OUR LIQUOR LAWS. 217 



to strengthen it — nearly fifty amendments having been enacted 

 since 1858. The law provides for an agent in each city or town 

 who shall sell liquor for medicinal and mechanical purposes, but he 

 by no means has a monopoly of the business. 



According to the committee's report, liquor may be obtained in 

 Portland from ordinary bars under police protection, kitchen bars, 

 pocket peddlers, hotel bars, apothecary shops, bottling establish- 

 ments, express companies, clubs, and the city liquor agency. The 

 ordinary bars have little on the outside to betray their nature, but 

 access is easy. " In the score or so of saloons of this class visited 

 by the writer," says Mr. Koren, " from six to twenty persons were 

 found who were there to drink, most of them young men, some of 

 them boys between twelve and sixteen years of age. Occasionally 

 small girls would come in to have ' growlers ' filled. Sometimes 

 older girls appeared, to drink and to talk with the men. The cus- 

 tomers lounged about, smoking and drinking, with an apparent sense 

 of freedom and security." 



Mr. Koren estimated the number of kitchen bars in the city at 

 the time of his investigation at about eighty. They are found in 

 the poorer quarters, and rely more on concealment than on protec- 

 tion. They do most business on Saturday evenings and Sundays, 

 and sell little but distilled liquor. The drinking at these bars is 

 especially productive of intoxication, both because of the quality of 

 the liquor sold and of the opportunity of uninterrupted indulgence. 



" The pocket peddlers multiply with amazing rapidity during a 

 period of strict enforcement, and most of them disappear as sud- 

 denly in ' wet times.' At the time of the present investigation not 

 a few were found on the wharves and along the water front after 

 dark, especially on Sundays. They supply ' split ' at the rate of 

 thirty cents a pint for the cheapest grade. Boys of fifteen and 

 upward were found as venders of ' split.' The pocket peddler se- 

 cures many victims on incoming fishing vessels and coasting schoon- 

 ers, which he boards at the first opportunity." " Split," Mr. Koren 

 explains, consists of the cheapest kind of alcohol — sometimes wood 

 alcohol — mixed with water, with a dash of rum for flavor, and some 

 coloring matter. It produces a violent and dangerous form of in- 

 toxication. 



At least five of the principal hotels sell liquor at bars. Protection 

 costs them in the neighborhood of one hundred dollars a month, and 

 they are occasionally raided. Beer is sold in large quantities at 

 certain oyster houses. 



Prom the number of the drug stores in Portland, one to each 

 eight hundred inhabitants, and the location of many of them, it is 

 evident that they can not all exist for the sale of drugs. "When this in- 



VOL LII.— 17 



