CHAPTER II.—THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE.

The Discovery of the Cause is the Discovery of the Remedy.—BICHAT.

The undoubted antiquity of the poison vice has induced several able physiologists to assume the hygienic necessity of artificial stimulation. But the not less undoubted fact that there have been manful, industrious and intelligent nations of total abstainers would be an almost sufficient refutation of that inference, which is sometimes qualified by the assertion that the tonic value of alcoholic drinks is based upon the abnormal demands upon the vitality of races exposed to the vicissitudes of a rigorous climate and the manifold overstraining influences of an artificial civilization. For it can, besides, be proved that the alleged invigorating action of alcoholic drinks is an absolute delusion, and the pathological records of contemporary nations establish the fact that endemic increase of intemperate habits can nearly always be traced to causes that have no correlation whatever to the increased demands upon the physical or intellectual energies of the afflicted community. Potentially those energies have lamentably decreased among numerous races who once managed to combine nature-abiding habits with a plethora of vital vigor.

The physiologically unavoidable _progressiveness of all stimulant habits_ is a further argument in favor of the theory that the poison vice has grown up from very small beginnings, and the genesis of the fatal germ has probably been supplied in the hypothesis of Fabio Colonna, an Italian naturalist of the seventeenth century. “Before people used wine,” says he, “they drank sweet must and preserved it, like oil, in jars or skins. But in a warm climate a saccharine fluid is apt to ferment, and some avaricious housekeeper may have drunk that _spoiled_ stuff till she became fond of it and learned to prefer it to must.”

Avarice, aided perhaps by dietetic prurience, or indifference to the warnings of instinct, planted the baneful seed, and the laws of evolution did the rest.

But the tendency of those laws has often been checked, and as certainly often been accelerated, by less uncontrollable agencies.

The first venders of toxic stimulants (like our quack medicine philanthropists) had a personal interest in disseminating the poison habit. Reform attempts were met by appeals to the convivial interests of the stimulant-dupe, by the seduction of minors, by charges of asceticism; later by nostrum puffs and opium wars. More than two thousand years ago the worship of Bacchus was propagated by force of arms. The disciples of Ibn Hanbal, the Arabian Father Mathew, were stoned in the streets of Bagdad. The persecutions and repeated expulsions of the Grecian Pythagoreans had probably a good deal to do with the temperance teachings of their master. In Palestine, in India, in mediæval Europe, nearly every apostle of Nature had to contend with a rancorous opposition, inspired by the most sordid motives of _self-interest_, and our own age can in that respect not boast of much improvement. In spite of our higher standard of philanthropic principles and their numerous victories in other directions, the heartless alliance of Bacchus and Mammon still stands defiant. In our own country a full hundred thousand men, not half of them entitled to plead the excuses of poverty or ignorance, unblushingly invoke the protection of the laws in behalf of an industry involving the systematic propagation of disease, misery and crime. Wherever the interests of the poison traffic are at stake the nations of Europe have not made much progress since the time when the sumptuary laws of Lorenzo de Medici were defeated by street riots and a shrieking procession of the Florentine tavern-keepers.

The efforts of such agitators are seconded by the _Instinct of Imitation_. “In large cities,” says Dr. Schrodt, “one may see _gamins_ under ten years grubbing in rubbish heaps for cigar stumps; soon after leaning against a board fence, groaning and shuddering as they pay the repeated penalty of nature, yet, all the same, repeating the experiment with the resignation of a martyr. The rich, the fashionable, do it; those whom they envy smoke; smoking, they conclude, must be something enviable.”

Without any intentional arts of persuasion the Chinese business men of San Francisco have disseminated a new poison vice by smoking poppy gum in the presence of their Caucasian employes and accustoming them to associate the sight of an opium debauch with the idea of enjoyment and recreation. Would the opponents of prohibition attempt to deny that analogous influences (the custom of “treating” friends at a public bar, the spectacle of lager beer orgies in public gardens, etc.) have a great deal to do with the initiation of boy topers?

Ignorance does not lead our dumb fellow-creatures to vicious habits, and _prejudice_ is therefore, perhaps, the more correct name for the sad infatuation which tempts so many millions of our young men to defy the protests of instinct and make themselves the slaves of a life-destroying poison. Ignorance is nescience. Prejudice is _mal-science_, _mis-creance_, trust in erroneous teachings. Millions of children are brought up in the belief that health can be secured only by abnormal means. A pampered child complains of headache, want of appetite. Instead of curing the evil by the removal of the cause, in the way so plainly indicated by the monitions of instinct, the mother sends to the drug-store. The child must “take something.” Help must come through anti-natural means. A young rake, getting more fretful and dyspeptic from day to day, is advised to “try something,” an aloe pill, a bottle of medicated brandy, any quack “specific,” recommended by its bitterness or nauseousness. The protests of nature are calmly disregarded in such cases; a dose of medicine, according to the popular impression, can not be very effective unless it is very repulsive. Our children thus learn to mistrust the voice of their natural instincts. They try to rely on the aid of specious arts, instead of trusting their troubles in the hands of nature. Boys whose petty ailments have been palliated with stimulants will afterward be tempted to drown their sorrow in draughts of the same nepenthe, instead of biding their time, like Henry Thoreau, who preferred to “face any fate, rather than seek refuge in the mist of intoxication.” Before the friends of temperance can hope for a radical reform they must help to eradicate the deep-rooted delusion of the stimulant fallacy; the popular error which hopes to defy the laws of nature by the magic of intoxicating drugs and thus secure an access of happiness not attainable by normal means. Our text-books, our public schools, should teach the rising generation to realize the fact that the temporary advantage gained by such means is not only in every case out-weighed by the distress of a speedy reaction, but that the capacity for enjoyment itself is impaired by its repeated abuse, till only the most powerful stimulants can restore a share of that cheerfulness which the spontaneous action of the vital energies bestows on the children of nature.

We have seen that the milder stimulants often form the stepping-stones to a passion for stronger poisons. A penchant for any kind of tonic drugs, nicotine, narcotic infusions, hasheesh, the milder opiates, etc., may thus initiate a stimulant habit with an unlimited capacity of development, and there is no doubt that international traffic has relaxed the vigilance which helped our forefathers to guard their households against the introduction of foreign poison vices. Hence the curious fact that drunkenness is not prevalent—not in the most ignorant or despotic countries (Russia, Austria, and Turkey), nor in southern Italy and Spain, where alcoholic drinks of the most seductive kind are cheapest—but in the _most commercial countries_, western France, Great Britain, and North America. Hence also the fallacy of the brewer’s argument that the use of lager beer would prevent the dissemination of the opium habit. No stimulant vice has ever prevented the introduction of worse poisons. Among the indirect causes of intemperance we must therefore include our mistaken _toleration of the minor stimulant habits_. The poison vice has become a many-headed hydra, defying one-sided attacks, and it is no paradox to say that we could simplify our work of expurgation by making it more thorough.

_Polydipsia_ is a derangement of the digestive organs characterized by a chronic thirst, which forces its victims to swallow enormous quantities of stimulating fluids. The biographer of Richard Porson, the great classic scholar, says that his poison thirst was “so outrageous that he can not be considered a mere willful drunkard; one must believe that he was driven into his excesses by some unknown disease of his constitution.” … “He would pour anything down his throat rather than endure the terrible torture of thirst. Ink, spirits of wine for the lamp, an embrocation, are among the horrible things he is reported to have swallowed in his extremity.” Polydipsia is not always due to the direct or indirect (hereditary) influence of the alcohol habit, and the origin of the disorder was long considered doubtful; but it has since been traced to a morbid condition of the kidneys, induced by the use of narcotic stimulants (tea, coffee, tobacco), but often also by gluttony.

Like certain poison plants, the stimulant habit flourishes best in a sickly soil. _Whatever tends to undermine the stamina of the physical or moral constitution_ helps to prepare the way for an inroad of intemperance, by weakening the resistance of the protective instincts. Hence the notorious fact that gambling dens and houses of ill-fame are rank hot-beds of the alcohol vice.

_Asceticism_ has not yet ceased to be an indirect obstacle to the success of temperance reform. The children of nature need no special holidays; to them life itself is a festival of manifold sports. Hunting, fishing, and other pursuits of primitive nations become the pastimes of later ages. For the abnormal conditions of civilized life imply the necessity of providing special means of recreation, out-door sports, competitive gymnastics, etc., in order to satisfy the craving of an importunate instinct; and too many social reformers have as yet failed to recognize the truth that _the suppression of that instinct avenges itself by its perversion_; by driving pleasure-seekers from the play-ground to the pot-house, as despotism has turned freemen into bandits and outlaws. “Every one who considers the world as it really exists,” says Lecky, “must have convinced himself that, in great towns, where multitudes of men of all classes and all characters are massed together, and where there are innumerable strangers, separated from all domestic ties and occupations, public amusements of an exciting order are absolutely necessary, and that to suppress them is simply to plunge an immense portion of the population into the lowest depths of vice.”

“I am a great friend to public amusements,” says Boswell’s Johnson, “for they keep people from vice.” A home missionary in the character of a promoter of harmless recreations would double the popularity of our tenets, and by vindicating our people against the charge of joy-hating bigotry deprive our opponents of their most effective weapon. The free reading-rooms and gymnasium of the New York Y. M. C. A. have done more to promote the cause of temperance than the man hunts of Sir Hudibras and all his disciples. We must change our tactics. While our anchorite allies have contrived to make virtue repulsive, our opponents have proved themselves consummate masters of the art of masking the ugliness of vice; they have strewn their path with roses and left us the thorns. Yet I hope to show that we can beat them upon their own ground, for it is not difficult to make health more attractive than disease.

