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Show THE THIRSTY MEET IN MONTREAL,. CAPITALIZE BOOZEl Montreal Is the only oasis In the prohibition desert of the United States and Canada and the hotel accommodations have been overtaxed since July the first "It sure does. There's a guy from Philadelphia Phila-delphia who comes over every two weeks and takes back three dozen bottles every time. He must have a lot of friends. Anyway, Any-way, he gets away with it, and that's the1 way he' does it." Within the last two weeks special agents of the United States customs department have appeared in Montreal, for the purpose of spotting Americans who purchase package pack-age goods in the venders' places and trailing trail-ing them to the trains. When several heavily laden pilgrims, homeward bound, board one train the "spotter" sometimes gets on with them and accompanies them to the border to point them out to uniformed customs inspectors. The usual method, however, is for the spotter to telegraph descriptions of the carriers to the inspectors. This will explain to one Philadelphia sportsman, who tried a few days ago to smuggle home a dozen bottles of Scotch for a stag party, and to several other Philadel-phians Philadel-phians the extraordinary persistence of the inspectors who examined their , baggage and confiscated their precious freight. Since this "spotter" system was instituted insti-tuted the number of liquor confiscations at the border has increased tenfold, it is reported, and the amount smuggied into the United States has decreased proportionally. There is no means of estimating the amount of liquor that is bought in Montreal to be sneaked across the border or of ascertaining ascer-taining how many pilgrims have journeyed to the booze capital since July 1. Montreal is a city of 7.50,000 population, it has a dozeu large hotels and scores of smaller ones and its streets in normal times are thronged during business hours. The influx is so great, however, that crowds 10 the '.' and arouud the hotels are noticeably !r Hotel meu say they have done more b.: since July 1 than they ever did bffor? ' similar period of time; that tlieyarc' icg every inhabitable room and bv.: some patrons on billiard tables and t: large proportion of their guests arc A: cans ; whereas, in normal times, their'1 ters show about equal numbers of Car:: and Americans. The largest Iww Windsor, the Ritz-Carlton and Ike ' Yegier. are turning away applicants for' every day. Reservations for week :. commodations must be made from : three weeks in advance. TVTOST of our guests," says t'' Quick, manager of the Ritz-Cr "come from New lork. It is only Hi ride, you know. Almost every train, I understand, is carrying ( coaches, the traffic is so heavy." One uotable feature of Ibe Montra: ation, to which the anti-prohibitionist:" with pride, is the fact that there ip? be no bootleggers in the city. To if who has traveled in Canada or the I: States since the dry waves hit the ;:' bootleggers in Montreal are conspte-their conspte-their absence. Another feature is that the boom til traded to Montreal hundreds of liquor: ers from all parts of the country. 'J example, it is known that seventra who were in the business io TVinnipe;- that city went dry have trekked to treal aud established wholesale or rets: pensaries or have become associated r -tablished Montreal dealers. MONTREAL, in the province of Quebec, Canada, is now the boom city of the continent. Its hotels hang out S. It. O. signs every night in the week ; rooming houses are turning away prospective lodgers ; cafes and restaurants never were so busy; incoming in-coming trains carrying extra coaches are filled to capacity. Montreal, be it known, is now the Booze Capital. It's the one wefc spot between the Mexican border and the Arctic Circle, the only oasis in the prohibition pro-hibition desert of the United States and Canada. Thousands of thirsty pilgrims from American Ameri-can and Canadian cities within a radius of 1000 miles journey to it, some every week ; it is the hiding place of the golden fleece for hundreds of dry-throated Jasons who were caught short when July 1 overtook them, or who have dissipated their hoards since. More than a year ago. when all the rest of Canada went dry, Montreal began to appear attractive to Canadians. Since July I, when America crossed the divide, it bas become be-come the most popular resort in the hemisphere. hemi-sphere. From Philadelphia aud Pittsburgh; from Cleveland. Toledo, Detroit and Chicago; from Ottawa aud Toronto; from Boston, I New York, Albany and Buffalo, go disciples of Bacchus to add to the worries of the hotel clerks and increase" the congestion in the guzzle parlors. WHILE men predominate, the crowds from the United States are not by any incan3 recruited entirely from the male population. Mixed parties, without number, especially pt the week-inris, flock to the only city in two countries where liquid exhilaration still can be purchased and consumed openly in restaurants and cabarets. On paper, Montreal is