when they enter and again when they emerge; and I have no doubt that, by a large majority, the working man in search simply of an hour’s evening amusement and sociable society will be acquitted of anything approaching sottishness, or such an inclination towards mere tipsiness even, as calls for the intervention of the Legislature. And now, while we are on the subject of statistics, and the peculiar influences it is the custom of the total abstainer to bring to bear against his erring brother the moderate drinker, I may mention what appears to me the highly objectionable practice of enlisting the cooperation of boys and girls—mere little children—in the interest of their cause. In the parliamentary discussion on the Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill, Colonel Jervis remarked, on the subject of the 3,337 petitions that were presented in its support: “I do not know whether the petitions that have been presented in its favour are properly signed; but certainly I have seen attached to one of those petitions which come from my neighbourhood names that I do not recognise. The signatures might, perhaps, be those of Sunday-school children; but I do not think that petitions from children should carry a Bill of this kind.” Were it any other business but teetotal business, one might feel disposed to pass by as meaningless the hint conveyed in Colonel Jervis’s words. None but those, however, who are conversant with the strange methods total abstainers will adopt to gain their ends will be inclined to attach some weight to them. The children are a weapon of great strength in the hands of the teetotal. Almost as soon as they begin to lisp, they are taught sentences condemnatory of the evils that arise from an indulgence in strong drink; soon as they are able to write, their names appear on the voluminous roll of total abstainers. At their feasts and picnics they carry banners, on which is inscribed their determination to refrain from what they have never tasted; and over their sandwiches Tommy Tucker, in his first breeches, pledges Goody Twoshoes in a glass from the crystal spring, and expresses his intention of dying as he has lived—a total abstainer. I am not a bachelor, but a man long married, and with a “troop of little children at my knee,” as numerous, perhaps, as that which gathered about that of “John Brown,” immortalised in song. But I must confess that I do chafe against children of a teetotal tendency one occasionally is introduced to. I have before made allusion to a recently-published volume entitled _A Thousand Temperance Facts and Anecdotes_. This is the title given on the cover; the title-page, however, more liberally reveals the nature of its contents. Thereon is inscribed, “One Thousand Temperance Anecdotes, Facts, Jokes, Biddies, Puns, and Smart Sayings; suitable for Speakers, Penny Readings, Recitations, &c.” And, to be sure, it is not in the least objectionable