But the most obstinate obstacle to a successful propagation of total abstinence principles is the _drug fallacy_, a delusion founded on precisely the same error which leads the dram-drinker to mistake a process of irritation for a process of invigoration. During the infancy of the healing art all medical theories were biased by the idea that sickness is an enemy whose attacks must be repulsed _à main forte_, by suppressing the symptoms with fire, sword and poison—not in the figurative but in the literal sense, the keystone dogma of the primitive Sangrados having been the following heroic maxim: “What drugs won’t cure must be cured with iron” (the lancet), “if that fails resort to fire.” (_Quod medicamenta non curant ferrum curat, quod non curat ferram ignis curat._) But with the progress of the physiological sciences the conviction gradually gained ground that disease itself is a reconstructive process, and that the suppression of the symptoms retards the accomplishment of that reconstruction. And ever since that truth dawned upon the human mind the use of poison drugs has steadily decreased. A larger and larger number of intelligent physicians had begun to suspect that the true healing art consists in the removal of the cause, and that where diseases have been caused by unnatural habits, the reform of those habits is a better plan than the old counter-poison method; when homœopathy proved practically (though not theoretically) that medication can be entirely dispensed with. The true effect of the more virulent drugs (opium, tartar emetic, arsenic, etc.) was then studied from a physiological stand-point, and experiments proved what the medical philosopher Asclepiades, conjectured eighteen hundred years ago, namely, that if a drugged patient recovers, the true explanation is that his constitution was strong enough to overcome both the disease and the drug. Bichat, Schrodt, Magendie, Alcott, R. T. Trall, Isaac Jennings and Dio Lewis arrived at the conclusion that every disease is a protest of Nature against some violation of her laws, and that the suppression of the symptoms means to silence that protest instead of removing its cause, so that we might as well try to extinguish a fire by silencing the fire-bells, or to cure the sleepiness of a weary child by pinching its eyelids—in short, that drastic drugs, instead of “breaking up” a disease, merely interrupt it and lessen the chance of a radical cure.

Are there reasons to suppose that alcohol or any other poison, makes an exception from that general rule? We must reject the idea _in toto_, and I hope to show that it is refuted:

1. By the testimony of our instincts.

2. By experience.

3. By the direct or indirect concessions of the ablest physiologists.

Our instincts protest against medication. Against ninety-nine of a hundred “remedial drugs” our sense of taste warns us as urgently as against rotten eggs, verdigris, or oil of vitriol. Shall we believe that nature repudiates the means of salvation? Or that our protective instincts forsake us in the hour of our sorest need—in the hour of our struggle with a life-endangering disease? And the same instincts that protest against other poisons warn us against all kinds of alcoholic drugs. Is it an exception to that rule that the depraved taste of a drunkard may relish a glass of medicated wine or a bottle of “Hostetter’s bitters” (rye brandy)? If it is certain beyond all limits of doubt that the health of the stoutest man is no safeguard against the bane of the wretched poison, shall we believe that he can encounter it with impunity when his vital strength is exhausted by disease?

Has the stimulus of alcoholic beverages any remedial or prophylactic effect? How does alcohol counteract the contagion of climatic fevers? In precisely the same way as those fevers arrest, or rather suspend, the progress of other disorders. The vital process can not compromise with two diseases at the same time. A fit of gastric spasms interrupts a toothache. A toothache relieves a sick headache. The severest cold in the head temporarily yields to an attack of small-pox. _Temporarily_, I say, for the apparent relief is only a postponement of an interrupted process. During the progress of the alcohol fever (the feverish activity of the organism in its effort to rid itself of a life-endangering poison) Nature has to suspend her operations against a less dangerous foe. But each repetition of that factitious fever is followed by a reaction that suspends the prophylactic effect of the stimulus, and sooner or later the total exhaustion of the vital energies not only leaves the system at the mercy of the original foe, but far less able to resist his attacks. “There is but one appalling conclusion to be deduced from hospital records, medical statistics and the vast array of facts which bear upon the subject,” says Professor Youmans, “it is that among no class of society are the ravages of contagious diseases so wide-spread and deadly as among those who are addicted to the use of alcoholic beverages.”

Is alcohol a digestive tonic? Can we cure an indigestion by the most indigestible of all chemical product! If a starving man drops by the roadside we may get him on his legs by drenching him with a pailful of vitriol, but after rushing ahead for a few hundred steps he will drop again, more helpless than before, by just as much as the brutal stimulus has still further exhausted his little remaining strength. Thus alcohol excites, and eventually tenfold exhausts, the vigor of the digestive system. We can not bully Nature. We can not silence her protests by a fresh provocation. Fevers can be cured by refrigeration; indigestions by fasting and exercise, and at any rate the possible danger of a relapse is infinitely preferable to the sure evils of the poison drug. A few repetitions of the stimulant process may initiate the alcohol vice and sow the seeds of a life-long crop of woe and misery. A single dose of alcoholic tonics may revive the fatal passion of half-cured drunkards and forfeit their hard-earned chance of recovery. That chance, and life itself, often depend on the hope of guarding the system against a relapse of the stimulant-fever, and I would as soon snatch a plank from a drowning man as that last hope from a drunkard.

Alcohol lingers in our hospitals as slavery lingers in South America, as torture lingers in the courts of eastern Europe. Quacks prescribe it because it is the cheapest stimulant; routine doctors prescribe it because its stimulating effect is more infallible than that of other poisons; empirists prescribe it at the special request of their patients, or as a temporary prophylactic; others because they find it in the ready-made formulas of their dispensatories. There is another reason which I might forbear mentioning, but I hold that a half truth is a half untruth, and I will name that other reason. Ignorant patients demand an immediate effect. They send for a doctor, and are to pay his bill; they expect to get their money’s worth in the form of a prompt and visible result. Instead of telling the im-patient that he must commit himself into the hands of Nature, that she will cure him in her own good time, by a process of her own, and that all art can do for him is to give that process the best possible chance, and prevent a willful interruption of it—instead of saying anything of the kind, Sangrado concludes to humor the popular prejudice and to produce the desired prompt and visible effect. For that purpose alcohol is, indeed, the most reliable agent. It will spur the jaded system into a desperate effort to expel the intruder, though the strength expended in that effort should be ever so urgently needed for better purposes. The dose is administered; the patient can not doubt that a “change” of some kind or other has been effected; the habitual drunkard perhaps feels it to be a (momentary) change for the better; at all events the doctor has done something and proved that he can “control the disease.” In some exceptional cases of that sort the influence of imagination may help to cure a believing patient, or Nature may be strong enough to overcome the disease and the stimulant at one effort. And if a doctor can reconcile it with his conscience to risk such experiments how shall we prevent it? As a first step in the right direction we can refuse to swallow his prescription. Physicians have no right to experiment on the health of their patients. They have no right to expect that we shall stake our lives on the dogmas of the old stimulant theory till they have answered the objections of the Naturalistic School.

Drastic drugs are not wholly useless. There are two or three forms of disease which have (thus far) not proved amenable to any non-medicinal cure, and can hardly be trusted to the healing power of Nature:—the _lues venera_, scabies and prurigo, because, as a French physiologist suggests, “the cause and the symptoms are here, for once, identical, the probable proximate cause being the agency of microscopic parasites, which oppose to the action of the vital forces a life-energy of their own.” Antidotes and certain anodynes will perhaps also hold their own till we find a way of producing their effects by mechanical means.

But with these rare exceptions it is by far the safer as well as shorter way to avoid drugs, reform our habits and not interrupt the course of nature, for, properly speaking, “_disease itself is a healing process_.” “It is not true,” says Dr. Jennings, “that the human system, when disturbed and deranged in its natural operations, becomes suicidal in its action …; such a view presents an anomaly in the universe of God’s physical government. It is not in accordance with the known operations and manifestations of other natural laws” (“Medical Reform,” p. 29). “The idea that the symptoms of disease must be suppressed,” says Wichat, “has led to innumerable fallacies and blunders.”

Dr. Benjamin Rush said in a public lecture: “I am here incessantly led to make an apology for the instability of the theories and practice of physic, and those physicians generally become the most eminent, who have the soonest emancipated themselves from the tyranny of the schools of physic. Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases; we have done more, we have increased their mortality. I will not pause to beg pardon of the faculty, for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weakness of our profession. I am pursuing Truth, and am indifferent whither I am led, if she only is my leader.”

“Our system of therapeutics,” says Jules Virey, “is so shaky (_vacillant_) that the soundness of the basis itself must be suspected.”

“The success of the homœopathic practice has astonished many discerning minds,” says Dr. Jennings. “It is unnecessary for my present purpose to give a particular account of the results of homœopathy; … what I now claim with respect to it is, that a wise and beneficent Providence is using it to expose a deep delusion. In the result of homœopathic practice, we have evidence in amount, and of a character sufficient, most incontestably to establish the fact that disease is a restorative process, a renovating operation, and that medicine has deceived us. The evidence is full and complete. It does not consist merely of a few isolated cases, whose recovery might be attributed to fortuitous circumstances, but it is a chain of testimony fortified by every possible circumstance. All kinds and grades of disease have passed under the ordeal, and all classes and characters of persons have been concerned in the experiment as patients or witnesses; … _while the process of infinitesimally attenuating the drugs was carried to such a ridiculous extent that no one will, on sober reflection, attribute any portion of the cure to the medicine_. I claim then, that homœopathy may be regarded as a providential sealing of the fate of old medical views and practices” (“Medical Reform,” p. 247).

Since physiology was first studied methodically an overwhelming array of facts has, indeed, proved that the disorders of the human organism can be cured more easily without poison drugs; more easily in the very degree that would suggest the suspicion that our entire system of therapeutics is founded upon an erroneous view of disease. The homœopathists cure their patients with milk-sugar, the exponents of the movement cure with gymnastics, the hydropathists with cold water, the disciples of Dr. Schrodt with exercise and mountain-air, the primitive Christians with prayer, Nature cures her children with rest and a partial suspension of the digestive process (the fasting cure, indicated instinctively by a loss of appetite). Let all repudiate alcohol and all can record swifter, more numerous, and more permanent cures than the disciples of the nostrum school.

