125 



Glasgow Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, in the 

 March number of that Society's journal, is now receiving 

 industrial application. 



Mr. Spence, as an ardent reformer, took great practical 

 interest in the recent movement for lessening the burdens 

 upon industry and trade by a reform in railway charges 

 based upon the principle of "equal rates for equal services." 

 He was an enthusiastic supporter of and contributor of 

 £1,000 to the Manchester Ship Canal scheme; and his 

 evidence before the Railway Rates Committee of the House 

 of Commons, in 1881-2, reprinted in pamphlet form under 

 the title, "How the Railway ComjDanies are Crippling 

 British industry and Destroying the Canals," greatly aided 

 the launching of that now popular proposal. 



Mr. Spence's leading mental characteristic was his ten- 

 dency to regard all questions, moral and material, from the 

 standpoint of scientific principle ; and it will not be difficult 

 to understand how — sympathising as he earnestly did with 

 the lapsed masses in our large towns — his keen acumen 

 should have led him to the conviction that their material 

 condition is in the vast majority of cases the direct result of 

 their moral weakness; and that "total abstinence" for the 

 individual, and "local control," even to the extent of " entire 

 prohibition," for the community, is the true remedy for the 

 evil. He was, from its establishment a liberal supporter of 

 the U. K. Alliance for the total suppression of the liquor 

 traffic ; was at one time, " Grand Worthy Treasurer" of the 

 Order of Good Templars ; and recently, along with one of his 

 sons, initiated two great "Gospel Temperance" Missions in 

 Manchester, at which many thousands took the pledge. 



His own practice as a teetotaler dated from the earliest 

 inception of the temperance movement ; and, commencing 

 life, as he did, with a consumptive constitution, he attributed 

 very much of the health he enjoyed throughout his 77 years 

 to his practice in this respect, as well as to his optimist 



