INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM. 79 



behind them descendants imbued with the paternal 

 instincts. 



Drink and Prevention in America. 



In the United States there is and has been a 

 strong feeling against the liquor traffic, not only on 

 the part of those who hold that drinking is in itself 

 wrong, and leads to crime and misery, but on political 

 grounds as well. The Americans drink, not at meals 

 as we do, but at the drinking-saloons and bars, and 

 the habit of " treating " to liquor is universal. These 

 drinking-saloons are, too, the cause of much of the 

 political corruption deplored by the better class of 

 Americans; there are many reasons, therefore, for the 

 introduction of local option, or even prohibition, and 

 in many of the states stringent anti-liquor laws are 

 consequently enforced. Inasmuch as these laws 

 have been in operation for some years, we can study 

 their effect on those who have been subjected to 

 them. 



We are told 1 that in Maine a Prohibitionary Law 

 was enforced in 1851, lapsed for two years (1856 

 and 1857), but has continued since that time up to 

 the present date. We have, therefore, an experiment 



1 "Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada." 

 Rathbone and Fanshawe. 



