Another author, already quoted, says that wherever the cause of temperance is strong enough to get the Maine Law passed, it is strong enough to force the liquor traffic to withdraw from public gaze. “In desperate cases,” he says, “it has to reduce itself to the exhibition of Greenland pigs and other curious animals, charging twenty-five cents for the sight of the pig, and throwing in a gin-cocktail gratuitously.”[366] And it is most remarkable, he adds, how this encourages the study of natural history, for the same persons have been known to go over and over again to study the habits of the “Greenland pig!” But it is unnecessary to cite authors. In these days of rapid locomotion, every reader must have frequent opportunities of conversing with men of different nationalities who have resided or travelled in the United States, and if he takes the trouble to inquire for himself, he will find the following to be the facts in regard to American temperance legislation. So far as entire prohibition is concerned, it has failed in the large towns, but has been successful in many small towns and country villages. In places where public opinion has demanded, or cordially supported, any form of repression or restriction, it has made the traffic disreputable; has removed temptation out of the way of those who would, if they could, control themselves, and has reduced the habitual, callous drunkard, as well as the man who supplies him, to the position of a law-breaker and a sneak. It has raised the whole moral tone of society and the material condition of the masses. The failure has been where the law has tried to force prohibition upon an unwilling community; the success where a reforming or reformed public opinion has found the law ready to aid it in enforcing sobriety for the benefit of all. In short, the legislation which has succeeded best in the United States is that which gives the option to localities to have liquor sold in their midst or not as they choose,—“permissive legislation,”—and that has indeed been an inestimable boon to the citizens of the Great Republic.