EXCISE TAX IN CORTLAND, NEW YORK

Cortland Evening Standard, Wednesday, January 22, 1896.

DEPARTMENT OF GOOD GOVERNMENT.

Excise in Cortland.

   The next annual town meeting is rapidly approaching. Very shortly an excise commissioner must be elected to fill the place of Mr. J. W. Keese, whose term of office will then expire. A most determined effort will be made by the saloon men and their supporters to elect a license man.

   For five years they have been in the minority; certainly they have gained no strength during the last year. For a year or two past it was a questioned whether or not they would carry the day, owing to the fact that no attempt had been made to enforce the law and there was a loss of the money which license would have brought into the treasury. That was a consideration of no small importance with a number of voters, especially taxpayers. But now that reason does not exist. The effort has been made to compel the saloons to keep the law and heed the will of the people.

   There have been about forty cases begun for violation of the law and successfully prosecuted or settled, not much less than $2,000 has been paid into the treasuries of the town and villages and this work of law enforcement, it is well understood, is to go on.

   If saloonism could not command the vote of the town for license at any time for the last five years, how can it hope to now? This community is too glad to have the vices and dangers of the saloon repressed to give up when the battle is more than half won and tell the men who have defied the law that they can now have license and go on with their vicious business. It has been said that the saloonists have heretofore voted for no-license because they did not expect the law would be enforced and they would have the license fee, but now they will vote for license. This is simple nonsense. May be a few saloon supporters did so vote, but they were exceeding few and cannot be measured against the larger number who are now ready to join the popular verdict against the outrageous reign of whiskey in this town.

   The better class of our citizens are in a large majority, and when squarely appealed to on a vital question like this, they will be found on the side of morality and temperance. This has been demonstrated over and over again under less favorable circumstances.

EXCISE LEGISLATION.

   If we can trust the statements that come to us from many and diverse sources, the Raines' bill will be reported on just as it now stands. It was prepared after so careful a study of the situation and so wide a consultation with the members of the legislature that, it is asserted neither the great efforts of the temperance people on the one hand nor the liquor men on the other hand will be able to move the committee to report anything different. It now looks as if this bill will become the law. If so, then it will still be the prerogative of voters to say whether or not they wish liquor sold in their communities. The excise board will be abolished and the people will be required to vote direct on the question of saloon or no saloon. So far as the question of local option is concerned, there will be no essential change.

STUDY FACTS.

   Under the local option law of Massachusetts, the city of Cambridge, in 1887, voted "no-license." A writer in The Congregationalist gives the result under each method of dealing with the liquor question. Under no license, all saloons in the city have been closed, 122 in number. Under license, the valuation of Cambridge increased, in six years, $8,610,000; during the following six years of no license, the gain was $16,578,000, or very nearly twice the preceding gain. On this no-license gain, the city collects in taxes $130,000 more than if the gain had continued at the old rate. Under license, the population increased two and three-fifths per cent each year; under no license, four and three-fourths per cent a year. For five years under license, there was an average of 193 houses built each year; in the last year, under no-license, there were 494 houses built. Notwithstanding the hardness of the times, the deposits in the Cambridge savings banks increased during 1894, $329,000, and the deposits amounted to a larger sum than ever before. In East Cambridge the deposits in the savings bank were four times as large in 1894, as under license in 1882.—Examiner.

ICE CARNIVAL

To Be Held Feb. 1 By the Cortland Athletic Association.

   At a special meeting last night of the Cortland Athletic association final arrangements were made for holding a grand ice carnival at the Cortland Park rink Saturday evening, Feb. 1.

   The following general committee was appointed: A. K. Weatherwax, A. E.

Allen, Jas. F. Costello, William Campion, H. H. Lucas, L. A. Coates, Fred

Higgins, Floyd Stoker, J. E. Bliss. It will be a fancy dress and masquerade affair and will begin with the grand parade at 8:30 o'clock. At 9 o'clock will occur a 100 yard dash, a 200 yard dash and a 440 dash followed by an exhibition of fancy skating.

