abstinent people. We are in an especial manner bound to consider whether
there can be found any alleviation or remedy for a disaster which, if we
have not actually created, we have at least suffered to spring up
unheeded and unchecked in our very midst.

It is notorious that the large cities of India are crowded with shops of
the kind thus described by Mr. Caine, late M.P., in his "Picturesque
India":

"The wide and spacious shops in front of which are strewn broken
potsherds, and whose contents are two or three kegs and a pile of
little pots; are the liquor-dealer's establishments. The groups of
noisy men seated on the floor are drinking ardent spirits of the
worst description absolutely forbidden to the British soldiers, but
sold retail to natives at three farthings a gill."

Mr. Caine goes on to say that in the city of Lucknow, with a population
of some 300,000 inhabitants, there were in 1889 thirty distilleries of
native spirits and 200 liquor-shops. The Government exchequer receipts
from spirits in the North-West Provinces amount to nearly £600,000,
having doubled themselves during the last seven years. This means that
in round numbers £1,000,000 worth of native spirits is sold in these
provinces per annum.

Now consider first that as a rule with rare exceptions a native of
India who uses the fiery country liquors drinks for no other purpose
than to become intoxicated. They are manufactured with a view to this,
and not as in Europe to provide a thirst-quenching potation. Mr. Caine
says: "The people of India, unlike other people, only drink for the
purpose of getting drunk, and if we make them drunken we destroy them