There are two public houses open to the poorer citizens--the Alehouse and the Workhouse. The rich man frequents neither, yet as magistrate or guardian he takes upon himself to lay down the rules by which they shall be run. These fussy, amiable, amateur bosses have conspicuously failed at their job. It is not to be wondered at. As an able Manchester business man once said to me of his partner: "He loves sitting on the licensing bench, and thank heaven he does; it keeps him out of the office." But even if the bosses were capable and intelligent they could not hope to succeed in their work. Public institutions should be governed by the men who make use of them. The rich man's public-house is so regulated--and what is the result? One may not approve of every detail of cookery or decoration at hotels like the Ritz in London, or the Adelphi and Midland in Liverpool and Manchester, but the average middle-class man will find in them such reasonable standard of comfort as he desires. There is, at all events, space and light and air, cleanliness, and some luxury. On proper occasions and in fit places there is music, dancing, and billiards, and you may play a game of bridge with your friends when you wish, even for threepence a hundred, in a private room. Moreover, there is always food of good quality obtainable at varied prices, and you need not take your drink standing at a counter, though you can if you wish to when there is an American bar. Why may not the working man have similar entertainment at the Pig and Whistle? A complete answer to that question would necessitate a study of the position of artificers and labourers in the middle ages and a short history of the ideals of the well-to-do puritans. The rich have had two objects in view in their legislation about the working-man's public house. A certain section of the rich--the brewers--have aimed at a monopoly of the right to sell him ale, and nothing else, at the biggest possible profit to themselves. A second section opposing the first--the teetotal magistracy--have sought to make the public house as dreary and miserable a place as possible in order to punish the wicked man who wants to drink ale. Between the brewer and the puritan the respectable working man with a normal thirst has been jockeyed out of his freedom. Swilling and tippling in alehouses and private clubs has been encouraged; the reasonable use of ale--which Mr. Belloc rightly asserts to be the finest beverage in the world--has been crabbed and discouraged. Except an opium den--of which I have only hearsay knowledge--there is probably nothing more comfortless and degrading than the lower-class alehouse of our towns and cities.