AMERICAN PROHIBITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19764, 15 April 1926, Page 9

AMERICAN PROHIBITION

EFFECTS OF VOLSTEAD LAW. MINING COMMUNITIES CORRUPTED. (Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, April 13. (Received April 14, at 5.6 p.m.) Mr Stanley Shirk, research director of the New York Moderation League, told the Senate’s Committee that drunken drivers and drunken children had increased far above anything previously recorded. The conditions were becoming worse. A national survey revealed that the arrests for drunkenness in 457 representative places in the United States had increased from 250,000 in 1920 to 550,000 in 1924. Father Francis Nasczun, a priest on the Pennsylvania coalfields, said that prohibition had generally corrupted the mining communities. He said that those who made liquor in these communities sold it cheaply. It was easy to get and everybody got it. He declared that the children of to-day were victims of prohibition and cited numerous instances of mothers and children drunk and dissolute, including an infant of three years who demanded ■"moonshine” whisky. Mrs Viola Anglim, deputy chief probation officer in the New York Family Court, testified that the cases before the court had increased since prohibition and family suffering had been augmented. The “wets” will conclude their testimony to-morrow after which the "dry” forces will recommence. Meanwhile the House’s Alcoholic Liquor Committee suddenly announced that it was beginning next_ week a complete survey of the prohibition conditions.—A. and N.Z. Cable.