Local Prohibition.

Note 3. No Board of Excise is compelled to give a single license. It is entirely in the discretion of these officers to grant or withhold from every applicant. This point has been definitely and repeatedly settled by the Supreme Court (1 Hill, 655; 7 Abbott, 34; 4 E. D. Smith, 142). Hence, the truest and best protection from the liquor traffic is to be found by the electors putting in office only such as will suppress it, and thus legal prohibition is indirectly but surely gained. From reliable information, there are one hundred towns and villages in this State now enjoying entire prohibition—actual suppression of the liquor traffic under the existing law; and doubtless there are three hundred towns where the temperance sentiment is so fully pronounced that with moderate effort such grand result would be gained.