Considered in connection with the foregoing remarks, these facts admit only of one conclusion, and after giving the above-mentioned exception the benefit of a (temporary) doubt, we can assert with perfect confidence that drastic drugs have no remedial value, and that every drop of alcohol administered for medicinal purposes, has increased, instead of decreasing, the weight of human misery.

There is no doubt but these views will awaken the anathemas of the poison-worshipers; but it is equally certain that before the end of this century they will become truisms. We should regard the drift of the main current rather than the incidental fluctuations of scientific theories, and all the ripple of conflicting opinions can not conceal the progress of a strong tendency toward total abstinence from all virulent drugs.

STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

II. WHEAT, RYE AND CORN.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED.

The three grains here treated, viz.: wheat, rye and corn, belong to the vast order of plants known as the grass family (_Gramineæ_). This large group of plants, the members of which are so closely related as to be quickly recognized as such, contains many of the most valuable of all cultivated plants. It not only furnishes the cereals, namely: wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley and rice, which supply the world with the larger part of its starchy food, but clothes the pasture and meadow of the farmer with the herbage so essential to the sustenance of his live stock. There is a deep and weighty truth in the familiar expression: “All flesh is grass.” Blot out the grass family from existence and nearly all forms of life would suffer, and many kinds would soon perish from the earth.

The grasses are usually low and comparatively small plants—though the bamboos of the tropics are almost treelike, with jointed stems and alternate, slender leaves. The flowers are inconspicuous, usually in spikes or spreading clusters, with three stamens, anthers versatile, styles two, stigma feathery, ovary one-celled, becoming a grain.

Wheat has probably more intrinsic value than any other plant grown. It is probably a native of southwestern Asia, but like most grains and fruits cultivated from remote antiquity, its early history is extremely uncertain. Many varieties have been produced from the original _Triticum vulgare_—the scientific name of wheat—but they can all be placed in the two following groups: Those that are tender called spring wheats, sown in spring, and the winter sorts that are sown in autumn, remain on the ground through the winter and are harvested the subsequent summer. The winter wheats are the more valuable and bring a higher price than the spring varieties. Some wheats have long awns to the flowers, and are termed bearded, while other sorts are nearly or entirely awnless, and are sometimes styled bald. There is a great variation in the size and color of the grain. In some varieties it is long, others short; some are white, others brown, red, and amber; some are hard, others are soft. New sorts are produced yearly, and the varieties have become practically innumerable.

The area devoted to the growth of wheat in the United States is between thirty-five and forty million acres, and the yield of the present season (1884) will not be far from 500,000,000 bushels. The average yield per acre, take the whole country through, is not far from thirteen bushels per acre. Nineteen states (and territories) cultivate over a million acres each; six over two millions, and three over three millions, namely: Illinois, 3,218,542; Iowa, 3,049,288; and Minnesota, 3,044,670 acres, as given in the last census. In the order of the number of bushels produced, the leading states stand thus: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, California. New York stands thirteenth, and Rhode Island last, with seventeen acres and 240 bushels. It will be seen that the wheat region, strictly speaking, is in the Mississippi Valley, centering around Illinois, with a secondary area in middle California. According to the report on the cereal production of the United States by Professor Wm. H. Brewer, in the statistics of agriculture in the tenth census, the yield and quality of the wheat crops is stated to depend upon five conditions: climate, soil, variety cultivated, method of cultivation and the liability to destruction by insects. The quality of the grain depends more upon the climate than the soil. A hot, dry and sunny harvest produces a grain of the highest quality. The ideal climate for wheat growing is most nearly reached during the best years in California, and it is then and there that we have records of the greatest yields of the best of wheat.

A good rich soil is needed for successful wheat growing. This may be preserved on any farm by a well regulated system of crop rotation. It must be borne in mind that wheat has a short season for its growth and needs to have food prepared and close at hand. One of the best preparatory crops is clover. The clover sod, including the vast amount of roots, furnishes a most acceptable feeding ground for the wheat. The soil itself is not one of the items most frequently overlooked in wheat growing. The importance of good plump seed of the best varieties is rarely overestimated. There is a vast deal in the sort of wheat grown, and no one can afford to grow any but the best.

The most common diseases of wheat are rust and smut, both of vegetable origin. These troubles, which appear so suddenly and are often very destructive, are minute microscopic plants of the order of fungi, and therefore related to the moulds and mildews common on various articles of food, etc. The insect enemies are somewhat numerous, but the Hessian fly, wheat midge, joint worm, chinch bug, army worms, and Rocky Mountain locust are the most destructive. There are a few insects that prey upon the grain after it is in the granary, and these are on the increase. Among the enemies we should not forget to mention various weeds that spring up in the fields and endeavor to choke out the legitimate occupants of the soil.

The nutritive value and chemical composition of wheat grain are important points worthy of consideration here, because this general article is to be followed by one upon the culinary aspects of the grain treated. The market value of a flour largely rests upon its appearance, while the nutritive value depends upon the results determined by the analytical chemist. The average of fifty-seven analyses of winter wheat in the kernel gave:

WATER. ASH. ALBUMINOIDS. FIBER. STARCH, GUM, &C. FAT.

Winter Wheat 11.18 1.70 11.70 1.66 71.81 1.95 Spring Wheat 10.50 1.84 11.97 1.86 70.64 2.19 Wheat Flour 11.56 0.59 11.09 0.17 75.43 1.14

It will be seen that there is very little chemical difference between winter and spring wheats. The composition of the flour shows a removal of nearly all the woody fiber, two thirds of the ash, nearly half the fat and a small reduction of the albuminoids, while the water is somewhat and the carb-hydrates (starch, gum, etc.) considerably increased. It will be interesting to here give an analysis of wheat bran and shorts:

WATER. ASH. ALBUMINOIDS. FIBER. STARCH, GUM, &C. FAT.

Bran 11.65 5.63 14.00 9.13 55.56 4.03 Shorts 11.26 3.95 15.13 7.46 57.35 4.85

By a comparison of these tables it will be easy to note the positions in the kernel occupied by the various substances. The fiber, ash, fat, and albuminoids are more abundant in the outer portion of the grain, especially the first three. It must be kept in mind that the albuminoids are the most expensive elements of food, and are frequently called the “flesh formers,” because they produce muscles. The starchy compounds are employed for the production of heat in the animal system. The functions and comparative importance of these several constituents are already given at some length in the article on the potato in a previous issue of THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

RYE (_Secale cereale_).—This grain was grown by the Egyptians and other eastern nations, and its nativity is lost in oblivion. It is of far less importance than wheat, and does not possess any remarkable tendency to vary from its normal type. It has a wider range of growth than wheat, and flourishes in cooler regions than those adapted for most of the other grains. There are both spring and winter varieties. The preparation of the soil, the seeding, harvesting, etc., are much the same as for wheat. It will succeed on a poorer soil and with less attention than wheat. On this account rye was a more important crop in the earlier centuries of the development of the human race than to-day. Rye bread was a daily food among our people in the colonial days, and in some old countries where the soil has been too much worn out for wheat rye is grown successfully. The opening up of various parts of our country by railroads has checked the rye industry, and introduced wheat in its place.

The acreage of rye in the United States in 1880 was 1,842,303 acres, yielding 19,831,595 bushels. The states producing over a million bushels are only five, namely, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The amount of rye grown in the United States in 1839 was more than that at ten, twenty, or thirty years later. Its cultivation for bread has rapidly decreased, but for other purposes there is an apparent increase. Rye makes an excellent green fodder crop, and is also employed for plowing under as a green manure. The straw is the primary crop in many sections, there being a good market for this excellent product. The chemical composition of rye differs somewhat from that of wheat, being poorer in albuminoids. The wheat flours average 11.09 per cent. of albuminoids, while that of rye is 6.65. Rye bran is, on the other hand, richer in these constituents than wheat. Professor Brewer, to whom we are indebted for many of our percentages here given, says: “These figures are so plain that they scarcely require comment, and they illustrate why fine wheat flour is so much better than fine rye bread, and also why the difference in nutritious qualities between coarse rye bread and fine rye bread is so much greater than between coarse wheat bread and fine wheat bread.” Rye is subject to fungoid attacks, one of which is of special interest—the “spurred” rye, or ergot. The fungus causes the grains to increase to several times their normal size, and become purple, hard and curved, somewhat resembling the spurs of a cock. This ergotted or “spurred” grain is very poisonous. In some parts of Europe, where rye is largely grown, there have been extensive epidemics among the people, caused by eating rye affected with ergot. The insect enemies are nearly the same as those mentioned with wheat.

CORN.—Indian corn, or maize, is the leading grain crop of the United States. The area devoted to this grain for the present year is not far from seventy million acres, and the yield will not fall much short of two thousand million bushels (2,000,000,000). According to the census of 1880, the six following states produced over a hundred million bushels each: Illinois, over three hundred and twenty-five millions; Iowa, over two hundred and seventy-five millions; Missouri, over two hundred and two millions; Indiana, over one hundred and fifteen millions; Ohio, over one hundred and eleven millions, and Kansas over one hundred and five millions. Corn is very generally distributed over the whole country, but it attains its greatest excellence on the rich lands of the western prairies.

