The Salt Lake Herald

SOLD LIQUOR TO BOYS

Trouble In Store For Saloon Keepers at Murray.

PLAINT OF A MOTHER SAYS HER SON WAS MADE DRUNK BY LAWBREAKERS.

Complaint was made at the county attorney's office yesterday by Mrs. Bell, a widow residing at Murray, of conditions relating to the freedom young boys have in obtaining liquor in the saloons at that place, in violation of law and the method of meting out justice by the village court. When the woman had concluded the recital of her story Assistant County Attorney Van Cott concluded that ample cause had been shown to institute an investigation of the matters complained of.

According to the tale told by Mrs. Bell, it is an open and notorious fact that minor children have no trouble whatever in procuring intoxicating liquor at many of the Murray saloons, and that in the ordinary course of events her son Joseph, a lad of 16 years, together with two other boys of eminently respectable parents, became intoxicated for the first time in their lives last Tuesday. While in a state of inebriety the boys, she declared, helped themselves to a handful of candy from a vendor's wagon, and for this offense Deputy Sheriff Goldman arrested the trio and took them before Justice of the Peace McOmie.

The woman did not complain at the kind of punishment inflicted upon her son and the other two boys as much as she objected to the methods pursued and the failure of the deputy sheriff and the precinct justice to make an example of the men who sold or gave the lads the liquor which sent them on the wayward path.

In Jail For Theft.

On Thursday Justice McOmie fined young Bell and one of his companions $15 each and the third boy $5 for the theft of the candy. Mrs. Bell complained that only her son was sent to jail, and that he remained locked up from 11 o'clock in the forenoon until 10 at night, when he came home. Not until then did she know of the trouble her boy had gotten into. Durand, the barber, bailed the widow's son out of jail and made it possible for him to go home and explain the cause of his absence.

The recital of Mrs. Bell's grievances moved Attorney Van Cott to declare that Justice McOmie had at least violated the law by trying the boys for larceny, or anybody else for any other offense, without the knowledge of the county attorney's office. As an earnest the assistant prosecutor dispatched word to the justice to report to the office this morning with the deputy sheriff to explain matters.

On that aspect of the case referring to the failure of the village court to take cognizance of the fact that the boys had evidently procured their liquor from some one who had grossly violated the law, Mr. Van Cott was emphatic in his denunciation. He made it plain that he will leave no stone unturned to prosecute to the limit saloonkeepers or any others who permit liquor to be disposed of to minors. It is plain to the assistant prosecutor that the majority of the drunkards are those who, like the boys, were led into a pitfall and are invited to the opportunity to acquire the drinking habit in their youthful days.

Among the matters the assistant county attorney will require the officers at Murray to explain will be why they did not furnish the evidence to the county attorney's office of the evident violation of the law forbidding the sale or other disposal of intoxicants to minor children.