In Germany the state uses every possible means to provide good, wholesome beer for the people. It is the habitual beverage of most of the population, used by them at their meals and their places of amusement, cheering but not intoxicating, and rendering them temperate, industrious, healthy and contented, a people whose bravery is beyond question, and whose peaceable yet progressive qualities tend to make the nation powerful, and its government respected at home and abroad. And yet an advance by the government of half a cent a quart on the price of beer has in years not long passed caused a serious riot. Cheap, wholesome beer is considered a necessity of life, and the attempt to increase its cost an interference with the primary rights of the community. In Austro-Hungary, too, for many years government supervision has secured the production of pure beer, which is sold at a very moderate price. Some of the breweries are very large and the product is by many held to be unsurpassed in quality. That of Vienna and Pilsen, in particular, is universally known and esteemed. Beer is thoroughly the national drink, and the beer gardens of Vienna are the resort of all classes, from the Emperor down to his private soldiers. The most important men of the empire have extensive breweries, and among the great Austro-Hungarian brewers we find such names as Anton Dreher of Schwechat near Vienna, Count Arco Valley of Zell, Upper Austria, Count Arco Zinneburg of Kaltenhausen, Count Thurn Valsassina of Sorgendorf, and in Bohemia Count Thun Hohenstein of Alt Benatek, His Majesty the Emperor Franz Josef, Prince Carl Hohenzollern, Prince Trautmansdorf, Prince Josef Mansfeld, Prince J. A. Schwartzenberg, Prince Max Thurn Taxis, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Rudolf Count von Schoteck and many others. A correspondent says: “At Trieste the drinking of beer is universal; from infancy to age light wine and beer are the common beverages.” He states that on Saturday night a pretty large number of laboring people are “jolly drunk,” but not savage drunk. The latter condition is unknown except among English and American sailors visiting the port. Among the better classes no instance is known of a merchant, lawyer, physician, shop-keeper, or master-mechanic becoming an inebriate and gradually losing position, prosperity and business, and sinking into a drunkard’s grave. Sometimes an Englishman or American has ruined himself by the use of spirits—not of wine or beer.