Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1908 — Two Drunks Plead Guitty. [ARTICLE]

Two Drunks Plead Guitty.

Drinking liquor is not the most uncommon thing that has occurred in Rensselaer lately, and It is evident that if the practice is to be broken up it will require the greatest amount of vigllence. Thursday night Squire Irwin had James Neff and Don Erwin before him for plain drunk, and they plead guilty and were fined $1 and costs each, amounting to SB.BO. Both were without the money, as seems a very common condition among plain drunks, and both were sent to jail, but the next day Neff’s appeals .to friends brought relief and his fine was paid. The other lad was less favored by his friends and still languishes in the county bastile. Erwin Is a son of Ed Erwn, the former well known blacksmith, who Was been at thp county farm for several years, and he seems to have a ferocious appetite for booze. He made no effort to guard the matter of his purchase and said that he and “Shorty” and “Doc” Adams and a fellow named Roush had each chipped < in a quarter and that he had done the "sick” act and bought a quart at Fendig’s drug store, and that they had all shared the contents of the bottle, hut that the others were either better able to stand the dose or had ben less public after they had drank it. Druggist Fendig says that he did not sell Erwin or any of the others any liquor and that he is willing to make an affidavit to that effect, and also that he will make an affidvait that he had turned Erwin down last Saturday when he came to him and wanted to buy whiskey. Erwin was very talkative and evidenced a familiarity with the drug-, gist’s liquor law when he said, “Well,: I guess 1 had a right to get it, didn’t I, if I signed the paper?” One of the first acts of the next, legislature Should be that of repealing that part of the liquor law thatlets a (iruggist sell Uquor on *n ap-, plicant’s statement that he wants it for medicinal purposes, tor nine out: of ten applicants will tell a point hlank lie.

To refuse to Bell a quart of whisky is io throw away from fifty <to seven-ty-five cents, and some druggists and possibly some other people, If they had the same right under the law, Would not let the money get away from them. We have believed that our driiggists were all good fnin and we still believe so, and it is easy tor some person that has bought liquor some place and don’t Want to say where, to implicate a druggist, but the quart bottle system 1b altogether too easy to operataaad it is the duty of the druggist to scan very carefully the need of the applicant, and after he has decided that it to needed, to tell the applicant that he can’t have it. The law as it exists to a ridiculous farce, as temperance legislation. The druggist has no more right to be the Judge of a man’s need of a quart of liquor than has the butcher or the grocer. Let the law be repealed.—