Ninety Barrels a Day by Standard

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 30, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 38.

Ninety Barrels a Day.

By Standard

THERE is a distillery in Massachusetts, the largest rum distillery in the world, and the amount manufactured averages ninety barrels a day, some for home consumption, but the greater part for export to the coast of Africa. The barrels contain forty-three gallons, and the internal revenue tax is ninety cents a gallon—thirty-eight dollars and seventy cents a barrel. For ninety barrels, a day's work, the treasury of the United States is enriched $3,483, minus the cost of the services of the revenue watchmen. That the Government shall not be defrauded a farthing of the ungodly gain, and that one drop of the fire-water may not be lost, Government padlocks are placed upon the rum reservoirs which are guarded and opened daily for measurement by internal revenue officers. Ninety barrels a day! Can any one follow one day's proceeds of this infamous business, and trace its awful curse trailing over the homes of men? Go where it will it goes as a curse. And the Nation's revenue stamp is but the stain of blood money.—Standard.