PENDLETON COUNTY

(Correspondence Covington Journal)

BUTLER, KY., March 11, 1873.

    A petition to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor in our village, or one mile therefrom, was circulated here about three weeks ago, and, with about sixty signatures, forwarded to the Legislature. A counter petition, or remonstrance, with a larger number, followed, which with its predecessor, was referred to the Committee on Morals and Religion, who reported favorably on it, when it passed the House with an amendment to the effect that it be decided by a vote of the Butler precinct, at our Constable’s election, in May next. This is Democratic, and scarcely deserves public mention or comment were it not for the history of the transaction evolved from a wicked mind, which I honestly believe to have no foundation in truth, and which I narrate solely for the purpose of expressing my abhorrence of  the slanderous mortal whose story is hereto appended.

    “Jim, the Committee on Morals and Religion require your presence at their meeting, this evening.” This was the remark of a House member to his friend Jim, with whom he was taking a drink of mineral water. Jim, by the way, was lobbying against the passage of the bill, unamended; and on receiving his friend’s intimation solemly said, “I’ll be there, God willing,” the latter part of his answer being intended as a neat tribute to the orthodox of the devout body :by” whom his presence was demanded, rather than from any idea that the Deity, nolens volens, might forward or retard his footsteps to the Committee room.

    Jim was on hands at 8 P. M. The Committee, six in number, was awaiting him. The Chairman briefly informed him that the sale of whiskey, per se, although it was the point of the dispute between petitioners and remonstancers, was not the question on which his evidence was now required; but that a tender interest in the “internal” affairs of that portion of the Commonwealth who opposed and defended the sale of liquor, compelled the committee to ask, “Is the liquor commonly sold in that vicinity below proof?” “It is not!” indignantly exclaimed Jim. “In this matter, young man,” said the Chairman of the Committee on Morals, forcibly holding down one of the Committee, who was pulling off his coat to fight the witness for speaking too loud, “Vehemence will avail you nothing. Neither can your unassisted word, according to a rule adopted by the Committee, be sufficient evidence to establish the truth of your answer. Have you a sample of the liquid in question?” Answer in affirmative, and absence granted witness to produce sample. Jim, in a few minutes re-appeared, followed by two athletic descendants of Ham, carrying between them a stone receptacle, marked “6 gals. O. W. Cowles, 1867.” “Have you a pencil, gentlemen?” said the Chairman of Committee on Morals and Religion, to his fellow members. Six heads swayed laterally. “I merely wished to take down a few notes,” continued the Chairman. “Probably, we can dispense with it.” The Chairman then tried to extract the cork, but his efforts to get at the “truth” were unavailing. He looked perplexedly at his brethren, and ventured another question. “Have you___” but ere he could finish, five cork-screws were at his elbow. A lapse of fifteen minutes, during which___ well, you know how it works.___ “Gentlemen,” said the Chairman of the Committee on Morals and Religion, “We have been damnably imposed on. This liquor is good. Shall we pass the bill as it reads? “Not by a d__d sight, with my consent,” said one. “I can put a head on the man who originated it,” said another. “Give us your hand, Jim, old boy. You’re a trump. If you aint, blast me!” said No. 3 “To think,” said No. 4, with tears coursing down his cheeks, while looking meditatively into a half pint tumbler only two-thirds full, “To think of the puritanic idiots that would suppress the like of that.” “I move,” said the fifth, “That this admirable young man be excused further attendance, and that he have the thanks of the committee for the satisfactory reason he has adduced for knocking the infernal bill sky-high.” This motion, after a slight debate, was carried, first having been amended with the condition that the jug be not removed until the committee, in secret session, should have further and more fully deliberated on a question of such vital interest.

 The bill, with the amendment (which is conceded a decided victory for the remonstrancers) passed the House, next day.

 The above is an irregular outline of a horrible story circulated by a young man named William V. Rush-us, whom very few have implicit confidence in, and whose relations, the V. Rush-us-es, are few and unpopular, and every day becoming more so, that is, more few (d’ye see?) and more unpopular. They are a family that civilization can’t endure.

CON       .