over three thousand were seized in one year without any diminution of their number during the following year, how many thousand were in operation which were not seized? A still can be operated in a very narrow space. How many cellars, garrets and secret chambers about the homes contain a still that was never mistrusted by government agents? How many caves, artificial or natural, tunnels and remote isolated spots in the mountains are camouflaged and contain a still?

CHAPTER VII

FURTHER EFFECTS OF THE INTERNAL REVENUE SYSTEM

The evasion of the tax and the illicit stills are of minor importance compared with the great evils arising from the Internal Revenue and High License system. By making the retail traffic in alcoholic beverages very profitable, it created, nursed and encouraged the saloon which sprung into being as soon as the system was fairly under way. Without one in the United States prior to 1862, they rapidly spread into every city and town. It is true the High License tended to limit the number, but it in no way limited the evils. Wherever there appeared to be a chance of selling a few gallons of "booze" the saloon could be found.

The saloon is installed and maintained for the profit there is in it. With the saloon the deplorable custom of treating grew up in this country. The motive of treating, except on the part of the vendor of the liquors, is the exhibition of generosity—a good fellowship. On the part of the saloon-keeper it is profits. As Adam Smith says, "Nobody affects the character of liberality and good fellowship, by being profuse of a liquor which is as cheap as small beer." How many million times has the following conversation taken place in the saloons in the United States during the past fifty years when one is treating his companions? "What will you have, Pete?" "I'll take whiskey." "What's your, Jim?" "The same." "And your, Jack?" "I'll take a pony beer." "No, you won't; you'll take whiskey with the rest of us.” If Jack had said brandy or rum or gin there would have been no protest because the price would have been as much as whiskey and three or four times that of a pony beer.

After a little common-place conversation Pete says, "It's my turn, what will you have boys?" Another round is drank. If the delay between rounds seems too long, and often, to encourage treating, the bartender "sets 'em up." By reason of the custom of treating, these people have each swallowed three or four glasses of liquor where perhaps neither of them, except for this custom, would have taken more than one, if any.

This treating habit was generated and is fostered and encouraged in every conceivable manner by the saloon-keepers. Dice, cards and card tables and other games are provided and the losing player pays for the drinks. In modern years aluminum or brass chips, each good for a drink, are provided and the loser pays for them, one to each

player for every game. These chips, while providing treats to the winners, are largely used in treating others.

So universal has this treating habit become that petty politicians, during a political campaign, carry with them bottles of whiskey and actually secure votes by furnishing a drink of "booze." Should we be surprised at the corruption we find among public officials, legislative, judicial and executive, when they stoop to such means of securing public office?

In many cases enormous expenditures of money are made by the proprietor of the saloon with a view of attracting people into it. Magnificent works of art, sometimes oil paintings of the value of twenty or more thousand dollars, and expensive music is often provided. One saloon in Colorado, and rooms opening into it, for many years contained and had on exhibition the second largest and most valuable private collection of mounted animals in the world. There was no charge. for admission to this magnificent exhibit, but he who visited it without buying the drniks, as he passed out by the bar, would have been considered, in the vocabulary of the saloon, a very "cheap skate." The visitor would so consider himself.

There have been few general elections in the United States since 1864, national, state, county or municipal, at which some phase of the liquor question was not prominent.

In 1884, by the influence and votes of a faction that opposed the traffic in all its forms, James G. Blaine, an eminently temperate man, was defeated for President of the United States because he refused to endorse their views. The motive of this opposition was fanatical and malicious revenge.

The various liquor questions arising because of the partnership of the public with the private liquor interests, has debauched politics, retarded progress and scandalized America. The partners were always falling out among themselves and the manufacturers and dealers, generally having the balance of power, reaped the profits.

The saloon, with its multitude of evils, has been a blight upon America for more than half a century.

By far the worst evil, arising from the liquor traffic under the United States system, the most deplorable, the least understood, but vaguely realized by most people, is yet to be related.

