“BLIND DEATH.”

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16033, 26 January 1920, Page 5

“BLIND DEATH.”

VANCOUVER, December 30,

United States newspapers are still devoting columns" to stories of more than a hundred deaths of Christmas drinkers, due to wood alcohol, embalmers’ fluid, and other > fiery beverages , supplied by bootleggers in officially dry States. Coming at a moment, when public attention is turned ,to the „whole liquor question, the “wets” are making the utmost out of the ravages of “blind death.”

The liquor condition in Canada is being widely quoted, the Montreal Star, probably Canada’s leading newspaper, prints figures of the admissions to the Montreal hospitals, showing that; the number of cases of alcoholism has' not decreased under the system of prescriptons and prohibition as in vogue in Quebec province. One great hospital showed, a slight decrease in the number of drink patients, but this Las been more than made up by drug sufferers. A message from Washington states that if the wood alcoholic plague continues at its present pace, action may be token to declare the poison an intoxicating beverage, and to restrict its sale under the prohibition law. That step would $e taken only as a last resort, and it has been explained by the Bureau of Internal Revenue that the difficulty involved in enforcing the prohibition law would be thus increased a hundredfold. With Wood alcohol, however, gathering to its casualty list whole squads and platoons of desperate drinkers, the authorities are prepared for emergency measures. According to a statement by Commission Hnrrey a conference will soon be held, at which several possible courses will be suggested for battling against the new liquor vice. A requirement that all wood alcohol and denatured alcohol be given distinctive colouring is one plan. Legal steps for licensing dealers offer another solution.

Sailors broke a compass worth £IOOO aboard the American battleship Nebraska, stationed at San Francisco, and drank the alcohol it contained.