God, let our Government understand the necessity of permanent prohibition, because from this hellish poison Russia was on the verge of ruin." "The morality of the people has advanced by a hundred years. No hooliganism, no crimes." One adds to his list, "No frozen people," lifting the veil from a once typical Russian Winter scene. A priest writes: "All are as if they were born anew. They are reasonable, gentle, and more capable for work; and, as a result, crime has disappeared." "All crime, &c., has lessened by 90 per cent. The village is quite different."

As a result of prohibition the number of fires has lessened. Law processes have also markedly declined in number. Seven correspondents say: "The police have nothing to do." One concise report runs: "Before prohibition there were thirty to fifty cases every month in the district court; now there are none. I (who write) am the Judge." A clerk of a district court writes: "Formerly we had 130 criminal cases every year, an average of eleven a month. Now from July till the present date (four to five months) we have only had seven, and not one of the most serious degree."

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Besides the above, there are 118 reports where the correspondents answer quite shortly that prohibition has had a very good influence on the conduct and morality of the people. First of all, it is explained, the women can breathe more freely. Women and children can now see the light of hope and redemption who were formerly suffering from beating, tortures, and injuries-as the poet Nekrasov writes, 'Peasant woman's life so hard and difficult, worse cannot be found.'" As compared with this life, the reports of the correspondents refer very much to the new conditions. "Nobody on earth ever had such rejoicing before as the women have now." "All the women are quite delighted." "God has heard their prayers." For what are they so grateful, and about what are they praying? "The women are very grateful for this good deed which has made them human beings and not slaves." "In a word, the country is preparing for a new life." "You can say without exaggeration that

The answers to the second part of the question bring out not merely the possibility of, but an actual desire for, permanent stoppage of the sale of vodka. In twenty-nine instances only is there, out of 531 answers, no answer to the second question. All the other replies (502) are of this general type: The permanent

stoppage of the sale of spirits is quite possible and actually desired, as it will give good results in the future."

It is particularly important to study the reports showing shades of opinion among those who still believe in the possibility of permanent prohibition. Of such reports there are 104. "In most of them it is apparent," says the redactor, "that there are people who are discontented with prohibition, but only in twenty instances is any light shed on the point as to who these individuals are." It is clear, however, that they comprise, first, those who had profit from the sales, (for there were shops with licenses to sell vodka other than the Government shops, but which bought the commodity from the Government shops,) the owners of restaurants with sale of wine, and rich peasants who exploit their poorer brothers. (They run private loan businesses, and do better the more their weaker brothers drink.) Finally, "the owners of premises used as drink shops are for the renewal of the sale."

For the stoppage are those who did not drink very much, the poor, those fairly well off, and all women. For the renewal or reopening stand the rich peasants, hopeless drunkards, and winesellers. In most cases even these correspondents say that the discontented are really few. Only in a very few reports is it stated that the majority of the people are discontented with prohibition. So if the majority of correspondents see that the stoppage of the sale is desirable and possible, then

there is more reason for giving the more detailed explanations of the minority.

Some very human situations are depicted in this group of replies. "Before giving the answers to the question I gathered twenty householders from our village, and I read to them a little pamphlet on temperance. After discussing some questions about the influence of temperance on our life, I could see that every one understood the harm of vodka, but nobody wanted to deprive himself of it. And on my question, What shall I write about the permanent stoppage of vodka? nobody gave any answer." A priest writes: "I do not believe in absolute prohibition; it is quite impossible to be in mourning forever."

Some are afraid that with permanent prohibition the people will try to make their own drink and suffer from it. Others fear the financial deficit, and the consequent imposition of new taxes. Two or three correspondents do not like the implied restriction of the liberty of the individual. "Our sobriety was forced upon us, and at a time when every good person, even without prohibition, cannot enjoy life; therefore such a change in the life of the people is due not only to temperance, but to the expectation of something terrible and indefinite that is going to happen. In spite of newspapers which speak about the victory of Russia, every one realizes the cost of this victory for every family. How can they enjoy such victory if their dearest are missing? These thoughts, I think, make people sober much more than any prohibition." From many of the reports it is evident

that fresh educational measures are considered necessary to aid continued prohibition, because a new sober country needs culture, and every kind of such measure will be accepted with great joy. I cannot say," writes a correspondent, "what will be the case in the future, but they need something instead of wine." (He notes that some are taking to gambling instead.) "The need is so great that even the local intelligentsiya cannot meet the need," (i. e., even if they put all their strength into providing entertainmentlectures, &c.) Yet others fall back ultimately on prohibition. "Prohibition is quite necessary for everything—for economic wealth, for their health, physical and moral improvement, and for the stoppage of hooliganism and crime. Without it the people will be lost. Schools or hospitals cannot help.”

The majority of correspondents are therefore agreed in principle about the possibility and desirability of permanent prohibition. The reports show that the country no longer approves of its dark, drink-sodden past. If it continued so any longer it would, in the opinion of many of the correspondents, be quite "ruined" and "degraded." The consciousness that the country can avoid this allows some correspondents to consider permanent prohibition as "the greatest reform, and a most beautiful action."

A priest writes: "When I was filling up the schedule about temperance, a peasant entered the room, and when I read to him what I had written he said, 'I should like every one to know how good our life is without vodka. Let it disappear forever.'"

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I

S there a peace sentiment? The question may be answered in the affirmative, but with a certain reservation. A sentiment for peace does not prevail, but it is nevertheless at hand, and especially in England and France. For it is being talked about, and that in public.

