vealed in his examining work. It was then that Dr. Angell pointed out the weak spot in the physical condition in the majority of men who present themselves for service-alcohol.

"I don't agree with either Dr. Fisk or Prof. Fisher wholly," began Dr. Angell, “for I believe that we shall find just as high a standard of physical fitness in the army as we have had in the volunteers. We have not had here any 100 per cent perfect men. But we have had a good many 98 per cent men. And in the past few days we have had men who were almost 100 per cent.

"Out of an average of 50 men examined every day here," he continued, "we accept from 10 to 15 men. The others are rejected, some for flat foot, but the majority because of alcoholic failings. It has been curious to note how many men come to us, after having indulged in several drinks, and want to enlist. They seem to think that it is the proper way to go about enlisting. Perhaps they argue that the liquor give them the courage to enlist or put them into fighting trim. No 'booze fighters' are allowed in the marines-not if we know it. Yet it would give many people a surprise to see the long line of men, young men 20 and 21 years old, who have alcoholic habits, and are rejected."

"Does your 100 per cent test include three dimensions: the mental and moral as well as the physical side?" I asked.

"Indeed, yes," Dr. Angell replied. "A man

with a criminal record is out at once. A man's general disposition and temperament is examined both generally and interrogatively. If a man isn't intelligent, can't read or write well, he is disqualified. It is the great triumvirate— alcohol, dissipation and disease-proceeding together hand in hand, however, that lowers the numbers of physically fit men in this country.

"Sanitary reform, the conquest of communicable diseases, such as typhoid and tuberculosis, has been brought about by modern scientific medicine. This means that the deteriorating effects of the army and navy have been wiped out. The thing now to do is to remedy the physical defects. The men, after they reach 31 years, don't pass a good physical examination. There's a reason to all this. If a man's habits of life have been strict and he has led a clean life with no 'booze' he should be able to pass a good physical exam, even for military service, up to the age of 45 or even 50."

A PATHETIC STORY.

BY WENDELL PHILLIPS.

In a railway-car once a man about sixty years old came to sit beside me. He had heard me lecture the evening before on temperance. "I am master of a ship," said he, "sailing out of New York, and have just returned from my fiftieth voyage across the Atlantic. About thirty years ago I was a sot; shipped, while dead-drunk, as one of a crew, and was carried on board like a log. When I came to, the captain sent for me. He asked me: 'Do you remember your mother?' I told him she died before I could remember anything. Well,' said he, "I am a Vermont man. When I was young I was crazy to go to sea. At last my mother consented I should seek my fortune in New York.' He told how she stood on one side the garden-gate and he on the other, when, with his bundle on his arm, he was ready to walk to the next town. She said to him: 'My boy, I don't know anything about towns and I never saw the sea; but they tell me those great towns are sinks of wickedness and make thousands of drunkards. Now promise me you'll never drink a drop of liquor.' He said: "I laid my hand in hers and promised, as I looked into her eyes for the last time. She died soon after. I've been on every sea, seen the worst kinds of life and men. They laughed at me as a milkso

and wanted to know if I was a coward; but when they offered me liquor I saw my mother across the gate, and I never drank a drop. It has been my sheet-anchor. I owe all to that. Would you like to take that pledge?' said he.”

My companion took it, and he added: "It has saved me. I have a fine ship, wife and children at home, and I have helped others.”

How far that little candle threw its beams! That anxious mother, on a Vermont hillside, saved two men to virtue and usefulness; how many more He who sees all can alone tell.”

HOW WE IMPROVE.

Before men began to think three-quarters of the farms of Massachusetts were sold under the hammer for rum-debts. You could not enter a public-house in country or city, of the first-class or the smaller ones, except through a grog-shop. Their guests felt mean if they did not at dinner order some kind of wine, and often ordered it when they did not wish it. Now the grog-room is hidden from sight; men slink into it; and not more than one man in ten at the most fashionable hotels, and not one in fifty in common inns, orders wine at dinner. Then the sideboard of every well-to-do-house was covered with liquors, and every guest was urged to drink; the omis

sion to do which would have been held a gross neglect, if not an insult. No man was buried without a lavish use of liquor; no stage stopped without the traveller being thought mean if he did not help the house by taking a drink. Now one may travel hundreds of miles on rails which allow no liquor in their stations. Every farmer furnished drink to his men; famous doctors went drunk to their patients; the first lawyer in the Middle States was not singular when he held on by the rail in order to stand and argue, halfdrunk, to the Supreme Court of the United States; rich men saw to it that every clergyman who attended a convention was plied with wine; and the preacher of the Concio ad Clerum was fed on brandy-punch to be on a more exhilarated level than his hearers. If a man caught sight of a grog-shop, he was as sure he had arrived in a Christian land as the shipwrecked sailor felt when he got sight of a gibbet. Then a few scattered temperance tracts, like rockets in a night, only betrayed how utterly the world was in the desert on this subject; now a temperance literature, 'crowded with facts, strong in argument, filled with testimonies from men of the first eminence in every walk of life, in every department of science and literature, challenges. and defies all comers. Then the idea of total abstinence was not so much denied as wholly unknown; now, if New England were polled today, our majority would be overwhelming. Then all men held liquors to be healthy and useful; now seventy men out of a hundred, whatever