in the gratification of a desire, however natural, to the injury of others, is to be condemned morally and legally. Many actions of man, which the moral and legal code of society brands as a crime, and punishes as such, are the result of an inordinate gratification of instinctive desires implanted by nature, upon the proper indulgence of which the very propagation and the happiness of the human race depends, as for example, the instinct of self-preservation, of procreation and of acquisition. The more civilization advances, the more moral and intellectual discernment governs natural impulse, the less excess in the use of alcoholic stimulants the world will see. The vice of intemperance prevails to a far greater extent among the ignorant and uneducated than among the cultured classes of society. The spread of culture and education will do far more for temperance than the indiscriminate prohibition of the sale of alcoholic stimulants and the signing of pledges; it will divest the indulgence of the social cup of vulgarity, and will punish immoderation by social ostracism; by giving to the pleasure of exhilaration an ideal character, it will make the vine and the hop the emblems of harmless enjoyment. A clearer perception thus establishes a standard of ethics, which recognizes a proper gratification of the innate craving for enjoyment and exhilaration, as an essential to human happiness, but draws the line between what is permissible and what is not, between the becoming and the unbecoming. The craving for improvement of condition and for enjoyment is strongly developed in man—happily for him, for it is the very spur that urges him on to the physical improvement which is the necessary concomitant of mental advance. The love for exhilarating stimulants is but one phase of this craving. As such it is entitled to and has found recognition in our social laws, and the temperate use of alcoholic beverages is sanctioned by a practice as wide-spread as civilization itself, and by all classes, whatever their station or condition in life. Contravening legal statutes will always be found either wholly inoperative, or to fall far short of the intended effect. Whenever and wherever the temporary enforcement of a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of such beverages has taken place, the cure, as far as the suppression of stimulants is concerned, has generally proved worse than the disease.” The following particulars, taken from the report under the title of “Nativity of Prisoners,” given by the Chief of the Police of Boston, become very interesting when considered in reference to the usual drink of the classes mentioned. The table shows first the number in Boston of Irish and Germans, the number of prisoners of each nation and the percentage of prisoners to the whole population: