Star Chamber Inquiry

New York, 1895

The Legal Persecution of Emanuel Miller Gets Under Way.

Of all the unlicensed liquor dealers in Jamaica, but one, it seems, is to be prosecuted by the excise commissioners, Emanuel Miller of Ozone Park, against whom Excise Commissioner Bauman has a grudge. The commissioners have cast a stigma upon the justices of the peace in Jamaica by declaring that they could not get justice here. They induced Justice Seaman, of Hempstead, to take a complaint against a fictitious person, and they are now hunting for evidence behind closed doors against Miller. Just how Justice Seaman is going to get paid for his services is a question. The town of Jamaica can refuse to pay him.

The star chamber inquiry was held on Wednesday in Counselor McLaughlin's office. THE FARMER learned something of the nature of the testimony from the several witnesses. Louis Vacheron, a brother of the Assemblyman, said he had never seen liquor sold in Miller's saloon.

Testimony was given that Miller's place was open on election day, and that he kept an unlicensed place at Woodhaven before he moved to Ozone Park.

Constable Swift never drank anything stronger than ginger ale in Miller's. Other witnesses testified that they drank tea that was poured out of a black pot.

No warrant has been issued.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 8, 1895, p. 12.

The Congressional Reputation

1895

"I don't know exactly what the congressional reputation for temperance is away from Washington," remarked the story telling member, "but I'm afraid it is bad in some sections."

"Why?" very naturally inquired a listener.

"For instance," continued the member, "when I was paying a kind of fence repairing visit to one of the remote counties in my district I stopped for dinner at a country tavern kept by an old fellow I had never met. There was a bar attached, and thither my companion and I adjourned shortly after our arrival. We hadn't seen the old man yet, and a boy was behind the counter. We explained our wants to him, and he had just set out a bottle and a couple of the ordinary small sized whisky glasses when the old man came in. My companion knew him and at once introduced me as the member of congress from that district. We shook hands cordially, and I asked him to join us.

"'Not at all,' he responded, with a bow. 'You are to drink with me,' and turning toward the counter he noticed the little glasses.

" 'Here, Bill,' he exclaimed, shoving them to one side, 'take these thimbles away and bring out them goblets. Didn't you hear the gentleman say this was a member of congress?' " — Detroit Free Press.

Horsewhipped Her Husband

New York, 1895

Mrs. Margaret Walters, of Uniondale, near Rockville Centre, horsewhipped her husband on Monday for getting drunk. She ordered a saloon keeper named Duryea not to sell liquor to her husband. She went to the saloon and saw her husband, half drunk, climbing out of a window to avoid her. She caught him and thrashed him. Duryea subsequently assaulted Mrs. Walters, she says, and beat her shamefully.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1895, unknown page number.

Enforcement in Bangor

Maine, 1916

Bangor, Sept. 6. — Following what is said to have been a stormy discussion with Mayor John F. Woodman, Chief of Police, Lindley W. Gilman tendered his resignation to the Mayor late this afternoon. Tonight the Mayor said that he had not accepted the resignation and probably would not and that matters would no doubt reach an amicable settlement.

Chief Gilman declined to discuss the matter more than to admit that his resignation was brought about by a difference of opinion as to how the liquor law should be enforced in Bangor at this time. The chief of police is appointed by the Mayor, who also has the power of removal.

When the electric carmen went on strike about 10 days ago, Chief Gilman ordered the saloons and bars, said to number 114, holding United States revenue licenses, to close and stay closed. Several who did not obey were promptly raided and fined.

On Tuesday morning there was a general reopening of the bars. Some of the liquor dealers said there was an understanding with the Mayor that they could resume business after Labor Day. Chief Gilman said that he could not be expected to maintain order during a car strike with all the bars open and ordered them to close again.

It is understood that today the Mayor took up the matter again favoring the reopening of the saloons and Chief Gilman passed in his resignation. The saloons are still closed.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

Temperance Notes

1900

The first temperance journal to be published in Russia is the Viestnix Tresvosti (messenger of temperance). Its first issue appeared Sept. 1, 1899.

