GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



in^ plafc for every 40 adults. In comparison with 

 the popiihition Paris has 11 drinking-places where 

 Chicago has four and New York has three. 



The situation in prohibition Russia is known to 

 the reading world. The remarkable change which 

 has come over that country is one of the v^onders 

 of the early days of the twentieth century. On the 

 vhole, the people themselves like the change, com- 

 mend the Czar for his prohibition decree, and de- 

 clare that so far as di-ink is concerned it was a 

 happy day for Russia when the Germans declared 

 war. 



The one fact that the |500,000,000 formerly re- 

 ceived by the government in one year from liquor 

 revenue is now more than balanced by the increased 

 sums deposited in savings banks, shows that prohi- 

 bition has brought prosperity and happiness to the 

 Russian Empire, even if it did not bring peace. — 

 American Issue. 



My good frieiidSj I have been giving you 

 a lot of discouraging facts in the above. 

 Of course theie has been something encour- 

 aging, more or less, in most of them; but 

 here is something on the other side; and 

 may God be praised for what poor suffer- 

 ing Russia has done in the way of lifting 

 the grievous burden of drink from the 

 shoulders of her sons and daughters. 



Tn concluding I wish to give a brief clip- 

 ping from our friend Ridgeway, in his 

 " Business Men's Corner " in the Sundwj 

 School Times. Read it, and see if you do 

 not think it is a fit winding-up for this 

 Home paper. 



Every time Dick Strode' s mules had to be shod 

 they always had to be thrown and banged around 

 and tied np. They never learned who were their 

 friends, and were always trying to " kick the stuff- 

 iu' out of things," as Jake the blacksmith used to 

 say. This is the way God sometimes has to "shoe" 

 his mulish children. 



Is it not true, dear friends, that God in 

 his loving kindness has really been obliged 

 to treat us or to treat humanity as Jake the 

 blacksmith treated the mules'? We have 

 noted how He dealt with Pharaoh, and how 

 stubborn and contrary the king was when 

 God's only purpose was to let his chosen 

 people go out of Egypt and into the prom- 

 ised land — a land that was literally "flow- 

 ing with milk and honey." Good men and 

 good women have no doubt protested be- 

 cause the people who are responsible did 

 not make better provision to save the lives 

 of comparatively helpless schoolchildren ; 

 and finally this awful punishment — an ob- 

 ject lesson that the whole wide world will 

 remember — was permitted to come first to 

 wake us up. 



Just now T am rejoicing at a movement 

 that is being made to take care of the 

 babies; and the great city of New York just 

 now stands at the head. They have taken 

 such care and pains to provide pure milk, 

 and competent doctors and nuises to in- 

 struct the mothers, that the death-rate 

 among the babies is less than in any other 



city in the land. Ever since the time of 

 Noah, prophets and preachers have been 

 warning us against the consequences of 

 strong drink; but that blacksmith's journal 

 says our law-makers have legalized the 

 whisky business, and caused the most in- 

 human combination known to man- -the 

 whisky trust — and made our national Gov- 

 ernment a partner to it. Our kind and 

 loving heavenly Father has sent us disaster 

 after disaster, and yet our nation is still a 

 partner to this hellish business, and, at least 

 to a great extent, is saying to the voters of 

 Ohio and to the voters of the United States, 

 and, I fear, to the voters of a great part 

 of the world, "Who is the Lord, that I 

 should obey his voice ? " 



As a fitting closing to this matter we 

 submit the following from Miss Ellet: 



If Christian Ohio awakes, and prays for victory, 

 and works lor votes we'll win. We can't do it with- 

 out God, and he will not do it without our best 

 eflbrts. When it's true in Ohio, that " they that 

 publish the tidings are a great host," old Demon 

 Runi will run down a steep place and be drowned 

 in the sea of his owti iniquity. " This is the vic- 

 tory that ovcrcometh the world, even our faith." 

 Casting out demons cometh only by prayer and fast- 

 ing — sacrifice. Minnie ,J. Ellet. 



Rt. 21. East Akron, O., Aug. 21. 



" BAMBOOZLED BY BOOZE." 



T have several times of late thanked the 

 Lord for our splendid farm papers, and 

 especially for the fact that they stand al- 

 most all, if not quite witliout exception, for 

 righteousness, temperance, and purity. Just 

 now I am thanking the Lord for the period- 

 ical called Successful Farming, published 

 by the Successful Farming Publishing Co., 

 Jes Moines, la. This periodical is in its 

 fourteenth volume, and I am thanking the 

 Lord again that it has more than 700,000 

 subscribers. Do you want to know why? 

 Well, it is because of an article in its issue 

 for March, entitled "Bamboozled by Booze." 

 This article was compiled and written by a 

 son of our long-time friend and poet, Eu- 

 gene Secor. It is the best summing-up I 

 haAe ever come across of the I'idiculous and 

 shameful plea the litiuorites are putting 

 out, that the whisky business helps lo pay 

 our taxes. The figures and conclusions ai-e 

 such that there is no getting around it. 



Here is an editorial in the same issue that 

 sums up pretty Avell the article. 



W HIGH ED AND FOUND WANTING. 



The liquor business has been weighed in the 

 balance and found wanting. This is no new dis- 

 covery on the editor's part; but after putting in one 

 pan of the balance the annual drink bill of almost 

 three billion dollars, one has lo put in the other pan 

 such an enormotis ((uantity of good, wholesome, and 

 useful things to balance the scales that every one 

 will agree to the old, old fact that the liquor busi- 

 ness doesn't pay. 



