As we find the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to have produced a beneficial effect in Germany, so the author believes that the establishment of such houses as those referred to will eventually prove the most effective agency for the reform of drunkenness in Great Britain. But many of those places must first be reformed themselves before they can accomplish their object. Whitewashed brick walls, deal tables and benches, thin tea and coffee, or thick cocoa, will never compete successfully with crystal chandeliers and “cream of the valley.” The working man must be enticed from the gin-palace by the superior attractions of the cocoa-rooms, and held fast when he is once secured. The opening of museums and art galleries on Sundays, which will be long deferred by the Sabbatarian spirit of the English people, will have a tendency, indirectly, to elevate the lowest classes, especially if the gin-palace, with its counter-attractions, be closed on the day of rest. As potent as any of the agencies named is the spread of national education, and a movement which has recently been set on foot to instil the importance of temperance into the minds of children in Board and other schools, coupled with the action of the existing “Bands of Hope,” will certainly operate to advantage upon the drinking habits of the rising generation. But all these agencies are at present more or less paralysed by the alliance, already, referred to, between the ruling power of the state and the “drink interest.” It is hardly conceivable that any political party should in the nineteenth century desire to retain its predominance through the corruption of the masses, but the fact is undeniable that the Conservatives, who have always claimed “social reform” as one of the functions of their party, have ranged themselves on the side of the drink-sellers, and have largely availed themselves of the Englishman’s love of his beer, or rather of his spirits, to seize and hold the reins of office. They were allowed to gain that position through the apathy of the people, and as we have had a “Long” Parliament and a “Rump” Parliament, so the present House of Commons will go down to posterity labelled the “Grog Parliament.”