1898.] on Bringing Water to Birmingham from Wales. 697 



Even in the out-door department no woman under 21 years of age is 

 served, and no boy under 16. The house is closed every night at nine 

 o'clock, and the inspection and co-operation of the police are courted 

 in every way. Every effort is made to sell a thoroughly wholesome 

 and pure beer. A regular system of sample taking and testing is 

 carried out, samples being taken without notice from time to time 

 and forwarded to Birmingham for analysis in cases marked with num- 

 bers only, so that the analyst cannot tell from what brewers the beers 

 are purchased. 



" Now as to the social results. "While we cannot say that by our 

 attempt to regulate the drink trafftc we have created a ' Utopia,' we 

 may fairly say, and indeed we claim, that we have reduced the evil 

 results of drinking to a minimum, taking into consideration the fact 

 that on the oj)posite side of the river, within half a mile of the village, 

 another public house exists, which is conducted on the usual lines. 

 Persons qualified to judge speak in the highest terms of the results of 

 the experiment. 



" One of the declared bases of the Elan village canteen is that the 

 profits are devoted to the social well-being of the community. First, 

 the whole of the cost of the day school, beyond the Government 

 grant, and including the cost of the building, is provided from the 

 canteen profits ; in other words, the profits take the place of what in 

 an ordinary community woukl be the School Board rate. Second, the 

 cost of erecting and maintaining the public hall, with the library, 

 gymnasium and reading room, is provided from the same source ; re- 

 creation grounds for the workmen and clerical stalf, the deficit on 

 the bath house, and occasional help to charitable institutions, are all 

 defrayed from the canteen profit." 



The men are taken up the valley from the village early in the 

 morning and brought back after their work in railway carriages, so as 

 to save time and their exposure in open trucks, and the children from 

 the upper w^orks huts are brought down to school and returned home 

 in the same way ; with this ride in view the parents have no trouble 

 in getting them away to their lessons. 



[J. M.] 