near-dry. By the vote of its citizens last spring, under the provincial local option law7, it became a beer and wine license city on May 1. But when the mayor and the council, almost to a man, are "liberals," when the provincial legislature is only slightly dry, what's a law more or less? Mederic Martin, mayor of the Canadian metropolis so long that Montreal has forgotten for-gotten i,t ever had any other chief magistrate, magis-trate, expresses the official view: "If the people want bone-dry prohibition they can have it: they had a chance and they didn't vote for it. This is what the people want." The only changes noticed by the barroom habitue when the old liquor license was taken from its frame and the newly printed beer-and-vine permit, that looks like a high school diploma, was put in its place, were that the hard stuff had beeu removed from the shelves, that the eye-opener was poured into a glass under the bar instead of with a flourish on top of the mahogany, and that one had to pay thirty-five cents for it instead in-stead of the usual twenty-five. Every barroom, every cabaret, every cafe that was in operation before May 1 is still in business and getting more trade in a day thau it used to get in two days or a week. And, iu addition, there are fourteen more places where intoxicauts cau be bought than there were ever before. These are the legal venders, appointed aud authorized by the provincial government to dispense '"for medicinal purposes" everything from creme de menthe to rum. Theoretically, that is, legally, the fourteen government agents are the only venders who may sell anything stronger than beer or wine and then only to persons who present prescriptions signed by duly licensed physicians. phy-sicians. But there are hundreds of Americans Ameri-cans who have made the pilgrimage to Montreal Mon-treal who could testify that if liquor is sold . only by government venders the number of them is nearer 1400 than fourteen. IN REALITY, Montreal is "wide open." Any one who has the price can buy any kind of liquor iu any reasonable quantity in any barroom, hotel or "wet" restaurant. He or she can consume it on the spot, have it delivered anywhere inside the city limit3 or have it wrapped and carry it away. No wiuking or whispering, no slipping around to back doors, no covering up of any kind is necessary. In some places regular patrons use a kind of password, such as "Number One" for straight whisky or "Number Two" for a Scotch highball; but none who is ignorant of the cabalistic signs is allowed to depart unslaked provided he has the price. If a man wants a drink at a bar all be has to do to get it is to walk up to the mahogany, wait until he can capture the attention of the busy white-aproned person behind it, then ask for it quickly before another customer has time to put in his order. In most of the barrooms the hard stuff is kept out of sight, but within easy reach of the tenders; in some of them, particularly par-ticularly the hotels, all the varieties of strong drink that man has imprisoned in attractive bottles are lined upon the shelves to be seen by any one who has eyes to see. If a bon vivaut strolls into a government vendor's place, by mistake or otherwise, he has no more difficulty in getting a bottle or a case of his favorite brand than he would have in a bar. "I want three bottles of Scotch, two of gin and one of Jamaica rum." he may say to the geutlemanly clerk behind the counter. "Where is your prescription?" the clerk will ask. "Clot none." "Here, doc, sign this," the clerk sings out. A seedy individual shuffles in from the rear room, scrawls something that looks like a name on the "prescription" the clerk has scribbled, then shuffles back again, while the nimble clerk assembles the order, wraps it and exchanges it for a small wad of bills." Some of the venders do not have-a "doc." The clerks sign the prescriptions themselves or they remain unsigned. SINCE Montreal became so popular as a summer resort forAmericans the venders have beeu doing a land -office business. The foresighted ones have locations near the hotels and railway stations and employ clerks who are adept at wrapping a package pack-age so it looks as though it contains a brick or anything except a bottle. "How'm I going to get this stuff acros3 the line?" about three out of every five customers ask after they have made their purchase. They are told that the best way to smuggle smug-gle a few bottles past the American customs cus-toms officials at the border is to choose a train that crosses the boundary during the night and to conceal them in a berth, under the mattress. "Does it work?" a vender in a Bleury street shop was asked by one timid smuggler, smug-gler, who was far from sure of himself. f HERE., DoCl -n CZJk lSIGNTUl5,j fSip i At v f i? M :' ' 11 -J (j M Special agents of the United States customs department have apPjred' the Jirpose of spotting those who purchase package gds A seedy Individual from the rear room scrawls something that looks like a name on tr i "prescription" |