Note 236-9 — Chapter II

Even in 1838, Massachusetts had begun to restrict the sale at retail. The agitation for the suppression of the liquor shops begins in 1841. According to the Maine law of 1851, a government officer alone had the right to sell liquor, and only for the purposes mentioned in the text. The manufacture or importation of liquor for private use was left free to all. A severe system of house-searching, imprisonment and inquisitorial proceedings in order to enforce the law. Similarly in Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Michigan. (Edinburg Rev., July, 1854.) There are, however, numberless instances related in which the law has been violated unpunished since 1856, and still more since 1872. See R. Russell, North America, its Agriculture and Climate, and Edinburg Rev., April, 1873, 404.