The Kansas Senate has passed a bill to make more efficient the enforcement of the prohibitory law. According to its provisions, the third violation of the law subjects the liquor seller to a term of from one to three years in the penitentiary.

Twenty-six thousand arrests for drunkenness a year and eight thousand imprisonments is the appalling record of one of the most enlightened of American cities. It means one arrest to every four families. The net cost to the city was therefore more than $100,000.

The Herald and Presbyter says: "The best authorities tell us that for every dollar of revenue the saloons bring in, they occasion a cost, direct or indirect, of $21. Blot out the saloons with the costs they compel, and the raising of the incurred deficit in the revenue would be as easy as laying aside one dollar out of twenty-one that you put in your pocket."

The terrible ravages of the opium trade in China is indicated by the number of suicides. In Yunnan province there are on an average a 1,000 attempted opium suicides per month. The average for the whole of China is not less than 600,000 per year. Dr. William Park says here are over 800,000, and that the number of deaths from opium poisoning is not less than 200,000 a year.

Rev. J. Q. A. Henry, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League in New York, said recently concerning the church and the saloon: "One or the other is right; one or the other is wrong. One must triumph. If the saloon stays, the church must go. The solution of the problem is in the church. The charge cannot be turned over to any other body. The saloon is hostile to Christianity, to citizenship and to true Americanism."

A law which will go into effect in Germany in 1900, places every confirmed drunkard under the espionage of a "curator." This person will he empowered to put the individual whom he regards as a dipsomaniac anywhere he pleases, there to undergo treatment for the malady as long as the "curator" wishes. The law defines an habitual drunkard as one who, in consequence of inebriety, cannot provide for his affairs or endangers the safety of others.

Iowa first tried license laws, then prohibition, and now tries, in its larger cities, what is known as a mulct law. Under the license law, the number of penitentiary convicts was 800; under prohibition, 532; under the mulct law, 1,171. By a recent decision of the Supreme Court, brought about by the Anti-Saloon League, two-thirds of the saloons were temporarily closed, because they had not filed the consent petitions required by the new code of 1897.

The establishment of an asylum, or hospital, for drunkards by the state is being urged in South Carolina, the home of the state dispensary scheme. One set proposes to establish the asylum, or institute, as an annex to the State Insane Asylum, conducting it under the same management. Others urge that the Legislature pass a law making drunkenness a crime, and establish a reformatory for drunkards, where they can be given hard work in a cotton mill, machine shops and on a farm.

From the official report of the superintendent of the Washington police it is shown that while the whole number of arrests in the District, with a barroom for each 441 of its population, was equal to one arrest for every eleven of its population, the number of arrests made in the First precinct, with a barroom for every 113 of its population, was equal to one for every three of its population, and in the Ninth precinct, with a barroom for every 1048 of its population, the number of arrests was only one for every eighteen of its population. A petition to Congress to prohibit the liquor traffic in the District of Columbia is being prepared.

—The Ram's Horn, March 17, 1900, p. 15.

Like Jesse James, All But The Horse

1920

Tippler Hurls a Parting Shot at the Booze Bandit.

One of those present at the funeral of John Barleycorn was a negro who entered a saloon in St. Louis, Mo., and called for a drink of whisky. He laid down a dollar bill. The bartender rang up 50 cents and handed back the change. After glancing at the change and then at the register, the negro called for "another drink of the same."

He drank it and pushed over the half dollar. The bartender rang up the 50 cents, smiled and stood at attention.

"Are you the boss?" inquired the negro.

"Sure."

"Have you got a horse?"

"No, why?"

"Well, Jesse James had a horse," said the negro, turning on his heel and departing.



Found It So

Molly — "Our doctor told me today that hammocks are not good for one."
Cholly — "He's right, dear; they're not good for one, but they're all right for two."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 13.

At Last! Substitute for Booze Is Found

1920

Good Music Takes Place of Whisky, Says Pianist.

It's here! That long sought substitute for John Barleycorn has been found — and just in the nick of time. Hereafter, when the gentleman with the lustrous nose gets that longing that used to lead to the family entrance, all he'll have to do is to start the phonograph.

