as 1,103, the number "supposed to be selling without license" is estimated at only 868. If the reader will recur to what is shown above, as to the inefficient punishment of unlawful liquor dealers, can he readily believe that sufficient coercion had been applied to effect a reduction to that extent, especially in view of what the License Commissioners say in their last Report:

"Nothing is more common among the dealers than the saying that they are better off without than with a license; and, as a matter of fact, few of the whole number of persons holding licenses are in good faith keeping the conditions of them; and the enforcement of the law against those who sell liquor without licenses seems to have but little effect, either on the parties prosecuted or their neighbors in the trade."

With such a report of the estimate liquor dealers have of the value of a license, and of the effect of prosecutions, from those who are fully competent witnesses, can we easily believe that the result was so different from the universal experience heretofore and elsewhere, and that the unlicensed dealers were only 44 per cent, of the whole number? *

If it should seem to the candid reader that,

* A striking illustration of the importance of the animus numerandi is given in the count in Boston of liquor-shops in January, 1867, by the State Police as 690, and by the City Police as

after all, it is possible that there was some temporary reduction, he may still think with the License Commissioners themselves (Report, Feb. 1, 1877), that "it may be questionable how much of the result is due to the law, and how much to the general depression in trade, and the so-called hard times, from which all are more or less suffering." Beyond this he may deem it doubtful how much is gained by a slight reduction in the number of dramshops, if the supply remains so abundant that there is no substantial diminution either of incitement or of facility for drinking. And when he finds in the same report the Commissioners say:

"It must be admitted that the business of liquorselling in the city is, to a very large extent, in the hands of irresponsible men and women, whose idea of a license law ends with the simple matter of paying a certain sum, the amount making but little difference to them, provided they are left to do as they please after the payment. Besides the saloons and bar-rooms, which are open publicly, the traffic in small grocery stores, in cellars, and in dwellinghouses, in some parts of the city, is almost astounding. The Sunday trade is enormous, and it seems as if there were not hours enough in the whole round of twenty-four, or days enough in the entire week, to satisfy the dealers. The Commissioners consider the three greatest abuses of the traffic to be sales of

impure liquors, sales on Sunday, and sales at late hours."

If such are the facts, it is not strange to find the Commissioners in this report saying in so many words, "The law can not be called a success;" although it is a little difficult to discover upon what ground they add that "it is a step in the right direction!"

But this temporary show of triumph, which was but a show, has already passed away. If the estimate of December last be taken as correct, a rapid increase has taken place. From an official report recently made by the same Police Department, the number of places where liquor is sold is given, from a count made by the captains of the districts on the 31st of May, 1877, as 2,341 - an increase of 370 in five months.

But more than this. The whole number of licenses issued for the present year since the Ist of May up to this date (August 8, 1877) is 2,349; making a deduction for double licenses (which were 128 the first year, and only 86 the second), it will be within the mark to say that there are 2,200 licensed places of sale to-day in Boston. If we estimate the unlicensed at only 800, we have an aggregate of 3,000. Probably a low estimate; and with the subsidence of the

reform movement, and the return of "good times," threatening an indefinite increase.

As a final consideration, it is to be borne in mind that the city of Boston, as a municipality, had from the start contemned and thwarted the prohibitory law, and that this state of things ultimately led to the establishment of the State Police; that, on the other hand, they had pledged themselves in the strongest way beforehand to enforce a license law, and that during this last experiment the Mayoralty had been filled by a man of ability and determined will, who was elected in spite of the lower liquor class, and who set out with courage and faith to do all that could be done to vindicate the policy of license.* The State Police, to whom (not by statute, but in fact) the sole execution of the prohibitory law was entrusted, had in Boston, when the force was at its maximum, not over 40, while the force of the City Police is now 700. The candid reader will observe that we have seen here license working with every advantage, while in the chapter on Prohibition he will see the latter, so far as Boston is concerned, working at disadvantage. Never theless, we invite attention to the two pictures

* The present year has witnessed the advent of a more "liberal' administration, and a new Board of Commissioners. The least offensive chapter of license, we think, is closed.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NECESSARY FAILURE OF LICENSE.

LICENSE laws have not only failed in the past, but it is certain that they can not succeed in the future, because of inherent weaknesses.

If the history of license in the old world has been one of such long continued failure in any large results as to justify the London Times, in a recent leader, in saying, "What is to be done? is the wild, despairing cry heard on every side," still more clearly is the failure of license inevitable in the United States. It must fail in its immediate results; and even if it could succeed in these, it would fail in its ultimate object, if that object be assumed to be the protection of the State against the evils of the traffic. It will fail of enforcement, and when partially enforced it will fail in effectiveness. Its failure in enforcement is the kind of failure that we refer to as most inevitable in our own country. In the first place, the administrative part of our Government is the weakest, and the enforcement of our criminal laws generally is less uniform and thorough than in England; and it is notorious that liquor laws do not belong to the