The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-02
Shabby Little Bar Room in the Seventeen
Milion-Dol Capitol, Which Is Well
Patronized and Yields Large Profits.
officials Manifest Great Anxiety TO As
sist in Destroying the Boycott.
A Bit of Realistic Stage Work in an East
Side Theater-Curious Abuse of Religious
Tracts-Anglomania at Sheepshead Bay.
The Liquor Store in the Albany Capitol and
the Large Patronage 1t Enjoys.


The Liquor Store in the Albany Capitol and
the Large Patronage 1t Enjoys.
Special to the indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, May Liquor reformers are as
founded by the discovery of bar room kept by
the Commonwealth of New York. A large num-
ber Of agitators, from uncompromising Prohi-
bitionists to those who merely desire improve
mentin the excise laws, have been to Albany
this week to convince the Legislature. One
delegation of Methodist clergymen made the trip
in the interest of the movement to submit the
prohibitory question to q popular vote next
year. 1t is one of these gentlemen who describes
what he saw as follows: ''You would hardly be-
lieve me If told You know of gin-mill in q
building that cost seventeen millions of dollars,
and with proprietor richer than any other
landlord in New York State. Yet is fact. 1
visited the place last week and saw it crowded
with drinkers. The building is the most costly
and snowy in the country; but it is not exactly
palace bar-room, for it is best known as the State
Capitol at Albany. Yes, it is fact that the
great State of New York, with its millions of
protesting Christians, and its great array of to-
tai abstainers, is now the landlord of bar-room.
This new drinking place is on the second or SEN
ate-and Assembly floor, just off the hallway that
connects the two legislative halls. It is not
beautiful; on the contrary. it is exceedingly
shabby No gilded signs beguile the eye of the
passer-by, or tempt the weak to drink On the
contrary, again, it is not marked in any way,
and stranger could not find 1t unless some one
guided him, for the great State of New York ap-
pears to be considerably ashamed, and perhaps
trife frightened about the new business it has
got in to-"
But the saloon is not languishing by any
means. Beyond all question, it does more bust
ness than any other rum-shop on the Hudson
above New York, and is more prosperous than
any other drinking place in Albany or elsewhere
along the Central road, excepting place in
Troy, one in Utica, two in Syracuse two or
three in Rochester and eight or ten in Buffalo.
The licenses tackled up behind the door are made
out instha name of "Reagen u Buckley" and
these men. whoever they are. have got very
soft thing, SO far as money making is concerned.
Their pretense is to run restaurant. Some ia
bles and chairs are placed on one side OF the
main passageway between the two chambers,
and lunch-counter is parallel to the wall on the
other side. This in itself is an outrage shock
to all who enter the Capitol. and a blot upon a
building otherwise dignifed, grand and admira-
BILE. You cannot escape the restaurant any more
than you can miss Union square If you walked
down Broadway. It is exactly as public as if it
were main street frequented by 250000 per-
sons, for that is the number that visits the Capi
tol each year Moreover, the restaurant is prac-
Ia In ny.ly - oe
viands is served, though it proves an accommo-
dation. of course, in building so much fire.
quented; but the real business and profit lie in
the gin-mill.
This New York State liquor store is reached
by passing behind the lunch-counter and through
a door that you would naturally suppose led to
the kitchen. This door opens into small un-
tidy, bare and barnlike apartment without
hoor-covering or anything upon the walls ex-
cept the official licenses and the coats and hats
of the employees. In other respects there
buy drink. No one guards the door or asks
any questions. '"rhe more the merrier" is the
motto as in every other bar-room. Boxes of
bottled lager beer and ale are piled upon the
floor. and at one end Of the room is hardwood
stocked with glasses, pitcher, cigar
boxes and things of that lk. The room is al
ways crowded with Assemblymen, Senators,
clerks from the State departments, lobbyists,
visitors and the friends of persons of all these
sorts. You seldom see more than three or four
persons patronizing the so-caled restaurant, and
more often the chairs around the dining tables
are all unoccupied, but that official bar room is
almost always during the sessions of the Leg
islature speciality humming like a beehive,
There is a hotel and restaurant down side
street twenty yards to the north Of the Capitol,
and the proprietor used to make money hand
over fist; but the opening of the Capitol bar
room by the State of New York this winter has
thinned out his customers SO that the place
seems wholly deserted. Other bar-rooms make
costly displays Of furniture. cut-glass mirrors,
wall decorations and thousand and one com
forts and conveniences, but the State of New
York offers none of these. 1t sells gin. rum,
whisky, brandy, champagne and all the rest in
the barest kind of room, and makes just so
much more profit than if it went into the bust
ness according to its means.
THE DESPISED BOYCOTT.
Public Opinion Having Asserted Itself, There