voice of the people is the voice of God proclaiming the good of the community to be the highest law, and hence the individual's liberty ends where the rights of others begin. Oh, well, you say, drink is necessary for me. As a medicine sometimes, but as food and drink never. Alcohol is not a food, but a part of all food, just as hydrogen, though a part of water, is a useless substitute for water. The health of total abstainers proves that alcohol as such is not necessary; those shattered wrecks of humanity, drunkards, prove it is a positive injury, and chemists tell us that in a quart of alcohol there is not enough food to support a canary twenty-four hours. Truly does the Scripture say: "Wine is a mere luxury," etc. Alcohol, then, is neither necessary nor useful as a food, but a mere luxury most ruinous in its effects. Now, what are these effects? First, it affects the drunkard himself — his purse. Our people, God help them, earn their money harder than any other people under heaven, and yet, alas! they spend it more freely and more foolishly. The ancient Spartans spent a certain amount in making their helots .or slaves drunk, that their children from seeing them might learn to be thrifty and sober. Alas, history repeats itself in our days, for the English-speaking race have become the helots of the world. They may boast of having girdled the world from pole to pole with a zone of Catholicity, but it is true also they have girdled it from east to west with a zone of drunkenness. And drink costs money. You who spend ten cents a day for liquor, ask your ill-fed, scantily
