The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

142 Th,e Suppression of thie Liquzor Traffic.
particular person; but this device could only operate to
check drinking on the premises, and would cease to act
the moment another licensed house was opened sufficiently near for the customer to resort to both. What maybe
termed tSe er-mnanent and ever-fozwerful tentdeicies of the
liz'for traffe in (he froniotion of drinking are these: I. The
seductive character of the drinks sold; 2. The ready access to the liquors presented by their sale; 3. The encouragement of tippling by the accommodation offered;
and 4. The social temptations to drinking, from the
nature of the company drawn together. Add to all these
the interest of the vendor in pushing the sale of his
liquors; the extraneous allurements offered, prompted
by greed of gain and the spirit of competition; and the
special inducements arising out of very favorable positions and lavish decoration-and we have a concurrence
of forces in the production of intemperance against which
there is absolutely nothing to set, except the wish of the
seller not to do harm, and his prudence in trying to keep
his house" respectable "by excluding notoriously drunken
and disorderly persons without unnecessary delay.* To
such an absurd refinement has this view of the law been
practically reduced, by magistrates as well as publicans,
that a Lord Mayor and a Metropolitan M.P., when deciding a charge of disorderly conduct, remarked that "he
knew many respectable publicans who, as soon as men are
* A writer in the Valional Review (No..9), though hostile to total abstinence and the Alliance, observes (p. 134): " The publican has a strong personal interest adverse to the public interest. That which is mischievous to
society is profitable to him. No other trade has the same power of making
its own interest prevail over that of society. No other article is liable to be
used to so great an excess; no other tradesman has equal power of inducing his customers to purchase to excess; no excess in any other article is
half so dangerous to the common wveal. The peculiarity of the retail trade
in intoxicating drink is this, that it is in the hands of a large and influential
class, with an interest strongly adverse to the interest of the country at
large, and with tremendous opportunities of advancing their own interest at
the cost of the country."