NEW YORK SKYLINES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 283, 30 November 1933, Page 17

NEW YORK SKYLINES.

THE "DEMON RUM." POY YEE'S PROTEST. (By a Spccial Correspondent.)' NEW YORK, October 24. The "demon rum" will no longer keep New York children awake at night as a bugaboo, if measures planned for action at the State Legislature's next session go- through, but "science" will be used in the teaching of temperance and the dangers of the abuse of alcohol. For the first time prominent wets and drys seem to have agreed on something, and that is the "scientific method." They diverge in opinion, however, when they come to' the ways and means of proffering this "new education." Senator A. Spencer Feld, chairman of the State Senate Education Committee, seeks repeal of the law which says that the use of alcohol must be completely explained to school children as a demonic practice. "There is no sense in teaching a child one thing at the age of -10 and allowing him to find that he has been fooled when he reaches maturity," said the Brooklyn "Solon." The drys, never giving up, agreed with the senator that science in education was preferable to bugaboos, but through Mrs. Oscar W. Swift, prominent in W.C.T.U. circles, stated that "alcohol is distinctly a poison, and children should be taught that a small amount is a small amount of poison." The legislator returned with the comment that a "mild jag," if indulged in occasionally, was a good thing for the tired business man and took his mind off his work for a while. He did not say that he would put that in the school books, however. We were interested in .the customs of a partially reformed speak-easy, which, so far as beer is concerned, is run strictly under the law and is regularly inspected. Prominent about the place are signs, "No beer will be sold on these premises between the hours of 3 a.m. and noon Sunday," and we asked' the proprietor about it. He said that, while he ran all night, the beer taps were closed tight at three each Sunday morning. "And what do you do until noon?" we asked. "We have a little booze around," he said, "and the customers take that instead of beer. It's against the law to sell beer, and I'd be taken in a minute if I did." Poy Yee, for years guardian of the Temple of the Goddess of Charity, at 5, Mott Street, in New York's Chinatown, has closed the gates to the tourists who have been so prevalent. Most suchtemples are inviolate to "outsiders," hut it has here been the practice for guides to charge 50 cents admission. "Poy Yee said tliat he only received a nickcl for the upkeep of the temple from each admission, and placidly shooed away the visitors to-day.—(N.A.N.A.)