And this _dénouement_ bears such a wonderful resemblance to that in eight of the sixteen “Two Brothers” poems that I am half inclined to suspect that in his younger days Mr. Gladden was one of the poets who turned up at the _Ledger_ office every Friday and waited for the verdict. And I am sure that Dr. Holland had been, in his time, a close student of the Bonnerian maxims, and especially of that which I have already alluded to--“In real life, yes; but not in the _New York Ledger_!” To which might be added, “nor in the old _Scribner’s_ either.” All through the Holland period we find evidences of the deep hold that this maxim had taken on the minds of both writers and barons. For example, I believe that it is pretty well known that extreme prohibition measures bring about the most degrading and terrible forms of drunkenness known outside of Liverpool, and that of all the prohibitory statutes the Maine Liquor Law is about the worst. That is the case in real life, but not in _Scribner’s Monthly_, for in the year 1877--Dr. Holland being then the dominant figure in American letters--we find in an article on the Rangeley Lakes the following paragraph: “The Maine Liquor Law has certainly put an end to this _régime_ (a barrel of rum to a barrel of beans), and with it have disappeared to a very great extent drunkenness, profanity, and kindred vices.” Yes, my carping friend, we all know that the sentence which I have quoted is ridiculously untrue, and entirely out of place in a very interesting article on trout-fishing, but there was just as good a reason for printing it as there was for publishing _The Christian League of Connecticut_. That paragraph was well calculated to please folks of the variety that swooped down upon New York thirty thousand strong, under the banner of the Christian Endeavor Society. I do not know why it is, but people of this class fairly revel in humbug of every description, and nothing pleases them more than to read about the beneficent influences of prohibitory legislation, or to swallow once more the old Anglo-Saxon lie about Albion’s virtue and the wickedness of France--and if you would like to see that miserable fallacy whacked in the head read Mr. Brownell’s _French Traits_--or even to gloat over Mr. Gladden’s story of the princely generosity that prevails in the religious circles of New England. These Christian Endeavor people are a mystery to me. More than thirty thousand of them took possession of our city, and there was one erring brother among them who fell by the wayside, and was locked up in the House of Detention, charged with having been robbed of his return-ticket and about two hundred dollars in money. He was confined nearly a week, and during that time not one of his fellow Christian Endeavorers held out a helping hand to him. If the unfortunate man had come on from the West to attend a convention of sneak-thieves he would have fared better than he did.