given for the year 1912, while for the registration States compared, as well as for the whole registration area, the figures pertain to 1911. This is not unimportant, and it is significant of misleading methods, for which no explanation is offered. But worse than this, a few States are singled out for comparisons, while the less comforting facts in regard to others are passed or ignored. The Board of Health selected California, Colorado, Washington and Missouri as the States with which to compare the Kansas figures. No reason is given for this odd selection. First, the rate of deaths from cirrhosis of the liver is shown per hundred thousand population, Kansas coming out second best, with a rate of 7 per cent. as against 6 per cent. for Washington; but why, in this instance, did they omit the registration State, Utah, which has a rate of 5.5 per cent. ?

Next come statistics of violent deaths (accidents and homicides). Comparing Kansas in 1912 to other States in 1911 (which is, of course, improper, statistically speaking), Kansas is given a rate of homicides of 4.8 per hundred thousand population, as against 6.6 for the whole registration area. But the Board of Health does not mention, for instance, Connecticut, with a rate of 3.7; Michigan, 2.4; Minnesota, 3.8; New Hampshire, 1.6; Rhode Island, 3.5, etc.

In regard to suicides, it is found that at least two registration States exhibited more favorable ratios than Kansas, which is given with one of 12.2. Thus the ratio for Kentucky is 8.7, and for Rhode Island, 11.6. In fegard to deaths from Bright's disease, Kansas, it will be observed, does not show up as well as the State of Washington, with a rate of 55.0; Montana, with one of 52.0. If, on the other hand, the registration cities of various States are compared for the year 1911, it is found that the Kansas cities have a ratio of deaths from Bright's disease of 91.2, which may be compared with 86.8 for Massachusetts; 68.9 for Michigan; 71.7 for Minnesota; 71.3 for Washington, and 67.8 for Wisconsin.

Why statistics of deaths from pneumonia should be included, Mr. White and the Board of Health alone know.

In regard to the general death rate for Kansas, of which Mr. White makes much (he states it is 10.6), it may be observed that among the registration States, Minnesota shows a death rate of 10.5; Montana, 10.2; Utah, 10.3, and Washington, 89. When Mr. White states that the Census Bulletins show the Kansas death rate to decrease faster than that of any other State, he is plainly drawing on his imagination, as he has no data for comparison.

Mr. White is apparently unwilling to correct his mistaken statements in regard to the proportion of "crime, insanity, etc.," shown in Kansas public institutions, as compared with other States. He acknowledges, however, that he made mistakes in quoting statistics of wealth and bank deposits, but tosses off the matter by stating that "they are unimportant," and then he adds this ominous statement: "Somehow I should prefer to trust the Kansas State Banking Department, rather than Mr. Fox." He seems to forget that the figures were not mine, but were taken from the report of the Comptroller of Currency.

Again, relative to the proportion of students in colleges, Mr. White finds the statement of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction more to his taste than the official figures contained in the Census Abstract.

It seems singular, in view of the evidence presented, to find Mr. White saying, "This clears away the indictment." He goes on in the same paragraph, "Statistics prove little fundamentally." To this one can only add, that they certainly do when they are improperly used. In the next sentence: "Neither my statistics nor Mr. Fox's are at all important."

One is constrained to ask why, if this be the case, Mr. White, in his original article, relied so largely upon statistics, and why, in his second article, he gives such signal prominence to statistics which still do not prove his case.

Since statistics are merely facts, expressed by means of figures, they carry to the unprejudiced mind, a far greater weight of evidence than the mere reiteration of opinions, to which Mr. White so liberally treats his readers. The best of men may be mistaken in their opinions; facts speak for themselves.

I have no quarrel with Mr. White over his views; it would be inconsistent in one who believes in personal liberty, to refuse him the right to abstain, but I do protest against his backing up his views with fallacious arguments, and inaccurate figures. I have spent some years in studving the various aspects of the alcohol question, and have tried sincerely to get at the truth of it, but I am not a little discouraged by the unscientific attitude of the impassioned prohibitionist. There is a tepid virtue in being wellmeaning, but it is obscured by fatuous self-deception.

HUGII F. Fox,

Secretary of the United States Brewers' Association.

NEW PUBLICATIONS ON THE DRINK QUESTION

The literature on the liquor problem grows apace year by year. It is more prolific than useful, especially when one considers the writings in the English language. For comprehensive, serious and scientific studies one must generally turn to Europe. The greater the pity since certainly nowhere is the subject so constantly kept before the public as in this country. Of course purely propagandist publications are constantly appearing, but most of them deserve little attention as they consist more or less of fictitious assertions and restatements of well-worn views. Even so pretentious a volume as the one entitled The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe, by Ernest Gordon, falls into this class. Its purpose is seemingly one-sided propaganda, although it pretends to bolster up the case with so-called scientific arguments of the usual variety.

