Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1884-08-07
The MAraINEIN MAINE.
ProhibtioHists and Monopolis.s
United i'm Work Fer Blaine.

sVUsAVnASso otsu hVaVRVAhcsC
4 United i'm Work Fer Blaine.
The Highly Moral siste--How Easy il
is TO Get a Drink There.-The Ease
With Which Voters are Bribed
.-Mr. Biaine's Peculiar
Methods.
Special Cor. of the Ne,S York World.
AUGUSTA. July 26.-I mentioned
the fact in my letter of yesterday
that I saw very drunken man in
Portland, which is the commercial
metropolis Of Maine, and Maine, you
know, is the great State of teetotal-
ism. L had heard before that a
drunken man is now and then seen
lin Maine, notwithstanding all the
eloquent prohibition writing of Mr..
Blaine, followed by therepested enact
ment of the most sumptuary Ii .,s on
the subject ever passed by a Legiala-
ture in the Federal Union. /; had
heard that prohibition does not al
ways prohibit. and that even Mr..
Blaine has wine on his table when he
happens to be living as far South as
Washington and that he himself
sometimes touches it lightly. How
ever that may be, I know that it is
not a fiction that prohibition does not
always prohibit, for with the ordinary
curiosity of any man coming into
State that makes the selling o. glass
of beer a crime I made it point to
find out if there is anybody in this
Commonwealth who really has the
hardihood to either sell glass tf
beer or to drink it, and I found men
who do both.
Finding Saloon in Maine.
There are not any gilded, palatial
saloons in Portland or elsewhere in
the State that have been where a
man may go and take drink in
genteel security-where you can lean
up against rosewood counter and
look at paintings that cost $4,000
apiece or scan statuary in bronze md
marble fit to grace the residence of a
king, but there are places not far
from the top of the ground and easy
enough Of access where one may go
and without telling any lies or with
out asking forcold tea when he means
whiskey, drink whole keg of beer
if be is go disposed.
"I believe you have no saloons at
tached to the hotels i'll Maine2" I
said to the; agreeable clerk of my
hotel in Portland.
"That is just where you are
wfopg,,,' hes answered, j as he saw a
fsfHSss pfospsce 81 my
businssswith hia hatA syf6g
my board bill.
And then he asked meif I would
like to go down. He evidently mis-.
took me for commercial traveller,
for he said "all the boys" who came
that way know here the bar is. I
did want to see a real whiskey bar in
the teetotal State of Maine and I did
"go down." and did see the bar.
with its tender of the red face, the
waxed moustache and the creased
hair. And I was asked, just as I
would be at q hotel bar in Boston OF
New York or Philadelphia or even
Chicago what I would have. l sup.
pose nobody would be alarmed II l
should say drank Apollinaris. 1
had seen the bar, had been asked
what would have; could have
anything from whiskey smash to a
bottle of plain coda. and I hs;i addi-
tional evidence that prohibition does
not prohibit. True, the bar was a
little secluded, one flight Of stairs
down, and the stairs were somewhat
tortuous and the light was dim, but
there was no mistake about the bar
being there.
!; Half an hour later, while standing
on the sidewalk in front of hotel,
meditating on the apparent impossi.
bility of having everything in life ex-
actly right, an old acquaintance
slapped me on the shoulder and
asked me what was the matter. II
have discovered" said I, "that they
really do take drinks in Maine as
they do everywhere else, and that
my hotel has bar just as the hotels
in New York do-even as the Delavan
House in Albany does, notwithstand-
ing the fact that they keep a copy of
the Bible in every room. Prohibition
does not always prohibit, does it?"
Too Numerous to Mention.
And then he told me that the bar
at his hotel was much nicer than the
bar at my hotel and that there were
more places TO drink in Port
| land than bookstores and churches
q, tba,o orr in ovo,v other A American