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Show A QUESTION OF UBERTY. thoughts Brought Oat by a Rich Chicago an's Becent Experience, Some days ago a rich man became j troublesome through, drink and was tak- ! en to the Washingtonian Lome, a place In Chicago where drunken men are detained de-tained until sobriety calms them. The rich man found a way to communicate with his lawyer, but before legal actica looking to his release could be takei his relatives applied at the. home, ana he was restored to their custody. He has since enjoyed his freedom. It is all over now, but some day a very interesting question relative to that quasi public institution will demand de-mand a prompt and definite answer. What right has the Washingtonian home to receive men drunk or sober from their friends or others and depriv them for a month or a day or an hour of their liberty? If the officials and attendants at-tendants there can receive one man brought there by his friends, may they not by the same right receive another brought by hia enemies? If any institution in the city may without judicial commitment restrain j a man because he is troublesome througii drink, may it not restrain another bo- I rause he is troublesome through other causes, all the way from discoursing on flutes to a rich but discouraging old ' age? If it may deprive a man of his liberty for an hour, may it not keep him prisoner for months, for yearn, through- i out his natural life? j Tho actions of this so called "home" I are somewhat too radical. Its superiori- 1 ty to all laws and constitutions, its contravention con-travention of the principle that all men have an inalienable right to liberty till deprived of it by due process of law, its lofty disapproval of any legal inter- j ference, may culminate some day in a challenge of the whole strange basis on j which it rests. Chicago Herald. |