The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-11-13
GARY HAS A NEW SCHEME

From the Louisville courier-Journal.
TIME saloonkeepers of the town oil
Gary, in Indiana, propose
i novel method of fighting an Ell
fort TO abolish by ordinance the GUS
tom of giving away lunch with drinks.
They will operate primarily as pur-
vevors of edibles and will give away
beer.
The famous Persian poet who de-
ciares that of all that men should ever
care to fathom he was never deep IN
anything but wine says:
"I wonder what the winners buy
one half so precious as the stuff they
sell?'
More commonly in this country those
who patronize saloons wonder now
they can afford to give away any
thing so precious as everything mt 10
cat has become. Yet they do SO, ara
at a profit, as proven by their vigorous
onposition to efforts to abolish free
lunch.
An oyster, an egg or sausage with
each drink except schooner, is offered
n
and thousands of purchasers of beer
regularly take advantage of the oI<
fer. OF course, bibulous patron does
not eat every time he drinks but there
is a considerable. and remunerative'
patronage for the combination, an oys-
ter and a glass of beer--or sausage
or an egg and a glass of beer as taste
dictates. There are also many total
abstainers who frequent saloons ana
buy very small glasses of very good
milk for cents with bit OF Tree
lunch thrown in. The more preten-
tious saloons. where more or less
elaborate buffet luncheon is spread,
frequently with attendants employed
to serve 1t, may perhaps count upon
giving free lunch to only small pre-
norton of their patrons. Often the
service continues only through more or
loss elastic luncheon and dinner hours,
and it is for the accommodation OF reg
ular patrons as we'll as for the stimula-
ton of trade. The oyster with each
drink type of saloon does not set
IN a luncheon to which the man who
goes to the saloon primarily to eat, and
who is not a liberal patron of the bar,
IL unwelcome 1t sells oysters and sau-
sa ges and eggs Just as regularly as IL
sells beer. although the food is custo-
roarilv regarded as free" because the
nrice OF the beer is the same without
the food. When eggs are as high as
eggs usually are nowadays the value
of the beer is less than the value OF
the egg. And the same may be said CT
the oyster and probably of the sausage.
1t would be just as easy to advertise
glass of beer free with cash oyster. saul
sage or egg free with each glass Or
beer. But the obvious obstacle in the
way of a project which would certainly
commend itself to many fairly virtu-
GUS, and not at all incorporate, citi-
zens, is that if a city council may
abolish free lunch it may abolish free.
beer. The saloonkeepers might meet
the situation, for the moment at least,
by charging cents for the beer
when the purchaser also buys an oys-
ter, egg or sausage at the nominal
price of 1 cent, which would be re-
sarded by everyone as bargain. But
then, no doubt, the law could sit upon
the saloons easily enough. 1t might
be provided that licenses to retail al
coholic beverages should not allow sa-
looms to sell food. The restaurants
would like the plan well enough, and
many persons who have an exaggerat-
ed idea of the evils of beer and saul
sages in combination as leading to the
use of beer without sausages and In
larger quantities, or perhaps to whisky
without eggs or oysters or sausages
and in soul destroying doses, would be
delighted But would the oysterless,
sausageless, eggless saloon be less in
furious to public health and morals
than the saloon that gives away eggs
when the ,hens are doing their duty,
oysters when there is an ''r'' in the
month. and sausages every day in the
year save when the lid is on? Would
the buyer of "a beer" large or small,
be better off without the accustomed
bait that covers the hook which the
rum microbe shoots into his midriff !?
Would society be improved in tone by
the suppression of the oyster. the sau-
sage and the egg as gifts from the
vintner to his patrons? Would those
who climb upon the water wagon at
the beginning Of the new year sit