•^°juiy^^92'S: }    Alcohol:  Its  Relation  to  Science,  Etc.  483 
of  alcohol  which,  would  be  ample  for  a  small  druggist  with  a  limited 
prescription  business  who  is  in  the  habit  of  purchasing  rather  than 
making  the  bulk  of  his  alcoholic  preparations,  would  be  wholly  in- 
adequate to  meet  the  needs  of  another  druggist  with  an  equal  volume 
of  business  who  stood  well  with  the  doctors  because  of  his  careful 
methods  and  who,  like  the  old  school  pharmacist,  makes  his  own 
tinctures,  two  or  three  successful  little  proprietaries  of  his  own  and 
other  articles  which  are  now  commonly  purchased  of  the  wholesaler. 
I  feel  confident  that  the  Prohibition  Commissioner  will  take  a 
reasonable  view  of  this  whole  matter  and  that  if  any  limit,  other  than 
the  size  of  the  druggists'  bond,  is  adopted,  it  will  be  sufficiently 
elastic  to  avoid  all  hardship, 
Manufacturers,  jobbers  and  retailers,  alike,  have  been  put  to 
a  great  deal  of  trouble  and  considerable  expense  by  the  Bureau's 
ruling  requiring  monthly  reports  concerning  all  alcohol  consumed. 
In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  only  parties  allowed  to  employ  non- 
beverage  alcohol  for  manufacturing  purposes  or  for  sale  are  pre- 
sumed to  have  been  carefully  investigated  by  the  Bureau,  and  of  the 
further  fact  that  unscrupulous  persons  would  have  no  difficulty 
in  falsifying  these  reports  in  such  a  manner  as  to  escape  detection, 
it  is  natural  that  the  casual  observer  should  jump  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  time  and  the  money  they  cost  the  trade  are  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  their  practical  value  to  the  Bureau. 
I  think  we  should  suspend  judgment  on  this  matter,  for  a  while 
at  least,  and  give  the  report  system  a  fair  trial.  It  is  possible  that  it 
may  prove  of  sufficient  value  to  the  Bureau  to  justify  its  permanent 
retention.  If  so,  it  may  be  practicable  to  simplify  the  reports 
somewhat  and  perhaps  to  require  them  to  be  rendered  quarterly 
instead  of  monthly,  which,  in  many  cases,  would  substantially 
reduce  the  labor  of  the  permit  holder. 
I  know  that  our  friends  in  the  Internal  Revenue  Bureau  would 
give  even  greater  consideration  to  the  question  of  demanding  ad- 
ditional reports  or  of  requiring  additional  records  to  be  kept  if  they 
could  see  the  cold  figures  representing  their  cost  to  the  business  men 
of  the  country.  I  have  in  my  possession  letters  from  three  large 
manufacturing  and  jobbing  houses  in  the  drug  trade  in  which  the 
extra  cost  of  the  narcotic  and  alcohol  regulations  is  put  down  in  one 
case  as  exceeding  $10,000  per  annum,  and  in  another  as  more  than 
$12,000,  while  in  the  third  case  it  is  estimated  that  the  cost  exceeds 
10  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  entire  output  of  all  classes  of  com- 
