New-York tribune., 1921-01-17
Court Demands
Tight Rum Lid
Or None at All
Magistrate Sims Scores the
Authorities for Failure to
Locate Persons Who Dis
pense SEmbalming Fluid
Alcoholism on Increase
Manager of Reisenweber's,
Facing Trial, Denies Cafe
Has Violated Ordinance

"lt Is high time for New York to
have prohibition or no prohibition u
said Magistrate Charles E. Sims, after
he had imposed q number of fines in
the Jefferson Market Court yesterday
in cases which testified. to the hign
voltage Of the stimulants now being
consumed in violation Of the Volstead
act.
"You 60 on drinking this whisky,
which isn't whisky but embalmins 6
fuid." said the magistrate severeI. to a
disconsolate and suffering benchful,
''in spite Of all the warning that is
afforded by stories of earlier victims
1t should be possible to find out the
places that dispense this stuff and to
make those who sell 1t pay the penalty.
What Is more, when so many are get
ting the stuff, it should be possible
to with view to bringing the guilty
to Justice"
Two Women Prisoners
Among the prisoners fined by Magia-
trate Sims were a woman employed in
a downtown business house, who did
not know what happened between the
time she took two drinks and the time
when police found her in a stupor in a
Greenwich Village hallway; woman
clerk, in a similar condition, and n
man calling himself Frank Hayes, q
st. Louis broker, whom Patrolman
Robert Grossman found unconscious
on the sidewalk at Sixth Avenue and
Twenty-ffth Street, with $4,000 in his
pockets.
That intoxication on only two or
three drinks was becoming quite COM
mon was evident also in the Essex
Mor bot ,,vk NJ, ...,4~ T
Nolan said after hearing Mrs. Charles
Booth, of 1927 Cherry Street, testify
against her husband. Booth was re-
manded for sentence to-day after be-
ing found guilty of disorderly conduct
Mrs. Booth told Magistrate Nolan
that her husband had been getting
violently drunk regularly for con-
siderable time. "You say quite time {;
how long time?" she was asked, and
replied: "About year."
'ln other words" he inquired, "you
mean since prohibition went into ef-
feet, and your husband, who used to
comes home raving after one or two
drinks of this poison they call whisky;
is that It'll" Mrs. Booth nodded assent
Turning to attaches of the court,
Magistrate Nolan intimated that such
testimony was not surprising, and that
there was not statement Of prohibi-
ton benefits issued by hospitals. dry
enthusiasts or police which should NOT
be carefully scrutinized before accept
ance.
Deaths of Weekly Occurrence
The statement that cases of acute
alcoholism were gxowing worse was
borne out yesterday by Peter Prender.
vile. of the Police Identification Blu.
reau. He said there were deaths from
that cause every week.
At Reisenweber's Restaurant, Eighth
Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street, dane
ing continued after the police arrested
Patrick v. Kyne, the manager, early
Yesterday for refusing to obey instruc
tions to close at ! a. m. 1t will con
tinue daily after 1 o'clock, it was in
timated yesterday at the restaurant
on the assumption that there is nj
ordinance to prohibit it and that else
where cabarets and ballroom hilarit,
have been unmolested.
1t was said also that the restaurant
might take action against the city i.
the decision of Samuel M. Hitchcock
verse to Kyne, who is charged with
maintaining a public nuisance. Charlie.
Gallagher. clerk. of 666 Tenth Ave
nue., and Fred Ullman, head waiter, O.
Reisenweber's, living at 975 Interval,
Avenue, and George Decoo, waiter, Of
81 Nineteenth Street. Elmhurst, L. 1.
were arrested with Kyne and charged
with violation of the Volstead act
Their cases will be heard to-day.
Their defense rests on the uniqu,
contention that a quart bottle O.
whisky offered as evidence by Polio,
Inspector Boettler's assistants, Lieu
tenant Rigney and Detective Moog, Of
the West Sixty-eighth Street station
was not sold to them for S22, as the,
declared. but was brought into tn
restaurant by them with the express
intention Of using it in making al
arrest
Kyne contradicted the detectives as
sertion that they had been served with
highballs, and said that food and sof
drinks were the whole of his bin o
fare. whether for regular customers
police or patrons who winked.