For music not only soothes the savage beast, but takes the place of fine whisky, declares Moses Bogulawski, the great Russian pianist in Chicago. He urges it as the social and industrial fire extinguisher of the future.

"The economic cancer with which the world is confronted now can be easily treated with music as the healing spirit," he declares. "The laboring classes have lost their curse — liquor — but good music can take its place. Beautiful tunes will put in harmony the world chaos and will soon become more popular with the laboring man than liquor was in days of yore. Good music should thus be compulsory in our homes and schools."

Professor Bogulawski also stated that social and moral conditions could be improved by the greater diffusion of a good quality of music.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 7.

Another "Jag Farm" Forced to Suspend

1919

Last Booze Patient Leaves Minneapolis Institution.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Lack of patients caused the abandonment of the Willmar "jag farm" and officials declared that from now on it will be devoted solely to treatment of insane patients.

The last inebriate patient — a woman — was discharged a few days ago, Charles J. Swendson of the State Board of Control said. The hospital was opened 10 years ago for treatment of persons afflicted with the liquor and drug habits.

After announcement of the State Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Minnesota prohibition enforcement act passed at the last legislative session, the police promised a vigorous enforcement.

"We will attempt to arrest all persons making liquor or using it in any way contrary to the State law," said Michael Johannes, chief of the police vice squad.

Cheese With A "Kick" Coming From France

1919

Alcoholic Viands Considered for Shipment to U.S.

PARIS, France — Hail — alcoholic cheese! It is known of a truth that it is not proper for French importers to send any intoxicating liquors to the United States. But is there a law against exporting intoxicating foods? Mais non!

French wholesale dealers are turning their attention, therefore, to the cultivation of an American taste for vine-fed snails, canned bouillabaisse, melun, pont d'eveque, roblochon and other makes of cheese that has a kick to it, and foisse, the delicious short bread in Aveyron and the Pyrenees, of whole meal grain, eggs, cognac and unfermented wine.

Garcon! Some foisse and bouillabaisse, and have some yourself.

Rum Omelette for Him

1905

This is the true story of how a Mississippi editor kept his New Year's resolution not to drink vinous, malt, distilled or other variety of intoxicating beverages. On or about Jan. 3 he came to town with a small hand satchel and the good resolution not to drink aforesaid.

In a short time he found himself at a table in a restaurant with a party of congenial spirits. The congenial spirits were partaking of spirits equally congenial. Only the Mississippi editor was adhering to a glass of cold, repellant, unsympathetic ice water.

"Have something to drink," suggested one of the party.

"No; I've sworn off; don't intend to drink any more," was the virtuous reply.

"Too bad! Too bad!" was the sympathetic rejoinder.

The conversation became more lively, spirits grew high. The Mississippi editor keenly felt his aloofness. He began to understand how the mummy at the ancient Egyptian feasts used to feel.

"Have something more, old man!" suggested one of the party to him as the glasses were being replenished, forgetting he had declined before.

To the despairing and thirsty soul of the molder of public opinion came a flash of positive inspiration.

"By heaven!" he exclaimed excitedly, under the influence of a great idea.

"I swore I would not drink it any more, but I never said a word about eating it. Waiter, bring me a rum omelette and see you pour plenty of rum over it!"

At the sixth rum omelette, which the Mississippi editor ate with a spoon to lose none of the sauce, he grew visibly elate.

Which shows that love will find a way. — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Early Calculator — Lifesaver for Schoolboys?

1900

In one of the statistical divisions of the Department of Agriculture in Washington may be seen a machine resembling a typewriter, which multiplies and divides with unerring accuracy and with great rapidity.

Give its operator a multiplicand of six figures and a multiplier as large, and he will write them out as upon a typewriter; then he turns a handle a few times, and before the onlooker knows what is going on, the product is written out before him. The machine performs examples in division with equal ease.

Does any one of our young readers fancy that he sees in this invention an emancipation of boys of the twentieth century from the vexation of the multiplication table? Alas! that is too much for him to hope. Nobody seems to have devised a machine for adding common fractions of different denominators, although many a young schoolboy has concluded that this is one of the "long-felt wants" of the day.


