462 INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY 



756. The difficulty of enforcing prohibition under the ordinary 

 conditions of civilized life is shown by the fact that only very 

 thinly populated states of the American Union have continued 

 the attempt. In 1890, North Dakota had four persons to the 

 square mile, Kansas seventeen, and Maine twenty. None of 

 these States had a town of 50,000 inhabitants. Speaking 

 practically, in no town, not even in what we in England should 

 term a village, was there more than a pretence of prohibition. 

 At that date the States that have abandoned prohibition had 

 on the average a population four or five times denser than the 

 population of those that have retained prohibition. Nineteen per 

 cent, of the inhabitants of the former dwelt in towns of more than 

 50,000 inhabitants. The difference has since increased. West- 

 moreland, the most sparsely populated English county, had, in 

 round numbers, in 1891, a population of eighty persons to the 

 square mile, Lancashire and Surrey had 2000, and Middlesex 

 n^oo. 1 



757. Prohibition applied to more limited areas than entire 

 States is termed local option. Owing to the greater ease with 

 which alcohol may be obtained from neighbouring areas it is 

 correspondingly easy to enforce as regards the manufacture and 

 sale of drink, but is even less effective as regards the consumption 

 of drink. It has been enacted in many States of the American 

 Union, in Canada, and in Australasia. Like * total prohibition/ it 

 is possible that it has achieved partial and temporary success in 

 some very wild and sparsely inhabited districts such as parts of 

 Dakota. It is certain that it is a complete failure in every town 

 and densely inhabited rural district. 2 



758. Mere failure would leave matters no worse than before; 

 but here failure is accompanied by many evils. For open 

 drinking under the eyes of the public and police, whose business 

 it is to prevent excessive drinking, is substituted secret and 

 uncontrolled debauchery. The actual amount of intemperance 

 is increased ; men make sure of drinking their fill while they have 

 the opportunity ; they drink in surroundings where the greatest 

 possible amount of harm results, and are given every facility for 

 excessive indulgence. Drug stores, normally conducted by a 

 very respectable class of men, become drink-shops which sell 

 in addition immense quantities of such narcotics as morphia, 



1 For evidence concerning the statements in this paragraph see The Temperance 

 Problem, by Messrs Rowntree & Sherwell, pp. 115-249. 



2 Op. cit., pp. 250-369. 