   The 100 yard and 200 yard dashes are open to club members only. The other events are open.

   The Cortland City band will be in attendance to enliven the skaters, and a fine time is anticipated.

His Police Record.

   Chief Meade yesterday received a communication from D., L. & W. Detective Sevenoakes of Syracuse, asking for the record of John Cronin, alias Tobin, and Charles Clark of this city, who have been arrested at Cortland for breaking into freight cars.

   Clark was arrested on January 5, 1889 for opening letter boxes in the postoffice. He was held for the United States grand jury, but the case was held open on account of his youth. Afterwards he was arrested several times for petty thefts. July 13, 1891, he was arrested for breaking into stores at night. On October 21, 1891, he was convicted of petit larceny and was sentenced to the Rochester Industrial school.

   Tobin was arrested on July 2, 1895, for burglary, he and two other boys having broken into grocery stores. He was sentenced to 100 days in the Albany county penitentiary.—Binghamton Republican, Wednesday.

Gen. Thomas E. Ewing, Jr.

DEATH OF GENERAL EWING.

Succumbed to Injuries Received by Being Struck by a Car.

   NEW YORK, Jan. 22.—General Thomas E. Ewing has died from injuries received Monday when he was struck by a cable car.

   General Ewing had left his home intending to go down town by the elevated road. As he reached Third avenue, a cable car passed and he stepped directly behind it, not noticing that one from the opposite direction was right upon him. The corner of the car struck him and threw him back several yards. He landed on his head. The general was carried to his home.

   General Ewing, who was a member of the law firm of Ewing, Whitman & Ewing of this city, was born in Lancaster, O., in 1829. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1856, and went to Kansas during the Free Soil struggles.

   When the state of Kansas was admitted to the Union he was appointed chief justice, but resigned to enter the Union army in the civil war as colonel of the Eleventh regiment of Kansas. He rose to the rank of brigadier general and afterwards was breveted major general and had command of the department of the Missouri.

   He went to Washington in 1866 as the assistant to Secretary of the Interior Browning. He went back to Ohio in 1870 and entered politics. He was a member of congress from 1877 to 1881 and in 1879 ran for governor on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated. In 1881 he came to New York and practiced law. For many years he was president of the Ohio society here. He was at one time counsel to the building department, which position he resigned on Jan. 1 last.

   General Ewing has five children, all grown. Mrs. Ewing is still living.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

The Country Editor.

   Mr. Oliver McKee has considerable to say in Lippincott's about the high and holy mission of the rural journalist. He even condescends to affirm that the country editor, if he were all that Mr. McKee thinks be ought to be, might be as important a public servant as the editor of a metropolitan journal of enormous circulation. Mr. McKee makes the mistake of assuming that the newspapers of the great cities are universally engines for the diffusion of sweetness and light, and that their editors are already the kind of men that he (Mr. McKee) thinks the country journalist might be and ought to be.

   He thinks, moreover, that there are not any more such fine, all round sweetness and light men among the country journalists as there used to be because capitalists now buy up newspapers for their own ends and then "hire cheap labor and place in editorial charge a man who writes what is expedient rather than what he believes." Mr. McKee is wrong again, dead wrong. It is the "great metropolitan" newspaper owner who does that, not the rural journalist.

   But Mr. McKee's picture of the rural journalist is so fine that we forgive him his slight breaks. Here is [the] picture:

   The country editor, by the necessities of his environment, is under sacred obligations to his subscribers to give them the best of which he is intellectually capable. In a farming community he is a guide, philosopher and friend quite as much as, if not more than, the preacher. He, more than any one else, is enabled to keep in touch with the outside world. The new impressions and standards of the world at large, its great movements and tireless energies, the words and deeds of its great men, its thoughts, problems, reforms and inventions, and all its multifarious human interests come to the editor's desk day by day and week by week through the medium of the exchange list, however remote he may be from the nerve centers of the nation. To study these things and to interpret them in their true meaning, as he understands it, should be his duty and his privilege. I know several country editors who stand toward their subscribers in exactly this relation, cultivated, conscientious, high minded men, who are proud of their work and who strive to make their papers welcome visitors and powers for the right.

