The problem is really a simple one, if we could only get administrators and legislators, but especially the former, to look at it in the interest of the man in the street. To the big brewery company beer is an effluent, and the public house is the conduit pipe through which they pour it into the public stomach. They have obviously no interest in ideal public houses--and why should they? They are business men on business bent. The teetotallers, on the other hand, regard the drinking of beer as a sin, and any public house as the house of the Devil. Why should they help the Devil to make his house sweet and attractive, and make the path easier for the poor sinner who thirsts after beer? At present the average licensing bench consists of "half and half"--to use a trade term--of these elements. If there happen to be a few cranks on the bench who share the feather-headed notions set down in this chapter, they can always be out-voted by a combination of brewer and teetotaller. And for my part I think we shall stick to our glorious institution of the "tied-house" just as long as the working man intends to allow us and no longer. When reformed public houses are taken up by the men who use the public house, and when labour demands something better, the demand will be met. For the teetotaller is nothing if not political, and when he sees where the votes are, and not before, he will begin to see the error of his ways. Meanwhile it will do him no harm to study the statistics such as they are, and discover that the number of licenses in a district has nothing to do with the amount of drunkenness therein, and to look back on the past history of the public house and recognise that he has for many years been the friend and ally of the undesirable brewer. The good citizen's policy should be the provision of pure ale in wholesome surroundings, thereby freeing the working class from the tyranny of the public house. To the teetotallers who hinder such a policy I can only repeat Charles Kingsley's message: "And I solemnly warn those who try to prevent it that they are, with whatsoever good intentions, simply doing the Devil's work." CHAPTER XIV THE TWO PUBLIC HOUSES 2. THE WORKHOUSE. Pauperism is the general leakage through every joint of the ship that is rotten. Were all men doing their duty, or even seriously trying to do it, there would be no Pauper. * * * * * Pauperism is the poisonous dripping from all the sins, and putrid unveracities and God-forgetting greedinesses and devil-serving cants and jesuitisms, that exist among us. Not one idle Sham lounging about Creation upon false pretences, upon means which he has not earned, upon theories which he does not practise, but yields his share of Pauperism somewhere or other. THOMAS CARLYLE: "Latter-day Pamphlets," "The New Downing Street."