12,704 LESS SALOONS.

White Ribbon, Volume 15, Issue 176, 16 February 1910, Page 8

12,704 LESS SALOONS.

The detailed report of the Internal Revenue Department for the month of October which has just been issued reveals unmistakably the advances made by Prohibitionists throughout the United States during the past year. While the report shows a sudden increase in the internal revenue receipts from spirits for the first four months of the fiscal year 1910 as compared with 1909, the items showing the payment of special taxes by rectifiers, wholesale liquor dealers, retail liquor dealers, and those paid by brewers, wholesale dealers in malt liquors, and retail beer sellers, all show a significant drop from the similar figures of last year. According to the internal revenue report up to November 1,1909, there were 11,270 less retail liquor dealers in the United States, paying a “ federal license” then for the first third of the fiscal year 1909. At the same lime there wore 1,-101 retail dealers in malt liquors exclusively. In other words there wore no less than 12,701 less saloon-keepers holding federal tax receipts than last year during the same period. At the same time there was a drop of OHO in the number of wholesale dealers in malt and other liquors, 579 of whom were dealers in beer exclusively. The same report shows that during the first four months of the present fiscal year from 7o to 100 distillers have gone out of business, and over 100 brewers, making a total of more than 13,500 liquor sellers and makers who have dropped from the ranks of the liquor trade during the last twelve months.

While the total receipts from spirits shows a net gain of over 3,000,000 dollars so far this year, the astonishing shrinkage in the number of distributing centres for these wares promises almost certain decrease from this record before the end of the present fiscal year. As regards beer, the month of October showed an actual decrease in receipts from the “barrel tax” of brewers’ product withdrawn from consumption of £194,869, or in other words, nearly 200,000 barrels of beer less during the month of October, 1909. While the first three months of the present fiscal year showed an apparent increase in the production of beer, the period of shrinkage which has now begun will, at the same rate, wipe out all the increase recorded so far by I Member Ist. Compared with 19)8, therefore, the liquor traffic is undeniably losing ground, and, as compared with 1907, the highwater mark of the drink trade in recent years, all indications point to an extraordinary loss before the cud of the present fiscal year, July 1, 19'0.