The Alaska daily empire., 1917-01-13
Tobacco to Be Limited For Sale None to Be Purchased During
 Night Time.
IS AIMED AT SMOKING
How Purchase of Smokes or CheWS Can Hasten
 End of the War Is
 Stumper, by love!

LONDON, (By MaiD When the mo treating" order was enforced ii was generally accepted as some thing of a joke; the clearing of the dinner tables in restaurants of all bottles after half-past nine o'clock at night met with a more mixed re- ception, but the new order which arrived this week came with the force almost of knockout blow. True. everybody knew it was com ing; the warning had been sufli- cient, but hardly anybody realized that such an absurd proposition pos sibly could be made in earnest. At the most they thought it would be withdrawn even at the last moment.
 The blow is aimed at smokers this time and unless the smoker provides himself with sufficient ci- garettes, cigars or pipe tobacco be- fore 8 o'clock at night he will have to go without until next morning because after that hour the order runs that no tobacco in any form may be supplied in any hotel, res taurant or public house-unless the would-be smoker first pays for q meal" How such an order is go- ing to help the war to a victorious conclusion for the Allies is puzzling everybody.
 First of all, Mir. Samuel, the home secretary, intrenching himself behind the Defense of the Realm Act, forbade the sale of sweetmeats or tobacco anywhere after D. m, Then he changed it to 8 D. m. Then the absurdity of preventing a man dining in a restaurant from being supplied with a cigar or cigarette after his meal unless he bought 1t before 8 o'clock dawned upon him, and he had another try, extending the exemption for meals consumed on the premises to include any re- treatments consumed on the prem ises, and tobacco supplied at a meal for immediate consumption.
 Thus confusion is worse confound- ed. The "sale of meals consumed on the premises" now becomes "any refreshments consumed on the prem ises." If this means what it says, any hotel, restaurant or public house may sell "any refreshments" after o'clock If, however, the between a "meaI and l "any refreshments" is thus abolish cd, tobacco, cigarettes or cigars may, be sold after o'clock | to anybody who first buys "any re- 
 Thus. if 3 cents worth of bread and cheese, or a glass of milk and Scent cake often form a "meal' for thousands of Londoners, what, one psks, does "any refreshments" mean?
 What Is Refreshment?
 In the name of a puzzled public, The Express, with humorously af- 'ected consternation, asks a few questions which the author of the Prig's Order," as it terms it, might answer.
 Are biscuits refreshments? If SO, low many biscuits. If ten biscuits , Ire refreshments for a fairly hungry person, are two biscuits refresh , nents for one not so hungry? And, . what about one biscuit?
 If a publican is liable to a fine of I 500, or six months imprisonment l or selling a cigarette after 8 O. ! lock to a person who has not paid I or "any refreshments" is he to be ( rosecuted if he sells a cigarette to T
 person who first buys a cents s 'orth of refreshments in the shape I one biscuit? (
 If biscuits are refreshments, what s bout chocolate? And how much I hocolate comes under the defni- C on of "any refreshments?" Even \