United Kingdom 1.38 35.42 0.39 France 2.51 7.48 34.73 Germany 2.11 30.77 1.93 Italy .34 .20 31.86 Russia 1.29 1.13 Belgium 1.42 56.59 1.28 Sweden 2.13 8.83 .18 United States (1903) 1.33 18.04 .48 Leaving out Italy, our country should really stand at the very foot of the list, for the Russian figures, notoriously incorrect, are not ordinarily accepted at their face value. In fact, this is the only official publication in which they appear without some explanatory note casting doubt upon their correctness. The true significance of this official table, so far as our country is concerned, will only be fully appreciated, if it be borne in mind that the _per capita_ consumption of beer in Bavaria, where distilled liquors are rarely used, amounts to about fifty-nine gallons and that alcoholism is practically unknown in that kingdom. Commenting on the marvelously increased consumption of beer in this country and the coincident falling off in the quantity of spirituous liquors consumed, the New York “Sun” in a striking editorial (August 22, 1905) reaches the conclusion that “BEER DRIVES OUT HARD DRINK.” The “Sun” also notes the fact that public drunkenness is comparatively rare in all the cities of America to-day, among all classes of society. Mr. James Dalrymple, Glasgow’s commissioner of municipal railways who was recently in this country, was constantly struck by the same fact as contrasted with conditions abroad. Drunken workingmen are rarely seen in any American community. Yet the time is not so far back when a different state of affairs prevailed in this country. Hardly a generation since, whiskey was the common drink and drunkenness the national vice. The change has come through the substitution of malt liquors for ardent stimulants. As the “Sun” says, beer drives out hard drink. Moderation and temperance are supplanting excess in the use of liquors. The American people owe their sobriety to the brewing industry. [Sidenote: THE PERFECTED PRODUCT]