It is asserted by many that alcohol, and medicines and beverages containing it, are poisons and, therefore, injurious when taken into the human body, even in small quantities at rare intervals. It is asserted by many more, including eminent physiologists and physicians, that

alcohol and alcoholic medicines and beverages are not poisons, and not injurious; but that alcohol is a healthful and very beneficial stimulant, medicine and food when taken in moderate quantities and not too frequently. Both assertions are true, however contradictory and inconsistent they at first appear. Alcohol is a poison and alcohol is not a poison. This will be apparent when we consider the process of manufacture.

Fermented infusions of grain, such as barley, rye, wheat, corn, etc., contain no less than five distinctly different alcohols, the names, specific gravity and boiling-point of each, at sea-level, being as follows:

Besides these alcohols, the infusion contains a large amount of water which boils at 212°F., and a small amount of acids and compound ethers.

The ethyl, commonly known as "grain alcohol," is not poisonous, although it is a powerful stimulant. The methyl, known in commerce as "wood alcohol," and the butyl and amyl alcohols are poisonous and very detrimental when taken into the human system. Grains produce but very little wood alcohol, but large quantities of propyl, butyl and amyl alcohol-particularly the latter which taken together are designated as fusel oil, and sometimes amyl alcohol alone, it being in most cases the predominating constituent, is called fusel oil. It is a colorless liquid, having a burning, fiery, nauseous and a sickening oder which causes coughing, if much inhaled, and is far more intoxicating than grain alcohol.

The infusion, called wort, consists of water, these alcohols, small quantities of acids and compound ethers, all of which can be vaporized, yeast, malt, grain, etc., solid substances, which can not be vaporized. The boiling-point of the mixture is intermediate between that of ethyl alcohol and water (173°F. and 212°F.).

Distillation is a process by which substances which are vaporized at different temperatures are separated from each other, or substances which can be vaporized are separated from those which can not.

While there are variously designated stills, the common form is a ressel (under which heat can be applied) with a tight-fitting cover

from which a pipe extends which is connected with a spiral tube, called a worm; the worm being surrounded by cold water. As vapors arise from the contents of the vessel they will be cooled in the worm, condensed into a liquid and flow into another vessel.

A liquid evaporates rapidly when its temperature is raised to the boiling-point and its vapors return to liquid again when their temperature is reduced below the boiling-point of the liquid.

When the temperature of the wort reaches above 152°F., and somewhat less than 173°F., methyl or wood alcohol is obtained; ethyl alcohol at a temperature slightly above 173°F. and the other alcohols at the higher temperatures given above.

By reason of the extremely low boiling-point of wood alcohol, it can with care in distilling, be first eliminated from the mixture. By then raising the temperature of the wort to something over 173°F., but well below 200°F., the ethyl, or grain alcohol, can be obtained. But, by reason of the affinity of the different alcohols for each other and the great affinity of ethyl alcohol for water, much of the heavy alcohols (fusel oil) and a considerable of the water will be carried over with the ethyl or grain alcohol. If the distillation is carried to the furtherest point, the temperature raised high enough and continued a sufficient length of time, substantially all the heavy alcohols (fusel oil) will be distilled over with the grain alcohol.

When high-grade, honest whiskey is made, great skill and care is exercised in distilling to keep the temperature down to the proper point and cease the operation in time to retain the greatest amount of fusel oil in the wort. But, as before explained, considerable fusel oil will be vaporized and distilled with the grain alcohol and some of the water. This distillate, the product of the distillation from the wort, is termed low wines or "singlings." In order to produce an honest, high-grade whiskey, the low wines are redistilled, leaving the greater part of the heavy alcohols undistilled. This distillate is termed high wines or the "faints." Upon redistilling the high wines, if throughout the process, care and a desire to produce an honest beverage or medicine is exercised, a high-grade whiskey is the product.

However, by reason of the great affinity of the heavy alcohols for grain alcohol, this high-grade whiskey still contains some fusel oil. When the quantity of fusel oil is small, if the whiskey containing it is kept in barrels of oak a chemical change spontaneously takes place, slowly by gradually changing by oxidation the fusel oil, probably to compound ethers-harmless compounds-and, after two or three years