1878.] OF THE SENATE. 249

Who are the people that are pressing this measure ? Not
men of means, and our heaviest tax-payers, but men who
have grown old in, or suddenly become imbued with this fa-
naticism.

We, as loyal citizens and tax-payers of this Common wealth,
do hereby enter our most solemn protest against this infringe-
ment on our rights, and will, with your kind permission,
briefly lay before you for your consideration a few of the rea-
sons why this Local Option measure should not become a
law.

We propose to deal with the question from a financial and
a moral stand-point.

The amount of taxable capital invested by dealers in the
City and State approximates $12,000,000; the breweries in
the State are worth $8,000,000 ; our hotels, whose liquor
trade amounts to $500,000 per annum, and without which
would not prove remunerative, and would have to be aban-
doned, represent an interest of $5,000,000 ; saloons represent
another $5,000,000 ; the grocery trade depends to-day, to a
very great extent, on the sale of wines and liquors ; their sales
aggregating over $2,000,000 annually, and those to be af-
fected representing a taxable basis of $20,000,000.

The various other industries, using liquors in their manu-
factures, including the drug and canned goods trades and the
tobacco manufactures, with the warehousemen's investments
whose property is very largely used for the storage of liquors,
will feel the pull at their purse-strings, while they swell the
figures $10,000,090 more. The malsters have $2,500,000 in-
vested.

Thus in dealing with those directly to be affected, we find
a basis for taxation of over $60,000,000, netting the State at
the present rate of taxation, (17 1/4 cents on the $100,) over
$100,000, which will prove a loss to the State's exchequer,
besides $150,000 at present derived from license fees, making
the loss over $250,000, which alone would raise our State
taxes 6 cents on the $100, without taking into consideration
the decline of that class of property now occupied by the li-
quor men, and the loss from trade in general, which you
readily observe would bring the tax to 25 cents on the $100.

We would also add that over 20,000 legal voters and tax-
payers, many with families dependent upon them for sup-
port, are engaged in the business, who would be thrown out
of employment, and add to the number of idle men through-
out the State—idle—for the reason that the number of unem-
ployed is large to day, and although willing to work, are
unable to find any employment.