South Carolina has the _license_ system, with the _local option_ attachment. One-third of the voters in any municipality may require the question of prohibition to be submitted to the people, and a majority prohibits. But the legislature last winter went further than this, and in a truly paternal manner “exempted” certain towns from the necessity of a majority for prohibition, and gave it to a large but defeated minority. As the State power is now in the hands of the white Democrats, it may be inferred from this action what their temperance sentiments are, in those towns and in the Legislature. It was a jewel of consistency also in those who now “make no bones” of confessing, that a minority “had to” take the government from the (colored) majority a few years ago. It was the _summum jus_ made legal in spite of republican principles—and was opposed on that ground by some—which is perhaps symptomatic of certain peculiarities of the South Carolina people, that have not always pleased the rest of the country so well. But we will not quarrel with them this time. Also the tendency is to make licenses high and higher. They cost $225 in Charleston, and it has been proposed to raise the figure thirty per cent. A daily reader of the _News and Courier_ is almost constantly seeing instances, noticed with approval, of the success of the local option law, with such headings as “Greenville doesn’t want any in her’s.” “Sumter will go dry.” And to-day’s paper, March 21, states that “the W. C. T. U. has induced several of the teachers in Spartanburg, [where are the school board? We are a free country down here, after all.] to introduce text books on temperance. The cause is having a boom in S. Mrs. L. Chapin, of Charleston, is President of the Union; and not long ago they held a busy and thronged session of days, in the hall of our aristocratic military company in this city. The delegates from abroad were not wined, but dined and fêted, shown the harbor and the forts by our city worthies, all with great cordiality and éclat. More recently still, Hibernian Hall has been twice filled, as seldom for any political cause, once to hear Miss F. E. Willard, and, since her visit, Mrs. Foster. Messrs. Stearns and Mead are coming next week from a busy campaign south and west of us, to hold two meetings in two of the largest colored churches, and will have big crowds. Nearly every grocery in Charleston is also a liquor store; but few keep bars; and the saloons proper are not numerous. This shows that most of the drinking is in a domestic and quiet way, and not on an empty stomach, _standing up_. Beer is not sold in such large proportion as in Northern cities, but distilled or fermented liquors, and beer carts are not absent. There is yet a “smart chance” of illicit distilling in the up-country, and of unlicensed selling in the backwoods.