been supposed to possess sufficient power and efficiency to take the place of the criminal code. The influence of the church and the Sunday school has, doubtless, kept many a man from meddling with things which did not belong to him: yet, we find it necessary to have laws against theft. And so on through the whole catalogue of crime. Suppose that the constitutional doubters should be permited to have the full benefit of their doubts, and that the Legislature should by one omnibus bill repeal the entire criminal code of Texas, and leave the material interests of the people to the protection of moral suasion, religious training, the "blatant preachers," and crying women. Then set afloat the idea contended for, that personal liberty is supreme. Do you see the absurdity? Do you comprehend the legitimate conclusion of the false logic?

But there is another class of people—the antipodes of the doubters, who demand passing notice. They are the over credulous. They take everything for granted, skim around upon the surface of every popular movement or question, and that they are prohibitionists to-day is no sign whatever that they will be prohibitionists to-morrow. All of this class who have sense enough to discern the current of popular sentiment are professional politicians. They shout at every camp-meeting, and are loud-mouthed advocates of Christianity when camp-meetings and Christianity are in season. When the sporting season comes around, they are good sport for the devil. In doubtful seasons they assume the "livery of the court of Heaven," and go about hurraing for the cause of the captain of the infernal regions. They cry "Good Lord" out of one side of their mouths, and "Most excellent devil" out of the other, alternating between the two sides to suit the changing positions of the popular ear. The weaker members of this. numerically great class are the dupes of every designing, unscrupulous villian that comes tramping through the country.

They love to be humbugged, and they are never left without ample resources for the gratification of their passion. They work hard the year round for a small surplus above the cost of a miserable living, and about Christmas some sharper comes along with a patent and "scoops" it all up. Instead of thinking before acting, they do exactly the reverse. They act the fool, and then afterwards sorrowfully think over what they have done, and spend valuable time in useless regrets, wondering why they did not think of it sooner. Before they get through sorrowing over their folly, another sharper comes along and "scoops" them again.

And so they go on through life. Of all people on earth, they deserve the most of our sympathy. They are not responsible for their weakness. God made them to be, or permitted them to remain foolish, perhaps for no other purpose than to confound those who are wise in their own conceit. It is unjust and irreverent to suppose that God has done wrong or made a mistake in the make up of their mental and moral constitutions. They are here for a purpose. We have no right to condemn them. I shall not do it, but, as they are here, we can not ignore their existence. They are wholly unreliable, although they do not mean to be so. When they promise that they will stay with you "through evil, as well as good report," they do not intend to be false; they do not calculate to deceive you. If you are a candidate for an office, every one of them will pledge himself to vote for you, and if the voting were to be simultaneous with the promise, no candidate would ever be defeated-they would all be elected-a dozen or more to the same office. But as the time for action is usually at a distance, in the intervening time another victim for the sacrifice comes around. They all promise to vote for him, and mean every word of it. When the day of the election comes on, such a man will go to his voting place without the least idea whom he will finally decide to vote for.

A "good worker" is on the corner watching his approach. He goes to him and oftener than otherwise makes out his entire ticket, marches him to the ballot box and votes him just as he wouid use a machine manufactured to order for the purposes of voting with dispatch.

Such is a brief outline of human character as applied to public affairs. In the matter of popular elections I have had some opportunities to observe, and, as the short sketch of my life has already shown, I am not without some little experience. Having said this much by way of introduction, I will proceed in the next chapter with a discussion of some of the causes of drunkenness and the milder forms of intemperance.

CHAPTER II.

CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

HEREDITARY-DEFECT IN TRAINING CHILDREN'S APPETITES AND IMPULSES BAD EXAMPLES- CURIOSITY-INDISCRIMINATE SOCIAL TREATING-FASHION'S POWER SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

It is not proposed in this chapter, nor is it necessary to the purposes in view in the present discussion, to go into a lengthy dissertation upon the hereditary laws, nor to speak at length upon those constitutional tendencies to inebriety, found to exist in perhaps no inconsiderable class of our people. That the thirst for intoxicating drinks is often transmitted from father to son through successive generations is, I believe, a generally conceded physiological fact. It is, to some extent, demonstrated by our own individual observation, but it is not without its numerous exceptions. It is by no means an uncommon occurrence that while the father is from his youth up a sot and a drunkard, not one of his offspring may ever manifest the least disposition to intemperance. It is doubtless sometimes the case that the very example of the parent has a tendency to neutralize such hereditary inclination, and to cause the mind to revolt at the degradation to which a protracted indulgence in the use of intoxicants ultimately leads. Such considerations would necessarily have great influence upon the mind of an individual possessing a reasonable degree of self respect, coupled with strong will power and self control. Without the latter, the parental example will most

naturally be followed by the son, and a long line of drunkards will ordinarily be the result. This hereditary tendency towards intemperance and drunkenness could not have been originally planted in the human constitution, but must have had its origin in the perverted habits of some of our ancestors, and has, in many instances, become more and more rampant and incorrigible through the indulgence of succeeding generations. Those who unfortunately belong to a line of constitutional drunkards are greatly to be pitied, and in every instance where it may appear that no remedy is adequate to the removal or correction of the evil, the victim should be taken specially in charge by the government, and treated and cared for as other classes of unfortunates who are provided with asylums and other available means for their comfort and protection. But this branch of the subject will be more fully considered in a future chapter.

Leaving this class of confirmed and constitutional inebriates in the hands of a higher power, we will next consider specially some of those causes of drunkenness which are directly attributable to human agency, through the medium of patent defects in our social system, and which it is certainly possible in some degree to remedy by human agency, both through the instrumentality of individual effort and the exercise of legislative authority. In the first place, our educational system is defective. In childhood and youth the appetite, the desire for good things to eat and good things to drink is the controlling passion and most powerful incentive, and its demands are at all times the most imperative and apparently insatiable. The average child is not happy except when it is eating and drinking, and its most miserable moments are those it endures while waiting for the older persons of the household to get through eating, so that it can have full sway at the table. This is all right—it is the voice of nature, and the child is not to be chastised or even