SHOULD PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ABOLISHED? 229 



tite for liquor-drinking where it did not exist before, would be 

 easily verifiable if true ; but, upon appeal to the facts of statisti- 

 cal reports of criminal and health boards, there is no evidence to 

 sustain it. 



The next assertion (3), that such laws give the visionary and 

 crank class in the community political balance of power, is 

 equally unverifiable. The author's complaint that prohibition 

 laws beget an exaggerated oratory, and an appetite for sweeping 

 statements and the cultivation of false statistics, etc., receives a 

 most practical illustration in his paper. His own sweeping deni- 

 als and allegations of facts, which are not substantiated by any 

 investigation, are ample proof of the danger of such literature 

 to the credulous and unthinking. 



To say that all prohibition laws are worse than useless, that 

 they have not lessened the sale or consumption of liquors; that 

 free spirits and free sale would increase the horror of the drunk- 

 ard and decrease the horror of liquor ; and by making the one 

 a crime and nuisance, the merits of the other would come into 

 prominence, or, in other words, increase the severity of the pun- 

 ishment of the drunkard and make the sale of liquor practically 

 free, sounds very tropical to say the least. 



The final reference to statistics showing an increased longevity 

 of the drinkers over the total abstainers, as a fact which appeared 

 in the British Medical Journal, is notoriously untrue and mis- 

 chievous. 



Such are some of the allegations which challenge the author 

 for particulars and specifications, to make good his assertions. 

 As they are presented in a historic form, they are apparently 

 based on defective knowledge and incorrect statements and faulty 

 observations of facts, or the construction of facts, according to 

 some theory or purpose, irrespective of all relations or inferences. 



It would seem useless to make any detailed study of statements 

 that are unverifiable even if true, in which no appeal to facts is 

 made, especially statements that will not bear the most casual 

 scrutiny. Reformers and their opponents who battle with each 

 other in a " Donnybrook-fair style," striking in all directions, 

 with the wildest dogmatic assertions, reckless of history, facts, 

 and truth, never advance any cause however meritorious. 



If the prohibitionary laws are dangerous and injurious there 

 should be facts and data to prove it clearly, and no arguments 

 based on assumed facts, with crooked deductions and doubtful 

 statements, should ever be urged in its defense. 



Leaving Mr. Morgan's strange statements, we turn to some 

 general considerations of the alcoholic evil, and the legislative 

 efforts to check and remove it. 



To any one who will examine from the scientific side the vari- 



