“SPEAKEASY” SURPRISES

Hokitika Guardian, 7 December 1929, Page 8

“SPEAKEASY” SURPRISES

A THUNK IN NEW YORK. “How about a drink?” said my American friend as we sped uptown from the docks in New York (writes an Englishman on holiday there). “How do you got it?” lie asked. Hero was the land of prohibition, I thought, and the first question was, “How about a drink?” Still, .1 wanted to know. So many learned people had written learned dissertations about the working of the Volstead Act, all saying different things, that I felt fogged. “Soon as you please,” I said. “Right,’- said my friend. “We’ll try a light beer first . He stopped the taxi at an inconspicuous-looking swing door, alighted, and simply pushed the door open. No locks, no watching policeman, no “Open Sesame.” “Oli, they don’t mind beer,” he said. “There are lots of tilings they don’t mind here, and the first is beer.” We stood at a bar and drank a cool pint of excellent beer lor a shilling eaclp ' Then we were in our taxi again.

“Blank’s, on Forty-dash Street,’ my friend told the driver. After bumping about on roads that 'would have put an African jungle to sliame (they wore make a new underground railway, I was told), we drew up at what looked like a private house. “Practically every house on the streets round here is a “speakeasy.” He rang the boll, a curtain was pulled back, a face peered out at us, and the door slid open with a click. Mv friend was well known here. We climbed to the first floor, and here wms a sight to make London rub its eyes. Here was tho perfect bai. A deep blue light shed a moonlight effect. In one corner was a buoy, which flashed out a red light intermittently. Above this was a notice: “The s.s. Trvangetit sails at noon.” “Cocktail ” queried my friend. “Bronx Manhattan, Martini, Sidecar —or just a British Scotch and splash ?” He added, “You can drink beer if you like, (but it is the real stuff, and costs l()s a bottle.” A\ o had a couple of Bronx, and that cost him just 9s! “Don’t be afraid of drinking at places like these,’ ho said. The stuff comes from home, therefore its prettv good. Also, the police don’t raid these ‘joints,’ or if they do they telephone an hour beforehand. “You see. they think it is bettoi to have a number of respectable places open than have a lot of mushroom ‘joints’ selling synthetic poison. Those are the dens they really are trving to stamp out.’ 5 '“See that young fellow? That’s a scion of the' ‘Four Hundred’— what von call the ‘Upper Ten’ in England. His family have a very good private bootlegger. All the best families have.” ' “Is it like this all over America? T asked. “No.” he answered. “Most of the West and Middle West is dry as a hone. Parts of the South, too. No. Ford Maddox HuefFor was right when he said ‘New York is not America.’ ”