ABSTRACT
New York was at first alarmed by the enactment of the prohibitory liquor law. The cautious laid up supplies against the dry day. Those who boasted not cellars threatened to flee the State before July 4, when the new statute, entitled “An Act for the Prevention of Intemperance, Pauperism, and Crime,” was to go into effect. The Fourth of July had been chosen because it marked, in the language of the Drys, a new birth of freedom—freedom from the Demon Rum. But when the robins began building their nests, Mayor Wood issued a series of proclamations addressed to the citizens, the police, and the drinking places. So seriously were these effusions phrased, that the people at the first reading saw nothing save the intent: to nullify the Dry Law. And they applauded. But when they noted the manner in which the nullification was to be accomplished, the town shook with Bacchanalian mirth.
