A LIQUOR MULE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1929, Page 7

A LIQUOR MULE

COCKTAIL WITH A KICK AVhat is perhaps the world’s most potent cocktail is dispensed in .Johannesburg. Possessing a kick like a mule, its ingredients are, nevertheless relished by the natives. The mere thought of the concotion, however, is sufficient to mane the European shudder. The law in Transvaal forbids the supply of liqour to natives, according to a South' African who is ivisiting Auckland, but thousands of gallons of Skookian—illicitly brewed native beer made from yeast—is sold every day by shebeens or native women, whose ‘bars’ are the backyards of.slum areas. The native has long since tired of having to drink gallons of this more or less harmless beverage in.order to strike a convivial •humour, and has demanded the infusion/of a “kick” in his drink. This the shebeens graciously supply by adding to the beer liberal does of carbide, methylated spirits, and any other poisonous substance on which they can lay their hands that is likely to provide the desired effect. “THE GREATEST MENANCI? ”

Paid!, for at the rate of /Pd and Is a jam tin iFull, this cocktail “a la Bantu” produced 60 and 70 stabbing cases every we .K-end hi Johannesburg. One or two drinks is sufficient to convert > the natives’ minds back to their form-I barbaric state. The doped Skookian is the State’s greatest menace, and no European is safe if he attempts to argue with a native in the city streets when he finds him in the throes of one 'of his carousals. The amusing side of

the illicit trade is the competition that is rife among the shebeens in vieing with one another from one end of the Gold Reef to the other in manuU'aduring “kick” liquor of the greatest potency. The more, kick, the more trade is the motto of the “liquor queens” of .Johannesburg. The anxiety of the administration in South Africa to prevent the natives from obtaining intoxicants has resulted in some peculiar and somewhat irksome licensing restrictions. The hotel proprietors in the Union have now had almost a year’s experience of the new liquor logisation introduced by Mr Tielnmn Rons, K.C. ex-Mmister of Justice, and are still striving to secure the elimination of certain clauses contained in it which are regarded by South Africans and visitors alike as “comic opera” restrictions.

BLACKS BANNED IN BARS. For instance, a resident or permanent heartier in an hotel has no more privileges than the man in the street. On a Sunday he dare not he supplied with liquor at any cither time than in the dining room during the prescribed hours. This stipulation has proved aggravating in the extreme, especially when it is added that the law also com pels the hoarder to take his liquor with Tiis coffee in the dining room. The law is being broken in hotels nearly every proprietor is complaining bitterly that he is being made a criminal. Another interesting fact is that tlm native wash up and cleaning boys in hotels are not permitted to take a single step inside a bar room. The law has been circumvented by the cutting of pigeon holes in the walls of the bar ro m partitions. Through the dirty glasses are handed for the hoys to wash.

“The position in regard to the native will he appreciated when it is stated that every scrap of menial work in South Africa is done exclusively, and i always lias been done by the Bantu”, explained the visitor. “For the first time in history barmen, and even proprietors themselves are to be seen relieving natives of casks of beer and supplies of whiskey at the bar room door, simply because the law will not allow a native to enter there, even if lie is an employee. The, whole object of the law in its present form,” he added, “is to keep the native away from liquor; hut the position is being carried to such a ludicrous issue that it Ins become a laughing-stock. If a native were to enter a liar to clean a spitoon tlie proprietor would run the risk of being prosecuted.”