent was a religious journal and its editor an example of abstinence, assertions equally unsustained by internal evidenoe or external appearance.Full of this fraud, he immediately discoversevidence that explodes to his meagre mind a notion nobody but himself entertained. He is alleged to have eyed the editor behind a bottle at Delmonico’s, and instead of envying him his happiness, he goes off to tell the world all above it, end to parade an intemperate teraperanoe head of an irreligious religious publication, before the universe as a no better than ho should be and not a half so good as he thinks himself. There was, however, a malice as well as a methodinhis meanness. The arrow he cent pierced between the joints of the harness of the modern Saul who towers in body about the head and shoulders of his impersonal contemporaries. Having discerned one weakness, he cruelly devised another. It was inferential that the pietist in his potations considered them for his stomach’s sake and for his often infirmities. Such a use would be natural and understandable. Instead of allowing these reasons to explain, the condemned Bostonian whose nutriment is the Eastwind, sarcastically circulated a silly and im-posrtiblo story that the imbibing editor put himself outside of beverages “for the benefit of his brain.” It was important that such a calumny on the cognac of New York be exposed. Had the report been confirmed, had the liquor been regarded as cause of the peculiar effect known as the brain in question, does any one think a glass of gin or a pony of brandy would ever have been drunk in New York after that ? Men will do mucfi for the soke of enjoying their toddy ; but, should liquor and lunacy be pointedly suggested in thismanner, we would have no excise revenue,and Sabbatical sobriety would reign all the weok through.The editor confesses to the liquor, but denies the brain. He did not use it for the benefit of his brain. Since then no one has felt apprehensive about the liquors of New York. Delmonico no longer despairs.. Over his bar can be seen a statement that the editor’s brain is not to be laid to the charge of his compounds. Any peculiarities therein are attributable to other causes. Meantime, however, the false report, so ruinous to the restaur auteur, traveled far and wide. The editor bore it patiently till it attained a double-leaded weight of woe. He longed to execute reprisals upon the man who libeled the liquors he loved. Opportunity came. Small opportunities al-wajs come, and an unknown smaller oven than the opportunity came with it. Had the editor “smiled?” Then, too, had the preacher “guzzled?” (For this gin-sling we are indebted to the editor in question). The ttn-known declared that the fortified fraud whohad libeled the liquors the editor took, but noi
Newspaper Details
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brooklyn, New York, US
Wed, Oct 12, 1870
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Jan 2019
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