Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-10-24
DRY COUNTY BEVERAGES.
REVENUE OFFICERS KEEPING
A SHARP LOOKOUT.


fMedicine-Some Questions the Reve-
nue. Authorities Have to Determine
The Way Manufacturers and Dealers
Try to Evade the Lsw-Jam aica Gin
ger Substitute for whisky.
The revenue officers are keeping a close
watch on the stun that is being sold in
the dry counties under the guise OF medi-
cine. A good deal of what is capable OF
being used as a beverage in place OF some
thing better, is put up and labeled medi-
cine and goes into market as such, while 1t
Is really intended as an alcoholic
beverage and is designed for sale
where local option laws prevail or where
the sale Of LIQUOR Is forbidden by statute.
Some oft would not be popular in wine
room, but In the dry counties where there
IS scarcity of the genuine stun Jamaica
ginger and kindred compounds have big
sale. 1t takes about half as much ia
maica ginger as it does whisky to make
an average man drunk.
so.CALLED MEDICINE.
There are about dozen so-called medi-
ciLes, elixirs. bitters, tones, and the like,
composed for the most part of alcohol, or
some kind OF distilled spirits, that
are being sold as beverage. The
Il
on all such preparations. No special
tax is required Tor compromising
or preparing, and for selling medi-
cines and medicinal preparations
which are really sucn in character, and
which cannot be used as beverages, but
where they are capable of being used Al
beverage, whether or motif was originally
intended that they should be, the law i'm
poses tax.
REVENUE OFFICERS Al WORK.
Collector Crenshaw has instructed his
deputies to look closely into the sale of
these preparations, and the government
authorities are determined to put
stop to it. Deputy Collector Dun
woody is in receipt daily of letters asking
for information about the sale OF one stuff
or another and whether the dealer is
liable to tax. Collector Crenshaw in a
recent letter, part OF which appeared in
the NEWS, Instructed his deputies IN de-
termining whether demand must be
made for the tax and penalty, either as
dealers or rectiiers, to carefully investi-
gate each case, taking into consideration
the character of the article in question,
class of persons who generally purchase
1t, the uses to which IL is applied after it
is purchased, and the localities where it
is sold, and in each case to ascertain the
purposes for which it is used regardless
OF what it was sold for.
BEVERAGE OR MEDICINE.
The principal question relative to the
liability of those who manufacture or sell
these preparations is whether they are
beverages or medicines. Whether the
manufacturers can make and sell them
without payment of special tax as recti-
fers and liquor dealers. This must be
de termined by the character of the arti-
Gle IN question; whether it would pro-
duce intoxicatlOn before a sufficient
quantity would be taken to produce any
medicinal effect; whether the medicinal
or vegetable ingredients used predomi-
nate sufficiently TO give an absolute me-
dlclnal character TO the preparation, or
whether the quantity Of distilled spirits il
80 large as not to be materially affected
by the other mild ingredients, and that,
therefore, while the preparation may IL
some cases be useful as a medicine, it may
also be used very well as mere drink"
MAY BE USED BOTH WAYS.
Some preparations like laudanum or
camphOr in which, although the greater
proportion is distilled spirits, yet the
other ingredients are of such a powerful
and predOmin ating quality IS to give
character to the compound and render
it unsuitable for use as a beverage"
While some of these compounds are total
ly unfit for use as a medicine and are
very palatable as beverages, vet many
OF them can be used both as a beverage
and as a medicine. When used in good
faith as medicine only, though 1t may con-
tain distilled spirits, dealers III ii
under such circumstances Will not be
held liable to pay the special tax; but, in
case it is not only capable of being used
as an Intoxicating beverage, but when
sold 1t is actually used as such by indi-
viduals, or by large class of those who
purchase it, the law, as well as Justice 10
the regular liquor dealer who pays his tax,
requires that the special tax be collected
from those who make and from those who
thus sell such compounds.
SUBJECT TO TAX.
Persons engaged in the manufacture OF
such compounds, under the name of medi-
cInes, are regarded as rectif;ers. If the
compounds are suitable for and are when
sold) used as alcoholic beverages.
If Ditters, tOnics, eliXirs and medicinal
compounds in any locality are sold and
then used as an alcoholic beverage, those
who thus sell it will be liable TO pay the
special tax. The circumstance that it is
used only as medicine in one commu-
nifty, Will not exempt from liability to tax
those dealers in it in any other locality,
where IL is used as an alcoholic leverage
Medicines are not taxable IN any form,
but to draw the line asst should be drawn
and fix definitely where the medicine
may end and the alcoholic beverage be-
gin, is difficult matter, and often per-
pleXes revenue officers, and especially
where the preparations contain large pro-
portions of alcoholic spirits. Prepara-
tions put up and labeled as medicine gem
orally sail into market under a medicinal
flag, and many of them, if not originally
intended Tor use as beverages and as sub
stitutes for Intoxicating liquors, are ca
pabe OF being so used. While they may
be sold as medicines, they really are im-
tations or compound liquors and are liza
BILE to taxation, in so far as the manufac-
ture and sale of them is concerned. the
same rs rectified spirits and compound
liquors.
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