THE TEMPERANCE FAILURE 147 



the number of persons per square mile averaged 

 eighteen in those States which have continued Pro- 

 hibition, and forty - four in those which have 

 abandoned it. In 1890 the numbers had increased to 

 twenty- three and ninety-eight respectively.^ Thus 

 in the States that have abandoned Prohibition the 

 average density of population was four times greater 

 than in those States which have continued it.^ If the 

 three most densely-populated States in each class be 

 compared, the figures are as more than seven to one.^ 



If, in these fifteen States of the American 

 Union, we compare the proportion of urban to 

 rural population, results even more striking are 

 brought out. In 1890, in the five Prohibition 

 States, not a single town contained 50,000 in- 

 habitants, and only 5 per cent, of the people lived 

 in towns of 30,000 inhabitants and upwards. In 

 the ten States which have repealed Prohibition 

 19 per cent, of the people lived in towns of more 

 than 50,000 inhabitants, and 23 per cent, in towns 

 of more than 30,000 inhabitants.* 



Messrs Rowntree and Sherwell add : " The 

 figures are certainly suggestive, and go far towards 

 compelling a conviction of the impracticability of 

 Prohibition in thickly - populated districts. As a 

 matter of fact Prohibition, however successful in 



' "The Temperance Problem and Social Reform,'' p. 120. 



2 Op. cit, p. 122. ' Op. cit., p. 122. ^ Op. cit., p. 124. 



