Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/233

Rh with Lewiston, where, an official is said to have declared, "One might as well try to turn back the current of the Androscoggin River as to stop rum-selling." The existence of summer resorts in some counties prevents a rigid enforcement of the law.

Massachusetts has had since 1881 a local-option law which provides for the granting of licenses only in cities and towns voting at the annual election or town meeting to authorize their issue. Places voting "No" may grant druggists' medicinal licenses. Two communities in this State were chosen for study: Boston, the chief city and center of the liquor trade, and North Adams, in the western part of the State, one of the smaller communities under license. Various supplementary acts have been passed since 1881. License fees have been raised, so that a license to sell all kinds of liquor to be drunk on the premises now costs one thousand dollars. The number of saloons has been limited to one for each five hundred inhabitants in Boston and one for each thousand in other places.

Mr. Koren reports that "open and flagrant violations of the liquor laws by licensed dealers are no longer of frequent occurrence. This is the testimony not only of the police but of private organizations directly interested in the question. The licensees realize better than before the nature of their privileges, and know that failure to observe the conditions imposed is likely to result disastrously. Sunday sales by saloons are practically unknown. Innholders may be found, however, who resort to peculiar methods of registering guests in order to sell liquor after hours under a guise of legality. Those who are bolder are pretty sure of punishment when found out. Few liquor shops would now dare to sell to minors where their minority is obvious. Sales to intoxicated persons occur commonly, as a matter of course; and any one can obtain, without the slightest difficulty, enough drink to produce intoxication. On the other hand, numerous dealers persistently refuse persons visibly under the influence of liquor." Illicit selling is confined within steadily narrowing limits. There are still some kitchen bars in the poorer sections of the city, whose best customers are the persons who come in from the surrounding no-license towns on Saturday evenings and Sundays for the avowed purpose of obtaining drink.

The population of North Adams contains a large element of factory hands, nearly all of whom are of foreign birth or extraction. The saloons are confined within a small section where they are under close supervision. "The general provisions of the law," Mr. Koren reports, "such as those against maintaining screens and selling after hours, are well observed. Sunday sales by licensed dealers even in hotels are practically unknown. The revocation of licenses for this cause has had a wholesome effect. A system of posting