five drunken men and women. I next paid a visit to the policestation, where six drunks' had just been brought in, one of them a young artilleryman, and another a middle-aged woman. The former was disfigured from a blow which had cut open his eyebrow, and the woman screamed so loudly that one of the prisoners, who appeared less drunk than the rest, loudly complained that sleep was impossible. The four others lay like logs, stupefied by the vile spirits purchased from some 'dive,' 'kitchen bar,' or 'pocket pedlar.' On the previous day there had been fourteen arrests for drunkenness. Later in the afternoon four boys were brought in, then a man and his wife, then two women, one of whom was so maddened by drink that she dashed herself in frenzy against the iron bars, and had to be placed in the padded cell. As some slight diversion from this unsavoury scene, I accompanied the police in a raid upon a gambling den. Six of them, armed with bâtons and revolvers, made a concerted rush up some rickety steps, only to find that the Chinese inmates had received warning of our approach. No trace of dice or cards was visible, but on the floor sat a Chinese mother engaged in teaching her young child the sublime ethics of Confucius, and feeding it with 'chop-suey.' We left this pleasing picture of domestic tranquillity and returned to the police-station, where the drunks' had meanwhile been reinforced by two fresh arrivals. I was then shown a kind of subterranean museum of alcohol curiosities. There were boxes with false bottoms, refrigerators fitted up with small shelves for bottles, gas tubing, which wore an innocent look, but really conveyed liquor from some secret reservoir inside the wall, and so on. Next door was a cellar filled with captured bottles of beer and spirits, the contents of which were poured down a sink at the end of the room, while the bottles were sold to defray partly the cost of their capture. Here, too, was a watering-can, which had belonged to a family of a father, mother, and two children. First of all the father was convicted of selling liquor, and was soon liberated because the judge pitied the poor woman left alone to face the world without her bread-winner. Soon afterwards the woman was detected in further illicit disbursements from the watering-can. She was also let off in order that the poor children should not be left without a mother's care. Not long afterwards both father and mother were lodged in jail for a similar offence, and actually during their parents' imprisonment it was found that the two innocent children were busily engaged in selling whisky from the same receptacle !

Next morning sentence was passed on ten cases of intoxication, while three men charged with the illegal sale of liquor were remanded for a week, and one woman convicted of the same offence was fined 200 dollars. Nothing seems to deter some of these illegal vendors. In one case there have been no fewer than eighteen convictions in four years, and another inveterate offender has actually been punished

144 times since he first took up this nefarious traffic in 1870. The sentences on the drunks were by no means light. Two men and one woman received ninety days' imprisonment, two men and one woman were fined ten dollars (21.) and costs, and the rest three dollars and costs. This, then, is the sort of police record for the town of Portland at a time when the prohibition law is more drastically enforced than ever before. The net result is that during the week I was there no fewer than fifty-eight arrests for intoxication took place, and the average for the year actually amounts to between forty and fifty per week, which in a population of 60,000 works out for Portland to about forty per 1,000 inhabitants per annum-i.e. three times as bad as our worst drinking centres, the seaport towns and mining counties, six times as bad as London, and nine times as bad as our manufacturing towns. According, also, to the last available statistics (1898-1899), the arrests at Bangor number forty-six per thousand, Augusta twenty-nine, Bath thirty-one, Lewiston twenty-nine, while Gardiner reaches the appalling total of sixty-nine per thousand! Such statistics cannot, it is true, be cited as absolutely conclusive evidence in these cases, for they do not cover all the ground, but, after all, they form practically all the available data we possess for comparisons between one town and another, and they certainly lend support to the view of practically every ordinary level-headed citizen one meets that the prohibition law is in many respects a hypocritical farce as far as the larger towns are concerned.

I have in the preceding notes dealt almost exclusively with the city of Portland, but it seems certain that the condition of some other towns in Maine is far worse. At Bangor it is perfectly easy to purchase drink, and at Lewiston the sale of alcohol from the laxly conducted agency amounts to something between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred dollars weekly! The Sturgis Commissioners have never paid a visit to Bangor because this seems to be the real explanation-the Republican party is strong at Bangor, and any interference with the citizens in the matter of greater liquor stringency might seriously imperil many thousands of Republican votes. The Oakes Law, too, which came in with a flourish of trumpets, is virtually dead. In no single instance have any proceedings been taken under it against any sheriff, deputy sheriff, or county attorney, 'who shall wilfully or corruptly refuse or neglect to perform his duties' under the prohibition law.

It is, of course, very difficult altogether to avoid personal bias in drawing conclusions from the evidence furnished by experiences in Maine. Take a recent example. During the last electoral campaign in Portland two Finnish gentlemen, one of whom was a Dr. Seppala, were commissioned by the authorities of the archduchy of Finland to investigate the working of the Maine law. They were, I believe, severely handicapped by their almost complete inability to

converse in English, but they consulted a number of representative citizens, and subsequently a letter was written by Dr. Seppala in which, in a somewhat rhetorical fashion, he eulogises the present Maine law. But the letter is, on the face of it, the work of a convinced prohibitionist, impervious to any antagonistic arguments, and it contains, amongst other things, a most unjustifiable innuendo that the sheriff is not very much against the business' of 'kitchen bars' and dives.' A short time after the departure of Dr. Seppala and his companion another Finnish deputation arrived on the scene, consisting of three gentlemen, Messrs. Schumann, Silacus, and Bostrom. These more recent envoys did not, it seems, make any serious effort to ascertain the views of the prohibitionist leaders in Portland, and the editor of the Portland Evening Express now claims to have discovered that the three Finns were despatched to Maine by a body of brewers and distillers as a kind of counterpoise to the teetotal delegates who preceded them. To this fact, if it be correct, some colour is undoubtedly lent by the exaggerated and one-sided report published in the Daily Eastern Argus. Prohibitionist claims are allowed no hearing whatever; the entire report is, indeed, nothing but a piece of special pleading against the enforcement of any prohibitory law. Take, for example, the following paragraph: 'We have visited saloons in Baltimore, New York, Newhaven, Hartford, Providence, Boston, and Manchester, and we can freely state that we have seen more 66 drunks" in Portland than in all those places put together.' Such a statement as this passes beyond the limits of ordinary exaggeration, and is simply grotesque in its falsity.

