REV. WM. BANCROFT HILL. 23 



as he has taken his dram. The company seeks to avoid 

 even the appearance of encouraging people to drink. 

 For example, in Bergen once a lot of imported whiskey- 

 was received, each bottle, of which had a flaming label 

 bearing a portrait of the poet Burns with this quotation 



"Freedom and whiskey gang the gither 

 Take off your dram." 



The company declined to subscribe to this sentiment, 

 and took off, not the dram but the label. 



I trust I have described the system sufficiently to make 

 it intelligible to you all. Of course its methods are not 

 precisely the same in any two communities, as no two 

 communities have precisely the same conditions to deal 

 with. And if it were to be adopted anywhere in the 

 United States some alterations would probably be made. 

 But the system is not dependent upon minor details. 



What are its advantages ? 



1. It educates the community in total abstinence. It 

 is not offered as a substitute for prohibition ; but as a 

 stepping-stone towards it. In the country parts of both 

 Norway and Sweden prohibition is in force, and the men 

 who are laboring most zealously in support of this 

 Gothenburg system look forward to the day when it will 

 make prohibition possible in the cities. We must all 

 admit that no prohibitory laws, however stringent, can 

 be enforced in a city unless the great majority of the 

 citizens are strongly in favor of their enforcement, and 

 are willing to give time and tlionslit to it. The saloon 

 as now conducted, whether with high or low license, con- 

 stantly generates a mass of moderate drinkers and fre- 

 quenters who will be opposed to prohibition. But a 

 saloon managed under the Gothenburg system makes 

 drinking disreputable, removes the attractions of the 

 place, abolishes treating, and largely stops the creation 

 of new drunkards. As the generation trained under the 

 old system passes away, the next generation should be 



