Thk Washtenaw Post admits that prohibiti...

Thk Washtenaw Post admits that prohibition would be enforced if tt becomes law in Washtenaw county. It fonld be enforced well enough to close all the saloons. It would be violated on ihe sly, just as many other laws are, but it will be enforced better than the preeent tai law. How can any sensible temperance man vote agaiust probition here? Tsw Lenten season began last week. One Kew York paper calis it the "Lenten breathing spell,"and oallsupon the godly to regard it for their soul's sake, and the ungodly for their stomach's sake. The need for Lent is feit more, probably, in the gay life of the metropolis, where excess runs riot, than in any other place. But it is a good thingeven here, undoubtedly fonnded ■jpon good sanitary principies whatever is its origin and whatever may be its religions significanee. The discussion relative to Mr. Blaine's Jetter has not yet ceaeed, but it has gonc iai enoDgh to show the main lines of Repnblican opinión. The Chicago InterOcean last week published opinions from newspapers and prominent Republicana in all parts of the Northwest, and ihey can be summarized as expressing a sense of relief now that Blaine is not to be a candidate. The St. Louis Globe'Oemocrat represents a very large Republican constituencv, and it holds that Mr. Blaine's withdrawal " simplifies the polilical situation more than anything else, perhaps, that could have come to pass." It simplifies things for the Repnblicans, but not for the Demócrata. Tes Register has had a vast amount of material on both sides of the local option íjuestion offered for publication which it has been absolntely impossiblc to accept. One of these Communications deserves attention. It was eníitled "Prohibition and Christianity1 and was written by a German-American citizen for whom we have great respect. He brings up all the stock quotations from the Bible to show that the use of wine was not considered wrong by Christ and St. Paul. Christ made wine at the feast. All the reply necessary is that there never has been an evil which well-meaning and good people have not defended by quotations from the Bible. They don't prove anything. The writer of course deplores the evils of the saloon ; butthinks moral suasion the only way to eradicate them. We have repeatedly shown the correctness of proáibiting any such evil as the saloon. Prohibition does not preclude the nse of all good agencies which will ennoble mankind; but to place such influences instead cf prohibition is not wise. To prohibit the instrumente of vice is one of the functions of government. He also eays that the prohibitory law is an abridgement of liberty. It does not abridge personal liberty any more than :he laws against gambling. Finally he saysthat prohibition means free whisky, which is a pure assumption.