nace. Len, his seven children, three neighbors, and their children, were officiating in various or the same parts. Serena was skimming the boiling syrup. All the country round acknowledged her as the queen of 'lassy-makers.' She turned a heated face to me just long enough to say with the most cheerful of smiles, "They don't give me time to make my beds.'

I was turning away, when Len stopped me.

'We've taken off one biler, an' I put a few 'lasses for you in that jug. Reenie, git the jug!'

'I don't want them,' I said, near to tears, and trapped in the vernacular. Len was puzzled.

darkly shining smoke, and seemingly as loath to stay put. And the world she led the fancy to was a world which none of us have seen, but to which all secretly intend to go; a world whose picture every man holds in his heart, but will not look at in the light lest his neighbor come upon him suddenly. For, though we may have learned to love our neighbor as ourself, we have not yet learned to trust him.

It was a gracious chance that brought me to the Point just as Nellie was leaving it. 'Breaking off' was no longer difficult. That puttering kettle - how remote and absurd it seemed!

Descending late in the afternoon, my hills seemed to shine upon me, reflecting

'Not a spoonful, thank you, Len,' I called, already vanishing and hastening my steps unconsciously until I found myself running-running up hill. I did not turn on the trail toward home, but went out to Three Pine Point, where one could see the river miles away, smooth, effortless, winding to some hidden land, safe and far from the malefic spirit of industry. I dropped to the brown pine-needles. Quickly the woods set their magical currents flowing, and that sensation as of smiling veins crept over me.

Then I saw Nellie Ludd, or part of her. One could get only partial glimpses of Nellie in the woods- an upreaching an upreaching arm, a strip of skirt, the sheen of her head. No, she was not golden-haired, or green-kirtled, and she did not lead the fancy back to Tempe and the vales of Arcady. Her dress was dingy brown in hue, and of cloth woven on her mother's loom, but fashioned by herself as fittingly to her grace as fur to the marten or feathers to the swallow. Her eyes, if ever you met them, you would find to be honey-brown, like the first falling leaves. Her hair was the color of

ture ridge where the silence was tapped by the falling chestnuts, and felt no impulse to defeat the squirrels and gophers of their prize. A bellwood crowned with purple bushels of grapes stirred no acquisitive instinct. I went calmly through the orchard, picking my way over the fallen fruit that no hand would rescue from decay; looked unwistfully at the pumpkins, cushaws, and 'candyroasters' that would feed nothing but the frost; and from my cabin step smiled at the flaming wing of a young maple that was like a vivid aspiration airily detaching itself from the clutch of utility and the lures of bounty.

When I went in, Serena herself could not have cast a more contented eye about my kitchen, turbulent with unfinished tasks. The autumnal spirit had effectually bathed my lacerations. The box on which conveniently rested my little typewriter was invitingly near. I sank, a willing non-resistant, into a chair, and my hands mechanically sought the keys of the machine. For a few minutes I seemed to be having a pleasant time, with consciousness unaroused to the issue. Then I took out the sheet and read,

Goodly Autumn comes again; Fills my cupboard, fills my bin; Piles the leaves beneath my shed For my pony's winter bed.

Goodly Autumn comes again; Mellows apples, mellows sin; Drops the bars in every place; All the world is out to gaze.

Goodly Autumn with her bread!
Surely now the poor are fed;
And in peace I may sit down
To my fill of white or brown.

Autumn is so good to me;
I will walk abroad and see
If the earth and if the sun

Sup as well as I have done.

"This is how they feel,' thought I, as I drowned in placidity without a bubble struggling overhead. "This is why protracted meetings are held in autumn. Ah, I will call my poem "The Season of Piety.""

I began to feel like the good wife of a deacon. Nay, I was the deacon himself, and blushed in his elderly trousers.

With her usual ghostly suddenness, Katy appeared.

'Mommy's got the milkweed in her breast agin, an' the baby's all broke out; she's afraid it's the measles an' we'll all take 'em.'

I rose. Certainly they would all take them. The season of piety was ended. Both cases were happily light, and when Coretta looked up from her pil

low and said, 'We ain't goin' away. I've been thinkin' what it ud be like to git sick away from home an' everybody,' I did not feel that a slight reproof would be cruel.

'Stay? With nothing laid in for the winter?'