For my own part I can fairly claim that I did my best to hear both sides in this controversy. The utmost courtesy was extended to me by the official authorities at Portland from the sheriff downwards, and Colonel Neal Dow and other prohibitionists were equally ready in the midst of their busy days to afford me full and interesting information. In summary, then, it is clear, on the one hand, that the prohibition law in Maine has certain distinct advantages which cannot be lightly disregarded. To a very large extent it prevents the drink habit from being formed amongst the young men who have been decently brought up. It is no longer respectable to drink in public. No self-respecting citizen can possibly provide himself or his friend with a casual drink in any Portland street. The business man, clerk, or artisan is not confronted with that fatal facility of procuring liquor which is a curse to England; nor is the ordinary citizen in the course of a walk down the street able to warm himself' or 'cool himself' according to the special pretext for alcohol furnished by the weather. Further, the inducement to drink offered by the pernicious free-lunch system of the American saloons is, of course, non-existent in Maine. The fact that the law is frequently violated is not an absolutely convincing argument against its wisdom.

Were this the case, there would be a good deal to say against the validity of almost every law, from the Decalogue to bicycle regulations.

On the other hand, I cannot help thinking that the benefits secured by the existing law are bought at too heavy a cost. Whatever may be claimed with respect to the better educated classes of society, it seems clear that amongst those members of the community less able to resist temptation, drunkenness is quite as rife in the towns of Maine as in non-prohibition areas. Nor must it be forgotten that any well-to-do citizen of Portland, Lewiston, or Bangor who belongs to a social club can quite easily drink a whisky and soda upon the premises whenever he cares to. And this easy evasion of the spirit of the prohibition ordinance really establishes the evil principle of 'One law for the rich and another for the poor.'

Again, the whole atmosphere of public feeling at Portland is charged with intense irritation. It seems certain that an overwhelming majority of the citizens are utterly opposed to the severity of the existing liquor laws. The towns realise that they are coerced by the country districts where-so it is said the farmers easily store in their houses all the alcohol they need, have no pressing necessity for public saloons, and vote solidly for prohibition. Finally, the worst feature of the whole system is the low tone of public morality which seems to result from it. Hypocrisy is the keynote of the situation. Drink. is prohibited, but drunkenness is horribly patent. The secretary of the Y.M.C.A. told Sir Thomas Whittaker three years ago that he had never seen a glass of spirits in Portland, and yet at that moment he could have walked into thirty saloons and purchased whisky over the counter in broad daylight. Unless the towns are fortunate enough to secure such honest and incorruptible officials as Sheriff Pennell, this hypocrisy translates itself into a recognised system of personal blackmail. Politics in Portland are, so to speak, saturated with alcohol; all other questions of social reform sink into insignificance, and are subordinated to the one all-absorbing topic-the conditions under which this municipal hypocrisy is to be carried on. The degradation of the whole system is felt very keenly by a large section of the most thoughtful citizens, and, as far as the 'Temperance Towns' are concerned, it is certain that at the first available opportunity an enormous majority of votes will be recorded for Resubmission.'

December 1906.

E. N. BENNETT.

BEES AND BLUE FLOWERS

ACCORDING to what Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace has called 'Mr. Darwin's beautiful theory,' the world is indebted to the bee for the blue flower. Or, as Mr. Grant Allen expressed it, the flowers have become blue because blue is the favourite colour of bees.'

And there are few scientific theories which have enjoyed a wider popularity than this which ascribes the origin of flowers to the selective action of insects. Darwin expressed his view in the Origin of Species as follows:

We may safely conclude that if insects had never existed on the face of the world the vegetation would not have been decked with beautiful flowers, but would have produced only such poor flowers as are now borne by our firs, oaks, nut and ash trees, by the grasses, by spinach, docks, and nettles.

The idea thus set forth was taken up and developed by popular writers and seized the public fancy in a remarkable way. It was not merely a scientific explanation, there was poetry in it-it was a 'beautiful theory.' The thought that insects by visiting the flowers for their own ends had, unconsciously, played the part of florists and produced for us the varied flowers of the fields and woods was a fascinating one. Lord Avebury has expressed it thus :

As our gardeners, by selecting seed from the most beautiful varieties, have done so much to adorn our gardens, so have insects, by fertilising the largest and most brilliant flowers, contributed unconsciously, but not less effectually, to the beauty of our woods and fields.

A French writer, Théophile Gautier, has ventured on the assertion: 'Jamais les arbres verts n'ont essayé d'être bleus.'

But according to the above theory green plants have not only tried but succeeded-as regards their flowers-in becoming blue. And this in response to the solicitations of the bee.

The poetic side of the theory was largely developed in this country by the charming papers of Mr. Grant Allen. The evolution of the blue flower by the bee became a classic in the fairy tales of science. In one of Mr. Grant Allen's fascinating essays he explains the origin of the blue monk's-hood from a plain yellow flower like a buttercup. The story runs as follows: In the far-off past there was a plain