The curse of the liquor traffic is attracting, as never before, the
attention of all civilized people; and national, State and local
legislatures and governments are appointing commissions of inquiry, and
gathering data and facts, with a view to its restriction.

And, more hopeful than all, signs are becoming more and more apparent
that the people are everywhere awakening to a sense of the dangers that
attend this traffic. Enlightenment is steadily progressing. Reason and
judgment; common sense and prudence, are all coming to the aid of
repression. Men see, as they never saw before, how utterly evil and
destructive are the drinking habits of this and other nations; how they
weaken the judgment and deprave the moral sense; how they not only take
from every man who falls into them his ability to do his best in any
pursuit or calling, but sow in his body the germs of diseases which will
curse him in his later years and abridge their term.

Other evidences of the steady growth among the people of a sentiment
adverse to drinking might be given. We see it in the almost feverish
response that everywhere meets the strong appeals of temperance
speakers, and in the more pronounced attitude taken by public and
professional men.


JUDGES ON THE BENCH

and preachers from the pulpit alike lift their voices in condemnation.
Grand juries repeat and repeat their presentations of liquor selling and
liquor drinking as the fruitful source of more than two-thirds of the
crimes and miseries that afflict the community; and prison reports add