In the following some recent writings of special interest to American readers are briefly reviewed. Elsewhere important foreign works on the alcohol problem are considered at length. Articles on the subject in periodicals have not been considered in the present chapter. In passing, however, mention may be made of the muchheralded "What is Rum" contest conducted by Everybody's Magazine. The winner of the contest followed the wise course of summarizing the findings of the Committee of Fifty, another proof of the vitality of its work.

THE QUESTION OF ALCOHOL. By Dr. E. H. WILLIAMS. This volume of 121 pages is packed with interesting information, and the facts are set forth in a most readable manner. The book is published by the Goodhue Publishing Company, New York City, and deserves a place in a "five feet book shelf" on the liquor question. The subject is treated from the medical point of view and Dr. Williams has blazed some new trails in the search for light.

The chapter on the drug habit menace in the South is the result of first hand research. It is a well known fact that those Southern States which have adopted prohibition have done so mainly because of their desire to prevent the selling of liquor to the negro population. The result is that in many places the negro has substituted cocaine for his whiskey. The cocaine-saturated black man is more dangerous to the community than the man drunken with whiskey

Moreover, it is practically impossible for the authorities to prevent the sale of cocaine, or even to learn the source of its disposal. Dr. Williams finds that a large proportion of the wholesale murders in the South during recent years have been the direct result of cocaine, and that frequently the perpetrators of these crimes have been hitherto inoffensive, law-abiding negroes. He points out a particularly interesting feature of the effects of cocainism, which other writers have rarely touched upon, namely the fact that the drug renders the user immune to shock in an astonishing degree. It makes its victim peculiarly dangerous, as it seems to put the muscular and nervous system of the user temporarily in a state of tense stability, so as to improve, rather than interfere with, his marksmanship. The feat of the cocaine-crazed negro in Asheville who killed five men with one shot for each, shooting at long range in some instances, demonstrates that cocaine does not impair eyesight or muscular co-ordination. It probably could not have been accomplished under the stimulus of any other known drug.

The South, in trying to correct a bad condition, has created one infinitely worse, and one absolutely beyond the power of the authorities to suppress or even control. Dr. Williams' investigation led him to visit state hospitals, county hospitals, jails, work-houses and prisons. He interviewed patients, prisoners, physicians and officers. Both hospital and police records showed that during the last five years, the period of active prohibitive legislation, drug-habits have increased enormously. These records were supplemented by concurrent opinions of physicians and officials. "In short," concludes the author, "there is no escaping the conclusion from the mass of available evidence, that the enforcement of prohibition has created a demand for, and produced a traffic in, habit-forming drugs among a dangerously large proportion of the lower classes in the South."

The second article in the book deals with Temperance Instruction in Public Schools and Its Results. Dr. Williams reviews many of the educational text-books authorized by the W. C. T. U., showing how they teach absolute falsehoods about alcohol. He quotes statements from these textbooks and contrasts them with statements by recognized scientists and physicians the world over. The Committee of Fifty, scored these educational textbooks in no uncertain. fashion:

"Under the name of 'Scientific Temperance Instruction' there has been grafted upon the public school system of nearly all our States an educational scheme relating to alcohol which is neither scientific nor temperate nor instructive."

Practically every State in the Union now has this enforced "Scientific Temperance" teaching in its schools. But the result of this teaching from the standpoint of the temperance people, Dr. Williams finds to be rather doubtful, since co-incident with the promotion of scientific temperance teaching the consumption of alcoholic beverages has steadily increased. The ethical side of the question is emphasized by Prof. Sewall who wrote to the Committee of Fifty: "More evil will probably accrue to the next generation through this legalizing of lies than would result without direct effort for moral teaching."

The third paper considers liquor legislation and its relation to insanity. Dr. Williams shows that the causes of insanity are various and that alcohol is one of the least of them. In the chapter on "The Liquor Question in Medicine," Dr. Williams refers to a meeting of the World's W. C. T. U., at which the doctors were severely criticised for using alcohol in any form in their practice. He makes a strong plea for a scientific study of the matter, and warns against near-scientific investigations. He cautions against the relating of causes and effects, which have no real connection. As an instance, he takes the conclusions of certain writers in regard to the effect of the consumption of alcohol on the birth-rate and on the mortality of babies, and finds that they do not tally. "During the last quarter of a century 50 per cent. of the country has become prohibition. During this same period the amount of alcohol consumed has more than doubled; and meanwhile the death rate among babies has steadily declined. So that at present we have more prohibition, more liquor and more living babies. It is obvious, therefore, that any statement that suggests any single cause as having produced this apparently anomalous condition is necessarily at once open to challenge."

The last chapter in the book is entitled "What shall we do about it." This is an address which was delivered by Dr. Henry S. Williams at the National Conference on Race Betterment, Battle Creek, Mich. Whatever the theories may be as to the efficacy of prohibitory laws as a factor in the regeneration of society, the facts prove that great quantities of intoxicating beverages are consumed in prohibition territory. Every community has its quota of unfortunate