There is but little doubt that Indian corn is of American origin. Columbus and other discoverers found it cultivated by the natives of the New World. Since that time Indian corn has been carried to all parts of the globe, and in many places it is grown with profit. The corn plant is botanically _Zea mays_, and is very unlike any of the other cereals in the arrangement of its flowers. The clusters of male or pollen bearing flowers are at the upper end of the stalk, forming the tassel, while the female flowers are crowded upon a spike situated upon one side of the stalk, midway between the top and the bottom. This separation of the flowers permits of ready cross fertilization; that is, the grains of one ear are very likely to be impregnated with flower-dust showered down from the tassel of a neighboring plant. The truth of this is always demonstrated when two distinct varieties, as white and yellow sorts, are planted in adjoining rows. There will be a “mixing” in nearly every ear along the border line. This ease in crossing permits the farmer to combine the good qualities of desirable sorts; in other words corn may be bred and has been bred as successfully as any kind of live stock. The corn plant also has a very plastic nature, and quickly responds to any favoring conditions of soil, climate or culture. We should therefore expect to find the number of varieties of Indian corn without number. Many attempts have been made to classify the different sorts. A common grouping is into field, sweet, pop and husk sorts. Another is into flint, Tuscarora, dent, and sweet varieties. Some of the leading characteristics in the classification are color of grain, rows on cob, size and form of grain, etc. The field varieties include dents and flints, and are grown in large areas. The sweet corns have a large per cent. of sugar, and are grown for eating in the green condition. The pop corns are small sorts, with a very hard covering. The stalks of corn vary from two to twenty feet in length, and the ears from half an ounce to a pound and a half. The number of rows of grain on the cob is always even, and ranges from four to forty. The grain varies in color; it may be white, yellow, violet, purple, blue, slate, black, or variegated.

A good corn ground is rich, warm, deep and mellow. Unlike the other cereals, the work of culture in the cornfield is only well begun when the plants appear above the surface. Being in rows there is a fine opportunity offered for weeds to come in and occupy the soil before the corn plants make enough growth to defend their rights to the land. The first enemy to the corn is the cut-worm, and the next is the crow. If it were not for the cut-worm it is probable that the crow would rarely visit the corn-field. The crow is the enemy of the cut-worm and many other injurious farm pests. He may pull some corn for two weeks in the year, but during the other fifty he is clearly on the farmer’s side. The weeds are the worst enemies to the corn, and smut comes next. This trouble is, like the wheat rust and the ergot of the rye, a member of the fungus group. The smut appears on various parts of the plant, but usually on the ear. All smutted parts should be cut out and burned, as they are unfit for food, and this prevents the spread of the disease.

The chemical composition of corn is more variable than that of wheat. The following table may be compared with that given for wheat. An average of a large number of analyses is given for each item:

WATER. ASH. ALBUMINOIDS. FIBER. STARCH, GUM, &C. FAT.

Flint 10.85 1.45 10.87 1.61 70.29 4.93 Dent 11.23 1.48 10.49 1.91 70.15 4.74 Sweet 8.81 1.87 12.15 2.31 66.87 7.99 Hominy 13.49 0.38 8.25 0.32 77.12 0.44 Meal 15.97 1.27 8.19 1.61 69.50 3.46 Cob 9.16 1.32 2.22 32.04 54.85 0.43

The most striking difference between wheat and corn is the amount of oil or fat. In wheat this ranges from 1.26 to 2.67 per cent., while in corn it averages 5.29, or from two to three times as much. The popular opinion that corn is a heating and fattening food is therefore supported by chemical analyses. It will be seen from the table that the sweet corns contain much more fat and a larger per cent. of albuminoids than the other varieties. These, therefore, have a higher nutritive value. Whatever may have been said in favor of or against either the flint or dent varieties falls to the ground in the light of the average analyses of these classes when brought side by side. It will be seen that the differences are practically nothing. It is only a matter of fancy which is employed. Much has been said concerning color, but this is little more than skin deep, and does not affect the quality of the food derived from the grain. Those families which have become accustomed to yellow corn prefer it, and those using the white sorts like these best. It is a matter of taste, in one sense, and not of _taste_ in another.

Chemistry shows no great difference in the percentage of albuminoids in wheat and corn, but it is a fact that all the differences can not be set down in figures. The housewife knows very well that a light, spongy bread is not easily made from corn; in other words, corn bread is very different in texture from wheat bread, even when the two flours are equally well prepared. Much may be due to the greater amount of oil in the corn, but there is little doubt that the gluten of corn is of a different texture or character than that in wheat. This most important constituent is subject to great variation in wheat, so much so that this grain grown in one locality makes a light bread, while that from another, in the same hands and under the same treatment, yields a heavy bread, and of poor quality. No one doubts that much improvement may be made in the milling of corn—as much, perhaps, as has been recently effected in that of wheat. We may look for a “new process” by which our corn bread may be vastly improved.

Corn is, however, the great fattening food for swine and other live stock, and we should be satisfied to take our corn in that transmuted form when it appears upon our tables as a fragrant spare-rib or a juicy and tender chop or beefsteak.

Of the three grains herein briefly treated we have seen that wheat stands at the head as a food for man in our country. In any form it is prepared it can be a complete and palatable food. The albuminoids (gluten, etc.) are in such abundance and form that the flour may produce snowy, spongy and most healthful bread—truly a staff of life on which all rejoice to lean. Rye is a declining grain, it being replaced by wheat. It will grow on poorer soil than wheat, but with the many kinds of commercial fertilizers at our service no one should grow rye because of an impoverished soil. Corn in all its bearings is a peer of wheat. It is in one sense our contribution to the world’s list of grains, and in this we justly take pride. It is more largely grown than any other crop, and as a source of natural wealth it stands ahead of wheat. As a plant corn is most interesting, being plastic and quickly responsive to any favoring conditions. If corn is king, as some claim, wheat is certainly queen in this royal family of cereals.

BREAD.

BY MRS. EMMA P. EWING.

The first thing to be considered in bread making is the yeast. Without good yeast it is impossible to make good bread. A great deal depends upon the quality of flour used for making bread; but unless the yeast is good the best quality of bread can not be made from the most superior grade of flour, and much excellent flour is spoiled by conjunction with worthless yeast in the attempt to make it into bread.

The compressed yeast, so much used in cities, is, in all respects, the best commercial yeast yet discovered, and when fresh, is perfectly reliable, but can not be obtained conveniently at all times, and in all places. And the housewife who is ambitious to supply her family with good bread should acquaint herself with the best method of making yeast, and have it prepared at home.

TO MAKE YEAST.—Steep an eighth of an ounce of pressed, or a small handful of loose hops in a quart of boiling water for about five minutes. Strain the boiling infusion upon half a pint of flour, stirred to a smooth paste with a little cold water. Mix well, boil a minute; then add one ounce of salt and two ounces of white sugar. When lukewarm stir in a gill of liquid yeast or an ounce cake of compressed yeast dissolved in warm water. Let stand twenty-four hours, stirring occasionally, then cover closely, and set in a cool place. Yeast made in this manner will keep sweet for two weeks in summer, and much longer in winter, and can be used at any time during that period for starting a fresh supply of yeast, as well as for making bread.

The first step in bread making is the preparation of the ferment.

Pour gradually, stirring meanwhile, a quart of boiling water upon half a pint of wheat flour. When the mixture has cooled to about lukewarmness (80°) add a gill of yeast, stir well, cover closely, and let stand till thoroughly light and a mass of white foam. Taste it, and it bites like beer; stir it, and it seems to dance and sparkle with exuberant life, while the odor it emits is strongly alcoholic. Ferment can be kept for several hours after it becomes light and foamy without growing sour, or appearing to deteriorate in any manner. But it is better to use it as soon as it reaches this stage, as it is then undoubtedly at its very best estate. The time required for ferment to grow light, varies from two to six hours, according to the strength of the yeast put in it and the temperature of the place where it stands. When due attention is given to these things, the custom of preparing or “setting” ferment in the evening to be used in bread making the next day is a convenient one; and, as it usually proves satisfactory, is in no way objectionable.

When the ferment is perfectly light, beat vigorously into it about half a pint of flour, cover, and leave to rise. By this addition of flour the ferment is transformed into sponge, which, under favorable conditions, will rise in from half an hour to an hour. As soon as the sponge rises, add more flour, and give it another beating; and so repeat each time it rises, until it gets too stiff to be easily stirred.

The mixture is then dough, and is ready for working or kneading. After it has been kneaded till flour is no longer required to keep it from sticking to the molding board, it is of the proper consistency for bread, and may be divided into four equal parts, molded, or shaped into loaves, and put in greased bread pans to rise for the last time, preparatory to baking; or it may be set to rise in a mass before being divided into loaves.

It is very difficult to decide whether it is better to let the dough rise in a mass or in separate loaves. Bread which rises in a mass appears to be a trifle more elastic and spongy than that which rises in separate loaves; but the latter seems to excel the former in sweetness and delicacy of flavor. In either case the bread will be good.

Two points in this mode of making bread deserve special attention:

1. The flour is added repeatedly after intervals of fermentation, and as it contains fresh food for the yeast, these frequent additions of flour keep the yeast in a vigorous and healthy condition during the entire period of bread making.

2. The fermentation is always arrested in the sponge and dough before it arrives at the exhaustive point; for whenever sponge or dough is allowed to reach its utmost limit of expansion and fall back or “tumble in,” as it invariably does at this crisis, it loses something of excellence that no after labor or attention can restore.

Another method of making bread is to mix the yeast with the wetting, and gradually add flour, working it meanwhile, until the dough is of the proper consistency, when it should be kneaded upon the molding board till smooth and elastic, and then put to rise. Dough may be mixed in this manner late in the evening, and, if not kept in too warm an atmosphere, will be in proper condition for making into loaves, rolls, etc., at an early hour the next morning.

Ferment, sponge and dough are all affected by atmospheric changes, and should be mixed and kept in thick stone or earthen vessels, and covered closely to exclude the air. And care should be taken to keep them at the proper temperature, which is about 75° during the entire process of bread making. Fermentation is arrested at a temperature below 30°, proceeds slowly at 50°, rapidly at 70°, very rapidly at 90°, and can be hastened or retarded, if necessary, by increasing or diminishing the temperature.

