The leader., 1902-03-19
THE "wHISkY BILL"
BY HARRIET b. KELLs.

issued for a saloon in any town except
such as has a population of five hun
dred or over and which is under police
protection day and night.
According to official records, the sit
uation in the wet" counties seems to
be as follows: Thirteen counties now
license saloons. In Marshall, Madison,
Adams, Wilkinson and Hancock, the
sale for some time has been confined to
one town of 800 or more inhabitants,
viz: Holly Springs, Canton, Natchez,
Woodville, Bay st. Louis. Harrison
and Jackson counties are "dry" except
in the towns Immediately on the Gulf
Scranton, Moss Point, Biloxi, Hands
boro, Mississippi City, Pass Christian
aud Gulfport. All of the above-named
places exceed the required populations;
consequently the present situation will
not alter. under the new law, in these
seven counties 1t should close the
saloons now in Quitman county. Tu-
meas nineteen and Issaquena's ten Ii
censed dram shops should be reduced
in numbers and they will, doubtless,
centralize at Tunica and Mayersville,
the only towns which can meet the re
quirement of population. Washington
county has forty-two licensed places,
three of them authorized for the jug
trade. Several towns, by their census,
will share with Greenvlle the privile ge
of the open saloon. Warren county
has forty six licensed liquor houses,
six of these selling in quantities greater
than one gallon, in other words,
shipping jugs. Fifteen retail saloons
close, but Vicksburg can still run her
| thirty-one dens of degradation,
anarchy and crime, and no one shall
dispute their right or make them
afraid. Jelferson's eight saloons
should now be reduced to the four in
Rodney and Ifayette; but it will be in
teresting to stand aside and watch
Harriston grow, like Jonah's gourd in
| a night, from 300 to 800 inhabitants, in
order to retain its two saloons. Sud
den growth will be the new symptom
developed by many places made in
valid by the new law.
TO sum up, The only counties in
which the present situation will change
/ are Tuuica, Quitman, Washington, Is
+, saquvua, Warren, Jefferson Quitman,
and possibly Tanica, becoming dry.
. There are now lS9 licensed saloons in
the State, II of them licensed for the
jug trade. It is impossible that the
new law viii close more than fifty re
tail places. All of the wholesale houses
or Jug distributors are ia the larger
towns and will not be affected.
! prohibitionists will rejoice in the
smallest aaiE over the saloon. But we
do not see #tiy .ha State at large
should congratulate it4est nRQn i'm
proved conditions respecting tee
/ liCuor traffic. There will be no less
liquor soad only the transfer of the
place of sale froIp : few villages to
| many towns the jug trade wlll po~2 its
deadly GOOD updiminished into dry
counties. The OTIS hundred and forty
saloons that will cnntlR1e &C 40 Pqsl-
ness "at the old stand" va. TIC tfa@tf-
cally the only gamers. for they will 90
the trade now distributed among 1s9.
The liquor men in the Legislature said
/ the new law was a compromise with
them the local press of jackson so re-
! ported it; the more one analyzes the
situation the more correct their YER
| dict seems
Within few days the following in
CT dent has Saddened the writer, for she
knows the persons referred to- Far
from the railways a little town nestles
between the hills of a dry" county:
| Its Christian people are as progressive
as any in the State \ refined mother
was there giving her whole life to the
rearing of her two sons, one a bright
lad in his early teens, the other little
fellow tagging always lovingly, ad-
mirlngly in the footsteps of the big
brother. From some unknown source
the elder became victim of the drink
habit, and recently, in one of his fire.
quent sprees, he gave the little brother
SOM of the liquor with which he was
/ damn, lirn.,lr
child was placed unconscious in his
mothers arms from which he was
taken only to be laid in his quiet
grave. y few doors off, in sweet,
Christian home, another fine lad is
gro wing up under the loving care Of a
most superior mother. To day that
mothers heart is breaking over the
d patton of that boy, and she is
frantically pleading to fly anywhere
that he may be safe from temptation
This is the record of only two homes
III one town of a county that has freed
self from the legal liquor traffic,
Bat one town of 800 or more inhab-
i'au;s' Canton-which the law pro
tees in its six saloons, supplies it with
blind tigers and jugs, and homes are
wrecked, and hearts broken, and lives
d graded, and tragedies worse than
dra'h enacts are the consequences.
Who shall dare to write the complete
annals Of the l4O saloons in all the
towns of 900 or more iuhab.t iuts"
which the law permits still to pour out
their deadly flood, by the vote of few
friends of temperance, who needed
little more iron in their nerves and
good deal more infl"Xibility in their
principles.
The new spirit which, under the able