LEGISLATION AGAINST THE DRINK EVIL. 611 



auj criticism or clamor of constitutionalists against paternal govern- 

 ment, appoints its official tester of illuminating fluids, that conflagra- 

 tion may not ensue and the public safety he imperiled by the de- 

 struction of the citizens' homes. Why not a State " tester " of the 

 stimulant which may inflame the vital forces of the citizen himself, 

 and so imperil the public peace, which, by all laws, is the public 

 safety? Municipal corporations appoint inspectors of meat, of milk, 

 of fruits, of confectionery, precisely under this constitutional duty of 

 preserving the public health, upon which, most largely of all, the 

 public safety depends. Why not, then, inspectors of the potables 

 which the public drink? 



By having liquors examined, and only pure liquors sold, and 

 ■condemned liquors destroyed, precisely as in the case of unclean or 

 impure meats, milk, fruit, and confectionery; much could be prac- 

 ticably, and in a minimum lapse of time, accomplished to the de- 

 crease of the liquor evil. The prohibitionists themselves, by placing 

 and replacing and abolishing and experimenting with all sorts of 

 statutes upon the statute-book, have accustomed us to State regula- 

 tion of the sale of intoxicants, and, least of all, can complain of yet 

 •one more experiment toward the decrease of drunkenness. 



Let the national or State government have liquors examined, 

 and those not up to the standard emptied into the sewers, precisely 

 as in the case of milk found filthy, dangerous, or questionable. The 

 Government might also supervise the distilleries and forbid the manu- 

 facture of what are called " quick-aging " goods, or " continuous dis- 

 tillation," precisely as it controls the manufacture of oleomargarine. 

 It is not improbable that a commission appointed to this good work 

 might, by just, equitable, and easily-to-be-borne statutes, prescribe 

 a time limit or period after which no spirituous liquors should be 

 sold less than, say, five years old (the age of liquor being said to 

 regulate its irritant and insanitary and to conserve its really salutary 

 and sanitary qualities). I believe (not without consultation and a 

 deliberate exchange of opinion with experts) that the good effects of 

 such legislation would be almost instant; I believe that from pure 

 motives of self-interest alone the distillers and rectifiers of liquors, 

 instead of fighting such a law, would be eager to compete to furnish 

 pure brands of liquor for the State censors, in the certainty that the 

 State must adopt the best and the purest. To-day the public is served 

 with precisely what the publican finds it most to his profit to sell. It 

 may be only dirty water which he sells at a price at which he could 

 (to his own immense profit) sell pure liquor. In every drinking place 

 in the land, to which the public resorts, there are two prices — one 

 price for what you order, and the other for the same " good." I be- 

 lieve that one of these days the world will remember, as curiously 



