not the
case with the prohibitory liquor law was shown by the vote in the
legislature, and it was still more clearly shown after the law came into
operation on January 1st, 1856.

{PROHIBITORY LIQUOR ACT}

The passage of the prohibitory law was a bold experiment, and, as the
sequel showed, more bold than wise. The temperance movement in New
Brunswick, at that time, was hardly more than twenty years old, and New
Brunswick had always been a province in which the consumption of liquor
was large in proportion to its population. When it was first settled by
the Loyalists, and for many years afterwards, the use of liquor was
considered necessary to happiness, if not to actual existence. Every
person consumed spirits, which generally came to the province in the
form of Jamaica rum, from the West Indies, and as this rum was supposed
to be an infallible cure for nearly every ill that flesh is heir to,
nothing could be done at that time without its use. Large quantities of
rum were taken into the woods for the lumbermen, to give them sufficient
strength to perform the laborious work in which they were engaged, and
if it had been suggested that a time would come when the same work would
be done without any more powerful stimulant than tea, the person who
ventured to make such a suggestion would have been regarded as foolish.
Experience has shown that more and better work can be done, not only in
the woods, but everywhere else, without the use of stimulants than with
them; but no one could be persuaded to believe this sixty years ago.
Every kind of work connected with the farm then had to be performed by
the aid of liquor. Every house-raising, every ploughing match, every
meeting at which farmers congregated, had unlimited quantities of rum as
one of its leading features. It was also used by almost every man as a
part of his regular diet; the old stagers had their eleven-o'clock dram
and their nip before dinner; their regular series of drinks in the
afternoon and evening; and they actually believed that without them life
would not be worth living. Some idea of the extent of the
spirit-drinking of the province may be gathered from the fact that, in
1838, when the population did not exceed 120,000, 312,298 gallons of
rum, gin and whiskey, and 64,579 gallons of brandy were consumed in New
Brunswick. Spirits, especially rum, were very cheap, and, the duty being
only thirty cents a gallon, every one could afford to drink it if
dispose