The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1924-01-09
HOW beer and LIGHT
Wine LAWS WORK
OUT IN QUEBEC

To learn at f1rst hand how the
light wine and beer law was working
out in Quebec, The Ladies' Home
Journal sent A. B. Macdonald there
to investigate with an open and un-
prejudiced mind. We quote from his
account of what he found:
One of the first persons with whom
I talked in the province of Quebec
was j. D. Hudson, comptroller Of the
national breweries, and a leading
spokesman for the brewers of that
province. "The Quebec liquor law is
the greatest temperance law ever en-
acted" he said. "We give the peo-
pie all the beer they want, and that
has reduced drunkenness to about
nothing. There is no drunkenness to
speak of in Quebec"
An hour later was in the Office of
A. Geoffrion, who presides over the
recorders court in Montreal, and he
gave me statistics showing that in
the last two years there came into
that court 12,04S persons who had
been arrested in Montreal while "ly-
ing drunk in a public street or pub
lie place." 1 quote exactly from the
statistical report prepared by the
clerk of his court and given to me
by Recorder Geoffrion himself:
Twelve thousand and forty-eight per-
sons arrested in two years, not just
Numbering drunk, not singing
drunk, not shouting drunk, not fight
ing drunk, not staggering drunk, but
helplessly dead drunk, "lying drunk
in public street or public place."
That night of my first day in Mon
treal I sat in one of the three hun
6red and seven liscnced beer saloons
of that city, a large room with 26
tables, at which more than 100 men
were drinking beer.
I ordered a soda pop, and a man
near me said in berry friendliness:
Don't be afraid of this beer, old
man; you can't get drunk on it; it's
harmless. You can drink a barrel of
it and not get drunk"
Drunk, Dead Drunken Beer
I moved to another table to be rid
of him, and 80 minutes later he had
crumpled down like a wilted plant,
his arms were outflung upon the ia
BILE, and his face was in a puddle of
beer slops.
In this saloon were four walters,
big, husky men, and one of them ran
his hand down beneath the neckband
of the drunken mans blouse, lifted
him to his feet and shook him, and
tried to make him understand that he
was drunk and must get out; but the
man was too far gone, and the bully
ran him down across the floor, his
legs dangling loosely like those of
the scarecrow in the Wizard of Or,
and shot him, slamb-bang, through
the swinging doors into the street.
He was just another of the thou
sands that could not get drunk on
beer. I saw IL men drunk on beer
in that one saloon on Craig street
that night, and I saw fully so men
there who were in various stages on
the road to drunkenness.
With newspaper man as guide I
went that night into IL saloons
where nothing was sold but the beer
which the government of Quebec says
makes for temperance and sobriety.
They were the same old saloons, with
the exception that the men sat at
tables instead of standing at a bar;
and they drank beer instead Of
whisky.
There We're the same old smells,
same old maudlin songs and laughter,
same old vulgarity, same old quar-
reling and wrangling, same old
DRINKS. Before midnight I saw 100