As a matter of fact the total abstainer is a real beneficiary of the drink business. He gets the benefit of all the modern conveniences in the hotels and restaurants at less than cost, because of the profit that the drinking man contributes for the maintenance of the establishment. The sands of time are strewn with the wrecks of temperance hotels, and the few forlorn survivors have a hard struggle keeping above the water that they furnish so gratuitously. The common sense way to deal with the problem is to provide a limited franchise in the form of a license to operate drinking places to meet the real demand for them, conditioned upon strict observance of regulatory laws. The authorities do not need an inspector's badge or a search warrant to enter the premises of a licensed resort. The public can protect itself by its own custom, for all of the operations of the establishment are open to public observation.

Of course, indecency and disorder must not be permitted in any place of public resort, whether it be a hotel, a saloon, an ice cream parlor or a department-store, and misconduct must be suppressed not because it occurs in a saloon, but because it is misconduct and therefore constitutes an offence against public morals. It is not so many years ago that the tea houses in London were the notorious resorts of dissolute characters, who made them the rendezvous for evil purposes. But the great tea merchants established their own retail shops for the sole purpose of selling tea and the disreputable tea rooms were crowded out of existence by force of honest competition..

There is a great deal of nonsense uttered by theorists who have never been inside of a saloon, and who imagine that it is simply a resort of "undesirable citizens." Most saloons are as deecnt and orderly as any other purveying establishment. Otherwise they could not exist, because most of the people who frequent the saloon are themselves decent and orderly, and the saloon, like any other public purveyor, caters to the taste of its customers. Like any other public purveying establishment, however, the saloon must be watched carefully, as a matter of sanitation, if for no other reason. Perhaps after a while we may have men assigned to inspect the saloon and its apparatus, just as we have factory inspectors, milk inspectors, meat inspectors, bake-shop inspectors, etc. There is probably an even greater need for the inspection of the soda fountain and soft-drink and ice-cream apparatus!

In all large cities the bartenders are unionized, and we venture

to say that the members of the Bartenders' Union will average well up with the members of other Unions, in their character and conduct. It is quite likely that the unionizing of the bartenders has improved their personnel as well as their efficiency. Certainly the average bartender is a skilled workman compared with the average waiter or waitress in establishments that sell non-alcoholic beverages. The theorist would perhaps be surprised to find how many men go into a saloon in hot weather for a glass of lemonaed, simply because they get it better and more quickly and comfortably than at a soda fountain.

The English trade journals report that the Sir John Cass Technical Institute is going to give a course of six lectures on "The Retail Management of Beverages and Refreshments." These lectures are not merely for the workers of the trade but are for the responsible business men connected with the industry in the hope that they will get together in their establishments intelligent young men who may later on be formed into a class at the Institute. These lectures are to deal with brewing methods and materials, the question of temperature, ventilation, storage, treatment of beers, the comparative advantages and difficulties of pumps, air pressure and gas pressure, best methods and materials for cleansing the pipes and utensils. One of the lectures is to be devoted to non-intoxicants and another to the handling of wines, while, of course, the solid refreshments will be practically dealt with, so far as they affect the licensed trade. It is certainly interesting and significant that this well-known Technical Institute should find it worth while to offer courses of instruction as it does in the fermentation industries. Mr. S. O. Nevile, in inaugurating the course of lectures just referred to, emphasized the community of interest which there is between an industry and the public, both of which would be benefited by increased knowledge and greater efficiency, and he called attention to the fact that the licensed and refreshment trades touched the lives of the people more closely than any other single trade or industry.

ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE FALLING OFF.

In the States where the Anti-Saloon League has been most active it has lost ground during the past two years, and it seems to be losing the confidence of the people and the press. While no doubt this is due in part to the public charges that prohibition leaders have made as to the motives and methods of the paid officials

of the League, and the evasive manner in which the League has dealt with these serious charges, it is probable that the main cause of the growing dissatisfaction is due to the fact that the League has failed to get results in the fight against intemperance. The thoughtful students of social and municipal progress are generally convinced that the League has no constructive ability, and that it lacks both the breadth and sincerity which might enable it to co-operate effectively with other reforming agencies. It has indeed sought to monopolize the business of temperance agitation, and has only given grudging admission to the claims of other organizations for pulpit support and church contributions. It is significant in this connection that the American Issue, which is the official organ of the League, has recently made a vigorous editorial protest against being included in the annual budget provisions of the Protestant Evangelical churches, insisting that the League should have a separate yearly collection for its own specific and exclusive use.

