their victims pitied, and it was clear that these good women had just the same difficulties to contend with as we teetotallers find in Liverpool, prohibition notwithstanding.”[353] But if a doubt remains as to the failure of the legislation so far as prohibition is concerned, it may be set at rest by reading the declarations of the teetotal judges of the land. One of those must suffice. The “National Temperance Society of New York” has published a pamphlet (No. 11) called the “Maine Law Vindicated,” by the Hon. Woodbury Davis, Judge of the Supreme Court of Maine, in which that Judge enters at length into the whole subject, showing the moral influence of the law, how it is enforced, the probability of its being ultimately successful, &c., and one of his concluding sentences runs thus:—“If such men as Dr. Bacon, and many others that might be named, instead of carping at it, and at best refusing to advocate it, would come out publicly and give it a hearty and cordial support, its provisions would soon be made more stringent, the tone of public sentiment in regard to it would become higher and stronger, and its more vigorous execution would soon make it a terror _to multitudes of evil-doers who now trample it under foot_.” We have italicised the last words to show that, from whatever cause, the Maine Law has not accomplished what is proposed by it, namely, the entire suppression of the liquor traffic. But although Professor Davis’s remarks may apply to the State of Maine, they do not accurately represent public feeling throughout the United States regarding the Maine Law. In Massachusetts, a prohibitory law was in force until the year 1875, but as far back as 1867 a vigorous effort was made to repeal it. Petitions signed by about 35,000 persons for, and about 26,000 against, the repeal were presented to the Legislature, and a special committee of both houses was appointed to inquire into the operation of the law. Their report was a very decided one against it.[354] Without referring to the theoretical part of the question, we will only mention a few of the practical results at which the committee arrived. The whole number of places in Boston, they found, in which liquor was sold in 1854, that is, before the passing of the Prohibitory Act, was 1500, whilst twelve years later, in 1866, 1515 such places existed. The number of drunken persons taken up by the police in 1854 was 6983, while in 1866 it was 15,542.[355] In most of the large towns, such as Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, Charlestown, New Bedford, &c., the sale was found to be just as unrestricted as before the passing of the Prohibitory Act. One of the statements of the committee, “upon the evidence before them, was that it was a fatal mistake on the part of the leaders of the so-called temperance movement to prohibit the sale of cider and light beer.” And the committee recommended that the law should encourage the consumption of those liquors “in the true interests of temperance,” in