Chicago Daily Tribune

THE BREWERS.

The brewers of Chicago have issued a pamphlet directed to Gen. Webster, Collector of Internal Revenue for this District, protesting against the assessment on the excess of malt beyond 3 bushels per barrel. The points made in the protest are, that the assessment is illegal and not warranted by any act of Congress, and that such an assessment would be unjust, impracticable, and ruinous to the business of brewers. The protestors cite a letter of Commissioner Douglass, written in 1874, to sustain their first point, wherein, in referring to the matter, he said: "This office will decide whether or not the assessment shall be made." The fact that he never after making the examination made any such assessment they take as a decision that the assessment is not warranted by law. Their second point they seek to sustain by saying that for the law to say that only 2 1/2 bushels of malt should be used for every barrel of beer, is equivalent to ordering the brewer to produce beer of a certain strength, whether it suited his customers or not; and, moreover, such a law would leave out of view entirely the different qualities of the several grades and kinds of malt. The protest is signed by the leading brewers of the city, and closes by expressing the hope that the assessment will not be enforced.