The Illinois edition of the American Issue states that "the AntiSaloon League is not having a fair chance with many Illinois churches today, and by their unfair treatment of the League these churches are blindly doing serious injury to themselves and to the Christian church as a whole.

THE "BUDGET" OR "APPORTIONMENT."

"The so-called budget or apportionment or duplex envelope plan for the handling of missionary offerings of the church has recently come into vogue. It may be a good and necessary thing if kept to its legitimate purpose. It is probably true that the church missionary finances are more successfully handled in this way than in the old way.

"But the budget is being made use of, wittingly or unwittingly, to chloroform the churches' temperance activities.

THE LEAGUE MUST BE EXCEPTED FROM THE BUDGET.

"There is but one way in which this fight against the liquor traffic may be saved, and that is by excepting the League from the church budget and giving it an opportunity to be heard and to gather the sinews of war that will carry on the fight. . . . The fight which the League is making against the liquor power in Illinois is more important at this time than the matter of home missions or foreign missions, or any missions. We have considered that statement

and weighed it well before making it. We do not believe that the church can ever make a complete success of her missionary activities until she has throttled the liquor traffic at home and abroad.

"Besides-this fight against the liquor traffic is very different from church mission enterprises. This is war and must be on a war footing. We know perfectly well that on the 5th day of next November a great battle is to be fought at the polls, and the outcome of that battle will determine whether the temperance cause is to go forward."

Besides its own salaried staff of State superintendents, assistants, field workers and attorneys, the League supports a horde of itinerant mercenaries, who contract their services as spell-binders for particular campaigns and special occasions. Among them are several ex-governors, etc., whose political prestige has waned, and who find this sort of work easier and more lucrative than a return to the practice of law would be. Of course the League leaders thrive upon agitation, and under a local option law, they are able to go into a community and by the popular revival method, work the people up into a frenzy of emotion against the licensed sale of alcoholic liquors. The resulting contest becomes so intensely bitter that other important issues are lost sight of, and frequently an unscrupulous politician takes advantage of it, obtains the indorsement of the League by a pledge to support it, and thereby perhaps secures his own election.

Undoubtedly the fire of this intemperate agitation is often fanned by very real saloon abuses, and of course the worse they are the better the League is pleased. The League leaders have a particular abhorrence of a well-conducted saloon, and have consistently refused to join in any movement that looks to a saloon-reform. should be the particular concern of the wholesale trade, therefore, to join heartily in all honest efforts to so regulate the retail licensed business as to put it upon a high plane.

PREACHERS OF BILLINGSGATE.

It

The Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden, who is one of the leaders of the Congregational Church, and is equally well known as author and publicist, republished a critical analysis of Billy Sunday's revivals which appeared in the Christian Century, under the authorship of Dr. Hugh T. Morrison. The article is written in a judicial

spirit, and is peculiarly "calm, balanced and discriminating." After showing that the ultimate result of the revival was not only disappointing but positively harmful, the meeting is characterized in the following terms:

"A crass theology, an un-Christian temper, a wholly unwarranted hypnotic method, an indelicate treatment of people and subjects, and the personal centrality of the evangelist in his message, advertising, etc., together with extreme sensationalism and a bloodcurdling irreverence, should, in itself, to say nothing of the observed results, give sufficient data for a moral judgment as to the possible effects of such a meeting."

In a subsequent article in the Independent, Dr. Gladden cites a number of sensational samples of modern evangelism which are taken from sermons that have been recently preached to large audiences of American Protestants in the presence of the Evangelical Protestant ministers of the cities where they were uttered. quote a few of them:

We

-by some dirty little

"The statement has been made in puppet of the pulpit that there is no harm in the dance, the theatre, or cards. To hell with that kind of a minister. I am not swearing, brethren, I am praying. A preacher of that sort is worse than a bull-necked bartender."

From a prayer, referring to certain editors who had criticised the preacher:

"They're a bad lot, Lord Jesus. If you go after those fellows, you'd better put on your rubber gloves."

A few young high school girls in front of the platform were giggling. The preacher calls to some boys of about the same age sitting near: "Here, you young bulls-some of you come and take these heifers out on the grass.'

A clergyman sends this report: "I heard him (the evangelist) say that 'if any minister believes and teaches evolution he is a stinking skunk, a fraud, a hypocrite and a liar.' The night he said this I remonstrated with him. A short time after this, in another service, he again attacked believers in the evolutionary theory, and turning to where I sat he clenched his fist, and shaking it in my direction, he exclaimed with fearful venom: 'Stand up, you bastard evolutionist; stand up with the infidels and atheists, the whoremongers and adulterers, and go to hell.' The last words were shrieked with every possible