KANSAS AND THE SALOON.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1045, 17 March 1910, Page 22

KANSAS AND THE SALOON.

In all the State of Tennessee, U.S.A., there is (says an Exchange) but one liquor saloon, and it is situated on the top of a high hill far out of the ordinary paths of civilisation, Tennessee ' has a prohibition law of a somewhat novel kind. It does not in so many words prohibit the sale of liquor in the state, but reaches the same practical effect by making it unlawful to sell liquor within four miles of any school house. Tennessee, though mountainous, is a pretty closely populated state, and it was thought by the legislators that it would be impossible to come within the four corners of the act and legally sell intoxicants at any point within the boundaries of the state. One enterprising dealer, however, discovered a spot high on a hill about eighteen mrles from the town of M’Minnville, with no school-house in a radius of four miles. Tennessee’s only saloon is not a very ornate establishment. In fact, it is but a log cabin, built of rough hewn green lumber, and consisting of but one room. The man in charge is a hunter.* He has a good stock of wines, beers, and spirits, and although no big trade has yet sprung up, men do travel from more or less distant parts to this spot, which enjoys the novel distinction of being the one place in all Tennessee where intoxicants may be bought and sold without breach of law. It is not very strenuously denied, however, that by a little ingenuity a thirsty mortal can get all he wants in the cities. The most drastic prohibition law in the world has just gone into effect in the State of Kansas. It not only shuts up all saloons, but prohibits the- sale of intoxicants in drug stores or in cfubs. Further than that, a man may not own his own bottle and drink out of it, and it is even said that alcohol is barred for

mechanical and scientific purposes. It is believed that two-thirds of the drug stores in the state will go out of business, as they cannot make expenses without the profits from liquor sa i es. Kansas is fuil ot cranks, and tne West generally is fairly hospitable to delusions, especially about what can be done by legislation. We learn that Kansas is now experimenting with a new rum-proof liquor law, under which no alcoholic liquors can be sold in the state for any purpose. The drug-store bars are to be closed up under it, and the Attorney-General has ruled that no man can even drink liquor in a club-house. The druggists and the clubs are going to law about it. The Attorney-General (Jackson) is very earnest, and is encouraging towns (so the Springfield “ Republican” reports) to limit the amount of beer that a man can have shipped to his home from outside the stale. Some towns allow a case a week, some a case a fortnight, some two cases a week. A bad feature of the prohibition laws, as Brother Brisbane is truthfully pointing out in the “Evening Journal,” is that they bear hardest bn the light, bulky drinks, wines and beers, that do least harm, and stimulate the traffic in the more violent sorts of liquors. The West, Kansas included, must try its own experiments with the regulation of habits, and we trust will work through in. the end to wise and reasonable laws. Meanwhile the processes are trying. In Washington the cigarette has been declared to be felonious, and cannot be smoked, we understand, at the Seattle Fair. How the patent medicine business is doing in Kansas does not appear.