People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — CHICAGO’S SALOONS. [ARTICLE]

CHICAGO’S SALOONS.

Strong Probability That About 3,000 of Them Will Be Closed Up Before January 1. Chicago, Aug. 1. —One thousand of Chicago’s 7,279 saloons will probably close between now and September 1. Unless conditions now existing shall change it is said that 2,000 more will go out of business before January 1. The wholesale reduction in the number of drink resorts will be brought about by the action of the brewers. The majority of them have determined not only to cease paying licenses for saloons, but also to refuse further credit. Thousands of notices to this effect have been sent to saloonkeepers during the last week. To-day the issue of licenses for the three-months period begins. For this license $125 is paid. Aside from the three Anglo-American companies there are thirty-eight or thirty-nine independent breweries in this city. The keen competition for business long ago instituted among the brewers a custom of granting credit of a kind scarcely known in other lines of business. Breweries fitted up saloons for men starting in the business, taking mortgages for the fixtures. They paid the keeper’s license fee and gave him credit for the beer he purcha&d. Last year they generally ceased supplying saloon equipments. To-day they will inaugurate a further tightning of their policy.