Intemperance in France

Those who assert that wine-growing countries are largely exempt from the evils of intemperance need not point to France in proof of their assertion. The habitual use of wine often creates the craving which seeks for such stronger stimulants as absinthe or vermouth.

Of about three thousand prisoners in the department of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, it is officially stated, more than two thousand were drunkards. The number of suicides induced by habits of intemperance is said to have more than doubled in recent years. Alcoholism is also largely responsible for the fact that thirty-four per cent of the young men conscripted for the army are sent back as unfit; and in the cities of Normandy, where hard cider is the common beverage, the proportion rejected is much larger. It rises in Caen to fifty per cent; and in Havre three-fourths of the conscripts are rejected.


Vested Interest in Getting It Right

Senator Vest recently sent a newspaper item to be read to the House. The secretary had the wrong side of the clipping, and instead of an editorial on the money question, began: "Ridiculous! We are giving away these goods at half price!" "The other side!" cried Mr. Vest.

That the much vaunted common sense of the American people has another side is forcibly illustrated by recent sales of a good-luck box. This precious humbug is a little wooden case, containing a worthless three-starred ring, worth in all about five cents. But within the past three months many thousands of persons have paid ninety-nine cents apiece for it, expecting it to bring good luck. In this and similar instances the notice might appropriately made: "Ridiculous! We are giving ourselves away for nothing!"

—Youth's Companion.

Bound and Robbed, Now Thought Insane

Kansas, 1911

Chester King, the young man was bound and robbed over in Graham county two weeks ago, has been placed in the county jail at Hill City charged with insanity. It is said he tried to purchase a gun with which he intended to hunt up the two strangers who tied and robbed him the week before.

This is the young man found tied in his own buggy at about one o'clock on the night of January 6th, near a country store known as Corrickville in Sheridan county. The fright and the cold which was intense that night was a terrible strain on the young man and his present condition may be the result of the awful experience.

He is seventeen years old and is the twin brother of Charlie King who was adjudged insane about two months ago for acting queerly on the streets of Hill City.


Got The Limit

Tuesday morning there were three cases before Police Judge Howell. One for selling intoxicating liquor and the other two were for vagrancy.

Oliver Penny was the guilty person in the case of selling "booze" and plead guilty to the charge. He was arrested Tuesday night for selling the "dope" to the soldiers that were going through here, by Marshall Davis and put in the lockup over night. He was fined $100 and thirty days in the county jail, where he was taken Wednesday.

The best thing that can be done with these unlawful people is to give them the limit every time they violate the law.

—Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas.

Temperate by Common Consent

1899

Who can name a county which, without making "prohibition" an issue or legally forbidding liquor-selling, has not for thirty years contained a saloon? A correspondent of the Atlanta Constitution, on the track of a gold-mining "boom," professes to have found such an one — Union County, Georgia.

"If you were snake-bitten," said a prominent citizen to me the other day at the county-seat, "I believe you could not get a drop of liquor in the town to save your life."

In this county seventy-five per cent of the people own their homes. In the county-seat, only one family does not own its home. There is not a dollar of bonds on the county, and with the tax rate three times larger this year than usual, the total state and county tax amounts to only one dollar and fifteen cents on one hundred dollars.

Union County lies among the mountains of the Blue Ridge. The court-house is forty miles north of Gainesville, about one hundred miles on an air-line north of Atlanta, and about ten miles south of the Tennessee line. The quickest way to reach Blairsville, the county-seat of Union, from Atlanta is to go to Blueridge on the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway, and drive across the country twenty-six miles along the beautiful valleys and over the mountains.

I was told by a number of reputable citizens that there are many people in the county who have never seen a railroad. The eastern part of the county is probably forty miles from the nearest station in one direction, and fifty miles in the other. — Youth's Companion.

Of Interest To Drunkards

1900

Vaccination May Enable Us to Drink Rum

It seems that the advance of medical science may yet allow a man to be vaccinated for the "rum habit" so that he will be immune. Not immune in the way that a "Keeley graduate" is — with a lost desire for drink — but in such a manner that he will be able to drink enough to kill an ordinary man and not suffer any ill effects.