The speeches of the lords in the English upper house have found their echo in England and everywhere else. This echo is so loud that the accompanying utterances, which apparently are meant to nullify the peace desires, are hardly to be heard. The peers of the United Kingdom, Courtney and Loreburne, in language to be approved by both friend and foe, have pictured the cultural destruction threatening the world through a stubborn continuation of this war. But they have added, apparently so that neither they nor their comrades should be frightened by thoughts of peace: "Of course, it stands to reason that we cannot begin to think of peace until the German invaders are driven from France and Belgium."

We need not take this addition too seriously; in fact, we may admit that there are moments when this has been tactically necessary. But time will soften hearts, and events in the Balkans will also considerably minimize the influence of the war spirit beyond the Channel.

The reservations by the very honorable lords indicate an exaction of payment without return. It is the confounding of end and aim. Between these stretches a long and dangerous course, with no less than seventeen obstacles, namely, the twelve fortresses in France and the five in Belgium.

Furthermore, if all signs fail not, in the Balkans the English-French forces are confronted with a situation of the most far-reaching effect. And the Turk

ish armies will be free to enter upon the well-prepared march toward Suez. The British giant-body, which reaches from Canada to beyond India, in order to furnish the London stomach with nourishment, possesses just at Suez a specially slender waistline not particularly well protected.

A thrust here might prove deadly. When the ships at Saloniki and Gallipoli miss fire, and when the thunder of the Turkish guns is heard at Port Said, then will Lords Courtney and Loreburne give their peace sentiments a new interpretation, and that without the aforementioned reservation. And perhaps it will come

even sooner.

Viviani, and after him Briand, have also been talking peace. It somehow floats in the French atmosphere. With but one negative voice the Chamber has virtually acknowledged its acceptance of the Briand speech. Not only did Briand repeat the reservation of the English lords, but in addition demanded the previous request for the giving up of AlsaceLorraine and Serbia. And the Socialists, sworn before the war to protest against any conflict, have even joined in this demand. The forty-four-year-old dream about the reconquering of Alsace-Lorraine is not yet dissipated.

Although the Frenchman himself is down, he does not seem willing to cease thinking about the deliverance of others. The English malady can be cured. In France there exists a mental sickness which seems quite incurable. Should the German armies gain Paris and Orleans it is doubtful if this sickness would disappear. Only England's lead and willingness can have any effect. The cloak will drop only with the fall of the Duke. So far the Frenchman talks peace as in a fever dream.

From Russia and Italy there come re

News of London.

L

IST after list is posted; each day unseals new sources of tears, and the woe of the war lengthens into a litany of sorrow, "That it may please Thee to defend and provide for the fatherless children and widows and all that are desolate: we beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord."

We stand in purpose firm, to the end; but many myriads of mothers and fathers are waiting meanwhile-waiting in gray insular weather, for the worst; and those who know the worst already had also to know the long anxiety of dread. Perhaps the dread is almost as bad to bear as the worst when it comes, if come it does; yet the worst also is listened for. "Tell me the worst! is such a natural cry of the heart; "Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee!"-even with the terrible truth.

Proverbs, those comforts in ordinary times, are now crutches that break. "No news" is not "good news" now. A crushing certainty has this much of good in it, that it stills the long racking of the dread. When the worst is known there is no longer a faint, fair hope left struggling with fears that assail it each sleepless hour, and doubts that worry it all day. Is "the worst" the worst indeed? It is a sharp and burning blade, on a sudden; but the pain of it blessedly lessens thereafter. It brings with it its own merciful anodyne, too; it stuns, so that the pangs are not entirely conscient—the blow is partly anaesthetic. And tears come to soften the impact; the good tears that relieve. 66 Men must work and women must weep " is another saying which breaks down now; men, too, should let the war tears come, not strive against their pain dry eyed.

Give sorrow words, also-unpack the loaded heart with speech. Do not only think of him; shut away alone, with the

worst as your relentless, silent companion, you hinder your own healing. Seek rather the presence of friends at your hearth, and talk with them of your loss, and of the lost as he used to be-of what he was, what he nobly did, and what is his exceeding great reward. Listen, as people speak to you of his bravery and devotion in a great Cause; accept and believe that whoso wars against the Mephistopheles that has entered into the German Faust is indeed a Crusader. Remind each other, beside the hearth which he died to defend against evil, of what he was there, at his best-all else that he was can be forgotten; the natural human dress of that has been refined away in the flame of his transfiguration. Think of him as being caught up from the trenches to the heights.

"But it is so sudden!" is the woman's natural cry. "I don't even know where he died!" Yet you know how he lived, and for what. And as to his resting place, it was burial in splendor for him, not in city fashion, borne to some city of tombstones, within the rusty trappings of a hearse. It was somewhere in Flanders or France that he died, or in a Balkan valley, or on a slope in Gallipoli, or upon the sands of Mesopotamia; or in the hale and hearty sea, upon the floor that has been strewn with the bones of the British for ages. No matter where -a grave is only a doorway; and wherever he died, he died well.

But I can't find out how it happened! The ill news is so brief."

No record of his service comes to hand, Save in a soldier's curt and simple phrase. "I regret to have to acquaint you that he died in action "-that is all. Yet in everything splendid there is something vague, a mystical halo. And, however or wherever it was, he died manly, on a field of honor which was also a field of