The quantity of flour necessary to make dough of the proper consistency for bread depends considerably upon its quality, and varies from two and a half to three measures of flour to one measure of “wetting.” More flour can, however, be added, and the dough made considerably stiffer, without perceptible detriment. Dough for fancy bread and rolls should be quite stiff, so as to retain any desired shape or form. Soft, spongy bread possesses greater delicacy when freshly baked, but appears to lose its moisture and grow stale much sooner than that which is more compact.

The length of time required for kneading or working dough is materially affected by the quality of the flour. Flour exposed to the atmosphere deteriorates quite rapidly, and the moisture it absorbs so impairs the tenacity of its gluten, that bread of the best quality can not be made from it, in spite of all the working and kneading that may be given to the dough. Much less time is required kneading dough made from choice, than from inferior brands of flour.

It is an established fact that dough is rendered tough and elastic by working and kneading; but as the same result can be accomplished sooner and less laboriously by pulling and stretching, it is advisable, in making bread, to pull and stretch as well as to work and knead the dough.

Bread dough may perhaps be kneaded a good deal with advantage, but it is by no means certain that much kneading is absolutely necessary for the production of the best quality of bread. The fermentation, back of the kneading, gives life and force to dough. When this is perfect, dough, in a suitable condition for molding into loaves or rolls, shows a great deal of resisting force. It seems, in fact, to have a _will of its own_, and its determination to rise is almost irrepressible. You may knead it in the most resolute manner and mold it into a compact ball; but in a short time it will rise, and swell, and spread, until it has doubled in dimensions. You may thrust your fist fiercely into a batch of good dough, but the impression you make upon it is by no means a lasting one. Almost as soon as you draw back your hand it regains elasticity and resumes its original position. This irrepressible spirit in dough is the surest test of its goodness, and when perfectly developed you can do as you please with the dough. You may roll it, or twist it, or plait it, with the greatest ease. You can mold it into any form without trouble. It does not stick to the hands or the molding board. It is in its most amiable mood. It is perfectly docile and obedient except in one respect—it can not be put down and kept down; and any bread dough that can is poor stuff that will never rise to distinction or win admiration.

Dough after having perfectly risen should not be kneaded again. If in pans, it should be immediately baked. If in mass, it should be divided into loaves or rolls, and gently pulled, rolled or folded into shape, when it may also be put to bake. These loaves or rolls will, however, be lighter and more delicate if permitted to rise again before they are placed in the oven. Much of the superior excellence of the Vienna imperial roll is due to the peculiar manipulation the light dough is subjected to just before it is placed in the baking pan.

The final and perhaps most important point in bread making has been reached when the loaves are put in the pans to rise for the last time. To decide when dough is just light enough to bake is a very delicate and important matter. If it is put in the oven a moment too soon, you fail to obtain the supreme loaf to which you are entitled for your toil; and if permitted to pass the point of perfect lightness you lose the best results of your labor. The exact time required for loaves to rise after they have been placed in the pans can not be given, as it varies in different temperatures, at different seasons, and with different brands of flour. But it is seldom less than half an hour, or more than an hour and a half.

A loaf of bread should nearly double in size after it is put in the pan; or if a deep gash be cut in the top of it, the incision should disappear by the time the loaf has perfectly risen. Bread, when light enough for baking, feels aerated all through; and by lifting and weighing it in the hand one can generally recognize the condition of lightness quite as accurately as by sight.

The exercise of a little observation and judgment will soon enable one to decide when dough has reached its best and most perfect state of lightness. But where any doubt exists in regard to the matter it is better to put it in the oven while rising toward perfection than after it attains the altitude at which it begins to retrograde.

POTATO BREAD.—Potato added to flour is generally supposed to improve the quality of the bread. That it does is unquestionably true, where the flour used is of an inferior grade. “Of all starches,” says Dr. Graham, “the starch found in the potato is best adapted to the growth of yeast, and in using potato in bread, bakers made practical application of a fact long before chemists discovered it to be such.” Potatoes when used in bread should be well boiled and smoothly mashed, and equal portions of potato and flour be used in making the ferment. The bread is then made in the same manner as when flour alone is used.

WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR.—It is claimed that bran in Graham flour often proves an irritant to delicate digestive organs. In whole wheat flour we have the entire food principle of the grain without the hull. The cold blast process of milling gives us this flour of a very superior quality.

WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR BREAD should be made in every particular like patent or new process flour bread, and baked in loaves, twists, or fancy rolls. It is very delicious baked in the form of muffins and eaten warm.

GRAHAM BREAD.—The ferment for Graham bread should be of white flour, and prepared in the same manner as the ferment for white flour bread. When light add sugar and salt to taste, and work in Graham flour until the dough becomes elastic and clinging and is sufficiently stiff. Let stand till perfectly risen; then shape into loaves by rolling gently under the hand on a well floured molding-board, and place in greased baking pans. Less flour is required in proportion to the “wetting” for Graham than for white bread. And unless Graham dough is of the proper consistency, the bread when baked will be moist, sticky and insipid, or dry, rough and unpalatable. The correct proportions are a little more than two measures of Graham flour to one measure of “wetting.”

OAT, CORN AND BARLEY BREAD.—Fermented bread can be made of oat, corn, or barley meal, or flour; care being taken to add wetting in proportion to the demands of the grain. When corn or oat meal is used, boiling water should be poured upon it and it be permitted to swell for at least an hour before the yeast is added. These grains make delicious muffins and bread to be eaten warm.

Pinhead oat meal, pearled barley, and corn grits, well cooked and made into bread by adding whole wheat flour, can be baked in muffin pans, or rolled thin and baked in crisp rolls.

RYE BREAD.—The method of making rye bread is almost identical with that for making wheat bread—from three to three and a half measures of flour to one measure of “wetting” being required. More time is necessary for it to ferment or rise, and it will not become so light, spongy and elastic as wheat.

BOSTON BROWN BREAD.—Scald a pint of corn meal with a pint of boiling water. When sufficiently cool add a pint and a half of rye meal, a gill of yeast, a gill of molasses, and a teaspoonful of salt. Mix well, and when perfectly risen steam five hours, then put in the oven half an hour to dry and harden the crust.

VIENNA BREAD.—To a pint of new milk, add a pint of water, an ounce of compressed yeast, a teaspoonful of salt, and flour sufficient to make a thin batter. Stir well and let stand for an hour to rise, then work in flour until the dough is the proper consistency for bread. When very light, which will be in about three hours, divide and mold into loaves, and set to rise in the bread pans; or shape into imperial rolls and set to rise.

IMPERIAL ROLLS.—Separate one of the Vienna loaves, detached from the mass of dough, into ten or twelve irregular pieces of the thickness of about half an inch. Take separately each of these pieces in the left hand, and slightly stretch with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand one of the irregular points over the left thumb toward the center of the roll. Repeat this operation, turning the piece of dough as it proceeds, each time lifting the thumb and gently pressing it upon the last fold until all the points have been drawn in, when the roll can be placed to rise. If the folding has been properly done, the roll when baked will be composed of a succession of sheets or layers of delicate, tenacious crumb surrounded with a thin crisp crust. The fingers can be slightly greased to keep the dough from sticking to them while shaping these rolls; but if it is of the proper consistency, it will not stick to the hands.

BAKING BREAD.—When bread is ready for baking, it is desirable to fix the air cells as soon as possible by heat; but it does not follow that to do this it should be put in a very hot oven and a crust immediately formed on the loaves.

TEMPERATURE OF THE OVEN.—The heat of the oven should not be greatest when bread is put to bake; it should slightly increase in intensity for about ten minutes, and after remaining at a firm, steady temperature for that length of time should gradually decrease till the baking is finished. The principal change to be effected by the baking, which is the coagulation of the albumen of the air cells, takes place at a temperature somewhere near 212°, and as the temperature within the loaf can not rise above that point, no changes go on there except those produced by the watery vapor or steam. Flour, however, is not browned except at a much higher temperature; hence a greater degree of heat is necessary to properly bake the outside of the loaf. During the period of baking bread the heat of the oven should not rise above 570° nor fall below 240°.

An ordinary sized loaf of bread, with the oven at the proper temperature, will bake thoroughly in an hour; a loaf the size of one of the pans recommended, in about half an hour. But as there are several hygienic and philosophical reasons why bread should be well baked, it is better to err by leaving it in the oven a little too long than not quite long enough.—_Bread and Bread Making._

_End of Required Reading for November._

HE MAKETH ALL THINGS NEW.

BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON.

Old sorrows that sat at the heart’s sealed gate, Like sentinels grim and sad, While, out in the night damp, weary and late, The King, with a gift divinely great, Waited to make me glad.

Old fears, that hung like a changing cloud, Over a sunless day; Old burdens that kept the spirit bowed, Old wrongs that rankled and clamored loud— They have passed like a dream away.

In the world without and the world within, He maketh the old things new; The touch of sorrow, the stain of sin, Have fled from the gate where the King came in, From the chill night’s damp and dew.

…

Anew in the heavens the sweet stars shine, On earth new blossoms spring; The old life lost in the life divine, “Thy will be mine, my will is thine,” Is the song which the new hearts sing.

THE PAUPER PROBLEM IN GERMANY.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.

