Posts Tagged ‘prohibition’

Whoops, Prohibition

by on Thursday, February 13th, 2020

The Volstead Act went into effect on January 17, but temperance advocates complain that local enforcement of the alcoholic beverage ban has been “lackadaisical.” Meanwhile, local Carnival festivities are at an all-time low, but an anti-Prohibition parade will take place this weekend. So what does Prohibition mean for New Toulouse?

When we tracked him down at the Green-Eyed Fairy (a local tavern), police spokesman Brendan Bacon explained that local enforcement efforts were on hold because Mayor Henri Godenot is treating the responsible federal agents to a fishing trip. According to Patrolman Bacon, compliance with the law during Carnival “won’t matter much anyway” since “the feds are all tied up” (presumably figuratively). They are expected to be released on Ash Wednesday.

Francesca Alva, the owner of the Green-Eyed Fairy, seemed unfazed by the new law. “As far as I can see, Prohibition is a Yankee notion brought in to encourage people to drink more. Here in New Toulouse, we don’t have that problem. Furthermore, we do all our business with independent local suppliers. I don’t foresee any problems as long as the mayor keeps on greasing the palms of … I mean, liaising with the federal authorities.”

Mrs. Jedidiah Slump, speaking for the Ladies’ Temperance Association, argued that families continue to be “ravaged by the demon drink.” She called upon city officials to expedite local enforcement efforts and called upon Jed to get home straight after work or he could get his own damn supper.

A City Hall official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to give comment, explained that since New Toulouse has “a largely booze-based economy, we’re going easy on businesses” during this time of transition. He expects that Bayou will be largely exempt from scrutiny unless the feds hire some swamp-canny Cajuns.

This Saturday, February 15, at 12:00 noon SLT, Krewe Bayou kicks off another raucous walking parade downtown, the theme of which is “To Hell With Prohibition.” February 15 is also National Hippo Day, so it’s reasonable to expect some “lake cow” presence. The parade begins at the French Market.


Jack Mondieu nominates Boudreaux and Thibodeaux to root out those Bayou moonshine stills.

Why and Why Not

by on Monday, August 21st, 2017

Federal officials have broken up a plot of the I. W. W. at Detroit to tie up the Great Lakes commerce through strikes.

Under the prohibition law of West Virginia its inhabitants are restricted to the importation of one quart of liquor a month.

A bill to prohibit Sunday golfing in North Carolina failed to pass because some representatives insisted on exempting two popular hotel resorts.

While gangsters shoot each other upon the street and daylight robbers escape, the police of New York in one day arrested 400 persons for spitting in public.

The governor of Florida is a clergyman. He says he has been so busy since his election that he has not had time to “say my prayers at night or to read my Bible.”

Secretary of War Baker told the House Committee on Military Affairs that he broke many laws after Congress adjourned in order to speed up the manufacture of equipment for our new armies.

Heads of the labor unions have united in a huge protest to President Wilson against the adoption of national prohibition, assailing the Prohibitionists as “a fanatical and bigoted element of the population.”

Second-class mail, for transporting which some Congressmen propose to charge newspapers and other periodicals 4c a pound, is carries 438 miles by the Pennsylvania railroad every day for ¼c a pound.

Rear Admiral Chadwick says that foreign-born women in the United States have twice as many children as the native-born women and that women school teachers are causing young men to become effeminate.

Letter to the editor

by on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017

Will Prohibition win?

The Research Department of the Board of Temperance, Washington, D. C., is using every effort to collect every data they can and are spending enormous sums of money to bring forcefully to the attention of Congress, the greatest abuse from the results of consumption of intoxicating liquors and that their efforts are meeting with success will shortly be shown by the vote when the new bill comes up before our law makers.

Our little town furnished an incident on Christmas Eve that could be used by the Research Department as an object lesson over which some of our represntatives in Congress might ponder. Just about the time the people were going into the Catholic Church to attend the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, a young boy at the corner apparently from fourteen to sixteen years old, was so intoxicated that he was extremely boisterous, using profain and insulting language and as he staggered about the streets, he was a pitiful sight for those who had better training and were going to church at that time to pray for their souls and the souls of others. This poor boy was not altogether to blame. Perhaps a good mother has been trying to bring him up in the right path, but the real guilty one is the person who either gave or sold him the intoxicant, and they should be punished to the extreme. This incident is one of the many thousands that are making sure that National Prohibition will come within the next few years.

Mrs. John Desboulets
New Toulouse

“Gasoline jag” is latest

by on Thursday, June 30th, 2016

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Anti-Saloon League throws down gauntlet

by on Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

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Prohibition and New Yorkitis

by on Thursday, July 9th, 2015

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