Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-07
SUCKERS" SHORN
WITH FAKE BEER
Near Beer and Pop Sold as
"ReaI Stuff" to GuIIible r.
Rum-Hounds.
BY HARVEY ANDERSON.
Special Correspondent OF The Star

Special Correspondent OF The Star.
NEY YORK, July 6.-Prohibition has
scattered and confused the old, expert
enced drinkers and has brought forward
o new generation Of unskilled imbibers
who are an easy prey to new big-city
dodge which capitalizes this lack of ex-
perience. ...
This correspondent learned today OF
the widespread practice of trimming the
guileless and bibulous adventurer by the
"blank cartridge" racket, as 1t Is called
among its practitioners. 1t is worked
especially in tourist resorts, where there
are more fledglings OF this kind TO be
plucked.
Needle" Beer Fills Town.
A pleasant hotel acquaintance warns
that the town is full of needle beer
and dangerous stuff of all kinds. There
is the usual mourning over this terrible
prohibition law, and finally the Sympa-
thetic friend offers to send his visitor
and his party to a sound establishment
where some good stuff, right straight
from the Canadian borders, may be
obtained.
The visitors find basement to which
they obtain entry by complicated
ceremonial of signaling and whisper
ing. 1t is a dubious looking place, and
they are admitted only after hard
scrutiny by a swarthy individual,
through a peephole. There Is a Ger
tain exhilaration in this, of course,
and once in, furitive movement and
more whispering make 1t certain that
It Is an inner citadel of the illicit trade
in real liquor. The boss Is reluctant
to serve the newcomers and does SO
only after a long scrutiny Of the In
itialed card from the hotel friend.
"Beer' at so Cents q Glass.
Beer is served at so cents a glass
You can get better beer in any Eastern
city for 25 cents a glass now, but it
Is explained that this is the real stuff
and that it costs money to get 1t over
from Canada. The beer produces the
usual afflatus and perhaps even a tear
full invocation Of motherhood, or an
outburst Of discordant song. The mer-
rymakers depart without learning that
they have been served near beer. and
they come back the next day for more.
This writer has taken the trouble to
check UP on some chance information
regarding this enterprise and finds
there are many such establishments in
Eastern cities. Today he found a
young man who formerly was a part
ner in blank cartridge" joint in
Boston.
I'VE used to enjoy having the dick,
come around and try to knock us over,
he said. thine and again, they made
tests of our stuff and, of course, they
never found trace of alcohol.
Il give you my word, the suckers
used to get just about as much kick Out
of this stuff as they would out of real
beer. What's on your mind seems tt
have lot to do with this drinking bust.
ness. You take any party of people who
aren't used to drinking and let them
think they're getting real stuff and
they'll get hoped up every time. have
never seen one person alone get an imi-
tation jag out of near-beer, but have
seen it happen time and again with q
party of four or five. They want to gel
lit up and that has a lot to do with 1t.
Goes Over Big, Too!
zone day, three men and two wom-
en- came in. We made believe we
didn't want to serve them, but finally
did so and the near-beer went big
They had about five rounds and then
one of the women insisted that they
must all have a cocktail. was stumped.
but made up my mind I'd have a try
at it, I mixed up some pink pop anu
great fuss shaking it up. Then I put
in few more harmless odds and ends
and topped off each glass with a couple
of maraschino cherries. It went big
They had five rounds and went out arm
in arm singing at the top of their voices.
ut is mostly young people who fall
for this. People who started their drink
ing before prohibition came in aren't
SO easy to fool. When we see that we
have an old-timer on our hands, we
just tell him that, for certain reasons,
we are afraid TO serve any more that
day and stick to it. We wait until he
is gone before we start serving again.
It's great way to trim college boys.
This is going big and If you hear
some wise bird drop a remark about a
blank joint you will know what it
means. It's q great racket in the Sum-
mertime when there are lot of suck
ers out looking for excitement"
Copyright, 1921