PROHIBITION POISON DEATHS IN NEW YORK.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18112, 12 November 1928, Page 13

PROHIBITION POISON DEATHS IN NEW YORK.

SELLERS TO BE CHARGED WITH HOMLOIDE. (From “The Times” Correspondent, New York, October 9th., i 920). Alarmed by the unusually large number of deaths in the city from poisonous liquor over the week-end —33 had been recorded up to midnight yesterday—the police last night raided 21 alleged “speakeasies” (liquor parlours) in the lower oast side of New York, and arrested the proprietors or bartenders. Samples oi the liquor sold iii these places were sent to the city toxicologist. In every case where one of these samples is found to contain poison, the proprietor of the place Wjjfcere it was seized will he charged with homicide. Dr. Norris, Chief Medical Examiner of the City, said that of the 11 autopsies thus far made on those found dead from alcoholism all showed that the -victims had drunk undiluted alcohol. Dr. Gcttler, the City Toxicologist, held the Federal Government to blame, because of its policy in poison’ing commercial alcohol to make it unfit for drinking. Ordinary comityercial alcohol, he said, is now treated with poisons, and when it is redisti led for beverage purposes by bfxit-leggers and others, it is never wholly freed from the poisons put into it. Up to September 1, there were 518 known deaths from alcoholism in tlio city in 1926. and in 1927 there were 719. Those figures compare with 87 in 1918, 95 in 1919, and 84 in 1950—the’ year in which the eighteenth AmenH‘Thent and the Volstead Act came into effect. Such is the. toll prohibition takes. Keep it out by voting for Continuance. (2).