[Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by George Washington Plunkitt]@TWC D-Link bookPlunkitt of Tammany Hall CHAPTER 21 5/7
If they raise the tax higher, wood alcohol will be too costly, and I guess some dealers will have to get down to kerosene oil and add to the Rockefeller millions. The way the Raines law divides the different classes of licenses is also an outrage.
The sumptuous hotel saloons, with $10,000 paintin's and bricky-brac and Oriental splendors gets off easier than a shanty on the rocks, by the water's edge in my district where boatmen drink their grog, and the only ornaments is a three-cornered mirror nailed to the wall, and a chromo of the fight between Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan. Besides, a premium is put on places that sell liquor not to be drunk on the premises, but to be taken home.
Now, I want to declare that from my experience in New York City, I would rather see rum sold in the dram-shops unlicenced, provided the rum is swallowed on the spot, than to encourage, by a low tax, "bucket-shops" from which the stuff is carried into the tenements at all hours of the day and night and make drunkenness and debauchery among the women and children.
A "bucket-shop" in the tenement district means a cheap, so-called distillery, where raw spirits, poisonous colorin' matter and water are sold for brandy and whisky at ten cents a quart, and carried away in buckets and pitchers; I have always noticed that there are many undertakers wherever the "bucket-shop" flourishes, and they have no dull seasons. I want it understood that I'm not an advocate of the liquor dealers or of drinkin'.
I think every man would be better off if he didn't take any intoxicatin' drink at all, but as men will drink, they ought to have good stuff without impoverishin' themselves by goin' to fancy places and without riskin' death by goin' to poor places.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|