I worked in shops ten years of my life as laborer, apprentice and journeyman-part of the time in the foundry but most of the time as machinist-and three years as foreman.

Several of these years were spent in so-called "dry" StatesMaine and Vermont. Experience working with men and later as an employer of men has taught me that high license with well regulated places where workmen can stop on their way home and get their beer, is what the men prefer, and I believe they will vote for it. Besides you can't legislate brains into a man's head-you must leave him free, to an extent, to work out his own salvation. Ninetyeight per cent. do it satisfactorily to themselves, and to the community.

It would be a calamity—nothing less-to make Pontiac a "dry" town again. We are progressing-let us get along. Let us be one of the livest towns in Michigan-not a dead burg. Stop agitating the liquor question every year and attend to business of more importance.

Let us regulate the liquor trade in Pontiac as a legitimate open business and let's expend the proceeds received from the revenue tax on improvements in and around Pontiac which will do the greatest good to the largest number of taxpayers.

FLANDERS MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

By W. E. FLANDERS, President.

To the foregoing it need only be added that Pontiac voted heavily against prohibition, thus justifying the faith of the Flanders Manufacturing Company in the good sense and intelligence of the people.

The Decrease of Drunkenness.

"Hardly a generation ago drunkenness was almost a national vice, while today, in the great centers of population, the appearance of an intoxicated man on the public highways is indeed a rare sight. Yet Americans have not abandoned the use of liquors, but have, in fact, greatly increased their consumption. This apparently anomalous situation is the outgrowth of the development of the idea of moderation and temperance, rather than the destructive idea of prohibition."-AMERICAN COMMON SENSE.

F

DICKENS AND GOOD CHEER.

A Bibulous Compilation from the "Pickwick Papers."

OR those who love good cheer a study has been made of that most cheerful of tales, Dickens' "Pickwick Papers." Το

the millions of readers who have received from the genial Mr. Pickwick the general impression that England is a land flowing with milk, honey and nectars potent for good fellowship there has been only that and nothing more. But when statistics are applied, after the fashion of the implacable exciseman, one realizes that those were hard-headed days and nights, with none of your twentieth century mornings after, katzenjammers and general anguish of body and soul.

These statistics have been compiled from the immortal papers of the Pickwick Club, by Robert Summers, of Philadelphia, in a spirit as friendly as Mr. Pickwick himself could ask.

"When the great novelist," Mr. Summers remarks in preface to his figures, "sent his four tourists on their never-to-be-forgotten peregrinations, he never failed to provide for them an abundance of good cheer. There was no lack of breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, suppers, banquets, snacks and feasts, and, in fact, all sorts of eating, in all sorts of places and on all sorts of occasions. At none of these did the supply of drinkables ever fail to keep pace with the prodigality of the viands.

"It is the purpose of the present writer to here set forth, chapter by chapter, each paragraph wherein drinking and drinks are mentioned, and to point out at the end of each chapter just how many times such things were referred to, and to make a recapitulation showing just how many times drinks were partaken of and what sort of drinks were used.

"It is not the purpose of this account to condemn the habit of conviviality or to draw a terrible example; for notwithstanding the astonishing lot of tippling that occurred in this book, the tipplers were by no means drunkards or vagabonds. They were quite the reverse, which almost proves that the quality of the things drinkable during those times was far purer and more healthful than the wet goods served to the guileless and unsuspecting public of these cultured days, when (according to the frenzied "prohi") beer is made

from old canvas and corn syrup; ale from reed seeds; port wine from logwood, and whisky from umbrella juice and fine-cut tobacco. No; we feel sure that our convivial friends never partook of the sheepdip, pine-top, third-rail or calcium light; but what they did drink was honest stuff, and in the main did more good than harm.

"It is almost a foregone conclusion that the most severe critic would hardly call the kindly and genial Mr. Pickwick a drunkard, or couple the name of the gentle poet, Snodgrass, with excessive drinking. Who would think of classing among the fearful examples of intemperance the gallant Nimrod, Winkle? And as to linking such bad habits of over-indulgence with the person of that beau, that warm devotee and admirer of the gentler sex, Tracy Tupman—! But cease, pause, stop, avaunt, silence! That were rank heresy.

"Even Sam Weller, Job Trotter and Dismal Jemmy were not drunkards. Jingle himself, who certainly did consume a vast quantity, proved so well seasoned a vessel that he also cannot be called a drunkard. So let it be understood that I am not accusing any of these highly amusing, singularly comic, intensely lovable, kind, benevolent and liberal Pickwickians of immoderation."

