The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-11-23
Cards with the Drinks.

From time to time we hear talk about
instituting in Georgia a liquor system sim
liar to that in South Carolina. There is
not a great deal of such talk just at pres
! ent, to be sure, but it keeps recurring at
short intervals. 1t is, therefore, of inter-
est to note whatever there is new in the
workings of the great moral institution
that the Tinmans and the Evanses have set
up in the Palmetto state.
A prominent citizen of the city of Green
VILE hearing that the dispensary was CIV
ing away a deck of cards with every bottle
of whisky sold determined to see for him
self if it were true. He sent to the dspen-
sary, and his messenger soon returned
with the liquor and the deck of cards. On
the back of each card in the deck was the
advertisement of a whisky firm. The gen.
tleman made note of the facts, and sent
the whisky and deck of cards to the Office
of the Greenville News.
When Tillman first agitated the dispen-
sary scheme he declared that it was to
be a temperance concern. Its object was
to be almost wholly philanthropic. 1t was
to reduce drunkenness. which would in
turn lessen crime which would in its turn
reduce court costs, and reduction of court
costs would permit of lower taxes; and all
that sort of thing. While reforming the
sot and making his wife and children hap
py the dispensary was to stand between
the few remaining consumers of liquors
and the dealers, guaranteeing to consum-
ers only the purest liquors. The scheme
was so adroItly argued. from a temperance
standpoint, that the Tillmanites secured
almost the solid support of the prohibi-
tionists, who regarded it as the very next
best thing to general prohibition; if in
deed it were not better
When the dispensary law had been put
upon the statute books all pretense that it
was a temperance institution was cast
aside. 1t was a revenue-raising concern,
Tillman said, and was to be operated by
the state for the profit in it. Barrooms-
they are called dispensaries by courtesy
were forced on counties and communities
that had been dry for fifteen TO twenty
years. In Horny county there had not been
a grog shop for twenty years. until the
bosses at Columbia forced the opening of
one at Toddville. There are many SINH
lar instances that might be mentioned. So
far from reducing the consumption of
liquor, therefore, the dispensary seeks to
increase it.
According to the information from Green
vile, given above, the dispensary is not
only pushing the sale of liquor, but is also
doing what ii can to promote that adjunct
to the barroom, the gambling table 1t is
distributing playing cards free, with every
bottle of whisky. Logically, the deck of
cards ought to go with the bottle Of whis
ky. In Texas they have a motto, 1.-THE tail
goes with the hide" The hide is the whis-
ky shop; the tail is the gambling para
phernalia. These South Carolina is put
ting into the hands of her sons. To be con-
sistent she ought also to make state
monopoly of pistols and dirks, and give as
a prize for the purchase of a gallon of
whisky the choice between a pistol and a
dirk. Thus she would complete the line
of pandering to drunkenness. gambling ana
violence.
The true purpose of the dispensary is
that it shall be a political machine for the
party in power.