ABOLISH ALL PROHIBITIVE LIQUOR LAWS. 591 



things to eat and drinkable things to drink." Indeed, the ale- 

 taster was once a public benefactor and more important than the 

 mayor, and such was his benign influence that old Harrison, writ- 

 ing in the sixteenth century, declared that the glory of England 

 was her inns. The roads might be rough and full of highway- 

 men, but at any inn the traveler could take his ease and be sure 

 he would not be poisoned. For four hundred years it has been 

 possible to enter an inn in the smallest and most insignificant 

 rural hamlet in England and get a thimbleful of liquor without 

 peril to one's stomach or to one's self-respect. How is it in those 

 of the United States which prohibit the sale of liquor ? As to 

 one's stomach, I merely copy an item from a local newspaper 

 printed in one of those States (suppressing the localities only) : 



" Some recent cases of poisoning hereabouts have brought out the statement 

 that poor whisky is abundant in this city. It is sold principally in the kitchen 

 dives and in places on tbe outskirts. Some of the whisky, it is said, has been so 

 poor that wholesale dealers have disclaimed all knowledge of having sold it. 

 Some of the unlicensed dealers have been selling ' whisky,' but where obtained it 

 has been one of the mysteries that are impossible to explain. With the poisoning 

 of the three men on Sunday night and the investigations which have followed, 

 some light has been shed upon the subject." 



"It was stated in these columns on Monday that there had been a man about 

 selling a receipt for making whisky. Investigation proves that this is so, but it is 

 impossible to tind a liquor dealer who will say he purchased it for five dollars 

 the price asked. This receipt as near as can be ascertained is as follows: One 

 drachm of oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid, six drachms of spirits of turpentine, 

 three drachms of spirits of juniper, six drachms of oil of almonds, and a quart of 

 elderberry wine ; a seductive decoction indeed. These fluids diluted with twenty- 

 four gallons of water will make about twenty-five gallons of whisky, and cost in 

 the neighborhood of one dollar and twenty-five cents, while the same quantity of 

 distilled whisky would cost from forty to seventy-five dollars. Just how much 



of a business this man has conducted in is not known, but that he has 



been favored with a fairly good trade is not doubted by the regular wholesale 



liquor dealers. He has been all through the villages in the and has also 



been to ." 



So much for the visitor's stomach ; now for his self-respect ! 

 As a native of the State most strenuous in its policy of prohibit- 

 ing the sales of liquor, I have been now and again a curious col- 

 lector of the divers and sundry ruses resorted to in evasion of the 

 statutes by its best citizens, and I am able to note the latest as 

 experienced during the present summer. At a certain watering- 

 place hotel within its paternal jurisdiction, guests who desired 

 wine at dinner, or stimulants at other times, were invited to pur- 

 chase a keg of an interesting compound known as root beer. A 

 price for this alleged keg was charged to them on their hotel bill, 

 and they were at liberty to visit the wine room, or to order from 

 the waiters any liquors desired, until this price was exhausted. 



