18 THE 40THENBUEG SYSTEM OF LiQtJOR TRAFFIC. 



bring a reaction or else end in irretrievable [ruin. In 

 1830 a temperance society was organized in Stockholm ; 

 and we are interested to know that it borrowed its lead- 

 ing ideas from a total abstinence meeting held in Boston, 

 Mass, Massachusetts in her present attempt to intro- 

 duce the Gothenburg system is simply claiming with 

 interest that which she loaned sixty odd years ago. 

 Years of struggle followed ; I need npt repeat the story 

 of it, for similar struggles in our own country have fa- 

 miliarized us with its details. In 1855 a liquor law was 

 enacted which produced practical prohibition in all the 

 country districts. But it only increased intemperance in 

 the cities. In Gothenburg, for example, a seaport of 

 about 35,000 inhabitants, at the beginning of 1860 there 

 were 136 licenses for the sale of brandy and about 200 

 saloons. The liquor power there seemed to be uncon- 

 querable. When the dean of Gothenburg presented a 

 petition, signed by 8,800 citizens, asking the magistrates 

 to prohibit the sale of brandy on Sundays and holidays, 

 or at least to limit it to two or three hours, and backed 

 up the petition by all the arguments which rose from the 

 heart of a man deeply interested in the miserable condi- 

 tion of the poor, he was curtly answered that the magis- 

 trates did not deem it incumbent upon them to take any 

 steps in the matter. Such insolence was pride going 

 before a fall. A year later political changes brought 

 into office magistrates more favorable to temperance ; and 

 in 1865 a proposition coming from a committee appointed 

 to enquire into the condition of pauperism in the city 

 was accepted. The committee naturally found that 

 brandy was the great cause of poverty and distress, es- 

 pecially among the lower classes ; and their proposition 

 was that advantage should be taken of an insignificant 

 clause in the law of 1855, which provided that when a 

 company was formed to carry on the liquor trade, the 

 community might give it the monopoly, and so all 



