certificates may be obtained, if a permit from the Mayor is presented together with the prescribed additional fee, but such permit may be revoked at any time.

TOWN ELECTIONS.

The Liquor Tax Law also provides for local option elections in towns to decide whether or no the liquor traffic may be certificated therein, but this provision is not extended to cities, being confined to the more sparsely settled parts of the State. At each biennial town meeting in the State the electors may vote on four questions. (1) For saloon certificate. (2) Storekeeper's certifi

cate. (3) Druggist's certificate. (4) A Certificate which is to be used in connection with the sale of liquor in a hotel. These elections do not take place as a matter of course every year, but can only be held when and provided ten per cent. (10%) of the electors of a town at the next preceding general election shall request such a vote by written petition duly signed and acknowledged and filed.

Arbitrary or unjust action on the part of the Department, or disregard of the rights of the certificate holder or the public, is reviewable and remediable by the courts. The obtaining of a certificate is a matter of right provided for and protected by law, and it cannot be taken away except for a violation of the law and then only by the process specified in the law; while on the other hand, the law affords a means and a method whereby any violation may be punished and the right and privileges given may be forfeited and revoked, if a reason therefor be proved. Adequate remedies are available to the public to summarily and surely suppress conditions which violate the law and are injurious and offensive to citizens and to the welfare of the community. In a case where the premises have been suffered to be disorderly or gambling has been permitted therein, the right to traffic will be denied to the place itself for a year and in certain contingencies forever.

A liquor tax certificate has a money value in addition to being evidence of the right to carry on the business. At the end of any month it may be surrendered for rebate and the State will refund to the holder, provided there has been no violation of the law, fifty per cent. (50%) of the unexpired tax value of the certificate. This rebate right also gives to the certificate an assignable value and makes it possible to transfer the certificate as security for a loan or any other obligation, and it may be held by the person to whom

it is thus transferred until said obligation and loan is entirely paid and discharged, and the assignee thereunder, in the event of default, may exercise certain rights such as surrendering it for rebate, having it transferred to another person and to another place, provided proper consents are obtained and the proper person is indicated. When the certificate is free from such an assignment, the holder thereof may transfer it from place to place or to another person, or surrender it for cancellation, when and provided certain conditions are complied with.

LIMITATION OF LICENSES.

One of the most important changes in the Liquor Tax Law was brought about in June, 1910, when the so-called ratio or limitation feature was written into it. Prior to that time new certificates could be issued to applicants upon qualifying as hereinabove indicated, regardless of ratio of population to the number of certificates issued. The limitation of license amendments enacted in 1910 provided that no liquor tax certificate shall be issued for the sale of liquors to be drunk on the premises, "in any town, village, borough or city, unless or until the ratio of population therein, to the number of certificates issued, . . . shall be greater than seven hundred and fifty to one, . . ."; but this prohibition did not apply to a place in which such traffic in liquors was lawfully carried on at some time within one year immediately preceding the passage of this amendment, provided such traffic was not abandoned thereat during this period; neither did it apply to premises continuously occupied for a hotel since the 23rd day of March, 1896. This change in the law has brought about a condition which will make it impossible to obtain any new certificates for the sale of liquor to be drunk on the premises for many years to come in most parts of the State. When the ratio is reached new certificates will be granted to the persons making the highest bid therefor in accordance with the law.

This ratio or limitation amendment swept into the law some features which were cumbersome, impracticable and ambiguous. In the Legislative session of 1911 most of these objectionable elements were removed by a series of amendments and the law was restored to a fairly practical and workable condition. In some instances where remedial legislation was not enacted the Commissioner of Excise facilitated the practical operation of the law

by certain rulings. For example, he decided that the holder of a certificate might transfer it from one place to another, provided there has been no violation of the law and the premises to which the transfer is sought to be made may be used for the traffic in liquors, whether the holder of the certificate was in or out of possession of the premises which were to be abandoned. This puts a construction on an ambiguous part of the law which holds that the transfer of a certificate is a transfer of a certain right under such certificate to do business at some place, rather than the abandonment of a particular place. He also decided to receive and record so-called assignments of certificates or powers of attorney, although there was nothing contained in the statute which made provision for such receiving and recording. It is also of interest and importance to note that the Department of Excise has held that where the holder of a liquor tax certificate gives a person or corporation a power of attorney in which he assigns and transfers not only the present liquor tax certificate, but any liquor tax certificate which may be issued to him in the future, that then, in that event, the holder of the present certificate or any future certificate, in a case where the certificate is issued to the person who originally gave the power of attorney, cannot transfer the certificate from person to person or place to place, or surrender it for cancellation without the written consent of the person or corporation to whom such power of attorney has been given. The rights of the assignee or transferee are alluded to hereinabove.

