The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-06
@ANoTHER DIsPENs ANY scANDLE.'


''ANOTHER DIsPENsARY sCANDLE.'
The headline we quote Prom about six
teen South Carolina newspapers. 1t seems
tnat most of the newspapers Of the state
keep that headline standing in type. Dis
pensary scandals come 50 frequently that
IL would be a waste of time 10 have me
printers constantly resetHng the heading
The people Of the state have come to re-
gard such scandals as being quite matters
of-course When a whole system is rotten
Il cannot be much of a surprise If corr Up
ton crops out The South Carolina dis
pensary has consistently and persistently
shown rottenness almost from its inception
The line OF scandals. frauds and outrages
has been very long one, running through
the Darlington massacre, Beckroge
trunk. various rebates. numerous bottles
Of samples" sundry "hocus-pocus keys
to the contraband room, and shortages
and defalca lions. The untoward Incl
dents in connection with the dispensary
have been literally too numerous TO mem
tion.
In this latest scandal however, one Of
the commissioners Of the dispensary-a
member Of the state governing board OF
the institulion-has been removed In h7-
grace. Al the same time a bookkeeper
was displaced for crooked business in con-
nection with the goods in the wareroom in
which seized and confscated goods are
kept. BY order of the commissioner 1t
seems. low grade whisky has been bottled.
labeled and sold under a higher grade la
bel In other words one-X whisky has
been marked with four-X labels and sold
AT the four-X price, which is 81 per gallon
more than the price for one-X. II appears
also that the brands of certain distiller es
have been used on the whisky of other dis
tilleries, the brands fixing the price aud
the quality being always inferior, There
is alleged to be a discrepancy Of about
s.. 600 between the regular price of me
whisky frauduleutly labeled and the price
received for 1t. What went with the 5000?
WHY were the brands of certain msnufac-
turers favored? These are questions which
have not yet been answered.
When Tilman was booming his dispen-
sary project one of his strongest argu-
ments before the people was the state $
guarantee of the purity of all the liquor
which it would sell. These barkeepers,
he used to say, "are selling you poison
and charging you big profit on it. We
propose that the dispensary shall serve
you chemically pure liquors The state $
name on every package win be guaran-
tee of what you are getting. And we
shall charge small profits. You will, there
fore, get better liquor at a less cost Yet
it appears that the dispensary, upon the
order of one of the state commissioners,
has been defrauding its patrons by the
CHEAP and mean exDedent of substituting
low grade whisky under high grade labels
If this scandal were an exception Il
might be hoped that the removal of the
commissioner responsible would be follow
ed by a reformation of the system and th'
elevation of its moral tone; but it is not
likely that anything of the sort viii occur.
On the other hand, it is probable that the
6ispensary will go right on breeding scan
dals. Just as it has been doing in the past
and that the newspapers Will have much
more use for their now famous standing
headline. The only remedy for South
Cardinals whisky evil is the abolition OF
the dispensary system and the substitu'
ton of local option