A straw shows the direction of the wind, and I should not be at all surprised to see Scotland go dry in the next fifty years, especially if she is successful in obtaining Home Rule. If Scotland goes dry, it is not to be expected that England will fail ultimately to follow suit. The increase in efficiency among dry workmen is very great, and if the business men remain “the stronger” in the community, they cannot continue indefinitely to be blind to its advantages, especially as they themselves would be immune from the hardships it entails. If we ask whether an officially dry but unofficially wet business class, and a working class which is dry both officially and unofficially, does not mean one law for the rich and another for the poor, our answer is that conventional morals always does mean this.[8] [8] Cp. the case of the legs of the chorus and the principals, p. 70. The practice of virtue, we are often told, is dependent upon the possession of a sufficient income. It is only the well to do who can afford to be generous, honest, and unselfish, because they have no temptation to be otherwise. But what is true of virtue is equally true of vice, and the experience of the working of prohibition in America shows how easy it is for the rich to procure illicit indulgences which are out of the reach of the poor. There is likely to be legislation against wantonness in dress. By wantonness is meant the practice among females of unnecessarily exposing parts of their body. The curious belief that the body is in some way disgraceful, and that the exhibition of it is, therefore, wicked is very prevalent among Western peoples. It arises partly from natural prudery, partly from the property view of marriage, and partly from the inclemency of the climate which makes bathing a comparative rarity. The Japanese who have a bath twice a day, observe no discrimination between the sexes in their bathing. “One day”, said the Marquis of X who had just returned from Japan, “my wife went to have a bath, and she got as far as the rinsing stage when two young Japanese came in. She had to take refuge in the tank, screaming at the top of her voice until the two young men were taken away. They no doubt thought her a very fastidious young woman”.