The Government derived its revenues from the sale of liquors, drugs,
chemicals, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, coal, oil, stone,
charcoal, iron, steel, copper, lead and the precious metals. The
greatest revenue was derived from liquors. Every commodity produced or
manufactured by the Government was sold in lots or packages at one
dollar a lot or package. The Government made and sold wine in three
grades, The first-grade wine was put up in quart bottles at one dollar
a quart, the second-grade wine in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a
bottle, and the third-grade wine in gallon bottles at one dollar a
gallon; alcohol in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a bottle, and
brandy in the same way and sold at the same price. There were no grades
in brandy. All brandies were sold at one dollar for half a gallon.
Whisky, of which there was only manufactured one grade, but out of
different cereals or vegetables, was put up in one-gallon bottles and
sold at one dollar a gallon. Beer was sold in five-gallon kegs at one
dollar a keg, but the purchaser of beer had to pay in addition for the
keg, which was refunded when he returned the keg in good condition. The
Government manufactured pure liquors and no foreign liquors were
admitted into Eurasia.
In the chemical factories every drug required by the Medical
Pharmacopoeia and every chemical required in the arts and manufactures
was made, but no drugs were sold except on a medical prescription, or
chemicals except to responsible parties. The voters of any district
could by a majority vote prohibit the use of any or all liquors or
drugs in the district, and on receiving official notice of the law
enacted by the district the Minister of Manufactures issued an order
withdrawing from the district any or all liquors or drugs prohibited,
and any person bringing into the district any prohibited drug or
liquor, unless under a prescription from a Government physician, was
punished by six months at hard labor within the district.
At every Government warehouse where drugs and chemicals were sold the
Government employed a competent physician, on a salary fixed by law, to
superintend their sale, and he could prescribe and the Government
furnished the medicine free to those who were sick and did not have the
money to pay for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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