The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1904-03-10
JONES HITS DISPENSARY.
SAYS ITS WORSE THAN THE BARRON
SYSTEM TO THE PUBLIC.

SAYS IT'S WORSE THAN THE BAR.ROOM
SYSTEM TO THE PUBLIC.
Sam Jones the Famous Georgia Preacher, Pre-.
fers Saloons to Dispensary System-Visfted
Blind Tigers in Charleston.
Sam Jones writes to The Atlanta Jour-
nal from Gainesville, Ca, as follows: I
have spent three days of this week in
South Carolina, and I have been thinking
considerably over what I saw and heard
on this trip as we'll as on other tours
through South Carolina. spent last
Monday night in Charleston. Our train
on Coast Line was late We got to
Charleston about 9 o'clock. inquired at
the hotel for decent restaurant. I was
referred to one in the block of the hotel l
went in, ordered my supper. At the table
next to me were four young men, not
eating but drinking. They were full when
1 got in; they were fuller when I got out
When 1 got back to the hotel remarked
that there seemed to be more to drink
than to eat at the restaurant they referred
me to. That brought on more talk, and
the dispensary, with all its characteristics
was discussed.
A gentleman standing high in the fnan.
cial and political life of South Carolina
proposed to me that he would show me
something if would go with him, and I
accepted his invitation, and within two
blocks he carried me into six full-aedged
Charleston blind tigers. He said there
were 800 of them there. Some of them
were raided by the State and city constab-
ulary frequently. Others were immune;
! they never had been raid ded.
There are fourteen State dispensaries
in Charleston. suppose they only do a
small per cent of the business in liquor.
The dispensaries must close at O'Clock
in the evening, and open at 6 o'clock in
the morning, but the blind tigers do busi-
ness after the hours of the dispensary,
and they do business until the wee small
hours of the morning. The names and
places of these blind tigers are as well
known in Charleston as the clothing stores
of George Muse and Eiseman, or the dry
goods stores Of Chamberlin- j ohnson and
Keely in Atlanta. The dispensaries in the
smaller towns do large business, and
perhaps the only liquor business of any
of them worth speaking of; but they do
business, selling bust-head from sixteen
cents half pint bottle to 81 quart.
The State is the wholesale dealer and
furnishes all the dispensaries and the
States profit is made in their profits as
they sell to the county and town dispen-
sarzes. For instance each dispensary pays
the State dispensary twelve cents bottle
for that pop-skull, which the town dis
pensary sells for fifteen cents, and it has
the stamp of the State chemist on it,
reading Nothing chemically impure in
this liquor" I do not know why they do
not stamp on the bottle, Nothing morally
impure either" The one would go as far
with me as the other.
I once favored the dispensary as q
choice between the saloon and the dis
pensary, for the following reasons: First,
1 thought the dispensary would put the
bar room crowd and the liquor interests
out of politics, and We all know what
potent factor they make. Second, that
the license feature, by which the Golfers
of the town and State are enriched would
be done away with; and thirdly, because
I believed less liquor would be drunk.
But the South Carolina dispensaries
demonstrate that liquor is in politics
worse in South Carolina than any State
in the Union. And secondly, that the tax
payers are getting more money out OF it.
And thirdly, that there is more liquor
drunk out of the dispensaries of South
Carolina, per capita, in my candid judg-
ment, than out of the tull-fedged bar
rooms in other States. 1t will take South
Carolina hundred years to recover from
the effects of the dispensary; for dispen:
sary liquor not only debauches the poor
devils that drink it, but the dispensary
will debauch the whole State in its poll
tics and morals. I am as much against
the open saloon as I ever was. I am as
much against the dispensary as I am
against the saloon, and for the same reas-
ons.
And I keep saying that if whiskey is a
good thing, then turn it loose, and let it
flow ankle deep, and dipper on the limb
of every tree and give the world all the
good there is in it. If it is bad thing,
then down with and out with the whole
business in eXtenso.
Greenwood, S. c., has never had dis
pensary. For first-class citizenship, intel
ligence, morality and decency she stands