were deprived of their pleasure. What the Legislature had to do was, not to deprive the people of means of innocent enjoyment, but to prevent that means being used to foster crime and gross self-indulgence.” However much one might feel disposed, in the main, to agree with Sir Wilfred Lawson and his colleagues, it is not easy to grant him the position he assumes at the commencement of his argument, that “statistics are unnecessary.” It is a singular fact, and one that everyone taking an interest in the great and important question of the drunkenness of the nation must have noticed, that amongst the advocates of total-abstinence principles “statistics” invariably are regarded as “unnecessary.” This undoubtedly is a grave mistake, and one more likely than any other to cast a deeper shade of distrust over the minds of doubters. It would seem either that the great evil in question is so difficult of access in its various ramifications as to defy the efforts of the statistician, or else that total abstainers, as a body, are imbued with the conviction that the disasters arising from the consumption of intoxicating drinks are so enormous, and widespread, and universally acknowledged, that it would be a mere waste of time to bring forward figures in proof. Perhaps, again, the drunkard is such a very unsavoury subject, that the upright water-drinker, pure alike in mind and body, has a repugnance to so close a handling of him. If this last forms any part of the reason why the question of beer-drinking _v._ water-drinking should not be laid before us as fairly and fully as two and two can make it, the objectors may be referred to social subjects of a much more repulsive kind, concerning which many noble and large-hearted gentlemen courageously busy themselves, and studiously inquire into, with a view to representing them exactly as they are discovered. In proof of this, the reader is referred to the sections of this book that are devoted to the consideration of Professional Thieves, and of Fallen Women. There can be no question that, in a matter that so nearly affects the domestic economy of a people, statistics are not only necessary but indispensable. No man’s word should be taken for granted, where so much that is important is involved. The man may be mistaken; but there is no getting away from figures. A man, in his righteous enthusiasm, may exaggerate even, but a square old-fashioned 4 can never be exaggerated into a 5, or a positive 1 be so twisted by plausible argument as to falsely represent 2. Yet, somehow, those who urge even so complete a revolution in the ancient and sociable habit of drinking as to make it dependent on the will of Brown and Robinson whether their neighbour Jones shall partake of a pint of beer out of the publican’s bright pewter, afford us no figures in support of their extreme views.