free from adulteration; to a drunkard, intoxicated person, or one known to have been intoxicated within six months preceding; or to a minor, either for his own use, the use of his parent, or any other person. All disorder, indecency and gaming is forbidden either on the licensed premises or premises connected therewith by interior communication. Licenses of the second, third or fifth class forbid that other liquors than those specified be kept on the premises. Licenses of the first, second and third classes are subject to the condition that the licensee shall not keep a public bar, and shall hold license only as an inn-holder, and the room in which liquors are to be sold shall be specified. Licenses must be displayed where they can be easily read. The violation of any of these conditions works forfeiture of the license.

The board granting the license may require the permanent closing of all entrances except from the public street. No blinds, screens, or other obstructions are allowed, and any obstruction which interferes with a clear view of the interior makes the license void. Bond is required in the sum of $1000, to be signed by surety worth $2000, property to be designated and statement kept on file with the bond.

One fourth of the license money must be paid to the State by the treasurer of the city or town. Any authorized officer may enter premises at any time to see how the business is conducted and may take samples of liquors for analysis, the town or city to pay for said samples if found of good quality and unadulterated. Mayors and aldermen of a city and selectmen of a town may declare a license forfeited after due notice, and if so declared the holder is disqualified to receive license for one year, and if he own the premises no license to be exercised on said premises can issue for the balance of the term.

Any person taking liquors to sell, or to be sold into a town in which licenses are not issued, forfeits the liquors to the State.

Whoever violates any provision of his license or of this law is liable to a fine not less than $50 nor more than $500, or to jail not less than one or more than six months, or both, and the licensee also forfeits his license and becomes disqualified to hold license for one year, and no license can be issued for the premises, if he be the owner, for the rest of the term.

Any person injured in person, property or means of support by an intoxicated person, has right of action against any person, who, in whole or in part caused such intoxication, and against the owner of the premises unless the occupant holds a license. Persons selling to minors or allowing minors to loiter on premises are liable in the sum of $100 for each offense, to the parent or guardian of such minor,

The husband, wife, parent, child, guardian or employer of any person having the habit of drinking to excess, may notify any person in writing not to sell to person having such habit, and if persons so notified sell to such person within twelve months, the person giving the notice may recover in any sum not less than $100, nor more than $500, provided, that an employer giving such notice shall not recover unless injured in person or property.

Any liquor containing more than three per cent of alcohol is declared intoxicating liquor.

Other sections of the law provide for the inspection of liquors and against their adulteration. The law is very strong and explicit on this point. The seizure of concealed liquors is also provided for, and such liquors may be forfeited to the State.

A mayor, alderman, selectman, sheriff, or deputy, chief of police or deputy, city marshal or deputy, police officer or constable may arrest violators of the law without warrant and seize liquors, vessels and implements in their possession, and it is made the duty of these officers to enforce penalties against offenders. If they neglect so to do for two weeks after being notified in writing that the law is being violated and the names of witnesses are given them, any person who makes complaint thereafter is entitled to all fines collected for such violation.

All liquors kept for sale and the implements and vessels used in selling contrary to law are declared common nuisances; also all club rooms used for the purpose of selling or dispensing liquors to member or others, and those who keep or maintain such rooms are liable to a fine not less than $50 nor more than $100, or imprisonment in the house of correction not less than three months nor more than twelve.

Amendments provide that no license shall be granted for sale within four hundred feet of any public school; provide

for the inspection and seizure of liquors; forbid tampering with samples taken, and require common victualers having license to close their places from midnight until five in the morning.

Other amendments add to the stringency of the Sunday and gaming laws; the restrictions upon licensed victualers provide against giving credit for drink, food or livery hire to students in educational institutions, and against selling liquor or beer without license at any show or exhibition.

There is also a law in Massachusetts against drunkenness. Any person getting intoxicated by the voluntary use of liquor, may, for the first offense, be fined not more than one dollar and costs, and be imprisoned until such fine and costs are paid, not exceeding ten days. A male person for the second offense may be fined not more than five dollars and costs or imprisoned not more than two months. If he has been convicted twice in the twelve months preceding, he may be fined not more than ten dollars or imprisoned not more than one year.

