IN THE PROHIBITION AREA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1092, 9 February 1911, Page 22

IN THE PROHIBITION AREA.

“So this is the only liquor difficulty in all these mountains,” remarked the visitor to a little mountain settlement in North Cax’olina, in a tone that was half questioning. “It do be,” said the mountain whisky-maker. “How much do you turn out in a day?” asked the stranger, “Well, I reckon we makes along about twenty gallons a day.” “And is that all the whisky that’s drunk in these parts?” ‘‘Say, you be-ent no revenue sharp, be you?” he demanded suddenly. “ ’Cause if you be, I ain’t nothin’ to say. I pays my taxes, as ever’one knows, an’ that’s all there is to it.” After a time the stranger persuaded him that there was no ulterior motive in his questioning, and the old man explained the whisky situation: “I tola you this was the only still around here, an’ so it is—the only one that pays a tax. But,” he continued, “every old woman in these mountains has a copper kettle in which she boils her washing. Every old woman has a lid that fits the copper kettle tightly, and that can be fastened down. They boil clothes in them on Monday, and they boil whisky in them the other six days of the week.”—New York “Tribune.”