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Show jr- As an Irish member of parliament, if T. P. O'-I O'-I Connor talks us well as he writes, he can get all j around the phlegmatic Britons who sit in the ben-I ben-I ches at Westminster. He is one of those writers' who discuss anything and everything offhanded, from the science of government down to the liabits of the. bumble-bee. In last Sunday's Chicago Tribune Trib-une appears an article from his pen on wood alcohol al-cohol as a cause of blindness, and he points out a great many things in this destructive poison not generally known. Within the last five years, he says. American physicians who limit their practice tb diseases of the eye have recognized with increasing in-creasing frequency cases of complete blindness resulting re-sulting from thn use of wood alcohol, which, owing to its cheapness, has largely displaced grain al-j al-j cohol. Originally used in the arts under the name of Columbian spirits, by varnishers, it now occupies a place on the grocery shelves of frontier towns, masquerading under the form of essence of Jamaica ginger, lemon, peppermint or cinnamon. Now we understand how it is, down in Southern Utah,, when sheepherders would come into a town where no saloon existed, they got drunk on what was supposed to be a harmless beverage, and upon leaving town the supplies they carried to camp contained a quantity of this so-called Jamaica ginger. gin-ger. It was sold to the Indians with impunity, un-scupulous un-scupulous grocers thus evading the law against sel- I ling "liquor" to tbe native Ute. Here in Salt Lake rectifiers sell almost a dipper full of what is called whisky for a dime. It is consumed by the low class of habitual drunkards, and it ought to mak short work of them. Perhaps if this whiskv was ! ''assayed'' it would run up high in wood alcohol, i Many years ago, just after the heavy tax w:is j placed on whisky, an Irishman who had been a i steady drinker all his life, cut it out, and he gave good reason for doing so. "When I drank whisky." ' he said, "whisky was whisky, and as chape as buttermilk. but-termilk. Xow whisky is poison, and dear poison at that.'' Some whisky is just as cheap now as it was in anti-bellumdays. but it is not, whisky. It is easy to see how a barrel of it could be made from a gallon of wood alcohol. |