a monopoly in dram shops. Soon the saloons
will be in the hands of a vast trust' and any stuff can be sold for
whisky or beer. It's gettin' that way already. Some of the poor liquor
dealers in my district have been forced to sell wood alcohol for whisky,
and many deaths have followed. A half-dozen men died in a couple of days
from this kind of whisky which was forced down their throats by the
high liquor tax. 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. The State should
look after their interests as well as the interests of those who drink
nothin' stronger than milk. Now, as to the liquor dealers themselves.
They ain't the criminals that cantin' hypocrites say they are. I know
lots of them and I know that, as a rule, they're good honest citizens
who con