Often the worst classes in the whole country frequent
RURAL SALOONS,
men who dare not walk through the streets of any of the large cities.
Perhaps at the card-table in the groggery across the street is a man who
has come to your town to break into your employer's store! Anyway, there
is no "business" in the world which returns so little for the money
accepted as the saloon. Take
A GALLON OF WHISKY,
for instance. It is worth a dollar to a dollar and a half. It has been
taxed ninety cents by the Government, leaving it worth that much less.
Well, now, a man is expected to go into a saloon, and, for about three
tablespoonsful of this stuff, he pays ten cents in the town and fifteen
cents in the city. Your news dealer pays eight cents for an illustrated
paper, and twenty-eight cents for a popular magazine. He sells the one
for ten cents and the other for thirty-five cents, taking all the risk
of not getting a sale. If you could afford to travel with such people as
are found in saloons, in the first place, and to put such truly
abominable stuff in your mouth in the second place, you could not, even
then, in the third place, afford to give fifteen cents for what is in
fact worth less than a mill.
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