The poorest Germans one sees are not here in Germany, but on the American side of the Atlantic, at Castle Garden and other landing places. All hours of the day and night I have been along the German thoroughfares of travel, and yet I can not recall that any one has put out his hand for alms, or that few have presented the appearance of extreme penury. There is no question that there has been a wonderful coming up of the general industrial life of Germany since the consolidation of the countries, and since the leadership of Bismarck has thrust new force into every part of the national civilization. But what with all the absorption of a million of men into the national army, and the coming and going from civil into military life of all the young in the land, there are multitudes to whom bread is the one supreme thought. There are millions for whom there must be work to-day for the loaf of to-morrow. There are two questions which constantly monopolize the thought of the Prussian government—to keep safe against the French, who do not forget the loss of Alsace and Lorrain, in 1871, and, then, how to keep the workingmen busy. Why all this talk about German colonies? Why does Prussia, with only a strip of the North Sea for its only outlet to the ocean, fill its days of Parliament and its periodical press, with discussions as to how to get more land, on some distant coast, where colonies may be planted? It is simply to furnish, as does India for Britain, an outlet for trade. Why did the old Kaiser Wilhelm, only the other day, declare that he had spent his reign in trying to develop the internal policy of the country, but that to his son and successor, Friedrich Wilhelm, would belong the mission of developing the German colonist policy? He meant, as does every Hohenzollern, that his people should be busy in peace, and therefore strong for war. But while there are few evidences in public of extreme poverty in Germany, and while there has been a singular elevation of the general cheerfulness of the lower classes, there is real pauperism, and a plenty of it. But it is not allowed to come to the light. No shrewder piece of management has ever been accomplished in Germany than the skillful dealing with the veritable pauper within the last ten years. It is as nearly a perfect work as one ever saw performed upon the man in rags. It is as exquisite an adjustment of legal and voluntary measures, an interlacing of what people choose to do and what they are compelled to do, as the sun shines on. But this must be said: the government could not manage the pauper alone. It was too great a task for even Bismarck and the Emperor. Christian people have done it, and of their own free will. In 1880 a body of earnest people, many of them evangelical Christians, formed themselves into an association for the care of the poor and for beneficiaries. Scattered societies had already existed, and for a long time. For example, in 1840, Gustav Werner founded an institution for the relief of the poor of Wurtemburg, which has grown into a mammoth affair, and now numbers one hundred and twenty-four houses for labor. Other benevolent spirits had followed in his footsteps. But here in Germany the watchword is now consolidation, and so the efforts to solve the pauper problem have been combined. The association which came into being only four years ago, to help the poor out of their misery, has held annual sessions, collected important statistics, presented themes for better methods, and has rallied to the standard men of the strongest hands and keenest minds in the Fatherland. They have told the government some things that the census taker knows nothing about. Each report of their annual meeting is a stout volume, and a more useful document can hardly be found in the current literature of even literary Germany.

I have said that there is but little semblance of extreme pauperism—the actual putting out the hand for the coppers with which to buy bread and cast off clothes. But this retirement of the pauper from public gaze is a new thing. What has he been doing? Until very lately, to every German square mile, which is four times the English mile, there were ten beggars, who averaged a mark, or twenty-five cents, a day, by the desperate plying of their craft. Now, the German empire covers just space enough to make the voluntary gifts to beggars amount to 36,500,000 marks, or $9,125,000. This state of things existed in much grosser forms when the gifts were simply enormous, until very recently, and since the beginning of the efforts to solve the question of beggary.

But the one great thing that has come to light, and which is now presented to the German people with tremendous force, is this: the cause of the pauperism is intemperance. This revelation has been slow in coming, but it has come at last, and the statistics show that where there is most beer there is most beggary. Hence the efforts made to do away with public pauperism touch upon the still broader and deeper one of intemperance.

The desperation of the beggar is well known. Here in Germany they have a proverb:

Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht; Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.

Which, rendered strictly, runs about thus:

The old story—we have it still; The beggar’s sure to have his fill.

But the efforts now made, by the banding into one great organization all associations for caring for the poor, are directed toward the actual disarming of the beggar by giving him work, and making him work, no matter how he comes by his beggary. The government comes in to aid the voluntary efforts, and enacts laws against the asking for alms, and any one offending is in danger of the work colony. The general public are not only cautioned against giving to a pauper, but are informed that it is an actual damage to the State and to the recipient. The government, of course, has nothing to say about the great cause of vagabondism—namely, intemperance. But no one now denies it. It is a confirmed thing, in every rank, that it is beer which makes the 100,000 beggars of the German empire. Various measures have been resorted to in order to cure intemperance. The one adopted in a Hessian town deserves the credit of originality. The name of any person found under the influence of liquor was posted on a public bulletin, so that every passer by, and even the school children, could read it. The effect has been marvelous. Previously, public drunkenness was common there, and even people otherwise respectable were found reeling along the streets. But so great has been the change that public intemperance has been driven from the place.

But what is now done with the German beggar? He is given work, such as he can do, and is paid for it. The whole land is getting to be covered with groups of paupers, or “colonies,” who soon lose the odious name and business, and are getting gradually converted into respectable and thriving citizens, and becoming absorbed into the surrounding population. The German believes that beggary is a mania, and grows upon one like any other vice or craze, and that it must be broken up. But the gentlest measures are adopted. Such work is offered as is congenial. The hours are adjusted to the person’s age and ability. If the pauper is an invalid, even that feature is cared for. His family is considered, and made a special study. His work seems to be paid for at a fair rate, and he hardly knows, from anything he sees or hears, that he has ever been a beggar. If, after leaving the colony, he relapses into beggary, his labor becomes more enforced, and assumes the firmer form of a penalty. Is it not about time that, in all countries, we look at the beggar with a sympathy broad enough to show him the way to care for himself, and to make to him the great revelation that even for him, with all his rags and habit of taking alms, there is still a possible manhood?

ROMANCE VERSUS REALITY.

BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,

President of W. C. T. U.

Much as I disliked the restriction then, I am now sincerely grateful that my Puritan father not only commanded me not to read novels, but successfully prohibited the temptation from coming in his children’s way. Until I was fifteen years old I never saw a volume of the kind. “Pilgrim’s Progress” was the nearest approach we made, but it seems profanation to refer to that choice English classic in this degenerate connection. [I should add that Rev. Dr. Tefft’s “Shoulder Knot” was also early read at our house, in the _Ladies’ Repository_; but, then, that delightful work was a _historical_ story, and even my father praised it.]

A kind and garrulous seamstress who declared that this law of our household was “a shame,” told us what she could remember of “The Children of the Abbey,” and finally brought in, surreptitiously, “Jane Eyre” and “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” But the glamor of those highly seasoned pages was unhealthful and made “human nature’s daily food,” the common pastoral life we led, and nature’s soothing beauty seem so tame and tasteless that the revulsion was my life’s first sorrow. How evanescent and unreal was the pleasure of such reading; a sort of spiritual hasheesh eating with hard and painful waking; a benumbing of the healthful, every-day activities of life; a losing of so much that was simple and sweet, to gain so little that was, at best, a fevered and fantastic vision of utter unreality. In all the years since then I have believed that novel writing, save for some high, heroic moral aim, while the most diversified, is the most unproductive of all industries! The young people who read the greatest quantity of novels know the least, and are the dullest in aspect, and the most vapid in conversation. The flavor of individuality has been burnt out of them, always imagining themselves in an artificial relation to life, always content to look through their author’s glasses, they become as commonplace as pawns upon a chess board. “Sir, we had good talk!” was Sam Johnson’s highest praise of any whom he met. But any talk save the dreariest commonplace and most tiresome reiteration is impossible with the regulation reader of novels or player of games. And this is, in my judgment, because God, by the very laws of mind, must punish those who _kill_ time instead of _cultivating_ it. For time is the stuff that life is made of; the crucible of character, the arena of achievement, and woe to those who fritter it away. They can not help paying great nature’s penalty, and “mediocre,” “failure,” or “imbecile” will surely be stamped upon their foreheads. Therefore I would have each generous youth and maiden say to every story-spinner, except the few great names that can be counted on the fingers of one hand: “I really can not patronize your wares, and will not furnish you my head for a football, or my fancy for a sieve. By writing these books you get money and a fleeting, unsubstantial fame, but by reading them I should turn my possibility of success in life to the certainty of failure. _Myself plus time_ is the capital stock with which the good Heavenly Father has pitted me against the world to see if I can gain some foothold. I can not afford to be a mere spectator. I am a wrestler for the laurel in life’s Olympian games. I can make history, why should I maunder in a hammock and read the endless repetitions of romance? No, find yourself a cheaper pattern, for I count myself too valuable for the sponge-like use that you would put me to.”

Nay, I would have our young people reach a higher key than this. Because of life’s real story with its mystery and pathos; because of the romance that crowds into every year; the plot that thickens daily, and the tragedy that lies a little way beyond; because of Christ and his kingdom—the mightiest drama of the ages, let us be up and doing with a heart for any fate. Humanity is worth our while; to love, to bless, to work for it.

“The cause that lacks assistance, The wrong that needs resistance; The future in the distance And the good that we can do.”

These ought to be the bread of life to us, the tireless inspiration of each full day of honest toil. God meant this to be so, for only thus do we cease chasing about for happiness, and find blessedness instead.

I thought, while fresh in mind, to sketch a real, live, every-day romance of which my heart is full; and I ask true hearts to cherish the impetus it is capable of giving toward noble character and Christlike deeds.

THE O’ER-TRUE TALE.

One stormy evening about thirty-five years ago a gentleman of lithe figure and alert face answered the door-bell of his spacious home in Portland, Maine. A lady stood before him closely veiled, who, on entering the cheery sitting-room where the gentleman and his wife had been cozily seated around the evening lamp, proved to be the latter’s girlhood friend. She had come on the saddest errand that woman’s misery ever compels. What she divulged was none the less a secret to her loyal heart because an open secret to her neighbors. It was the old, old story of an inebriate husband who had not come home for days, and whose business situation was forfeited, and children on the threshold of want. She closed by giving the location of the saloon where she had reason to believe him concealed, and pitifully murmured, turning to Neal Dow (for it was he), “Can’t you find my husband, and won’t you bring him home?”

