"Some time ago we heard a good deal, both in and out of Parliament, about the debenture widow whose little all is invested in brewery securities. There is, on the other hand, the widow so made by alcohol. I am not aware that anyone has attempted to estimate the approximate number of each of these two classes. The following is merely a rude approximation. It has been stated that there are half a million persons who have invested money in the licensed trade. Let us allow that half of these are men. The death-rate of all males, above fifteen years of age, is slightly over sixteen per 1,000. At the census of 1901, 536 in each 1,000 males aged fifteen years and upwards were found to be married. Ignoring the differential death-rate of the married as compared with bachelors and widows, it follows that about 4,100 male investors in the licensed trade die each year, of whom some 2,197 will be married men, leaving behind them the same number of widows entirely or partly dependent on these investments. The widows made by drink are nearly six times as many. Numerous inquiries at home and abroad agree somewhat closely in stating _14 per cent_. of the entire death-rate to be due to alcohol. The proportion of one in seven is accepted by Dr. Archdall Eeid, who considers that all efforts to restrain drinking increase drunkenness. I do not think the justness of this figure can be disputed at all, except as an under-estimate. We are here dealing with male deaths only, and I will do my contention the obvious injustice of supposing that the proportion of deaths due wholly or in part to alcohol is no higher amongst men than amongst women. If one could allow for the existing difference, the result would be even more terrible. Taking the figures for 1906 for England and Wales alone, we have 167,307 deaths of males over fifteen; 23,422 of these wholly or partly due to alcohol, and of this number 12,554 were married men (i. e., 536 per 1,000). The average size of a family in England and Wales is 4.62, according to Whitaker. If we multiply the number of widows, 12,554, by 3.62, we shall have an approximation to the number of widows and orphans made by alcohol in 1906. There were 45,445, or over 124 widows and orphans made by alcohol every day in the year. We may now note some further data helping us to compare the 12,554 alcohol-made widows with the 2,197 whose husbands' fortunes were wholly or in part bound up with the welfare of the licensed trade. (Of these latter, also, of course, a large proportion would be alcohol-made.)