On this whole subject it is impossible to speak too strongly, more especially when one is concerned with the interests of woman and womanhood. It is true that in consequence of the labours of those few keen workers whom the impotent and the meaningless and the selfish call fanatics, we are making a beginning in the matter of education on Temperance. But apart from that, which amounts only to very little as yet, it is the lamentable truth that the State does absolutely nothing whatever to protect the community and especially its women from the manifold evils which are involved in such figures as those here quoted. The State wants money, and life is a trifle. Anything that can pay toll to the State may therefore go without further question. A tax has been paid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a further tax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That the medicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it may take from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for air and food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing--all these things are nothing to the State if the tax is paid. Preparations such as those which have been mentioned above have no place or status whatever in scientific medicine. Their constituents are known and their action is known. The public pays for sarsaparilla, for instance, and simply gets a 20 per cent. solution of flavoured alcohol, and there is no one to inform it that sarsaparilla has been exhaustively studied by pharmacologists, employing every means of observation and experiment in their power, and that none of them have yet been able to detect its capacity to modify the body or any function of the body in any degree at all whether in health or disease. This is only one of many instances that might be named; every preparation of which the composition is not stated is suspect. Men are paying for these things at this moment under the impression that they are buying valuable tonics which will save their wives from the consequences of the drink craving and help to avert it. Large numbers of women are ruining themselves in purse and in body quite secretly under cover of these scandalous abuses which are allowed to go on from year to year, and which are undoubtedly doing more injury to the feminine--that is to say, to the more important--half of the community in each succeeding year. At least let the facts be known. Let liberty be believed in and encouraged; but if these things are to be made and sold and bought, let their composition be stated on the bottles. The composition of milk is supervised by the State; margarine, which is harmless and an excellent food, may not be sold as butter; alcohol, which is noxious, may be sold under any lying name, but so long as the State gets its percentage, it is well pleased. The official organ of the medical profession in this country has done well to draw renewed attention to this subject.