serted in the Massachusetts Law, to be sure (1876, chap. 162), but as drafted and urged by prohibitionists, backed by only a comparatively small minority of the license men, and against the votes of the mass. I do not doubt the good faith of individuals; but the trouble is, that the strongest and most active section of the license party is in the liquor interest, and I do not see that it can be otherwise in the future.

For whatever view any one may himself take of the matter, it is an undeniable fact, and entitled to weight as such, that a vast majority, approaching to unanimity of the active friends of Temperance, in every organization and in every sphere of effort, are opposed by sentiment, by education, and by conviction, to any law sanctioning the sale of intoxicants as a common beverage. And I see no indications that the views of this class of men are undergoing, or are likely to undergo, any modification. We have, then, the problem presented to us of a proposal to deal, in the way of limitation and restraint, with a vast moneyed interest, and with a measure of monopoly odious to the popular mind, and yet without the support of that active moral sentiment which is the only force ultimately stronger than apparent self-interest. Is there reason to expect success?

But let us suppose all superficial obstacles

cess.

surmounted. Let us start with a law made and meant to work, and with a sufficiently powerful force of opinion behind it. Imagine that we have reached the first stage of apparent sucThe unlicensed dealers are suppressed; the low groggeries are out of sight; the liquors dispensed are pure alcoholic poisons, without even the adulteration of water; the bartenders are all "respectable" men or comely maidens. What then? Here is the "moderate drinker's" paradise. What fruits shall it bear? In the first place, an inevitable percentage of drunkards; and this class will in time create a demand which will insure a supply of the old groggeries. For these latter are as necessary a complement of the dram-shop system as the dens of vice are of that system of prostitution which takes its first steps in the elegant mansion. No system of legislation can do much for the suppression of a sensual vice which does not aim to eradicate the appetite for it by removal of the temptation and the facilities for its constant indulgence. These remaining substantially the same, whatever other changes in accessories may be made, about the same percentage of physical and moral wrecks will be found.

But this is not the worst. When the State sets up its primary schools for drinking, it not only prepares the way, by a necessary law of

succession, for its most loathsome underground universities of intemperance, from which graduate the most disgusting of the human species, but the terrible truth is, that it makes this primary school attractive to the innocent and young with all the glamour and fashion which wealth and reputation can throw about it. It is not the low bar-rooms that make drunkards; they only finish them. And the drinking in reputable places is the sadder when it is indulged in by the rich and the educated, who add to their own personal danger the evil of influential example. Thus, to the thoughtful observer, it is the high and not the low drinking-places of our great cities which chiefly attract his attention as pests and perils. I remember to have heard one who has adorned the highest judicial station, and who was not friendly to prohibitory legislation, yet pronounce the most fashionable establishment in Boston, especially attractive as is reputed to Harvard students, a veritable nuisance. What wise parent would not fear such a seductive place for his children, more than the dens of North Street?

And when to the fascinating influences of an enticing traffic, carefully pruned of repulsive surroundings, we add the educational influence of a bad law, we have rather interposed a formid

able barrier to the progress of the temperance reform than aided it by all our measures of restriction and regulation.

License laws rest upon the implied assumption that there is such a legitimate demand for the sale of intoxicating liquors as a common beverage as, notwithstanding the admitted perils of the traffic, to call upon the State to make convenient provision therefor. And the State assumes to hold out the licensee as a suitable person to supply this public want. The State thus endorses the traffic and selects the trafficker.

With the State as the tempter to the indulgence, the patron and the educator of an evil appetite, how can that appetite be eradicated? Our fathers essayed the problem; shall not their sad experience suffice their children?

CHAPTER XVII.

HALF-WAY MEASURES.

"Never believe, then, that we oppose restrictive measures.

We hail them, and will do our best to make them efficient; but, convinced as we are that no amount of regulation can ever be satisfactory, we are bound in conscience, even though, Cassandra-like, we prophecy to unbelieving ears, still to insist that nothing but the suppression of the traffic can deliver our country from the grievous woes and burdens under which she groans."EDWARD PEARSON.

All past legislation has been ineffectual to restrain the habit of excess. Acts of Parliament intended to lessen have notoriously augmented the evil; and we must seek a remedy in some new direction, if we are not prepared to abandon the contest or contentedly to watch with folded arms the gradual deterioration of the people. "Restriction, in the forms which it has hitherto assumed, of shorter hours, more stringent regulations of licensed houses, and magisterial control of licenses, has been a conspicuous failure. For a short time after the passing of Lord Aberdare's Act, hopes were entertained of great results from the provisions for early closing, and inany chief constables testified to the improved order of the streets under their charge; but it soon appeared that the limitation, while it lessened the labors of the police and advanced their duties an hour or so in the night, was not sufficient to reduce materially the quantity of liquor consumed or the consequent amount of drunkenness."-Fort nightly Review, May, 1876.

ALL restrictive laws in relation to the liquor traffic have our support, except in so far as they