uining
intemperance amongst the lower portion of the working-classes, that
only some startling details connected with it make any great
impression upon us. Yet it is verily a most awful thing to exist in
the midst of enlightened, advancing England. There are 1300 beer-shops
in the borough of Manchester, besides 200 dram-shops. Thirty-nine per
cent. of the beer-shops are annually reported by the police as
disorderly. One dram-shop receives 10,000 visits weekly. In those of
Deansgate, which are 28 in number, 550 persons, including 235 women
and 36 children, were found at one time on a Saturday night. Many of
the beer-shops are a haunt of the young of both sexes among the
factory people, 'the majority with faces unwashed and hair uncombed,
dancing in their wooden clogs to the music of an organ, violin, or
seraphine.'

A considerable number of the public-houses of Manchester have music
continually going on as an attraction. Twenty-four such houses are
open on Sunday evenings. Two of them received 5500 visitors per week
last winter. The most innocent of the favourite haunts of the people
are casinos, or music-saloons, where multitudes assemble to witness
scenic representations, feats of jugglery, tumbling, &c. Twopence is
paid for admission, and for this the value is given in refreshments,
most frequently consisting of ginger-beer. These places are
comparatively innocent, but still are far from being what is required
in that respect.[3]

It is a tremendous problem--how are we to give _innocent_ amusement to
the people? Perhaps there is none of our day more momentous. We try
the lecture, and win an audience of units out of the thousands whom we
seek to benefit. The reading-room, with penny cups of coffee, holds
out its modest charms, and does much good, but still leaves the masses
as it finds them. Something else is wanted, but it is difficult to say
what it should be. Perhaps some clever person will hit upon it by
intuition, or some ordinary one by accident, and so solve the problem.
Perhaps it will be left to the philosopher to consider the human
nature of the case, and divine what should be done. We can imagine him
saying something like this: 'Man is a creature that requires novelty,
variety, and excitement. He cannot be kept at duty continually; he
must have pleasure too. He cannot be always at work on the real; he
demands the ideal also. Even in the course of exertions which he
relishes as conducing to his material in