in amount but is usually not less than 2000 dollars (£400) and may be as high as 6000 dollars (£1200). A condition precedent to the granting of a licence imposed in some states is the deposit of a petition or application some time beforehand, which may have to be backed by a certain number of local residents or tax-payers. In Pennsylvania the required number is 12, and this is the common practice elsewhere; in Missouri a majority of tax-payers is required, and the licence may even then be refused, but if the petition is signed by two-thirds of the tax-payers the licensing authority is bound to grant it. This seems to be a sort of genuine local option. Provision is also generally made for hearing objectors. Another condition sometimes required (Massachusetts and Iowa) is the consent of owners of adjoining property. In some states no licences are permitted within a stated distance of certain institutions; e.g. public parks (Missouri) and schools (Massachusetts). Regulations imposed on the licensed trade nearly always include prohibition of sale to minors under 18 and to drunkards, on Sundays, public holidays and election days, and prohibition of the employment of barmaids. Sunday closing, which is universal, dates at least from 1816 (Indiana) and is probably much older. The hours of closing on week days vary considerably but are usually 10 P.M. or 11 P.M. Other things are often prohibited including indecent pictures, games and music. _State Prohibition._--In a few states no licences are allowed. State prohibition was first introduced in 1846 under the influence of a strong agitation in Maine, and within a few years the example was followed by the other New England states; by Vermont in 1852, Connecticut in 1854, New Hampshire in 1855 and later by Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They have all now after a more or less prolonged trial given it up except Maine. Other states which have tried and abandoned it are Illinois (1851-1853), Indiana (1855-1858), Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota. The great Middle states have either never tried it, as in the case of New York (where it was enacted in 1855 but declared unconstitutional), Pennsylvania and New Jersey, or only gave it a nominal trial, as with Illinois and Indiana. A curious position came about in Ohio,[1] one of the great industrial states. It did not adopt prohibition, which forbids the manufacture and sale of liquor; but in 1851 it abandoned licensing, which had been in force since 1792, and incorporated a provision in the constitution declaring that no licence should thereafter be granted in the state. The position then was that retail sale without a licence was illegal and that no licence could be granted. This singular state of things was changed in 1886 by the "Dow law," which authorized a tax on the trade and rendered it legal without expressly sanctioning or licensing it. There were therefore no licences and no licensing machinery, but the traffic was taxed and conditions imposed.