The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1898-10-26
The New Legislature and the DISpensary
laW.

This paper only endorses the feat
ures of the dispensary law, and not
the bill as now enforced. We believe
there are Objectionable features In
the present law that should be elm
mated. The employment of so many
state constables has always been a
bone of contention. and now that
the U. S. supreme court has declar-
ed the law constitutional, and the
opponents of the dispensary have
ceased to encourage violators, we be-
lieve that our county and city officers
could ferret out offenders.
When the dispensary law was first
put in force, it was perhaps necessa-
rv to employ special constables to
look after its enforcement; but there
is no longer any necessity to keep up
such a large army Of idle men at the
expense OF the taxpayers. A few
special constableS, scattered over the
state. could do as good and efficient
work. and with less friction, than the
host now employed. 1t cost about
fiftv two thousand dollars q year to
SUPPORT the constable force, which is
more than we pay all state officers and
their assistants. The State sustains
two of her colleges with less than
what it costs to maintain this consta-
BILE force.
Now, if prohibition could be enforc-
ed, there is not a good and patriotic
citizen in our state, not personally
interested in the liquor traffic, but
would vote for prohibition. But eX-
perience, not only il South Carolina
but in every other state where it has
been tried, shows that prohibition
simply means carnival of blind IT,
cerism. Just so long as the human
appetite Graves liquor, men will man
ufacture and sell it, despite all the
laws we can make. We have tried
prohibition in our own county OF
Spartanburg; and every citizen llv-
ing here at that time knows what a
perfect farce it was.
Whiskev is amedicine, so recoSn!Z-
ed by the fraternity, and you cannot
prevent a physician prescribing for
and furnishing his patients the pro
per treatment to relieve them. Of
course, no reputable physician would
take advantage of this privilege to
run a drug store bar-room, but the
medical profession, like every other.
has its black sheep in the flock, and
the day that prohibition was put IN
force they would move to town anC
open prescription bar-rooms.,
The last two years that prohlDlIlo1
was enforced in Athens, Ga, coun
try doctor moved to that town and
opened blind tiger drug store on a
few hundred dollars capital; anc
when the establishment of the dis
pensary there, drove him out OF bus
mess he openly boasted that he hac
made eleven thousand five hundred
dollars in the two years.
For the first two or three years al
ter the dispensary was established II
our State there was ground for gray:
suspicion of corruption. An lnVestl
cation of the books Of that lnstltu
ton will show that there was some
thing wrong and crooked in its man
acement. But under the presen
state board, with Mr. Haselden a:
chairman, we assert that there is no
a department in our state govern
ment conducted in a more straight
forward, business-like manner, ant
feyery nickle received is accounted
for. In the first place, the BARRON
that was once kept at the dispensar.
and stocked with sample bottles,
has been abolished by the presen