Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1922-06-16
How Your Hootch is Made

ms editorial IS primarily for the
benefit OF the man who drinks noon.
SHINE liquor. Others who are not on.
gagged IN poisoning their bodies will
find 1t Of interest.
me most lnVetcrate hootch hound
IN mississippi, if he could but see
now the stuff he drinks is made. would
swear off forever.
Hardly a drop of the moonshine
whlsNey being sold in Jackson came
from a place that bore any resem-
blance to sanitary surroundings.
On the contrary, the average moon
SHINE still is a place Of indescribable
DIRT, filth and squaIor.
If you could but behold one Of
these places, and examine the CON
tanners from which your beloved
white lightning" is drawn, it would
make you vomit up your toe nails.
The Daily News has with the per-
mission of Prohibition Director M. r.
DAILY, examined some of the written
reports submitted to the Federal gov
eminent by prohibition enforcement
Officers describing the stills they have
ra'ded during the past few weeks.
AT n place not far distant from
Jackson the officers found a dead
blacksnake, about six feet long, badly
decomposed, in a barrel of mash from
which the liquid had been drawn.
AT another still where the barrel
OF sour mash was buried in the ground
a decayed bullfrog was, found, float
ing on top.
Barrels of mash have been found in
open water closets devoid of sewer
age that were filthy and filled with
flies.
At a still of large capacity the can
OF the still was so filthy that it had
been fly-blown and infoA ted with
maggots. The plant was i'm operation.
and the white lightning was being fill
tered through the maggots.
1t should be borne in mind that
practically all the stills raided by
prohibition officials are found in the
open, generally in some low. dirtv
swamp, where all kinds of insects
and flies have easy access.
The average moonshiner has no
time to think of sanitation. He is
chiefly concerned with getting his
miserable brew made and marketed as
quickly rs possible.
The scene around the average still
would turn the stomach of a dead
mule. The ground is nasty and sloppy
covered with old peach stones, potash.
concentrated I've cans, regurgitated
chewing tobacco, dirty TASKS, carboys,
iruIt Jars, old barrels-anything and
everything that will hold liquor, re.
CARELESS of how it may have been or.
lginally used, and never even given a
casual washing before the hastily
manufactured liquor is placed therein
Every Int of it Is made amid foul
ness inconceivable and the connections
that are brewsd are such as only q
cooper-lined stomach could stand.
Up in Director Daily's office vol
will e scores of liquor samples taker
from stills which showed, on chemica
analysis, that concentrated I've wa,
used in the clarifying process.
You would no more put concentrat
ed I've in your stomach, if you knew
1t, than you would deliberately swal
low a dose of prussic acid, yet tn
use of concentrated I've in the maxim.
OF moonShine liquor is a common prac
tice.
You will also. see connections O
browni%h hue. Others a dirty yellow
red, opaque and vissd, Of every de
gree of rankness in smell and taste.
These liquors are manufactured b
men who are ignorant of the frs
element of the laws of fermentatio
or the rules Qf sanitation. They cor
coct the deadly stuff by main strengt
and awkwarduess, 80 to speak, a,
sole and only aim being to evoly
;, something with a powerful kick
!, It, ard they give never a thought I
: how dangerous or poisonous it ma
: be.
The picture is not overdrawn. G
down to the Federal courtroom /,
s any term time and look at the moo,
sinners lined up for sentence. II
very sight of those pleading guilty
$ convicted of making liquor ought
be enough to discourage any sane h
nan being from drinking the stu
they manufacture. You wouldn't |
one Of them come into your home u
less he had first been given a carb
lie acid bath.
And when you stop to think tn