Februabt 4, 1887.] 



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and longer than the sphinx to perplex and baffle 

 humanity. The adolescent mind is confident ; for 

 it has never been beaten, since it has never been 

 engaged in any real fighting. It proudly believes 

 in its ovv^n success, and is but too apt to look 

 disdainfully on great thinkers, because they left 

 more to be thought. It glories in generalizations, 

 and is gladly indifferent to the harassing details 

 and preliminaries, with which, if it continues ac- 

 tive, it will afterwards be chiefly and sensibly oc- 

 cupied. 



The young man is often a would-be revolution- 

 ist. He is surprised that older and wiser and 

 better men are so benighted. Let us not be mis- 

 understood. The young man we are characteriz- 

 ing is the one in whom the faults his years are 

 prone to are strongly accented. We have no in- 

 tention of wholesale condemnation towards a class 

 to which we have belonged, and therefore may be 

 supposed to think of respectfully. If the unfor- 

 tunate individual or type we are discussing betakes 

 himself to science, he may do useful and praise- 

 worthy work, but he is pretty sure to injure its 

 meritorious part by adjuncts of misshapen gen- 

 eralization, and of criticisms very bad in taste and 

 unjust in substance. His pages show a saddening 

 spectacle of overgrown self-confidence, betrayed 

 by the tone of expression, by the ill-repressed 

 laudation of his own theories, and the bad-man- 

 nered fault-finding with others, perhaps merely 

 because their observations, without which the 

 young man could have done nothing, were not 

 exhaustive of the field. Next follows pitiless 

 criticism ; the pedestal of flimsy logic is dashed 

 away ; the victim falls from his eminence. The 

 specious argumentation is reft, and the man's 

 ignorance is exposed nakedly. Last comes the 

 cruel abasement, all the worse to bear because it 

 is the public sequel of elation. And still the 

 young man must be grateful if the late lesson can 

 be learned by his aching and repentant mind. 

 "Would that the fire of the soul always purified, 

 and never consumed ! 



PROHIBITION. 



Interference with the voluntary actions of 

 people is to be deprecated, except when such 

 actions trespass on the rights of other members of 

 the community. 



A chemical factory, emitting noisome fumes, 

 must not be established in the midst of a town or 

 city, or measures must be enforced against it to 

 prevent the contamination of the surrounding air ; 

 a boiler-factory, with its din of rivet-hammering, 

 must not be suffered to disturb the peace of a resi- 

 <jential neighborhood ; a gunpowder-factory must 



not be allowed to endanger other properties by its 

 proximity ; a graveyard must be kept away from 

 centres of living population. These interferences 

 with the voluntary actions of factory and grave- 

 yard owners are justified by the fact that the 

 interdicted operations are trespasses on the rights, 

 because baneful to the health or comfort, of the 

 community. 



Is there any similar justification for the pro- 

 hibition of the manufacture or sale of alcoholic 

 liquors ? 



We know that use is very apt to degenerate into 

 abuse of such commodities ; and we know that 

 more than half of the immorality that afflicts 

 society, and of the crime that fills our prisons, is 

 directly traceable to the abuse of alcoholic liquors. 

 We know also that the heaviest portion of the 

 burdens on tax-payers — the cost of protective, 

 detective, judicial, reformatory, and punitive es- 

 tablishments — is largely owing to the same cause. 

 Everybody admits, therefore, that society would 

 be justified in doing whatever is requisite to pro- 

 tect itself from the gigantic evils which spring 

 from the liquor traffic. 



Here, however, the policy now widely advo- 

 cated diverges from the line of justifiable inter- 

 ference. Prohibition of manufacture or sale is 

 not the proper protective policy. This interferes 

 with the voluntary action equally of those who 

 innocently use as of those who criminally abuse. 

 No notice need be taken of the bigot theory, that 

 innocent use of alcoholic liquors is impossible. 

 Let us grant a place in the world for every thing 

 to be found in it, and for every production of 

 man's hands. Use and abuse are possible for all 

 things. 



What, then, l9 the proper line of social action? 



Society does fiot, and can not, prevent the play- 

 ing of games of chance by those who choose to 

 waste their time and means in such demoralizing 

 pursuits ; but society does interfere with the busi- 

 ness of the gambler, the card-sharper, the lottery- 

 ticket seller, etc. Society does not seek to stop, 

 by futile prohibitory measures, the prevalence of 

 other forms of ' social evil,' but society does pre- 

 vent the flaunting of immorality before the public 

 eye, and the use of the streets for its advertising 

 purposes. 



So in reference to the liquor traffic. No attempt 

 need be made, or should be made, to interfere with 

 manufacture or sale ; but the most absolute pro- 

 hibition should be laid on the business of selling 

 liquor ' to be drunk on the premises.' Saloons 

 and bar-rooms are evil, and only evil, and that 

 continually. 



If a man wants beer or brandy, let him buy it 

 as he does beef or bread, and by due measure of 



