rld, but
these pious prohibitionists are not of the temperament to understand how
alcohol ministers to the esthetic side of certain natures. It gives us
better companions and makes us better companions for others. It
stimulates our minds, enhances our appreciations, sharpens our wit,
loosens our tongues, and saves brilliant conversation from becoming a
lost art."

My sympathies went out to the judge. It has always seemed to me a pity
that the liquor question has resolved itself into a fight between
extremists--for I think the wine and beer people might survive if they
were not tied up with the distillers, and I do not believe that any
considerable evil comes of drinking wine or beer.

Nevertheless it must be apparent to every one who troubles to
investigate, that prohibition invariably works great good wherever it is
made effective. Take, for example, Birmingham.

There was one year--I believe it was 1912--when there was an average of
more than one murder a day, for every working day in the year, in the
county in which Birmingham is located. On one famous Saturday night
there were nineteen felonious assaults (sixteen by negroes and three by
whites), from which about a dozen deaths resulted, two of those killed
having been policemen.

All this has changed with prohibition. Killings are now comparatively
rare, arrests have diminished to less than a third of the former
average, whether for grave or petty offenses, and the receiving jail,
which was formerly packed like a pigpen every Saturday night, now stands
almost empty, while the city jail, which used continually to house from
120 to 150 offenders, has diminished its average population to 30 or
35.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

BUSY BIRMINGHAM

The fact that a man may shut off his motor and coast downhill from his
home to his office in the lower part of Birmingham, is not without
symbolism. Birmingham is all business. If I were to personify the place,
it would be in the likeness of a man I know--a big, powerful fellow with
an honest blue eye and an expression in which self-confidence, ambition,
and power are blended. Like Birmingham, this man is a little more than
forty years of age. Like Birmingham, he has built up a large business of
his own. And, like Birmingham, he is a little bit naive in his pride of
success. His life is divided between his office and his home, and it
would be difficult to say for which his devotion is the greater. He
talks business with his