We have said that in the early part of this century the drunkenness which prevailed in the United States was appalling, but the energy which has carried the nation forward in all the paths of civilisation, which has succeeded in abolishing a deep-rooted system of domestic slavery, though it has been at the sacrifice of much blood and treasure; that same energy, we say, has also been successfully directed to the suppression of intemperance, which is as great a danger to any nation as slavery or communism of the worst description. From the third decade to about the middle of this century, the American people trusted to the effects of moral suasion for curing the evils of drunkenness, but it will be found that already in the year 1852 the State of Vermont had passed a prohibitory liquor law,[334] and from that time to the present the war has been waged between the State legislatures, more especially those of New England, and the liquor traffic, and in the main the former have been faithfully supported by the force of public opinion. To this portion of the subject we shall return hereafter. But the measure of success with which the cause of temperance has prevailed has not been uniform, nor has it advanced to the same stage in every part of the Union. In some of the remote States, amongst the miners, for example, an enormous amount of drunkenness exists, whilst there are small towns and villages in some of the New England States where it is almost impossible to obtain intoxicating drinks, and where drunkenness is unknown. The reader will therefore appreciate the difficulty of forming and pronouncing a correct judgment upon the drinking habits of the people of this vast republic. The difficulty is greatly increased by the fact that the contest between the State, aided by individual and concerted action on the one hand, and the drink-sellers and their supporters on the other, is still actively carried on, and every day therefore brings its chances and changes. For example, it was only last April that an effort was made by the advocates of the drink-sellers in the senate of the State of New York to carry a measure repealing an Act passed in 1866, and part of another of 1857, “to suppress intemperance and to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors.”[335] During the debate one of the senators who opposed the repeal drew some pictures of the liquor dens and cellars which he said would, by the proposed bill, be allowed to dispense poison to the poor and vicious, and he launched bitter anathemas against its promoters.[336] The bill was ultimately lost, but if the liquor-sellers of New York at all resemble those of Old England, they may probably renew the attempt. That there is much drunkenness in some of the large towns, especially in New York, cannot be doubted, but it is not to be compared in extent with similar places in Great Britain or even in some Continental countries. In New York only two or three days before the debate above referred to,