Apparently, the municipal authorities in New York are very strict in issuing licenses to saloons. The License Committee seems to be resolved to grant no license to music halls, "polka cellars," or to places where criminals and vagabonds meet. The New York Democrat reports the following cases, from which the method of procedure of the authorities may be deduced:

A hotelkeeper in James Street was informed that no rooming house (rendezvous of prostitutes, etc.) would receive a license to dispense liquor. All applications from people who wanted to operate in buildings located on Mission Place were rejected because the Commission had received protests from respectable citizens against permitting the "whiskey joints" to continue 2their business on that street. Proprietors of music halls on Chatham and Williams Streets were told that it was contrary to the public welfare to to grant them saloon concessions. A saloonkeeper on water Street could not renew his license because seven of his "customers" had been sent to the penitentiary. All applications from Poll Street were rejected because Captain Jourvon reported that every saloon on that street was a meeting place of hoodlums. several hotelkeepers received a license on the promise that they would not permit women or girls to congregate or partake of liquors in the barroom.

It would not be a bad idea if the municipal authorities of Chicago would exercise the same care when issuing licenses to sell liquor. In this city every disorderly house can obtain a license, and when a man who is not familiar with conditions here, or with the character of the various houses, enters one of these "licensed dispensaries" to buy a glass of beer, it may easily happen that he will have to spend the night on sawdust and that 3he must pay a contribution to the treasury of the police court the next day.

It may be well to add that in New York no proprietors of grocery stores can obtain a license to sell liquor.