Dr. Reynold Webb Wilcox, in writing of "Recent Advances in Medical Science" in the International Monthly, says: "The work of Ehrlich showed that the antitoxins may be produced in the blood by successively increased doses of ricin and abrin. Maramaldi applied the same line of reasoning to alcohol. Increasing doses of ordinary alcohol, well diluted, were administered to dogs through an oesophageal tube until tolerance was established for a larger than an ordinary lethal dose. The blood serum of these animals was employed in the experimentation.

"His conclusions were: (1) It is possible to confer a real immunity on dogs by administering progressively increasing doses of this poison, ultimately reaching very large doses without producing functional disturbances or organic degenerations. (2) The serum of such a dog rendered immune to alcohol, contains a special antitoxin, capable of neutralizing the toxic action of a dose of alcohol one-fourth larger than the minimum fatal dose. (3) Normal blood serum does not possess the power of augmenting the organic resistance to alcohol, much less does it explain the curative action in acute poisoning." — New York Press.


Aphorisms

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man. — Hume.

There is no friendship, no love, like that of parent for child. — H. W. Beecher.

To persevere in one's duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny. — George Washington.

Good humor and generosity carry the day with the popular heart all the world over. — Alexander Smith.

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. — Johnson.

Ether — Latest Vice in France

1910

Paris. — Compared to the new vice which has broken out in France, that of taking ether, drinking absinthe and injecting morphine are virtues. This most modern vice has already assumed abnormal proportions, probably because the sale of ether is free.

Consumers of ether begin by breathing its vapor. Soon this pleasing effect wears off, then they drink it, The consumption of ether is not confined to any special class of society. It is asserted that 40 per cent of the poorer classes who go to the dispensary of the prefect of police are ether fiends.

Physicians say that a pint and three-quarters is as much as anyone can safely take in a day. However, druggists say that they have customers who use about four times that amount.


Drink Scourge in France

What the French call "alcoholisme" has grown to be a dreadful scourge, and a direful portent for the future of the people. In some parts of France the very medical men must be consulted early in the day if they are to be found sober. — Church Quarterly Review.


"Thank God" for Faults!

Thank God we do not live with saints! We live with people full of faults, and it is excellent, for the faults of others serve us either by imposing a salutary constraint or by the lesson that they give. — Paris Figaro.

Flashed Wife's Pass for Girl Companion

1920

Brakeman and "Other Woman" Fined $300 for Fraud

DES MOINES, Iowa — C. G. Graham, special inspector for the Rock Island road, returned from Ottumwa, where he ran down a pair using a railroad pass fraudulently. He has prosecuted several of these cases and has many others to investigate.

In the Ottumwa case a brakeman at Eldon named Vandevere and a girl from Fairfield named Linn were fined $300 each by Judge Wade for using the pass of the wife of Vandevere for Miss Linn.

The girl was introduced to conductors as his wife by Vandevere, who is a former service man and has a wife and child at Eldon.

Vandevere denied entertaining more than friendship for the girl, and she testified she was living on the savings she had made when employed in a store. The judge gave them permission to pay the fine $50 a month.


Masked Gang Raids Liquor Warehouse

LEXINGTON, Kentucky — Seven men, masked with handkerchiefs, raided the old Tarr distillery warehouse here and, at the point of revolvers, forced two guards to unlock the warehouse. The gang stole ninety-four cases of whisky seized last January at Versailles, Kentucky.

Can't Stop a Woman From Changing Mind

1920

Girl's Damage Suit is On, Then Off, Now On Again

SAN FRANCISCO, California — As no one, not even a judge of the Superior Court, has the authority to question a woman's unalienable right to change her mind, no exception can be taken to Miss Helen Woodbury's indecision.

Recently Miss Woodbury, who is a stenographer, filed a $5,000 damage action against Mrs. Caroline Leebold alleging that Mrs. Leebold had enticed her to her apartment and then beaten her.

