THE TEMPERANCE FAILURE 153 



diminish the consumption of drink by the drunkard, 

 or only by the moderate man ? The latter may be 

 easily deterred. The former will go through fire 

 and water to obtain the satisfaction of his 

 desire. 



Local Option has been tried in most of the 

 States of the American Union. It is hardly 

 necessary to enter into details. Messrs Rowntree 

 and Sherwell give full accounts/ to which I must 

 refer the reader. Like Total Prohibition, Local 

 Option has partial success in very sparsely inhabited 

 districts. Where the population is denser it fails 

 altogether.^ It is not enforced in a single large 

 town, except where there is an adjacent " safety 

 valve." ^ Thus, Boston acts as a safety valve to 

 large suburban areas to which it is united by a 

 quick railway and electric tram service. Cambridge, 

 one of its suburbs, is the largest Prohibition city 

 in the States, its population being over 

 80,000. Since it adopted "No License," the 

 proportion of arrests for drunkenness per head of 

 population has been doubled.* Messrs Rowntree 

 and Sherwell state "that no explanation is forth- 

 coming of the great increase in drunkenness." ^ A 

 possible explanation may be that revellers, knowing 



1 " The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," pp. 250-322. 



2 Op. cit., p. 253. ' Op. cit., pp. 315-22. 

 * Op. cit, p. 321. ' Op. cit., p, 321. 



