Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1886 — The Liquor Traffic. [ARTICLE]

The Liquor Traffic.

Some statistics as to the retail liquor trade of the United States are interesting and instructive. There are in all the States 201,435 persons selling ardent spirits at retail under United States licenses. The proportion of saloons to inhabitants in some of the States forms a curious study. In California there is a saloon to each 70 inhabitants, or to each 17 voters. In Illinois there is a saloon to each 280 persons, or about Ito each 60 voters. In New York the proportion is 1 to 150, in Ohio 1 to 204, in Pennsylvania 1 to 205. The prohibition States show the following results: InhabStates. Saloons, itants. Voters, Maine 1 585 10C lowa 1 406 83 Kansas 1 448 9C Illinois stands ahead in whisky production, with 26,488,338 gallons of ardent spirits annually. Its annual malt liquor product is 37,339,273 gallons. In whisky, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio follow next after Illinois. New York is the Empire State in beer as in other things, except whisky, with the enormous production of 200,000,000 gallons a year. The revenue derived by the Government from the manufacture of spirits and malt liquors is $85,742,052 a year, of which about 78 per cent, is from spirits and 22 per cent, from malt liquors. Illinois pays one quarter of this total tax.— Chicago Evening Journal.