New York Poultry and Pigeon Show.

   The seventh annual exhibition by the New York Poultry and Pigeon association will open at the Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, February 4, and close on Saturday, February 8.

   The announcement is important to the breeders of poultry throughout the country as well as to thousands of people who are not directly interested or have invested money in poultry yards and breeding. The competition is open to the world in these exhibitions and the result is that birds from Canada and England are always shown and the struggle for prizes with the various classes is a competition that brings the best birds into the show. There are nearly 700 classes and every variety of poultry, pigeon and ornamental fowl will be shown.

   Secretary H. V. Crawford, who is a veteran in the handling of the Poultry show, announces over 5,000 birds already entered.

   The show will be open from 9 o'clock in the morning until 10:30 at night. Admission 50 cents.

BREVITIES.

   —The latest dispatches to-day and hereafter will be found in the first column of the fourth page.

   —A Christmas cactus which Mrs. Albert Terrill will be pleased to show her friends has over one hundred blossoms.

   —The funeral of Mr. Francis Bixby will be held from his late residence on the McLean road Friday at 10:30 o'clock A. M.

   —New advertisements to-day are— George I. Watson, for that cough, page

7; Case, Ruggles & Bristol, new embroideries, page 6.

   —The Cortland county Beekeepers' association will hold its regular annual meeting in Good Templars' hall in Cortland on Thursday, Jan. 30.

   —Now would be a good opportunity for every one to obey the village ordinance and remove ail the snow and ice from the walks while it is soft.

   —The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick hold their annual meeting in the C. M.

B. A. rooms to-morrow night. All members are requested to be present.

   —Cortland chapter Royal Arch Masons will confer the royal arch degree on three candidates at their regular convocation to-night, Several guests from Homer are expected.

   —The meetings at the Baptist church yesterday were of great power. The pastor preached at the three services. The services will continue every evening this week except Saturday.

   —Lincoln lodge, I. O. G. T., held a very pleasant social in their rooms last evening. A short literary program was rendered, after which refreshments were served and a social time enjoyed.

   —Col. J. C. O. Redington who appears in G. A. R. hall to-night in "An Evening of Patriotism and Song" is well known as the champion story teller.

Both old and young will be pleased to hear him.

   —Mr. and Mrs. A. S. Burgess last night entertained the Pedro club of about forty members at their home on Church-st. A very pleasant evening was spent. The prizes were won by Mrs. Burgess and Mr. Duane Call. Very elegant refreshments were served.

   —A bill was yesterday introduced in the legislature to appropriate $50,000 to be expended on the Potsdam Normal school as follows: For buying additional land, $4,000; for erecting thereon a new stone building, $36,020;for plumbing, lighting, heating, ventilating, for sewers and drains, $5,000; for blackboards, laboratory outfit, desks and furniture, $5,000.

  

OVER A SINKING MINE.

Engineer Safely Carries His Train Over, but Loses His Own Life.

   A frightful catastrophe was narrowly averted on the Lehigh Valley railroad near Hazelton, Pa., Monday night. The Wilkesbarre express train approached

Sugar Loaf, one mile east of Hazelton, just as the tracks began to sink into a coal mine. Engineer Michael Leonzer put on a full head of steam. The earth dropped for eight feet and there hung over the abyss. The engine made the leap in safety, taking the train with it, but jumped the track on the outer edge.

The engine toppled over, pinning the engineer beneath it and crushing his life out. Fireman Fred Meyer sustained a fractured skull and may die. Brakeman

Sewell was thrown through a window. All the passengers, about seventy-five in number, were badly shaken up but, as far as can be learned, none were seriously injured.

   After the wreck the earth dropped completely through into the mines.