sent liquor in bond passed both Houses, but was vetoed by Governor Fielder because the title was wrong.

The State-wide Delivery Bill which has passed two successive legislatures, but was vetoed by Governor Wilson, again passed the House, but was killed by the Senate. It was designed to give to licensed dealers of the State the privilege of delivery in any part of New Jersey. This is now accorded to unlicensed out-of-State dealers through Interstate-commerce law.

A bill to permit Sunday service with meals in bona fide hotels from noon until 10 P. M. reached the third reading in the House, but was laid on the table on motion of its introducer. A similar bill permitting Sunday selling in licensed places after one P. M. reached the second reading in the House, where it remained. Both of these measures brought large delegations of hotel men from Atlantic City and elsewhere who were anxious to satisfy the demands of their guests.

A bill allowing municipalities to fix days on which liquor is to be sold died in committee.

A bill providing for civil as well as criminal action against those guilty of illicit selling passed the House but died in the Senate.

The Supreme Court ruled, in the case of Trustees of First Presbyterian Church in Newark v. Miller, that a saloon retains its liquor license, when the building on the site has been torn down and rebuilt. It held that the new building is not a "new place" within the meaning of the Bishops Act (which prohibits the granting of a liquor license in any new place within 200 feet of a church, school house or armory, etc.), and that neither the transfer nor the license will be set aside on that theory.

New Mexico:-There are in this State two Local Option Laws, one applies exclusively to incorporated cities and towns, the other applies to the rural districts, both of which were passed in 1913.

The last mentioned law provides that whenever twenty-five per cent. of the qualified electors of any district, which district may comprise any area of any county, Provided that it shall not include any territory within any incorporated city, town or village, present a signed petition to the Board of County Commissioners of the county where the district lies, it shall be the duty of the Board to call a special elecion to determine whether liquor shall or shall not be prohibited in the district mentioned.

Under the last mentioned law the State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League has been very busy and has succeeded in putting quite a number of the rural districts in the dry column, working along this line practically to the exclusion of the larger towns.

ELECTIONS

The entire county of Dona Ana with the exception of the little mountain town of Organ and Las Cruces, the county seat, was voted dry last fall. In Miguel County six districts voted, four of which were carried by the wets, and two by the drys.

In Curry County elections have been held at Melrose, where 36 votes were cast for prohibition and 5 votes against; also at Texico where 2 votes were cast for and 26 votes aginst prohibition.

In Colfax County at an election held July 6, 1914, a district comprising a total of nine townships and including the main corporated towns of French and Colmor, was voted dry. Total vote 100 dry and 30 wet.

An election held in Torrance County June 2, 1914, at Encino, local option was adopted by one vote. At Estancia, at an election on June 10, 1914, the wets won by a majority of 9 votes.

In Mora County in the district with Wagon Mound as a center, at an election held in June, 1914, the drys won by a majority of 2

votes.

In Valencia County, the wets won the election in February, 1914, in precincts 5 and 20; in May the wets won precincts 1, 9, 10, II and 22; the drys won precincts 6 and 18 in May and carried precinct No. 7 in August by a small majority.

New York: The record of important events affecting the brewing industry for the past year is short and striking. Short because the year is barren of anything momentous in the way of affirmative acts and striking in its negative results in the light of a most thorough repulse of ferocious assaults and complete escape from menacing proposals. The legislative session of 1914 closed without one new law concerning the traffic in liquors being written upon the statute books, a remarkable circumstance which is recorded of but one other year since the enactment of the present liquor tax law of the State in the year 1896.

This terse and unusual history of the affairs of the State of New York since October, 1913, was not due to the absence of proposed

