PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 1006, 17 June 1909, Page 21

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

A New York correspondent gives some interesting particulars of the working of prohibition in the United States. Thousands of saloons and public-houses in various parts of the country have been closed, and many reputable publicans have been driven out of business. The prohibitionists boast that before long they will be triumphant in every state in the union. The only result of their policy wherever they have triumphed, however, seems to have been to divert the channels of the distribution of liquor. The habit of drinking intoxicating liquors has not been considerably lessened; indeed, the Government returns show that the output of spirits and beer is greater than ever. The whisky distillers and brewers have their works in full operation. In Georgia, where state wide prohibition has been in operation for some months, the condition of things has certainly not changed for the better. It is positively dangerous, a private letter said the other day, to walk along the streets of Atlanta on a Monday morning, because of the increased number of broken bottles littering the pavements. The strictest prohibition towns in the country have become notorious as hotbeds of illicit drinking. The laws are evaded or winked at, while the chemists’ and grocers’ shops become the medium of disseminating alcohol in disguised form.—“ Pall Mall Gazette.”