'But you've put up such a lot.'

My heart, which had softened at sight of her young cheek tracked red with the whimsical fever, felt a Pharoic relapse.

'You know, Coretta, I have had to consider other plans.'

She was terrified, but unbelieving. The heavens could not really fall. 'You would n't let us stay?'

'On one condition, perhaps.'

Her face shone with relief. She had met conditions before, and melted through them.

'What's that, Mis' Dolly?'

'You'll never wake me up again to borrow something for breakfast?' 'No, I shore won't.' 'Cross your heart?' 'Cross my heart.' 'Swear to God?' 'Swear to God.'

I looked down at the lovely face, contented with the thought of being sick and at home, and my smile undid me.

'Swear to God,' she repeatedly feebly, 'unless, o' course, we're jest smack out o' stuff.'

THE decision of the United States in favor of total prohibition, and the announcement that the British Government had arranged to increase the production of beer, were reported in the press during the same week. The one registered a great moral triumph; the other marked a humiliating defeat. During the war, the United States Government set an example by safeguarding its fighting men from the debilitating and demoralizing effects of drink, and the American people have carried that policy to a radical and logical conclusion. Great Britain, after a certain hesitation, imposed restrictions on the liquor traffic in the interest of national morals. It also began hopeful experiments in control; but no sooner had the fighting ceased than the government relaxed its grip on the trade, and we are now rapidly drifting back to pre-war conditions.

The first act of the new Food Minister, Mr. Roberts, a Labor Member, was to recommend the Cabinet to allow more and better beer to be made, and, as it happened, from American barley. At the same time, Sir George Roffey, a member of the Royal Commission on Wheat-Supply, wrote an apologetic letter about the inadequacy of the facilities for distributing wine and spirits, and also referred to the 'unwillingness of Mr. Hoover to ship barley to this country for the purpose of manufacturing alcohol,' which, said the worthy knight, ‘has, in conjunction with other factors, reduced the supplies of barley for brewing to a figure which will only

It is officially announced that the War Cabinet has decided to allow an increase of

25 per cent on the present permitted statutory barrelage, and an increase of two degrees in the permitted average gravity, to take effect as from January 1, 1919. The schedule of retail prices, which will come into force on February 24, brings within its scope all gravities on a scale ranging from the rate of threepence to eightpence a pint for draught beers in public bars. Bottled beers, hitherto uncontrolled, will be included, but on a separate scale.

The city of Carlisle, recently visited by the President of the United States, gave an encouraging object-lesson in state ownership of all breweries, hotels, and saloons. This city was selected for the demonstration in state ownership because it was near a great new munition township, where drunkenness was prevalent. Restrictions have now been relaxed, and the saloons are open on Sundays.

The contrast between what happened during the war and what is now taking place is all the more striking when we compare the indictment made against the drink trade with the achievement. Early in the war, the French Government, which had for many years carried on a campaign against alcoholism, prohibited the supply of alcohol — which does not, according to the French interpretation, include wine and beer-to soldiers, and restricted the supply to

civilians. Britain moved more slowly. The duties on liquors were increased, with the result that there was more revenue and also more drinking.

I

The first statesman to recognize the national dangers from an unrestricted drink trade during the war was Mr. David Lloyd George, at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer. The little Welsh David, with all the ardor of his Celtic nature, declared war on the Goliath of Drink. In February, 1915, he threatened the monster with destruction. He said that drink was 'doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together.' When he started his tour, in the spring of 1915, to quicken production of munitions, he found evidence which still more convinced him that the Drink Demon must be put under restraint. 'Nothing but root-and-branch methods,' he told a deputation of shipbuildders in March, 1915, 'will be of the slightest avail in dealing with this evil. The feeling is that, if we are to settle German militarism, we must first of all settle with drink.' The next month, in putting new duties on drink, he said, "The nation could afford perhaps a drink-bill of £160,000,000 before the war. What we could afford before the war, we certainly cannot afford after the war, and one of the things we cannot afford is a drink-bill of £160,000,000 a year.'