In his own decisive fashion Mr. Dow sought the saloon, found the two-fold victim of inherent appetite and outward temptation, and asked the saloon keeper’s aid in conveying the half-unconscious man to the carriage. To his astonishment this was refused in tones of anger, and the declaration made that he had better attend to his own business, no man liked this impertinent interference, and the saloon keeper certainly did not propose to get the ill will of his best patron. He also pointed to his license hanging on the wall; said he paid a good sum for the privilege of selling, and meant to get his money back with interest. This was Neal Dow’s first interview with a saloon keeper, and it aroused all the indignation of his upright nature and all the energies of his undaunted will. Turning to go he fired this Parthian arrow at the vender: “So you mean to tell me that you’ll go right on selling to this man?” and receiving an explosively affirmative reply, he added: “_The people of the State of Maine will see if you will keep on selling._” From that time the grand old “Father of Prohibitory Law” took for his motto, “This one thing I do.” He associated good men with him; traveled over the state in his own carriage; spoke in school houses and wherever he could get admission; in his own phrase he “sowed the State of Maine knee-deep with temperance literature;” the common people heard him gladly; the caucus decided to send men to the legislature who would represent the people’s will in this supreme decision, and on the 26th of May, 1851, prohibition became the legal method of the Pine Tree State in reference to the liquor traffic.

During the great discussion that preceded this action three legislators were whittling, whistling and discussing “how it was best to vote.” Two of them said they should be struck with political lightning if they voted for the new law, but the third—“Farmer Skillig” was his name, I think—declared, in the honest, downright tones of the average “legislator with hay-seed in his hair,” that this was the right sort of a law, and he’d vote for it and take his chances. Sequel: The time servers were never heard of more, after they had served their time, but Farmer Skillig flourished on and on in the legislature like the green bay tree.

Last summer I met on the shore of Puget’s Sound, where he is a leading citizen of Olympia, capital of Washington Territory, Captain Hall, who told me a suggestive incident about the famous “Maine law.” It seems the bill was passed on Saturday, and the (Democratic) Governor Hubbard being absent from the capital over Sunday, it was feared the saloon interest would search out and destroy the legal copy, and as the date of adjournment was close at hand, the subject might be laid over for a year. True to their instincts, the liquor men did their best to find the “only true copy,” forcing their way into the State House on the Sabbath, breaking open desks, etc., but Captain Hale, who was a member of the House, had taken the precious “bill” under his care and carried it in his breast pocket until the Governor’s return, when his signature was promptly affixed and the law was safe. Four years later, by one of those “reactions” of which history is full, a license law was substituted, which, after two years of trial was overthrown, and by overwhelming majorities prohibition came again and took up its peaceful and permanent abode in Maine.

Like every other law it has been constantly strengthened by the introduction of better machinery for enforcement. The “search and seizure clauses” have greatly energized the executive arm; the outlawing of “clubs,” the including of cider, the provision for a constabulary force to be appointed by the Governor on application from a county—all these “cogs in the wheel” are a terror to evil doers, but a praise to them that do well. And now what has this law wrought out for Maine? It has driven every distillery and brewery out of the state. It has so decreased crime that Maine has less of it in proportion than any other state in the Union. Its state’s prison, by recent showing, had but 400 inmates, or only one in every sixteen hundred (1,600) inhabitants. In the same year Massachusetts had one to every four hundred and sixty of her population. It has decreased internal revenue receipts from the manufacture and sale of alcoholics to an average of seven cents to each person, while in the United States at large the average is one dollar and seventy-one cents per capita.

Many newspapers edited in the interest of license have circulated the report that Maine leads off in the number of persons arrested, according to its population, but artfully concealed the fact that so large a number of these arrests are not for what a license state calls “crime,” but are for selling intoxicating liquors at all!

In 1882 the United States revenue report shows that while $1.71 per inhabitant were collected in the whole Union, only 4 cents per inhabitant were collected in Maine. Prohibitory Maine has about the same population as license New Jersey; yet the liquor tax in the former state is only 3 cents per inhabitant, while in the latter state it is $2.40, and in the country at large $1.83. In reply to the assertion that tobacco and opium eating are taking the place of liquor drinking in Maine, I may mention that _the tobacco tax paid by Maine is only 17 cents per inhabitant, while the average for the country is $1.00 per inhabitant_; and that opium eating is far less prevalent here than in other eastern states.

This analysis might be carried on indefinitely with equally satisfactory results in answering the question: What has prohibition done for Maine?

In 1876 Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced to the people of the United States the idea of constitutional prohibition, and offered in Congress an amendment to the National Constitution prohibiting the traffic in strong drink. Coming from a source so prominent, and following so soon upon the woman’s crusade, this idea was like the spark to tinder, being caught up with zeal in all parts of the nation, and petitions have since been addressed to almost every state legislature, as well as annually presented to the National Congress. In 1880 the people of Kansas voted upon this question, giving eight thousand majority for prohibition; in 1882 Iowa gave thirty thousand, and in 1883 Ohio cast three hundred and thirty thousand votes for, and only ninety thousand against constitutional prohibition, but was “counted out” by party manipulation, as the temperance people publicly declare. Practically, then, the jury of the people has passed sentence against the liquor traffic every time that the great chancery suit of “HOME VERSUS SALOON” has been submitted to them. Meanwhile, “the mother of us all” in prohibition work was Maine, and the whole temperance host, both within and beyond that noble old pioneer state, felt that she should not be outdone by her daughters of the newer New England in the West. And so petitions poured in on the legislature of Maine asking for the submission of an amendment to the constitution which should ground the prohibitory principle in the state’s organic law. This request was at first declined, not from antagonism to prohibition itself, for neither party dare attack that by any open declaration, but on the ground that since the fathers fell asleep all things might well continue as they were; new fangled ideas were well enough for new regions, but said the average politician,

“The good old ways are good enough for me.”

Still the temperance people urged that Maine should not be outdone; that she should march with the age; that

“New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, Who would keep abreast of truth.”

More than this, it was argued that constitutional prohibition has many advantages over local and statutory prohibition, and against it no good or logical objections have ever been made, although the organs, attorneys and friends of the saloon have said and written much.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is more democratic and best accords with the idea of republicanism. The friends of temperance, unlike the distillers, brewers and retailers, are _willing to trust the people_.

Constitutional prohibition is superior to statutory because it is a more certain and perfect expression of public sentiment; because it carries with it greater weight and dignity; because it is non-partisan (though it requires before it a party to submit, and after it a party to enforce).

Constitutional prohibition best accords with correct principles of law-making, the constitution being a general statement of principles, rights and obligations. It can not be repealed by the legislature, since every member of that body on being “qualified” raises his hand in solemn oath that he will defend the constitution. It holds the law already on the statute book as with a clinched nail, and therefore furnishes a stronger cage and better lock for the tiger of license and the lion of taxation. If it does not kill him it chains the mad dog of rum and beer with a short chain and puts up a sign—THIS IS A MAD DOG! So that few will go near him and _nobody can let him loose without the consent of the people_.

For these reasons, and many others cogently set forth by Rev. H. C. Munson, Secretary of the Maine Temperance Alliance, the people pursued the legislature and the amendment was submitted at its last session. Public interest was at once concentrated on Maine; nor in America alone, but wherever English is spoken the heart of the people was aroused. From New Zealand came a letter to Hon. John B. Finch, the great prohibition orator and chief Good Templar of the world. It read in this fashion: “We hear that the parliament in your province of Maine has submitted prohibition to a vote of the people to know if after thirty years’ trial they think it the best method of handling the liquor traffic. Tell them for the sake of humanity to stand by their law, for a vote in Maine counts one in New Zealand either for or against outlawing the dram shop.”

Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the gifted California lady who came to help in the campaign said: “If you defeat the prohibition amendment I can not go back to my vineyard-cursed state, and tell them so, but prefer to be buried face downward under a lone pine in the state that went back on its record.”

Mrs. Pearson, vice president of the Woman’s Temperance Association of England, and associate of its president, Margaret Lucas (sister of John Bright), declared that if Maine failed she would be glad that three thousand miles of brine separated her from the faces she would have no courage to look into. And so on every side rang the refrain of warning. Three hundred speakers went up and down through the state, most of them “to the manor born,” nearly all freely giving their services. This was perhaps our most effective argument as “speakers from a distance.”

Your verdict will be that of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. Sometimes a part stands for the whole, and to-day you are the world’s jury. Arnold of Winkelried stood for all the republics of the wide world. Luther stood for all Protestants. The men at Gettysburg stood for the nation. Who will ask, or who remember what man was chosen Governor in Maine this year? Only a handful of people for a little time, but humanity cares what decision you give on the outlawing of those dealers who would sell alcoholic poison as a drink, because we are in the midst of the great fight for a clear brain, and everybody has a vital interest that victory shall be won.

The “sword marks” of John B. Finch were everywhere; Mary A. Woodbridge, chieftain of Ohio’s gigantic battle, told how fields were won; Col. Chevis, a gallant Southron, “who served under Stonewall Jackson,” but whom the temperance cause has reconstructed, did admirable service. Mrs. McLaughlin, with her winsome eloquence; Mrs. Kimball, with her polished style; Mrs. Lucy H. Washington, with her rapier-like logic, all were there. Ministers of every denomination entered the field; a Catholic priest “stumped” one of the fifteen counties; the temperance societies were a unit in their devotion, and while the seething caldron of politics was at its height, the temperance campaign, perfectly distinct, went on beside it; with prayers instead of processions, torches of truth rather than pine knots, and “Coronation” instead of “We’ll vote for Blaine and Robie.”

Speaking in eleven chief towns on as many successive nights I found the W. C. T. U. had worked up the meetings with great care. For “a success” in this line does not “happen,” but is organized, preëmpted, captured by consecrated common sense. I can readily tell a meeting that is a work of art and “made up of every creature’s best” from one thrown together with a pitch-fork. In most towns they had the opera house and banked up the stage with flowers; in one there was a veritable hedge of golden rod; in nearly all the cross and flag were foremost, side by side, and our W. C. T. U. motto, “For God and Home and Native Land” was sometimes in gilt letters on emerald velvet, others in delicate tracery of decorative work, or in evergreen on a white ground. Always they gave our anthem of the national W. C. T. U., composed by Drs. J. E. Rankin and Bischoff, of Washington, and beginning:

“‘For God and Home and Native Land,’ Our motto here we write it; There is no foe we’ll not withstand, No battle but we’ll fight it.”

