The Saturday night and Sunday debauch of the peons generally commences after a hard week’s work, and frequently lasts thirty-six hours without sleep, and sixty hours without food. After having slept off the effects of drink, they are ready for business Tuesday or Wednesday morning. When they return to work they give a legal day’s labor, without persuasion to stimulate their activity. All differences are forgotten and no questions asked, knowing that it is only a few days until they will have another spree, and the weekly experience be repeated. They are inveterate gamblers. Men may be seen naked in the road, having lost all their clothing on a game of chance. The game may be cards, dice, topeadura, a cock fight or any contest in which the result is in doubt. The peon is a born gambler, and a cheerful loser. If beaten in a game he accepts the results with the indifference of a stoic or the sang-froid of a professional. He never complains, but bides his time for another chance to recover his losses. The “Cancha de Bola,” the peon’s clubhouse, is a cemented or smooth floor space, covered with a thatched roof, but not enclosed. The game at the cancha is a sort of Indian billiards, played by rolling large wooden balls over the floor. There men and women meet on Sundays and feast days, to play games, drink and discuss the events of the week. And every cent is coaxed from every pocket to fill the coffers of the owner of the cancha. Drunkenness is one of the chief curses of Chile, especially among the common people. The moral standard is not of a character that sets a ban upon drunkenness, and the custom of excessive drinking is indulged in by men, women, and not infrequently children. All classes are engaged more or less in the manufacture, sale and consumption of wine, chicha, aguardiente and pisco, the latter being alcohol made from the white grape. Every village store or shop dispenses liquors, and many of the huts along the country roads retail drinks. On Sundays and feast days these road houses are common resorts for peons, huasos and inquilinos. And there viciousness and crime are encouraged by excessive indulgence in cheap, and often adulterated and poisonous wines and liquors. A new liquor law went into effect in 1902, which had for its purpose a sweeping reform in the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. It takes control of the production, limits the number and location of saloons; prohibits the sale within a reasonable distance of a church or schoolhouse, imposes a fine upon drunkenness and provides a severe penalty for the adulteration, falsifying or placing upon the market a product of the country not up to the standard fixed by law. But reforms and radical changes in customs in Chile are much easier in theory than in practice, and the promoters of the liquor law find it difficult to enforce its provisions. It is, however, a move in the right direction, and much good has resulted from the effort to carry it into effect.