Then, again, a closer study of the laws of human solidarity has shown how the well-being of all depends on the well-being and well-doing of each; while a better acquaintance with the moral and physical laws of the universe has revealed kinds of injury and damage unnoticed by former generations. At the same time, the intense pursuit of wealth, and the creation of vast moneyed corporations, as a necessary means for carrying on the great enterprises of the day, has made labor, while nominally free, quite at the mercy of capital at vital points, without legislative protection. Simultaneously with this, there has grown up under the educating influence of Christianity, a tenderer sympathy for the weak, a stronger sense of human brotherhood. And when to these causes we add the historic fact, that in all civilized countries the people have been steadily, if slowly, "coming to power," it is not strange that legislation has been growing more philanthropic, and gov ernment more paternal.

6*

CHAPTER XIV.

LAW A NECESSITY.

"DRUNKENNESS," says Gov. Andrew, in his famous plea for license, “will disappear as the light shines in on the darkened intellect, as opportunity develops manhood, as hope visits and encourages the heart." This is an eloquent way of saying what he attempts to maintain in detail, that prosperity, education, and religion will take care of intemperance without the aid of law.

Facts, stubborn facts, teach the contrary. Let us see, first, how drunkenness has been affected by

PROSPERITY.

A recent Parliamentary return shows that the consumption of foreign spirits has increased as follows, from 1871 to 1875:

England, 2,163,430 gals., or 30 per cent.

England, 3,868,036 gals., or 30 per cent.

This is exclusive of a moderate increase in wines. "Is this," remarks the English journal from which I take these figures, “any indication of the progressive sobriety which was to follow commercial prosperity and educational advantages? Had all this arisen with a permissive bill on the statute-book, what a cry would have been raised! But it has arisen under license administered by magistrates and guarded by the police (with the publicans to help), and what a commentary it is on the predictions of the journalists and legislators who could see no need of 'extreme measures,' but trusted to 'moral influences' for a diminished use of intoxicating liquors." But there is still more direct proof that drunkenness is still on the increase in England.

The "judicial statistics" of England and Wales show the following aggregate of cases proceeded against for drunkenness and "drunkenness with disorder," for several years past, with the percentage these form of the whole number of "summary cases" of different of fenses :

Lord Aberdare has been shown to have taken too rose-colored a view of the diminution of English crime; but even he bears emphatic testimony upon this point in an address delivered before the Social Science Congress of 1875. Alluding to the experience of Glamorganshire during the period of the strikes, he says:

"There was a large decrease in the number of committals to the county gaols. But although during this period there was ample leisure, no money could be earned, and strict economy was imperatively necessary. Hence the public-houses were deserted, and the police courts almost as empty as the public-houses. I most heartily rejoice in that general and gradual increase of wages, which of late years has brought comfort into so many homes, and given occasional respite from their labor to so many industrious workmen. But this satisfaction, which I am convinced is shared in by all those now present, is sadly marred by the reflection forced upon me of the misuse of these advantages by so many of our countrymen, and by the fact that, whereas periods of adversity empty our gaols and almost make police magistrates superfluous, a return to prosperity restores those instruments of order and justice to their full use and activity."

So the Archbishop of York, in a special service at Westminster Abbey, on a Sunday

evening of the past year, felt compelled to make what he felt to be "a miserable and shameful confession" of national weakness. Alluding to the great increase of the expenditure for drink, as shown by official returns, he said:

"If the question were asked, what was the cause of this fearful increase, he could conceive of no answer but this that the nation had lately been growing richer, and that it drank in proportion as it could pay for drink."

After the memorable report of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury on intemperance was made, a committee was appointed by the Convocation in the Province of York for a similar purpose, whose report was published in 1874. The committee say that "every assertion made" in the report, is "founded upon the direct testimony of numerous witnesses moving in various ranks of life, filling various offices, and all of them, for some reason or other, peculiarly fitted to pronounce an opinion." Among the conclusions which they emphasize are that intemperance "is always in proportion to the rate of wages and the amount of facilities provided for obtaining strong drink," and that the large increase of intemperance during the last decade "exists principally in the great centers of manufacturing and