The Socialistic Position.

The Wisconsin Socialists have put forth the following as defining their attitude on the liquor question:

"We hold that intemperance in the use of liquor is the result of the present enervating economic conditions. With the growth of a people strong in physique, intellect and popular morals, intemperance will gradually disappear and temperate habits in all things prevail. We condemn the attempts at sumptuary laws as inimical to the cause of economic and personal liberty. Until the profit system has been abolished and a more harmonious economic order has been established, the attempts of well-meaning people to introduce temperate habits by law will prove only an evasion of the real issue."

Y

RECENT DISCUSSIONS OF ALCOHOLISM

EARS ago, the temperance reformers fancied that the study of alcoholism was a closed chapter and that science could go no further than as laid down in their little physiologies. But science is just at the beginning of grappling with the intricate problem, particularly in its physiological aspects. Of this there is much evidence. For instance, within a year, Russia has founded a great institute for the medical study of the subject. A large international body to embrace the foremost scientists is in the process of formation which will view the whole liquor question, laying special stress, however, upon the physiological side; and there are other evidences of activity. The prohibitionist has had his innings and now the scientists speak. They may not always agree and sometimes make mistakes; but they are at least open to conviction if caught in erroneous reasoning.

At the recent first Eugenics Congress, to which reference is made on another page, several papers and much discussion revolved around the question of alcohol. An address “which excited due and unprecedented attention from the Congress," according to Dr. C. W. Saleeby, who comments upon it in the British Journal of Inebriety for October, 1912, was that by Dr. Mjöen, which has been alluded to elsewhere. "The remarkable enthusiasm aroused was duly recorded in the Times and many other papers the following day," says Dr. Saleeby.

The work of Dr. Mjöen was primarily chemical, and his conclusion is that we are required, by bulk of evidence, to regard the danger of alcoholic beverages to the race in proportion to their strength. Therefore, he advocates the classification of alcoholic liquors according to their percentage of alcohol and would give commercial preference to light beers by reduced taxation and advantages of sale.

Another significant paper delivered at the Eugenics Congress, which also dealt with the relation between insanity and alcoholism, was that by Dr. Mott, who proves conclusively the common exaggeration of alcohol as a cause of insanity. Dr. Mott, who had the honor of following the famous Sir William Osler, the Regius

Professor of Medicine at Oxford, is a celebrated pathologist and a foremost authority.

In close harmony with Dr. Mott, stands another English scientist, Dr. Potts, late medical investigator to the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. He says, in an address delivered before the National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution (London, 1912):

"The close association of inebriety and feeble-mindedness is established by the investigations of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded." He cites some striking examples of this from the records of the after-care committees, and then makes the following statements:

"It is generally known that the chief difficulties of the prison and the workhouse would be removed if there were permanent care and detention for the mentally defective. Quite as strong a claim for detention can be made from the inebriate side."

One could go on multiplying evidences like the above of scientific endeavor to state the truth without prejudice. They are adduced here mainly to emphasize the difference between the results of serious investigations and the fabulous, made-to-order stories upon which especially the American public is fed.

What does a search of current American literature on the liquor question bring forth? Of course, the salaried temperance reformer does not change his spots. In this year of 1912, the Anti-Saloon League has not come closer to the truth than to say, "The saloon sells liquor that produces eighty per cent. of all the criminals in this country," (The American Issue, August, 1912.), being fully aware that no one knows just how many criminals there are in this country, much less the precise causes underlying their criminality. When the same organization is pressed for campaign material, it restates some opinions of some physicians of Toledo, Ohio, not one of whom has a distinctive claim to be heard, although doubtless most estimable men, and publishes their sayings under the heading, "Scientific Testimony on Beer," from which one learns such things as that "beer kills quicker than other liquor, that it is productive of insanity," etc.

There is no length to which these people will not go in search for some story to illustrate the monstrosity of the use of drink, as witness the following tale: A seaman on board the ill-fated Titanic was supposed to have said that the lookout in the crow's