The Connecticut labor press., 1920-09-18

lllSIe IS ally hSCSSSlly TOT d ISW olty
 Hall in New Haven. My humble
 for city job-somebody needs the 1 money.
 Iritis, a serious disease of the eye,
 is said to be prevalent in New Haven. I have 1t on the word of a local physic- ain that iritis /can, in many cases, be traced directly to drinking whiskey such
 as is being illegally sold The booze, although wood alcohol doesn't enter into its composition has in 1t a danger
 ous chemical that acts directly on the optic nerves. More light is needed on the liquor question as presented since prohibition became a fact in law If not in operation.
 The more the light is let in on the
 prohibition situation, noonshining, bootlegging and all other deviltry con
 nected, the more the people will come to be1eive that the Volstead act must be interpreted to allow the selling of light wines and beers.
 Some of this so-ca1led near beer Is
 about as rough on the inenr man as the
 moonshine hooch. Not having alcohol i'll it sufficiently to preserve 1t from souring, a chemical preservative is sub stituted and the stuff takes deep hold on the drinkers vitals The victim
 may not see snakes. but he is likely to eventually see the doctor lowering around.
 They got all through with the chem
 ical beer stuff in Maine, where pro-
 hibition is, an ancient game, years ago.
 They have, and doubtless still do drink
 raw alcohol and Jamaica ginger, but
 near beer of the strang1e hold brand was banished long ago. Give the peo- pie light wines and beers under govern
 meth supervision and the result will be an era of real temperance.
 Certain ofhcai1s in New Haven's city hall are making loud outcry to have their salaries raised from $2, 400 a year to $500, with old high-cost-of- living as the excuse. 1 happen to know that several of these officials have repeat edly denounced union labor men for
 seeking higher wages on the same ground. Well, now, let's see about it a little bit further. Salary of $2, 400 a year
 means over $46 week. How manr, wage workers on the average are get ting that? And what's more to the point, how many workers were getting as much as that during the time that
 the officials were getting 1t? We won't
 kick about the city hall .boys getting $1 100 more added to the present sti-
 pend maybe they deserve 1t, but I opine it's not bit rough to suggest that con- sistency is jewel.
 These high wages and the great prosperity that we heard so much about, yes, and the great era of reckless spending for 1uxuries, somehow or other don't seem to fit in with some other things I read about. Elm City charity commissioners, for instance, say that calls for help on the city from the poor are just as great as ever before. Rents of the poor have been raised, too, just like those of the more fortur- ate classes. Funerals, 1t seems, today cost three times as much as formerly. And, for mercy sakes, when you come to figure 1t out all around it's terrible expensive thing to be a pauper, either a live one or dead one.
 The rules of the big packing houses forbid the managers of local branches to discuss the meat business, that IS be- yond present prices, or to enter into any arguments. However, one of them
 recently 1oosened up enough to tell me
 that prices were about to drop.