The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-01-14
THE DRUG TRAFFIC.


EDITOR NEWS: There is one thing in
our town of which 1 am impelled to
speak. Nor do intend to speak with
reserve, or to be mealy-mouthed about
it. only wish had the power to use
words that would burn; that would
more fully express my indignation and
disgust.
1t is matter concerning which most
of our citizens are familiar, and yet
nothing more than sly whispers behind
ones hands are heard, except, perhaps,
an echo of our shame from foreign pa
pers.
Need I sag that I refer to the almost
indiscrtmtnate traffic IN liquors by our
druggists. We herald our morality and
our temperance as far as loud and long
blowing will do it. ''Not a dram
shop in town. is the cry. 'FNot tip
ping shop on the corporate limits"
Dear editor, let us be honest and say in
tho same connection, that we whose
boast it is that we are the healthiest
community in the State, have drug stores
whose proprietors are making more
money than any other class of our mer-
chants. Selling drugs is as honorable
as any other avocation; selling whisky
is not. Gentlemen, sail under no false
colors do not think to evade the ours
es of God and community, even if you
do evade the penalty of the law
by dropping a grain of quinine into
gallon of forty-rod and selling it un-
der the name of bitters. A young gen.
tleman of our acquaintance dropped into
one of our drug stores and said to the
smiling physician, who presided behind
the counter, that he was somewhat I'M
well and wanted something. Expecting
the physician to make inquiries concern
ing his health, and desiring him to make
a prescription, our doctor promptly
and unhesitatingly remarked that he
could not give it to him clear, but that
he could put little something into 1T.
Our friend told him that he wished
something to move his liver, and not
some of the it referred to by the kind
NJ. D. The presiding doctor, somewhat
confused at this, wondered how any one
could make such a mistake as to come
to him for any other than prescription
of the it.
"Not tippling house in town." YET
scarcely day passes that we do not see
men Keeling along our streets. Damn
able enough is the traffic that deals out
liquid death to passion-enslaved victims
openly but more snaky, more develish
more hellish must be the man who in
the garb of an angel of light plays Sc.
cretly role Satan must look upon with
envy.
Do these men who thus secretly, and
defying the openly and repeatedly ex
pressed will of the community, expec
to go scot free from its reproaches? d.
they think that the business men who
chance to have hands employed, whC
yield to temptation when placed before
them, will always go around, as one o
our prominent business men did recent
ly, and humbly request them not to lei
their employees have moro whisky
If your grain of quinine does save yo'
from the law, do you think it will from
the curse of God and an outraged com
munity?
Mr.. Editor, believe i'll the communi
ty exhibiting little more backbone il
this matter. Even though these mel
who are thus undermining public NOR
ais and public peace do wear fine clothes
do take the uppermost seats in the syn
agogue, and carry large balances il
bank, let them receive their due mea
of scom, let us look upon them as W
would upon any other doggery keepe,
they are not one Wilt better. Their on
grain of quinine should not save then
as it does not their enslaved victims.
If these slop shops cannot be reache
and closed, neither by law nor publ
opinion, let us then be honest and al
knowledge that our town is delivere
over into the hands of rum-sellers. Il
: US desist from the cry of mo tipplin
l shop in our village" and be
CONSISTENT.