Yet every year of the war has seen the drink-bill grow. In 1917 it amounted to £259,000,000, and the estimate for the last year is still higher. Altogether, during the four years of war, Great Britain spent over £1,000,000,000 on drink. Economists and prohibitionists can speculate how much wealthier and stronger the nation would have been, if this vast expenditure on liquor had

been placed in war-bonds and productive industry. They could add other large sums spent on brewing-materials, barrels, coal, transportation; while the labor of thousands of people working for the traffic would have been diverted into more useful channels. Further than that, there would have been the additional saving to the nation which would have followed the suppression of the traffic. There would have been fewer accidents; less work for the police; more time for work, as none would have been wasted through drink; less lunacy, less disease, and many other benefits would have flowed from enforced temperance. Millions of tons of barley and sugar would have been saved for food.

All this presupposes that the British people would have accepted total prohibition. Mr. Lloyd George never contemplated prohibition, but he wanted drastic control and partial suppression. In another of his anti-drink speeches (March 25, 1915) he declared, 'We are fighting Germany, Austria, and Drink, and so far as I can see, the greatest of these deadly enemies is Drink.' And while Germany and Austria are down and out, Drink remains unconquered.

Speaking again on April 6, 1917, to a deputation on state purchase and prohibition, Mr. Lloyd George said if nothing were done now to acquire complete and absolute control over the trade,' he feared that, when demobilization came, there would be an 'irresistible demand to put the trade back practically where it had been before.' That would be a national disaster. He personally wanted the strong hand of the State to be there, instead of a powerful interest which had already beaten them in the past.

Well, nothing has been done to 'acquire complete and absolute control of the trade.' There is an 'irresistible demand to put the trade back practically where it was before the war,' and Mr. Lloyd George's government is a con

senting party to the 'irresistible de mand,' because it does not try to resist it.

The general feeling in Great Britain is that the government did not make the most of its opportunities. People in America may think that the reforms. adopted only trifled with the problem, and that, while they did not expect to see Great Britain turn prohibitionist, even under the stress of war, they hoped that more radical methods, which would have prepared the way for greater achievements, would have been adopted. Public opinion in Great Britain admires America's thoroughgoing policy, but considers that total prohibition goes too far and will be difficult to enforce in a number of states.

II

When the increase of duties on drink did not check consumption, and after Mr. Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, failed to carry national purchase with the object of establishing a national monopoly, he proposed control. One of his first acts as Minister of Munitions was to set up the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), in June, 1915. The chairman is Lord D'Abernon, who is identified chiefly with financial enterprises. The Board consists of Members of Parliament, large employers, several civil servants, a representative of Labor, a brewer, a caterer, and a doctor. I will give a brief account of its work as set out in its latest report. It describes itself as the authority for controlling the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor in naval, military, munition, or transport areas, where such control should be found expedient for the successful prosecution of the war. It has prescribed orders of varying degrees of stringency affecting nine tenths of the population of England and Scotland. The report says:·

The characteristic features of the Board's orders are the drastic restriction of the hours for the sale or supply of intoxicating liquor, the imposition of special restrictions on the sale of spirits, the prohibition of treating and of sales on credit, the curtailment of facilities for off-sales generally, and the application to clubs of the same restrictions as to licensed premises.

Other drastic provisions were applied in 'scheduled areas' then exclusively occupied by troops or munition-production. Prohibition of the sale of spirits has been enforced in a few areas, evening sale stopped in others. Hundreds of saloons have been closed. The Board is quite satisfied that its restrictive orders have diminished drunkenness, and has a sheaf of statistics to prove its claim. It encouraged the establishment of factory canteens as a feature of social welfare, and it made experiments in direct ownership. Its first excursion in the saloon business was at the government Small-Arms Factory at Enfield, near London. It was a successful example in the moralization of the drink trade. Next, it went to the north of Scotland, and catered for the men of the fleet in the small towns of Invergordon and Cromarty. Then it undertook a bolder experiment at Gretna - a small border-town known in more romantic days as a haven of refuge for eloping couples from England. Here a great number of munition factories had been built, and the Board bought the existing saloons, which undertook the supply of refreshment under reasonable conditions and in healthy surroundings. It also provided rival attractions to drink as a means of relaxation.

But the boldest experiment of all was the acquisition of all the breweries, hotels, restaurants, and saloons in the city of Carlisle and suburbs - a few miles from Gretna on the English side. The Board reduced the number of saloons by 37 per cent. Its policy was 'to