The opening chapter, which treats merely of the meeting of the club, makes no mention of drink at all. But the second makes up for it, Mr. Summers finds; 17 times is the record, brandy, ale, negus and wine included. Mr. Jingle even said the negus was too strong and suggested lemonade; Mr. Tupman was really drunk, and the gallant Winkle made no bones about admitting that he also was drunk. Mr. Pickwick, too, had a hankering for soda water the morning after. Mr. Summers adds the interesting detail that negus, made of wine, water, sugar and spice, was named for its inventor, Sir Francis Negus, who was very fond of it.

Chapter III introduces the dismal man and his tale of the Stroller. It adds half a dozen drinking incidents to the list, but mentions no new tipple. But the fourth chapter, full of jovial people, pleasant things to eat and mellow wine to drink-for wine alone is taken here-adds 11 times for the cup that cheers, making an average, for four chapters, of 81⁄2 times per chapter, or, having due regard for delay until Chapter II is getting under way, 11 1-3 per chapter where drinking is referred to.

The "truly delicious concoction," cherry brandy, is added to the list of potables in the course of the two references to drinking in Chapter V; and its successor is equally moderate, while it

introduces that once popular stay and comfort, the home-made cordial. Both very moderate chapters, considering how dry authors can get while listening to poems and stories, even though the poem be "The Ivy Green" and the tale that of "The Convict's Return."

Nothing but beer is added to the drink card in the next chapter; but there are four mentions of indulgence, and, as all hands joined in the pathetic national air, “We Won't Go Home Till Morning," they must have been feeling pretty good. It is so, too, with Chapter VIII, where drinking is touched on but thrice. But, as the commentator observes, it bids fair to be one of the most inebriate in the book; for all hands, Mr. Jingle alone excepted, are carried to bed as drunk as owls. Mr. Pickwick had quite a load on, for he committed a violence on his spectacles; and Mr. Winkle was evidently bloodthirsty, for he expressed regret at not having done for old Tupman. Port and claret entered on the scene, and the engagements with the bottle rose to 42.

TOM SMART'S EXPERIENCES.

From Chapters IX to XIV the indulgences were few, only 10 in all. A couple of the chapters are examples of total abstinence; but Chapter XIII lets out the interesting trick of hocusing the brandy and water of a lot of unpolled voters, and Chapter XIV shows how our friend, Tom Smart, saw things at night after enjoying hot punch before the blaze of a roaring fire.

It is fit and proper, Mr. Summers finds, that the next chapter should contain but a single mention of drink; for the drink this time is champagne, "that king of wines, who, if not insulted by the company of more plebeian vintage, or the coarser spirits, or vulgar malt, will prove his royal nature and permit you to imbide your fill, and never punish you."

Good cheer takes a jump in the sixteenth, with 8 rounds and the delectable perfumes of gin, hollands and spiced gin to breathe o'er the Pickwickian Eden and the Mulberry Man. Its successor adds only 3 occasions, with no new brand of grog, and Chapter XVIII is dry.

But they needed intervals. The very next installment whoops things up 19 times, adds cold punch to the list and has Mr. Pickwick wheeled to the dog pound by order of high and mighty Captain

Boldwig, whose house was a villa, whose lawn was grounds and whose wife's brother was a lieutenant.

With the twentieth chapter the drinking total rises to 96 and introduces stout, porter and seidlitz water, although this really does seem as if it were crowding the mourners of temperance for the benefit of the seidlitz powder man. However, these things may be a matter of conscience; in the next three chapters the reviewer notes "bad port" as an item some folks might care to classify as an addition, although he himself prefers to let is pass.

Meanwhile the average of drinks per chapter has been steadily falling, until now it has reached the modest level of 4 apiece. Rum makes its debut in Chapter XXV, and pineapple rum follows, to the pleasuring of the Rev. Mr. Stiggins.

Elder wine, plain and with brandy and spice, and wassail aid in making Chapter XXVIII the banner one, with 25 drinks to prove it.

A list made up from this book shows sixty-two different kinds of things to drink. It is possible from this list to compound most any kind of a drink now sold over a modern bar. Malt of all kinds is on the list.

" "The Pickwick Papers,'" remarks Mr. Summers, recapitulating, after adding every new potation in its due order to his list, "contains fifty-seven chapters. In seven of these drink is not mentioned; in the other fifty, drink and drinking are mentioned 343 times, or an average of seven times for each chapter-that is, each wet chapter. Here is appended a list or drinking card, showing just what the good folks in 'The Pickwick Papers' had to drink; and outside of the liquid fire introduced by the goblin king, in the tale of the stolen sexton, there is not a headache in any on the list."

Force Not a Remedy.

"I have predicted that standing among nations may ultimately be largely determined by the adequacy of the remedies provided. But these remedies will not, in my judgment, be found through the endeavor to force upon a very large minority of the people habits of abstinence that contradict their own interpretation of personal well-being and happiness."-DR. HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.