Birmingham age-herald., 1894-12-09
DISPENSARIES.
Sam Jones Has Been Studying the
 System in South Carolina.
After Having Made a Thorough Inspection He EmphaticaIIy Pronounces That Gov. Tillman's Plau Is Far Better
 Than the Open Saloon.
lcopYRIGHT, iso4l


 in their judgment, will conduce to the restriction or extermination of the whisky traffic within the borders of these states.
 The legislature of Georgia has under discussion HOW bill to turn the liquor traffic over to odispensaries, and it seems to be hanging fire little.
 It has always astonished me that when legislation against this, the worst enemy of God and man, is pro posed how some men will stand up in respectable audiences and ask for time to deliberate, and time to ponder, and time to discuss question that any man with sense enough to go in out of shower of rain could settle by walking the streets of Atlanta, Ga., or Nash vile, Tenn, from seven o'clock in the morning till ten o'clock at night and watch the ingress and egress of saloons and determine in moments time that the open saloon is the open gateway to he'll
 I have no patience with the wise statesmen' and "conservative politi- cians" who want to mature their thought and act in the best interest of humanity whenever temperance legis- lation is suggested by their compeers.
 I have just returned from hurried trip through South Carolina. I spent one day and night in Sumpter.
 In company with one of the pastors in the city I visited Q dispensary. went through it. l saw it.
 The dispensary of Sumpter is nice store-room in the center of the city, with all the bottles and demijohns labeled and sealed sitting upon the shelves.
 At the front door of the dispensary there is q place cut off with pickets, something like an insurance or real estate office, about ten feet square. This is the only part of the building the public can ente4, Liquor is sold by the dispensary keeper, from half plnt bottle to four gallons and three : quarts to any individual. It opens at seven in the morning and closes at six in the evening. There is no loafing, or drinking, or treating within the dis pensary.
 As bad as this may be, it is a thou. sand per cent. better than the open saloons with its hangers on, with it's young men going to destruction and the old buns making it their rendez- vous. I am no advocate of the dis pensary. have fought whisky in all it's forms for fifteen years. I fight under black flag. I show no quarters to, nor ask any quarters of, the whisky traffic. It has left it's scars on me.
 It has invaded the precincts of the homes of my loved ones and made some of them wear the stripes.
 I am conscious of the power of the whisky traffic I know how parties and politicians tremble when "the whisky traffic shakes it's fist, know it's power to lobby, know it's power to. buy. Whenever and wherever any state in this union shall have an unpurchasa- ble and unbulldozable legislature, then we shall have laws for the protectio-- of home and we will get such les isla- tion as will retire the whisky traffic, or, exterminate it.
 know it is a source of revenue to the states, cities and towns, but it is a, most solemn fact that whisky has never paid its way anywhere.
 IL LdhCS LlOlG oO POiiSS ip, uO SOAlu1 Ol 1t (so called), to punish its offenses and its criminals than it ever paid in rev. enues to any state or to any com munity.
 know that the closing of the saloon dispensary does not shut off the whisky traffic. It is an internal species of law ~lessness and the crowd who traffic in liquor will sell liquor until they are in hell a-frying, but we must acknowledge the fact that wherever blind tigers live they are reflection upon every sworn officer and 8 disgrace to the proseeut- ing attorneys, grand jurors and judges whose duty it is to arraign and punish them
 Wherever you find blind tigers you will find that perjury camps all around them, and verify believe that any man who will buy and drink blind tiger liquor will swear lie in any court as black as perdition itself.
 We may talk of election laws and fair elections and all that sort of thing, but nine-tenths of the debauch cry of tho ballot boxes can be traced to liquor
 Augusta, Ga., with its numerous sa- looms, can pile up any majority she wishes, and wherever there is such fraud in politics you will find demi- john at the bottom; sometimes 1t is a demijohn that can walk and is com monly called politician.
 There is no fact clearer to my mind than that nine-tenths of the corrup- tion in politics and social life, against which moralists proclaim and which newspapers denounce day after day, can be traced to the liquor traffic as its prime cause
 Why men can't see this and why they don't know this Is a mystery I can't solve.
 have lived in a dry town for more than ten years. There is no such thing in Cartersville, nor has there been for years such thing as local blind tiger. Occasionally a low down negro or lower down white man will peddle it around the outskirts of the town out of jug, but hine-tenths of them are caught and punished, as the record of our courts will show. A local blind ti- ror fhok uot, oa, snapt or GOA fe .,y.