The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-18
KITCHEN BARS, THE SECRET
 OF CONFUSION IN MAINE
Results of a Careful Investiga ton Into Important Aspects
 of the Liquor Question
(By Arthur III. GIeason.)

For a lifetime the cities of Maine have been suffering from the secret sale of liquor. The people who have paid the penalty for constitutional prohibition are the families of the decent honest poor. I have made a. study of the city of Portland and the effects on that city of nuiIified pro- h1b1tion. What is true of Portland IS true in varying degrees of nine other cities Of Maine.
 When the lid is on, the community along Center, Commercial, Temple, Fore, Free, Pleasant ,Danforth, fin ion and India Streets-honest Irish working people, eighty per cent. of them-pay the price for the brave show of virtue protected by the rest or the city on Congress, State and High streets.
 Under strict enforcement, when the parrooms are closed and beer is not on draft, the kitchen bars are in fuII blast These then humber between en in tenements. The stuff is kept hidden in the woodshed, cellar, or false window. The hides" for it are in kerosene cans, in mattresses, in a cradle between the ticks, etc. It is sold to friendly neighbors and labor ing men. One Portland man made life work of devising and invsnfng hides"
 Driven to Whiskey.
 When the lid is on, and beer is not on draft, it drives the trade to wfis- key. Whiskey is less bulky than beer. A woman can hide whiskey in the woodshed or down in the cellar. With the lid on and the business forced into secrecy there was one block where fourteen out of the fifteen fam lilies were selling. The people on the third floor did not sell as much, but they sold some. The mother of a lOngShoremen and the laborers in the kitchen with the outlawed hard stuff which she brings in under her apron.
 Illustrating the network of human relationships in the rum belt, there is a liquor dealer now operating. His liquor dealer. Two of her children have been born in jail Her fatn- CT and mother were in the liquor bus mess. Her sisters are in 1t.
 The disintegration of families runs along as follows: A mother goes in-. to the liquor business with 8 kitch- en bar. She runs the room bright ana hospitabie till eleven and twelve at night, with men dropping in. The daughter gets the habit of wander ing out of an evening. Later, a man joins the family, becomes intimate with the girl and finally 'Inarries her. The mother dies. The girl takes up the trade. The husband leaves her and she takes up with another man. To-day she has a family of younger brothers in the home with her who know her way of life. After all that history she is only now twenty-one. In another family the woman grew hard and nagging. One day she fol- lowed the husband half down the street with her nagging. He con- tinued his walk to the wharf and drowned himself.
 I know a man who has seen a doz- en girls go wrong because of the kitchen selling.
 Another woman seller had heal thy baby born to her a couple of years after her husband had gone elsewhere. A few days later phy- sician found the baby dead, with all the signs of having been smothered A woman seller makes second marriage, and for the first three months up to the present day the first husband lives in idleness on her easy money Soon he will have the habit and will never return to work Instead of helping at home. the boys of the neighborhood run errands for the kitchen seller. She gives them an extra nickel for bringing her cake of soap from the grocery and so on, easy money for little err rands They grow used to that kind of money. and develop skill in making themselves useful as runners and look outs. No other kind of work or money appeals to them after few months of the excitement.
 The other mothers see the kitchen seller making more money, and they open up a case.
 Sons see their mother tuck away a wad of bills in the oli dressing wrap per in the closet They "crack" the wrapper for some easy spending mon- ey. One case is now pending of boy who robbed his mother of one hundred dollars.
 Your friend in the family house which you own and sublet asks per- mission to keep his jug in the wood-. she'd If it is pinched, you must swear it is yours. And there comes
 Some of the folks hide it carefully in the closet. Others say the best There the children get at it.
 The men dropping in for a drink talk loosely with the woman who sells She answers in kind to hold the badinage, grows jealous and mo- rose They drift apart The husband deserts. A t
 The Wreckage of Prohibition.
 Another seller is a loose woman, and sells herself to some of the men who are regular drink customers. Each wife of the neighborhood grows suspicious of her husband, feeling sure he is one of the favored custom CTS.
 Each of these instances is part of the recent history of Portland in the rum belt In each the name can be supplied Such are the facts of tho disastrous effects of prohibition on the families of the poor in cities.
 Certain sections are laden with the wreckage of prohibition The rum belt has meant a steady ebb tide in human welfare through the last 20 years-Collier's, Oct. '.