tence? Do you wish now to advocate the suppression of tea,
coffee, and ice-water, which, I must say, would go a long way towards
improving the complexion and the digestive apparatus of your
compatriots?'

'No,' they said; 'we find that, in spite of the law, there is liquor,
wine, and beer still sold in this town, and we want to put a stop to
it.'

I knew that such was the case, for I had, _proh pudor!_ a bottle of
lager-beer in my pocket which I had bought for my dinner, but which, I
am glad to say, was not discovered by the ladies under the auspices of
whom I was to lecture in the evening. I can do with ice-water, but in a
prohibition State I cannot. The evil spirit prompts me. I must have
beer or wine with my meals. I have never been drunk in my life; but if
ever I get drunk it will be in a prohibition State.

'Well,' said the lady president of the temperance society of the town
of T----, 'could you believe that a few days ago a poor woman of the
town and her children actually died of starvation, while every day her
husband got drunk with the wages he received?'

'But,' I mildly suggested, 'you should see that that man was punished,
not the innocent population of this town. Don't suppress the wine,
which is a gift of God. Punish--suppress, even, if you like--the
drunkard. It is not wine that makes a man drunk, it is vice. Don't
suppress the wine, suppress the vice or the vicious. Imprison a
drunkard, lynch him, hang, shoot him, quarter him, do what you like
with him, but allow hundreds of good, wise, temperate people who would
use wine in moderation to indulge in a habit that makes men moderate,
cheerful, and happy. Don't suppress wine because a few idiots use it to
get drunk.'

Every year there are men who use knives to stab fellow-creatures; but
there are millions who use their knives to eat their meals peacefully
with. The law punishes the criminals, but would not think of forbidding
the use of knives in orderly houses.

Any law is bad that punishes, injures, or annoys thousands of good,
innocent people in order to stop the mischief done by a few--a very
few, after all--blackguards and scoundrels.

The Anglo-Saxon should, by all means, preach temperance, which means
moderation, not total abstinence. What they preach overreaches the
mark, and does no good. When you say that a country enjoys a
_temperate_ climate, that does not mean that it has no climate at all,
but enjoys a moderate one, neither too hot no