EEV. WM. BANCROFT HILL. 15 



premises for butcher shops rather than for beer saloons. 

 The liquor traffic is not attractive in itself ; nothing but 

 its dazzling promise of wealth makes it so. Destroy the 

 profits, and you destroy the perils. The community, 

 also, is often demoralized by the revenues it receives 

 from taxing the traffic. License fees furnish an income 

 certain and easily collected which goes far towards 

 reducing the taxes upon more reputable business. Even 

 in our own city the answer has often been made to an 

 appeal to limit or abolish saloons, " We are poor ; our 

 taxes are high ; this is the easiest way to raise money." 

 The question whether the saloon does not impose upon 

 the community a burden of taxation for police duties, 

 for the relief of the poor, and for the custody of 

 criminals which fully offsets its license fees, is too com- 

 plex to have much influence upon City Fathers. The 

 direct income is evident, and determines their action. 



Evidently any scheme of temperance reform will meet 

 with great opposition, and can succeed only after a 

 mighty conflict. It will, however, from the outset have 

 this great advantage — the temperance sentiment in the 

 United States is stronger, bolder and more active than in 

 almost any other country. Forty years ago — that is, in 

 the period between 1860 and 1860— there seemed to be a 

 brilliant prospect that total abstinence would become 

 the law of the land. Prohibitory laws were enacted by 

 every State in New England, by Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin, and even New York 

 came near securing them. But the breaking out of the 

 war turned men's thoughts in another direction, and the 

 liquor interests speedily undid the work which had been 

 done. Since the war a flood of immigration, indifferent 

 or hostile to temperance movements, has poured in upon 

 us, and has made the work difficult and discouraging. 

 The same activity and effort which under other circum- 

 stances would have produced a decided advance can only 