A few days later Miss Woodbury filed notice she wanted to dismiss the action. Now she has filed notice saying she wants to prosecute her damage suit.


Neighbors' Noses Scent Raisin Still

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — Led by the suspicions of neighbors and unusual odors, Michael Johannes, city detective, and police operatives raided the home of T. O. Bailys, where they said they secured a still, two barrels of raisin whisky and eight barrels of raisin mash. The still and liquor were found on the second floor of the house, police said.

In the same room, according to the officers, was a quantity of apples, oranges and prunes, cut up and ready for use in the manufacture of a new various of liquor.

Sledgehammer Bandits Raid St. Paul Safes

1920

Also Steal 800 Quarts of Liquor From State Asylum

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — The band of "sledgehammer" bandits, after looting more than fifty safes in Minneapolis in the past month, evidently have begun operations in St. Paul by raiding three Como avenue business places.

The lock of a safe at the Great Lakes Coal and Dock Company was hammered open and $500 worth of Liberty bonds and $40 in cash was taken.

The same gang is believed to have hammered the lock from the safe at the Carnegie Dock and Fuel Company, and strong box in the office of a third Como avenue company.

That the "sledgehammer" bandits have a taste for good liquor as well as safes became apparent when nine of them in three automobiles made an informal call on the State asylum for the insane at Anoka.

Eight hundred quarts of liquor, used for medicinal purposes, packed in the refrigerator, were stolen.


Hens Laying for a Record

LINCOLN, Nebraska — Twenty-six hens laid 23 or more eggs each during February in the national egg-laying contest being conducted by the Nebraska agricultural experiment station. One hen laid 28 eggs. She is a Rhode Island Red, owned by M. C. Peters, of Omaha. Two others, both White Leghorns, laid 25 eggs each. Seventeen hens laid 22 eggs each.

May Prosecute Itinerant Drug Dispenser

1914

Broadly speaking, no one who is not a registered pharmacist may sell drugs legally.

Under this provision of the code officers may prosecute the traveling man who is reported to be visiting this city twice a week to sell preparations containing morphine, cocaine or other habit-forming drugs to young men and boys, unless he is a registered pharmacist.

When poisons are sold they must be labeled.

Officers are doing all in their power to check the sale of various preparations called "snow" by the drug victims. Appeals of mothers whose boys are becoming physical wrecks have been made and it is the determination of all the officers to enforce strictly all laws, whether state or interstate, which prohibit the sale of opium, morphine and cocaine.

Many Hideous Wrecks

Police officers and other observant persons give graphic descriptions of the suffering of drug fiends. Many boys and young men are but shadows of their former selves, their bodies are covered with sores where the hypodermic needle has been injected, and they are losing their mental, moral and physical stamina. In many instances the needle wounds have become infected, but this fact does not deter the victims from injecting the morphine or cocaine into other parts of the body.

The craving for strong drink is nothing compared with the craving for drugs after the habit has once been formed, and the chances for cure are very slight.

Because of these deplorable facts — because of the widespread and growing use of drugs — the public is aroused. The people demand the strict enforcement of all present laws and, if they be inadequate, the passage of new provisions which will increase the difficulty of young men to procure the "snow."

—Waterloo Evening Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Jan. 16, 1914, p. 3.

Moonshine in New York

1906

"Don't talk to me about moonshine in Kentucky," said the internal revenue agent. "There's more moonshining going on all the time in little old New York than could be done in ten Kentuckys. In the crowded sections of the East and West Sides stills spring up right along and for a while conduct a flourishing business in the low grade whisky they manufacture. You see, it doesn't take much trouble to equip a still with corn and yeast and start in to make the mash which is finally turned out as a pretty poor sort of whisky. The great difficulty is in getting rid of the peculiar smoke and odor from stills without exciting suspicion. This is usually attempted by running the still in connection with a dye shop or some other chemical enterprise as a blind. We keep watch on all such establishments and have the town well covered by sharp eyed and sharp nosed agents besides. We are constantly arresting these small moonshiners and sending them to jail. But enough spring up in their places for you to say with safety that, as I say, there's more moonshining going on in New York City right along than there could be in ten Kentuckys."