If a woman has been convicted twice within twelve months she may be fined not exceeding ten dollars, or imprisoned in the reformatory prison for women not less than one or more than two years, or, in any place provided by law for common drunkards, not more than one year.

It would seem from a perusal of these laws, that if there were any virtue at all in license laws and other so-called restrictive and regulative measures, it should be manifest in Massachusetts, yet we find that according to the Census and Revenue reports of 1880 that State had one saloon to every sixty-four voters, a proportion equalled by only fifteen other States, while the adjoining State of Vermont, with a prohibitory law moderately well enforced had but one saloon to 201 voters, and South Carolina with such Prohibition as she could secure through local option had but one saloon to each 246 voters. These figures speak volumes.

CONNECTICUT.

LICENSE WITH LOCAL OPTION FEATURES APPLYING TO TOWNS.

"An interesting incident," says Doctor Dorchester, "shows the state of public sentiment in this colony at a very early date. A vessel, touching at Norwalk, prepared to land a barrel of rum. The civil authorities and principal inhabitants gathered and forbade its landing. They said to the captain of the vessel, 'You shall never land it on our shores. What! a whole barrel of rum ! It will corrupt our morals and be our undoing." In 1650 a heavy duty was laid on all imported liquors and an execise tax on home manufacture. Drunkenness was fined five shillings for first and ten for second offense. Sellers were fined if they allowed men to get drunk in their houses.

According to Rev. Geo. A. Calhoun D. D., as early as 1800 there was extreme poverty, caused by drink. He says, in North Coventry, an average town for that period (1800 to 1820). "Only four floors had carpets on them, but four houses painted white, and not more than ten four-wheeled vehicles in the town. Even whitewash on the wall was rare. Real poverty was the cause. The gains of the people were consumed in intoxicating drink. At least one man of every score became a drunkard, and not a few women were given to the habits of intemperance."

A prohibitory law was passed in 1854, the legislature at the time being democratic and anti-Neb. The present law is a mixture of local option and license, and is only enforced on the surface, even in no-license towns. It is considered an obstacle in the way of prohibition, deluding many honest men with "the mirage" or non-partisan local option work.

License was granted upon application signed by applicant and endorsed by five electors and tax-payers of the town within the limits of which the business carried on under such license is to be transacted. A bond of $300 required. License for not less than $100, nor more than $500.

Sec. 7 of the law in force is as follows:

"No spirituous and intoxicating liquors shall be sold, ex

changed, or given away in any building belonging to or under the control of the State, or of any county or town in the State; nor shall any license be granted for the sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors in any building, except a hotel, when said building is also used as a dwelling-house, unless access from the portion of said building used as a dwelling to the portion appropriated to the sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors is effectually closed, and if any way of access from the other portions of said building to the portion used for the sale of such liquors shall be opened after said license is granted, such license shall thereupon be revoked by the county commissioners. No license for the sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors shall be granted to any sheriff, deputy-sheriff, constable, grand juror, justice of the peace, prosecuting agent, or to any female who is not known to the county commissioners to be a woman of good repute; or to any female who is a member of the household of any person to whom a license has been refused, or by whom a license has been forfeited, or to any person keeping a house of illfame, or a house reputed to be a house of ill-fame, or to any person keeping any gambling place of any description."

Severe penalties are prescribed for the violation of any of the provisions of the law.

From a recent report of an important commitee of the Conference of the Congregational Church, of Connecticut, I take the following, which may seem to indicate the condition of affairs in that State with reference to the liquor traffic:

3.

The statistics of crime in the State since the dram-shop was legalized, justify the demand for its suppression. In the first year of the operation of the law of 1872, commitments for crime in the State went up from 2,986 to 4,481, and for drunkenness, from 1,470 to 2,125. The commitments of the last criminal year, as reported to the present General Assembly, were, for all crimes, 6,416; and for drunkenness, including "common drunkards," 2,905. Comparing these figures with those of the year before the legalization of the dram-shop, viz: total commitments 2,905, and drunkenness 1,290, we have an in