THE SUBSTITUTE SALOON.

Taihape Daily Times, 5 August 1919, Page 2

THE SUBSTITUTE SALOON.

ICE CREAM AND MOVING ! PICTURES. Under the new prohibition regime in “the United States, the Salvation Army and other organisativons have aIIIIOIIIIC~ ed that "‘subs'titutc saloons” will be provided, at which “soft beverages, moving pictures, «and many Other attractions to draw the crowd” Wi-11 b 0 available. The Sanfrancisco Argonaut, however, is Very doubtful about the success of the experiment. It says: “We shall watch with some interest for the appearance «of the substitute saloon about which some highly religious people are now exercising their alleged mindls. It may. ‘be due to original sin, but we have small confidence in substitutes in any kind. Now it may be true that .a. man can abandon a taste or a habit. We ourselves have 5 abandoned nl-any, mainly the good ones, Ins being easier. But there can be no: such thing as a substitute ;'''-in ‘the sense in which we «are invited to wel~ ’come the substitute saloon. If one actor takes the place of anoth.er it is not that he may do a different thing, but that he may do this Samoithing and do it better. If we are to have a substitute saloon it must either be something wholly diiferent, such as an lice-cream parlour, in which case it is not a saloon at all, or we must have another kind «of saloon that shall be more effective than the kind we have-{I now, and that is to say, with inten—‘ sive alcoholic exhil.al-ation. A‘ saloon is a place of resort for the consumption of alcoholic liquors. If there are no alcoholic liquors, then it is not a saloon, substitute, or otherwise.-One might as well talk of a substitute bar- { ber’s shop from which hair-cutting and ' shaving shall be wholly banished. Or a I substitute post office, where it shall, be illegal to buy stamps. and money!‘ orders. I

“We have been given no specifications of the substitute saloon except that there will be ‘all kinds ‘bf ‘refresliing soft beverages,’ and that there will be ‘numerable attractions to draw the crowd.’ In other words, we shall have a soda-water parlour, and as for the ‘numterous ruttr:actions,}’ we have great doubts if they will draw anyone. If you Want to wean a man from the reading of light literature the worst of all ways would be to present him with a copy of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ witli a picture of a! ballet girl on the cover. You are far more likely to incense him than to eonciliate him. And it may be said, further, that if '_-/or pass a law making it illegal ‘or him to read light literature, you will infuriate him by offering him 3 ‘substitute’ miserably disguised by a false cover. If the good people who are to give us a subtitute saloon were Wise in their day and generation, they would not try to produce a substitute for anything or an imitation -of anything. If they believe that they can induce festiee minded people to gather round the

merry soda—wafol‘ fou':lt:=.in and gaze upon their hilarious movies, by all means let them go to it. But why call it a saloon?”