Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1884-05-22
BY THE w. G. 7. U.

The chemist Of western college, \
who has made special tests of the
quality of the different alcoholic liquors
usually drank as beverages, such as
whiskies, brandies, gins, wines, beer,
ale, ETC., said in private conversation
not long since, that ther was substan-
italy no pure liquor now sold. He said
that pure liquors could not be got,
simply because they were not in the
market, and that any man who pur-
chased a dram of any kind of strong
drink, malt, vinous or distilled, could be
reasonably certain that, with it, he
would take into his system considerable
quantities of rank poison. No one who
has not made q special study Of the
snbject. he further said, can have any
conception of the alarming proportion
of poisons substances that are used to
compound or adulterate popular alco-
holic beverages. The reseaches of the
scientist, which had extended over
series of yeals, demonstrated that there
is on an average in every half gallon of
the kind of whisky sold at dram-shops,
enough poison, if taken separately, to
destroy the life of q strong man. The
universally of liquor adulteration he
illustrated by the following circum-
stance: Being in New York he asked
personal friend, who is a leading im-
porter of liquors, for some wine, which
the importer could recommend as pure,
for medicinal use in his family. The
importer replied that in all his vast
stock he had only two bottles of a GER
tain brand that he could with conf
dence assert to be absolutely free from
adulteration, and that he could have
them. The wine of one of these bot
ties the chemist shortly afterwards sub
jected to analysis. and to his astonish-
ment discovered that it5contained not
a single drop Of natural wine, but was
an abominable compound which, re-
duced to a residum, he found to contain
poison IN sufficient quantity to destroy
the life of an average man. These may
seem like extreme statements, but there
is every probability that they represent
the exact facts. 1t is very doubtful if,
a reward of $1,000 for single glass of
pure liquor could be honestly earned in
| a month in all the dram-shops in Iowa,
if the liquors usually sold to customers
were offered as samples. There is in
this remarkable state of facts lesson
of value not only to the consumer of
dram-shop compounds, but to the legis-
lator as well, and 1t is one which has
been strangely overlooked. 1t is the
comparative ease with which penalty
might be visited upon the violation of
laws for the preservation of the public
health. A vital point of one of the
most objec.ional features of the liquor
traffic would be reached by simply
making chemical analysis conclusive
evidence of adulteration, and naming
specifically the punishment, which
should, OF course, be heavy. at one
stroke the difficulty Of securing evil
dence would be largely removed, and,
| it enforced rigidly, as could be done by
Temperance cooperation, very few
saloons could run in Iowa or in any
other state. The Clayton high-license
bill is commendable, as a license bill,
for a clause which measurably EN-
braces this thought. If it were prop
erly enlarged and guarded both in pen
atty and other provisions it would be
very effective, or could be made so by
vigorous effort in enforcement. True,
it is but one of many important compo-
nents of a prohibitory license law,
which will give amplest opportunity to
the prohibitory sentiment, but it is a
very important element. Furthermore,
if enforced, such a law would be of the
highest value as an educational infiu-
ence, demonstrating in way to bring
home to popular comprehension the
essential destructiveness of alcoholic
beverages as they are sold by the dram.
And if enforced, it would also close the
doors of neaEly every dram shop, or
make pure liqnros so costly that few
could afford to buy them.