Dry World?

Throughout Europe the dry aspect of the Hoover victory continues to set best minds powerfully a-pondering. Suspicions stir that U. S. post-War prosperity may be due in large measure to prohibition. Just now the golden fetish of "American Methods" has wondrous kudos on the Continent (see France "American Methods"). In London last week the World Prohibition Federation held a belated mass meeting "to celebrate the triumph of Prohibition in the American victory of Herbert Hoover."

Among Frenchmen the familiar U. S. paradox of a rich man "dry as a matter of business" but socially wringing wet is significantly turned inside out by Cognac Tycoon Jean Hennessy. "As a matter of business" M. Hennessy spends millions to extol the virtues of "***Hennessy," probably the best of large production brandies. Mixed with equal parts of Italian Vermuth, famed "***Hennessy" becomes the surprising and delicious "Ponce de Leon Cocktail," a beverage of smoky, tingling undertaste--and bland, stimulating potency. It is said that M. Hennessy conceived the "Ponce de Leon" as a shrewd means of booming "***" above English or Dutch gin as a favorite cocktail ingredient. Today one may step up to any smart bar and obtain deft action by exclaiming "A Ponce!" Strangely enough Jean Hennessy swears that he has never tasted one. Wet by profession, he is socially and privately dry. In 1910 he became a Deputy, in 1924 Ambassador to Switzerland and recently Minister of Agriculture.

Crossing the channel to Britain, one finds as dean of the distilling peers the venerable Baron Dewar. His whiskeys fire throttles on five continents. About him there is no paradox, no equivocation. To the core of his very liver Lord Dewar is a practicing and preaching wet. He claims that whiskey is his Muse. Without her stimulus the Noble Lord believes he never could have produced his famed "Dewarisms." Many persons consider this fact a most powerful argument against spirits. Observers may judge for themselves from sample "Dewarisms" from the latest batch proudly released by Baron Dewar:

No gentleman has ever heard your story before.

There are more Mormons in London than in Salt Lake City, but their wives don't know it.

Divorce is a great institution; it keeps women in circulation.

A philosopher is a man who can look at an empty glass with a smile.

Though such incidents certify that a Dry World is by no means yet in prospect, prohibitionists greeted with enthusiasm the news that the U. S. Congress plans to appropriate some $37,000,000 to continue enforcement of prohibition.