At Belfast the ladies had turned the Unitarian Church into a bower of beauty with potted plants in every window, the national colors in great folds above the people’s heads, mottoes in profusion, and on a table below the tall, old fashioned pulpit they had placed a veritable ballot box, borrowed from the town clerk, and poised over it a snow white dove with a “Yes” ballot in its beak. When I saw that latest “witty invention” of the unrepresented class it seemed to me pathetic beyond words, and so eloquent that no matter how spent might be the arrow of my speech, the voters must give heed to its appeal.

Thus gently and patiently wrought the W. C. T. U. of Maine under its beloved leader, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, who has been for years the foremost temperance figure in the state, except Neal Dow, and whose mingled strength and gentleness outrank that famous leader in the people’s heart. Four days prior to the voting Mrs. Stevens presided over the annual convention of the W. C. T. U., held in the town of Gardiner, for the purpose of final and concerted action as to what should be done at the polls. Nothing proves more plainly the profound hold of the temperance reform upon the heart of woman, nor more surprisingly demonstrates the change in public sentiment, than the willingness of these conservative women of the church to go directly to the polls. At first they counseled with their western sisters who knew the methods pursued in Iowa, Ohio, and other states, but Mrs. Woodbridge suggested nothing beyond renting vacant rooms near the voting precincts, serving refreshments there, and giving out votes to those who passed that way. My own observations in Iowa were of similar character. I was in Marion, Iowa, on the 27th of June, 1882, their voting day, where an all day prayer meeting was held; the children marched and sang, the lunch was served, and out of nine hundred voters, eight hundred votes were cast for the amendment. But we women were like Mary’s little lamb, and “waited patiently about” till the voters came to lunch, though sending out the children with amendment ballots and bouquets. When these methods were suggested the ladies quietly said, “But the leading men in our towns think it important that we should see the votes go in, for they say ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’ in this matter, and our ‘Yes’ ballot might be cast aside when the men had left our presence.” It goes without saying that the western sisters did not discourage those brave women, but rejoiced in these modern Baraks who had said, “If thou wilt go with me I will go up,” and the brave Deborahs who had answered, “I will surely go with thee.”

Among the methods chosen was an address to the voters asking them to represent their home constituency, to be sent out just before the portentious September 8th, “a day for which all other days were made,” as it seemed to those earnest hearts. With this address plenty of “Yes” ballots were to be inclosed for the “vest pocket vote,” unknown to any save the man who casts it, is often a factor of power. Mrs. Woodbridge told the ladies that in Ohio they decorated tent, booth, or rooms of the W. C. T. U. with mottoes, and had prominently in view a large Bible, on a pulpit cushion, which, without preconcerted action, was almost always open to Isaiah v., with the passage marked: “Woe unto him that justifieth the wicked for a reward.”

A delegation of ladies came four hundred miles to attend this convention, from Aroostook county, which covers a larger area than the State of Massachusetts. The W. C. T. U. in that county has “conquered a peace,” and is the right arm of the enforcing power. They reported that one hundred Scandinavians had become naturalized for the express purpose of voting “Yes” on the prohibition amendment.

Among the resolutions passed by this convention was the following (an exact copy of the one adopted by our National W. C. T. U. at its last session): “Resolved, That we will lend our influence to that party, by whatever name called, which furnishes the best embodiment of prohibition principles, and will most surely protect our homes.” In the evening we had a meeting under the trees in the town park, where thousands congregated, and the full moon looked down on us, an emblem of the purity and elevation that characterize our cause. Though the street population was out in force, there was perfect quiet and decorum, and not one whiff of tobacco smoke sullied the pleasant air.

And now the fateful day wore on apace. Fortunately the Sabbath came just before, and representative clergymen of all denominations, including the Universalist and Catholic, Episcopal and Unitarian, had united to request that every pulpit should be a temperance Gatling gun that day, to send into the pews a steady fire of intelligent conviction. From the circular I take this sentence, which furnishes the key of the campaign everywhere: “One thing we very much desire: _that there should come over our people next Sunday a deep and solemn feeling that this is God’s battle with sin_.”

The waking thought of the white-ribbon host in Maine can readily be guessed: “God grant us good weather to-day.” What was that but another way of wishing for the best light on this last act of a great drama, only this was no mimic stage, but one on which the measureless hope and uplift of humanity were to be exhibited for all the world to see? Woman’s secret prayer was to be transmuted by spiritual alchemy into manhood’s sturdy resolve; the cherished hope of the gentle was to become the stern decision of the strong; the “cause” was to radiate out from temperance ministry and Band of Hope into the wide, free area of a mighty Commonwealth. Let me give from telegrams, letters, and newspapers, a few pulses out of the people’s heart that day soon after noon:

PORTLAND, ME.

Be of good cheer, all goes well. My faith claims a majority of fifty thousand.

MRS. L. M. N. STEVENS.

* * * * *

BATH, ME.

At nine o’clock a. m., one hour before the voting, the church bells rang out their call for the friends of temperance to assemble and pray. Meetings largely attended, and conducted by the pastors. Ladies went to ward rooms to distribute “Yes” ballots.

A delegation of eight young ladies were present at West Bath with bouquets for all who would vote for the amendment. “Yes,” sixty-six; “No,” one.

One young toper voted the “Yes” ballot and the prohibition ticket straight.

The boys of the Cold Water Army parade to-night with torches to celebrate the victory in Bath. Five hundred and six majority for the amendment. Praise meeting at headquarters.

It was amusing to watch the men in ward five go down stairs to smoke their pipes. They did not like to do this in the presence of the ladies who remained until the close of the polls.

The distributors of the “No” ticket were very scarce. In one ward a fellow passed them for awhile, but felt so lonesome that he gave it up.

* * * * *

BANGOR, ME.

A barge, bearing appropriate mottoes, filled with children, was mounted on a wagon, drawn by four black horses, and driven by a well known citizen, from one polling place to another, and the way those young folks sung “For God and Home and Native Land” was a caution to the rummies! Button-hole bouquets were presented to “Yes” voters by the ladies. Ice water was furnished at each polling place by the W. C. T. U. Not a man was arrested for drunkenness or disturbance, and “Wicked Bangor,” which was given up as “sure to go no,” even by the temperance people, counts 1,718 “Yes” against 1,146 “No.” Praise ye the Lord.

* * * * *

AUGUSTA.

Seven wards; three to six women at each all day. Gov. A. P. Morrill called on Mrs. Dr. Quinby, President W. C. T. U., and said he had never known an election so orderly and pleasant. He and others attributed it to the presence of the ladies. He wished they could deposit ballots in their own right. Mrs. Q.’s sons, fourteen and nineteen years of age, went with her to the different wards. One pastor escorted his wife to the polls.

* * * * *

PORTLAND.

Ladies had a tent in Market Square; decorated the polling places with flowers; gave out votes and copies of amendment; gave bouquets to temperance voters; in ward four about every other young man had this decoration in button-hole.

* * * * *

SKOWHEGAN.

We have heard from twenty-one towns; our majority is 2,378. Surely God has moved upon the hearts of men in this great crisis.

* * * * *

PRESQUE ISLE.

Our great day is over. We have three hundred and fifty three for the amendment, fifty-seven against it. We had our national motto framed and trimmed with flowers, and a big “Yes” vote in the center. This hung directly behind the ballot-box.

* * * * *

NORTH ANSON.

We had one hundred and eighty-eight “Yes” to twenty-three “No.” God has blessed us far beyond our hopes. All our people are astonished at so large a majority. Many men told me they were surprised at the softening influence the women had over those profane, rough men. There was no rude word all day.

One town in Aroostook county cast one hundred and eighty-two “Yes” and two “No.” Its total political vote was one hundred and ninety-three. Surely they “remembered to vote” (contrary to faint-hearted prediction) in the State of Maine to-day.

Never was the prophecy so visibly realized: _The tabernacle of God shall be with men._

Lewiston is the only large city giving a majority against the amendment. So far as learned, the women did not come out in that place.

_Evening._—Sure of my fifty thousand.

L. S.

I do not know how the foregoing extracts read to those fond of fictitious stories, but to me they have the ring of an epic; they are so real, so true-hearted, so full of humanity’s sacred aspiration toward a Golden Age

“Of sweeter manners, purer laws!”

It is record of heart-words. So far as I have learned, all the temperance societies of the state had but twelve hundred dollars to spend—five hundred given by Dr. R. H. McDonald, of California, and seven hundred from the Grand Lodge of Good Templars. The rank and file won the victory, and I believe the inspiration of their work was this motto given by the president of their state W. C. T. U. at the Gardiner Convention: _Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples._

What is the lesson Maine can teach? It is expressed in the _raison d’être_ of the now famous “Memorial” presented this year to all the presidential conventions by the National W. C. T. U., viz.: “The poison habits of the nation can be cured by an appeal to the intellect through argument, to the heart through sympathy, to the conscience through the motives of religion. The traffic in those poisons can best be handled by prohibitory law.”

GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR NOVEMBER.

BY CHANCELLOR M. B. GOFF,

Western University of Pennsylvania.

THE SUN

Has again returned to about the same place that it occupied this time last year; and as a result, we find that it rises and sets within a minute or two of the times given on the 1st, 16th, and 30th of last November. For the present month, it rises at 6:31, 6:48, and 7:04 a. m., and sets at 4:57, 4:41, and 4:34 p. m., respectively, on the dates mentioned. We find also that on the 16th day breaks as late as 5:11 a.