$10,000

It has been said tbat if the saloons are closed, the city will have $10,000 more of taxes to pay each year. It is difficult to keep a Christian temper before guch an argument for the saloon as that. By all means, let us take to taxing all businesses which pander to vice. Let us make the gambling shop, the house of ill fame, the cock-pit, the prize ring, and all euch, pay a tax, thus relieving honest eitizens from taxation entirely. There is no qnestion that the saloon tthould be claased, and is classed by the majority, among those iostrumentR of vice. $10,000? What do the honest people of Ann Arbor care for $10,000, compared with the moral ruin wrought by the saloon? ' What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose bis own soul?' If it ia economically a good thing to tax one instrument of vice, like the saloon, there is no system of logic by which it can be maintained that it is not economically a good thing to tax all of them. Now, let the people of Washtenaw be consistent in this thing. It is urged, O, that is clear enough, but the difficulty is that it isn't practicable to abolish the saloon. ' We cawn't do it, ye know.' Neither is the gambling den abolished. All towns of any considerable size have them ; but that is no reason why society should take to recognizing them as lawful and to taxing them. We all recognize that prohibition is a better restriction of gambling than taxation. Society is so far advanced that it considers a gambling shop a dangerous institution which ghould not be recognized. There is not an argument against the gambling shop which does not apply with a hundredfold more force to the saloon. The saloon is far the most dangerous instrument of vice and corruption in the world to-day. Recognizing this, of course it is the best thing to prohibit the saloon. The best time to prohibit the saloon is the earliest possible moment. There was a time in England and other countries when gambling was an almost universal practice. Prohibiting it then was impossible. Yet, as principies are eternal, gambling was an evil then, and hng-house keepers werepurveyorsthen, just as much as now. It was desirable to stop the business as much and as soon as possible. It is the same with the saloon business. Intemperance is a fearful evil. Saloon-keepers are purveyors. There can be no question about the desirability of forbidding the business. The only question is, Are there votes enough ? $10,000! On the average each adult man is worth $1,000 to the community, so statisticians teil us. How many lives are immediately destroyed by the saloons? How many men are there in Ann Arbor who could walk the streets with a more fearless and a firmer tread if only the open saloon were abolished ? and men who are now certainly going down rapidly largely because of the open saloons? How many paupers is Washtenaw county supporting becanse of the open saloon ? If there are not votes enough in Washtenaw now to prohibit the saloon. we are quite willing that the $10,000, or twice that amount, shall be collected from the saloons annnally in Ann Arbor until there are votes enough to prohibit; for taxing saloons discourage them. But we think there are enough votes in Washtenaw now to wipe out the saloon as a legitímate business. Capt. Allbn might well have been placed at the other end of the Indian Icommittee in Congress ; but he will do good work wherever he is placed. He says that the Congressional Record will not be full of his speeches, from which we conclude that he will be a good committee worker. Whenever he does address the house, however, his clear, ringing voice will command instant attention.