In 1856, there were 650 arrests for drunkenness, in a population of 27,000. In 1876, twenty years later, with a population of about 30,000, there were 1800 arrests for drunkenness, and in no year of the last eight has the list fallen below 1,200. And this under a vigorous enforcement of the prohibitory law. Does that speak well for prohibition? During last week, over 200 barrels of liquor were brought into Portland, by the various railroads and steamboats, _for home consumption_. Does that speak well for prohibition? “The secret drinking in club-rooms in Portland is threefold that which formerly took place at open bars, while the traffic outside has been driven into worse and worse hands every year, until it has, with a few exceptions, been taken away from respectable men, whose interest it would be to conduct it with some show of decency, and given into the undivided management and control of the low and criminal, so that while ‘the law is enforced with all the power of the state,’ the upper classes get drunk at the club-rooms, and the lower classes get drunk at the shops in the slums. Does that speak well for prohibition? The vilest liquors possible to make are manufactured for the market in this state, and even our state liquor agent could not, or did not, _keep pure_ liquors even for medicinal purposes. “Private club-rooms have multiplied in Portland, under the operation of the prohibitory law, (there being over 80 in that city at the present time,) and our young men just starting out in life are exposed to all the dangers of the drunkard’s life, and no law can stop them. In these club-rooms, boys who would never go to saloons to get drunk, who would never learn to gamble were it not for their club-room temptations, who would, in short, grow up honest and respected citizens, are being ruined every day. This evil ought to be remedied by prompt and decisive action. Fathers who love their sons; mothers who pray for their boys; sisters who mourn over their disgraced brothers; wives who weep over the wreck of what were once good men and true husbands; citizens who care for the good name and prosperity of their communities, ought to labor to shut these accursed gates of hell! Let us commence the good work by striving to repeal the prohibitory law, which is a positive detriment to the cause of temperance, an incubus upon the mercantile interests of Maine, and a curse to the young men of our cities.” In Massachusetts we have very important testimony to the same effect, a part of which is very ably and carefully summarized in an article which we insert here, retaining for convenience a portion at the beginning which might equally well be placed under a different heading: