156 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



fitted up as bars, where every kind of liquor was dispensed, and 

 in some of these shocking scenes were witnessed. Meantime, the 

 business of the township suffered, as travellers were compelled to 

 pass on to neighbouring towns to obtain accommodation. Visitors 

 who had been in the habit of spending a few weeks in the bush 

 for health's sake were prevented, for the same reason, from 

 sojourning in the district. Drunkenness and debauchery 

 increased, and, so soon as the prescribed period of Prohibition 

 had passed, the people voted to re-open the hotels. The Clutha 

 people are passing through a similar experience. The stipendiary 

 magistrate of the district has deemed it his duty to report to the 

 Government that sly grog-selling, drunkenness, and debauchery, 

 lying, sneaking, and spying have succeeded where the people 

 had previously been law-abiding and decent. It will be long before 

 regulation will once more hold sway, because not only have the 

 promises made in the name of Prohibition not been kept — they 

 have been proved to be utterly fallacious. Injury has been done 

 where benefit was predicted, and immorality has succeeded to 

 decency of behaviour. As Principal Grant of Canada recently 

 declared, it would be better to return to the drinking customs of 

 thirty years ago than that the degradation existent in Maine should 

 come as a result of so-called Prohibition. 



" If we could be persuaded that Prohibition would result in 

 the total abolition of the evils unfortunately associated with the 

 abuse of liquor, there are millions of men and women the world 

 over who would readily vote ' No License.' But every experiment 

 has proved, whether in New Zealand, Australia, or America, that 

 where that which is no crime in morals has been made a crime 

 by statute, you make law-breakers of the people, and the evils of 

 intemperance are accentuated." ' 



The Gothenburg System is in vogue in 

 Scandinavia. It has greatly diminished the 



' Extract from a letter to the Westminster Gazette, from Mr 

 J. T. M. Hornsby, a journalist of Wellington, New Zealand. 



