LIFE WITHOUT A DRINK.

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2650, 8 December 1919, Page 6

LIFE WITHOUT A DRINK.

[By Fjiaxk Hu.lif.ii, in London 'Daily Mail' of September 3.] NEW YORK. What is life without a drink ? This is a question which our friends in England never fail to put in their letters. Most of them confess their utter inability to imagine what it can be like to have to go on day after day " without a drop oi anvthing." As a matter of fact, we here can hardly tell them, for it is quite easy to_ obtain strong drink in New York, Prohibition or no Prohibition, and not only is it obtained in tiie houses of friends, but also, if the right password be employed, it can be had in satisfving quantities at most bars and faces. The password is " Sherry Wine " in most cases, in others it is " Special Coffee," and the proprietors, as a whole, are determined to go on handing out these beverages until they have sold out their stocks, regardless of the fact that one of their number was fined £2OO the othor dav, and sent to prison for six months. When the stocks are exhausted the shoe, it might be thought, will begin to pinch. But this is strenuously denied by the " OLD Irreconcilable.-?," who are the old "uard of "cheerful souls," and decline under any circumstances to recognise Prohibition *as an accomplished fact. Incidentally, they represent one of the two classes'into winch the people of the United States have fallen under the dry regime. The other consists of moderate and occasional drinkers, who really do not miss alcohol very much, but are implacable in their resentment of the interference with their personal liberty. But the contention of the "Old Lreconcilables " is this, that sugar ferments. It is a scientific fact, they say, which all the legislation in the world cannot get over. " You can't order a drop oi juice not to ferment.." said one of them to me the other day, " and if I take it into my head to squash a few grapes and, forgetting I've done it, leave the result for a few weeks, all the laws on earth won't stop that juice turning into wine, and —who's to know I've done it?" . . „..

Prohibition cannot be enforced. That is what its opponents say, and, judging bv the number of people who have made arrangements to manufacture their own liquor there would seem to be something in the argument. Nearly everyone has one or more recipes for making not only wines, but also spirits. In clubs you can see men *" swopping " them; many people think that the best turn you can do a friend i 3 to pass on some "secret to which you have been admitted for the compounding of .something "with a good kick in ft." A man drew me into a corner yesterday and - confided to me a process he had discovered by which, witn the aid of a tin kettle, a pound of brown sugar, and a few feet of tubing, plus a few other adjuncts, he could produce a sort of rum of wonderful virtue.

Qther recipes include beetroots, the syrup from tinned fruit, hair tonic, toilet water, Worcester sauce, toffee, potatoes, and even celluloid collars. But whether or not these homemade drinks are of any practical use their invention and collection form a fascinating new game, which may well threaten the popularity of bridge during the coming long winter evenings. When I called on a friend recently I discovered him squeezing the juice out of some white grapes and collecting it in a jar. "If I add a raisin or a few black currants to this juice," he explained, "and keep it for a bit, it will get up no end of a kick. Come round in a couple of weeks and I'll give you some cocktail! " I have not yet been "round."