Show prohibition great minds differ as to whether nh ether prohibition Is a good thing or not and the question like party politics divides the people nearly ever every v friend of prohibition anti antl points to the example of other communities where the thing has been tried and where they claim failure or a worse verse condition has resulted one 0 of the most talked ot of states in the union in connection with the liquor question Is kansas and in view of that fact the following clipping from a recent issue of colliers weekly ieli doubtless prove interesting reading cost of drink the great bard spoke of sermons in stones kansas has found sermons in grocery bills wichita it a few years ago was the gibraltar of the saloon in ia kansas its saloons were running years after the kansas saloon law went into effect deals were made at state stale conventions and nominations secured through promises of open saloons for wichita the protest was long coming but it arrived and like many other reform movements of the day arrived with momentum A dry mayor ivas was elected heavy penalties tor for violation of the law were exacted exact sd the saloons died hard but the last i vestige of them finally passed note the result before the saloons closed the bank clearings clia claa rings of wichita were weekly in three years they hid had increased to something over three million dollars the city instead of going backward as freely predicted has steadily grown A few years there were barely ten per cent of the pao population pu I 1 1 of wichita opposed to the saloon probably there are not now a very tery large minority of the population wao who would favor it one newspaper changed in a single day from brosal on oon to in six weeks its circulation had increased six thousand s nd copies in another kansas community a merchant declares that his I 1 collections increased forty per cent shortly after prohibition went into efa effect workmen were ere paying weekly for insurance before the saloons I 1 closed forty per cent of these insured workmen were in arrears within a short time after the enforcement of the law these arrearages arrea rages had disappeared and many were paying in advance I 1 |