changes in the law but came about in spite of them. Notwithstanding the Legislature for 1914 was not very long lived, it bore the usual liberal crop of proposed amendments to the Liquor Tax Law. Fiftythree measures were introduced which were intended to change or modify the method of regulation of the liquor traffic in the State and most of them carried hostile and unfavorable features for the dealers, and for that matter, the public. Noteworthy among them were two measures advocated by and introduced for the Anti-Saloon League. The principal one was the so-called Optional Local Prohibition Bill which was described as an Act to provide for the creation by popular vote of "Anti-Saloon Territory." It differed from prior local option bills in the fact that it was drawn in entire disregard of the present Liquor Tax Law and had the effect of repealing that law and abolishing the Department of Excise whenever its remedy was adopted in a given territory. Prior to the introduction of this bill. the measures of the Anti-Saloon League proposed an extension of the present local option provisions of the Liquor Tax Law to cities so that the people of cities could vote for dry or wet territory in the same way that such elections are now made possible in towns under existing law, but the law itself was otherwise suffered to remain intact and unchanged. The bill in question provided that local option elections might be held in any county, city, town, village or election district, upon the question of whether the territory shall become Anti-Saloon territory, when such elections were applied for by petition of one-quarter of the voters. If the majority vote was against the traffic, the sale of intoxicating liquors was to be prohibited on and after September 15th following the election, except sales at wholesale for delivery outside of the territory in question. After a territory had voted for or against saloons, the question could again be submitted upon similar petition but not until the lapse of twenty-three months, except, however, that where a county had voted as a unit in favor of saloons, the question could immediately be submitted in the various towns, cities and villages of the county, and one or more of its subdivisions could be voted dry.

The other bill of Anti-Saloon League origin was the so-called poison label bill which required that all retainers containing alcoholic beverages be labeled as poison and bear the sign of the skull and cross-bones. This sensational proposal came almost contemporaneously with the emphatic and pointed condemnation by ex-President

Taft of exaggerated warning and hypocritical tirades against the use of alcoholic beverages. It is worth while repeating his language here:

"Criticism of a different nature might well be directed to many text-books that seek to inculcate aversion to the use of intoxicating liquors. The unwise extremity to which Legislatures have gone in the requirement for such teaching has stimulated a class of books which dwell on the results of the use of intoxicating liquor in such an exaggerated way that the pupils soon begin to understand that they are grotesque exaggerations, and therefore to become skeptical in respect to the whole matter."

The former propostion was rejected as impossible. The latter was regarded as a joke.

Even the very limited local option provisions in the Liquor Tax Law have proven so obviously impracticable and obnoxious and so materially subversive of efficient regulation that the Commissioner of the Department of Excise himself recommended in his report and caused to be introduced in the Legislature, a measure which was intended to cure some of the defects and remove some of the objections and hardships of local option in New York. Among other things, it permitted the issuance of a liquor tax certificate in towns where the sale of liquor is prohibited as the result of a vote at the last local option election, to a designated person at a designated place, upon compliance with all of the other provisions of the Liquor Tax Law and the filing of a consent in writing that the traffic in liquors be carried on by the applicant in the premises designated, signed and acknowledged by the electors of the town to the number of 55 per cent. or more of the votes cast at the next preceding local option election. The main features and the principle involved in this bill. were embodied in another proposed amendment of the law which reduced the number of signatures required to 51 per cent. of the votes cast at the next preceding general election and limited the life of the certificate when obtained to a term ending on the 30th day of September next succeeding the date of the commencement of the traffic, so that the consents had to be obtained and filed from year to year. The merit claimed for this bill consisted in the fact that it threw the applicant for the certificate upon the judgment of his townspeople and enabled them to consent to or oppose his application after due consideration of the character of the person, the nature and location of the premises and the needs of the community,

instead of voting generally in favor of or against the traffic in any and all parts of the town and by any and all persons. This proposition provoked much discussion and received considerable attention in the Legislature, although it failed of enactment.

ELECTIONS

In considering local option elections in the State of New York it should be kept in mind that such elections are confined to the sparsely populated sections of the State known as towns and that in such elections four propositions are submitted to the electors, namely:

No. 1. To determine whether liquor shall be sold to be drunk on the premises. (Saloon.)

No. 2. Liquor to be sold but not to be drunk on the premises, that is bottle license only.

No. 3. A Pharmacist or Druggist's License.

No. 4. Selling liquor in connection with keeping a hotel.

The results of local option elections in 1914 show a slight gain for license towns. There were local option elections in the towns of forty-one counties during the year and at these elections several large towns which had been dry returned to license. A more detailed report of recent elections follows:

Allegany County, Wellsville, probably the largest dry town in the State and which had been dry for four years, voted for license by an overwhelming majority.

Herkimer County held all its license towns and made a net gain of one township.

Orleans County where the Anti-Saloon League and allied Prohibition forces made an unusually aggressive fight, retained its license towns and reclaimed a large dry town.

Erie County is entirely wet as a result of last fall's election. Greene County held all of its license towns and gained one town from the dry column and one partial license town voted full license. Jefferson County showed decidedly satisfactory results. Two dry towns voted for full license and several partial license towns did likewise; one partial license town only, voted dry.

Lewis County retained all towns in the license column and one partial license town voted for full license.