But it must be remembered that no change in the _personnel_ of the licensing authority will effect much, and it is possible that any change may do harm. A representative body will be more liable to be influenced by outside consideration than are the justices; and the Boards in some places will favour the drink sellers more than the magistrates do now. This consideration has induced some reformers to advocate leaving the administration in the hands of the present authorities, but limiting their power by a direct popular control over the issuance of new licences. CLUBS.--No licensing reform, however complete the restraints it places on public-houses, will accomplish much unless at the same time it deals with the club evil. In the ordinary drinking club we have something far more dangerous to society than the worst-conducted public-house. Reformers were for long so absorbed in fighting the open drink shop, that they had no time for attending to anything else; and statesmen of all parties dreaded arousing against themselves the opposition which they knew would follow the curtailing of any of the privileges of club-land. The result is that there is to-day in every large town a considerable and rapidly increasing number of drinking dens, subject to no control, paying no fees, requiring no licences, and allowed to keep open all day and every day, Sunday and week-day alike. With the genuine club no one wishes to meddle; but the majority of places which go under this name are nothing but drinking and gambling hells, and are usually financed by, and run for the profit of, some brewer. Within ten years their number has increased almost tenfold, and from all parts of the land comes the same tale of the mischief they are doing. Some months ago, the Dublin Corporation sent a petition to the Government in which it said: "We view with alarm and dismay the rapid increase of bogus drinking clubs in all parts of the city; in our opinion these clubs are a prolific source of poverty, crime, and disorder; they are instrumental in depreciating the ratable value of property wherever they are established; and the laws which allow, without let or hindrance, their degrading operations at all hours of the night and of the day, are a disgrace to civilisation." The Corporation urged the Government to introduce a measure "that will be effective in grappling with this degrading and pestiferous evil". At Cardiff the notorious "Field Clubs," formed solely and avowedly for the purpose of supplying their members with ale on Sundays, and so setting the Sunday Closing Act at defiance, were able to carry on business for some time without any hindrance from the police. A case which shows even more clearly than this how our licensing system is being reduced to little better than a mere farce, was mentioned last year in the House of Commons. The licence of a certain village public-house had been taken away because of the misconduct of the