Many employers of female labour nowadays show a genuine and effective interest in the welfare of their employees. As one might expect, this is notably the case with the Quaker manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa. I have visited the works of one of these firms, and can testify to the splendidly intelligent and scrupulous care which is taken of the girls' general health, their eye-sight, their reading, and many aspects of their moral welfare. Yet there still remains something to be done in regard to protection from venereal disease, and surely the suggestion that conscientious employers should have instruction given in these matters is one which is well worthy of consideration. It is known by all observers--but it is a very meagre "all"--of the realities of politics that in Great Britain, at any rate, there is an increase of drinking amongst women and girls. This is doubtless in considerable measure due to the increase of work in factories, and the greater liberty enjoyed by adolescence--liberty too often to become enslaved. This bears directly upon our present subject. In a very large number of cases, the first lapse from self-restraint in young people of both sexes occurs under the influence of alcohol, the most pre-eminent character of whose action upon the nervous system is the paralysis of inhibition or control. Not only is alcohol responsible in this way, but also in any given case it renders infection more probable for more reasons than one. This abominable thing--in itself the immediate cause of many evils and, except as a fuel for lifeless machines and for industrial purposes, of no good--is thus the direct ally of the venereal diseases as of consumption and many more. We must return to this important subject later: meanwhile let it be noted that the influence of alcohol upon youth of both sexes greatly favours not only immorality but also venereal disease. The girl, therefore, who would protect herself directly will avoid this thing, and the girl who desires that neither she nor her children shall be destroyed after marriage, will exact from the man she chooses the highest possible standard of conduct in this matter. A friendly critic has told me that my books would be all very well, but that I have alcohol on the brain, and I am inclined to reply, Better on the brain than in the brain. But a subject so serious demands more serious treatment, and the due reply is that there is no human prospect for which I care, no public advantage to be advocated, no good I know, of which alcohol is not the enemy; no abomination, physical, mental or moral, individual or social, of which it is not the friend. Further, words like these will stand on record, and may be remembered when there has been achieved that slow but irresistible education of public opinion, to which some few have devoted themselves, and of which the triumph is as certain as the triumph of all truth was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. To the many charges against