Note 8 — ALCOHOLISM IN FRANCE
Reading edition
M. Rouvier had obtained a law obliging every one without exception who distilled anything to pay the usual tax on alcohol. This law was made and repealed by the same Parliament, so that now every one who has a peach or a plum tree can manufacture any kind of alcohol of poor quality, and retail it in the buvettes or drink-stands which are found at every step almost; in every little vegetable and grocery shop, even in Government tobacco stores where stamps are sold. These buvettes are the curse of France to-day. They have caused far greater ravages than the Franco-Prussian war.