Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/143

 LIQUOR STATUTES IJV UNITED STATES. ■ 125

LIQUOR STATUTES IN THE UNITED STATES.

IN the following pages I have endeavored to group all the provisions regulating and restricting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor which appear in our statute books, hoping both to set forth the several systems and to note the States in which their respective operation may be studied, my object being to sup- ply condensed statistical information to the social or political student of the liquor question.

As it seems that every system hitherto tried in the United States still appears on the statute books of some State, though it may have been elsewhere discontinued, I will not make an historical examina- tion of the subject, but will treat of the existing laws under the headings of Prohibition, Local Option, License, the Civil Damage Acts, and Constitutional References.

For this purpose I have outlined a composite statute for each class of enactments, giving a reference for every feature, without at- tempting to indicate each State in which that feature appears, but appending a general index which will supply this information.

Prohibition.

The aim of this system is to prevent within the State the sale of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, and the enactments to fulfil that purpose are complete and stringent.

Offences, — No person shall manufacture, sell, keep for sale, give, or furnish intoxicating liquor.^

Provided, that druggists or town agents (whose position we will discuss later) may sell for medical, mechanical, artistic, scientific, or sacramental purposes.^

Houses kept for the illegal sale of liquor are common nuisances.'

So also clubs for sale, gift, or distribution.^

The lessor of such buildings, with knowledge of the sale or intent to sell, is punishable.*

^ Comp. Laws Kansas, 1885, ch. 35, s. 2287.

^ Rev. Code lo. 1880, s. 1526.

» Rev. Code lo. 1880, s. 1543.

« Laws of R. I., Jan'y Session, 1887, ch. 634, s. 14. '

• Genl Laws N. H. 1878, ch. 109, s. 15, s. 34.