But we must now consider what share legislation has had in bringing about the change from the gross intemperance which existed all over the States about the middle of this century to the comparative sobriety of the present day, and with this view a cursory glance at the liquor laws in different parts of the Union, as they exist _in theory_, may not be uninteresting nor unprofitable. In Maine, the so-called “Maine law” entirely prohibits the manufacture or sale of intoxicating drink except for medicinal, mechanical, and manufacturing purposes, and then only through the municipal authorities. Should any one commit a breach of the law, he is to be punished by imprisonment two months in the county gaol and fined a thousand dollars. Public-houses are spoken of in the Act as “drinking-houses” and “tippling shops,” and the keeper of such a house is liable to imprisonment for each conviction. The relatives of drunkards have a right of action against any one selling liquors to such drunkards, and even persons who are found intoxicated in their own houses are liable to thirty days’ imprisonment; but, in the words of the Act, “said judge or justice may remit any portion of said punishment, and order the prisoner to be discharged whenever he shall become satisfied that the objects of the law and the good of the public and the prisoner would be advanced thereby.”[344] From this and all other drink legislation in the United States it will be seen that the law regards the liquor-seller as the chief law-breaker, and the drunkard as his victim, though himself culpable.