PROHIBITION AS I SAW IT

Hokitika Guardian, 3 November 1922, Page 4

PROHIBITION AS I SAW IT

BY AN AUSTRALIAN

(From “Sydney Bulletin.”) (Continued). Through the swing-doors the man in the street may see men c;adi with a foot on the brass-rail, as iPVolstend had never existed. There are a score of these open places, known to me, a stranger, and many others, known to me, more furtive in their trade and more circumspect in law-breaking. These are the places that have either not purchased immunity, or that have purchased immunity they cannot he sure is absolute. 1 asked one restaurantour in the Wabash district how he managed to get such bulky stuff as beer 'safely delivered. He answered quite seriously that he had a policeman engaged to watch the waggon during delivery. At this and other down-town restaurants waiters openly carry trays of cocktails and open bottles of G per cent, ale, for all the world to see, at least for us much of the little world as is interested. Some of the whisky-joints det mand cards of introductions, but there aro immune saloons in the shadow of the buildings of authority, selling openly to all-comers, and displaying the whisky-bottles oil the counter. Uptown service varies from formal introduction of the stranger behind closed doors to delivery of whisky or gin in medicine bottles in wide-open restaurants. To be served behind closed doors means that the bootlegger is taking all the profits and all the risk—and paying nothing, or very little, to Prohibition officers or police. The 'ohl-timo decent saloons still flourish; the half-doors swinging to the entry and exit of customers, the brass footrail and the liquor on the bar. These pay three informal fees—to Prohibition officers, to State police,— where there is a State, as well as a Federal, Prohibition law—and to the city police. They are not quite immune 1 ; a new policeman who is not a participant in the graft, may make a sudden call, hut ho draws a blank always. Tn one case 1 know the raw policeman made his visit while a policeman not raw, was in the hack parlour selling seized liquor to the saloon keeper. For that is the end of the much seized liquor, as political clubs of the reigning faction know well. The seizure of liquor has its fowls just as rival bootleg gangs have their gunmen. In Downing St. New \ ork City, two weeks ago, a crowd of screaming women and children suddenly clashed for safety to house entries and cellars, and left the street to tlie gunmen. They were rival factions, of bootleggers—Spaniards and Italians. Tbo Spanish gang bought the bootlegging concession of the Downing street and Bedford street quarter and the Italian bootleggers tried to poach on the Spanish preserves. When the police arrived the factions had withdrawn, leaving half a dozen revolvers. one injured Spaniard and an unconscious Italian.

The great headlines of the newspapers are mostly of evasions of the Prohibition law. the important evasions stiuTcd from day to day—the. thousands of usual and regular evasions unnoticed. Among to-day’s headlines are “Explosion in Hum Raid Wrecks House and P.uts Five in Hospital—Seven policemen injured. Two big stills found.” “Quarter-million Dollars of Liquor seized in Three Schooners from Bahamas.” “Prohibition Navy Boards Rum Pirates.”

“7000-ton Rum-ship escapes.” To torn to another aspect of it, the deaths by alcoholism in New York m 1<)->1 were 80 per cent, greater than in 1020; and so far in 1922, there is an increase of 30 per cent, over tho corresponding figures in 1921. (Signed) RANDOLPH BEDFORD