i84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



How, too, is tliis needful transfer of land to the peoi)le to be 

 made ? This step is the pons asinorum which Mill and Spencer 

 revolted from, and which George does not successfully cross. 

 For the people to buy themselves out, would be the only honest 

 way of transfer ; but this would be like a man standing in a corn- 

 basket and trying to lift himself by its handles over the fence. 

 McGlynn, George's prophet and Hotspur, cuts the bridge down, 

 and says all land must be taken, without compensation to the 

 present " miscalled owners," and given directly to the state. It 

 is not strange, with this crude conception of morals uppermost, 

 that the new " crusaders " should not have a word to say of the 

 " earned decrease." This whole scheme is all as shallow a piece 

 of folly as the history of delusions will have to record. It will 

 very properly take its place with "the moon-hoax," and with 

 Captain Symmes's tubular theory of the earth, when the nine 

 days' wonder of it, now waning, shall have collapsed. 



THE EFFECTS OF MODERATE DRINKING. 



By GEOEGE HAKLEY, M. D., F. E. S. 



IT is because of there being at present such diverse views ex- 

 pressed regarding the influence moderate drinking has on 

 the constitution, that I am tempted to contribute my mite of 

 knowledge to the general stock, in the hope that what I relate 

 may suggest new ideas in the minds of others who, like myself, 

 are interested in the study of this intricate question. For I re- 

 gret to find that, notwithstanding there has already been so 

 much written, and well written, on the action of alcohol when 

 taken in excess, no one appears as yet to have thought it worth 

 his while fully to tackle the subject of moderate drinking. The 

 reason of this, perhaps, is not far to seek, seeing that a little re- 

 flection reveals the fact that, although the majority of persons 

 may truthfully be said to be moderate drinkers, and conse- 

 quently medical men see far more patients belonging to this 

 category than any other, they possess but very little opportu- 

 nity of studying the effects of alcohol, when thus indulged 

 in, ui^on the constitution, for the following reasons: 1. There 



not stigmatize him as a robber ; I will, on the contrary, exalt him as a public benefactor. 

 Somebody has been lately computing the millions and hundreds of millions of mortgages 

 which the farmers in our most thrifty agricultural States are now carrying. I will not 

 name the sum total, except to say that its size is perfectly appalling. When I think of 

 this, and the other facts dismally related to it, I feel like taking off my hat to every 

 owner of the soil, and saying : " My good fellow, you have my supreme respect ; for if 

 you should ever be driven off, or abdicate, chaos and destruction would indeed come." 



