With approximately ten million families in Great Britain, if we assume that about nine-tenths drink beer (which, I am told, is a fair guess) and that 930,000,000 gallons of beer are consumed in a year, this means that about one hundred gallons are drunk per family, or at least two gallons per week, to say nothing of whisky, spirits, and wines.

Mr. H. D. Garrett, a director of Dunville & Co., the great Irish distillers, told the City Council of Belfast recently, "No reliable statistics ever published gave a larger total of drunkards than five or six per cent of the consumers of excisable beverages."

Reckoning on this basis, we might come to the conclusion that every tenth drinker is a drunkard. If this is so, there are about one million drunkards in the United Kingdom.

The majority of English people in all classes of life are in the habit of having some alcoholic beverage with their meals. The person who asks for water to drink is looked about as a "queer one."

In 1924 Great Britain spent $1,770,000,000 on alcoholic liquors, which, allowing for the non-drinkers, means about $40 for each individual. It is estimated that the average family expenditure on drink is $175 a year. This,

employment, forms a great bar to decent living conditions and for the proper bringing up of children.

The Rev. Henry Carter, Secretary of the Temperance Council of Christian Churches, states that the booze expenditure is twice what it was before the war.

"Workingmen," says Philip Snowden, M.P., "spend as much on drink in a week as they subscribe in a year for trade-unionism and political purposes. They complain about the tyranny of the capitalistic press, and they spend as much on drink in a day as would capitalize three great daily newspapers."

For every pound spent on state education, three and one-half pounds are spent on drink. For every pound spent on milk, two and one-half pounds are spent on beer. The British drink bill amounts

113,000 once-happy boys and girls had by 1922 fallen under the talons of the drink vulture and become drunkards, says the most active of the great liquor organizations

customs officer who checked our luggage into the country was so noticeably drunk that he had a difficult time in getting from counter to counter.

On the train I saw a boy of twelve, or thereabouts, taking entire charge of his intoxicated father. At each station he held the old man back by the coat tails and firmly told him, "No! You can't have anything more to drink." Onlookers admired the boy's courage and ability, but what a heritage and environment for him to grow up in!

No matter where I walked in London, I found liquor shops doing a lively trade. The stench and smells of these gin-shops were everywhere. Loafers, "down-at-theheels" of both sexes, wrecks of lives, wives and mothers-literally hundreds of them were to be seen hanging about these places. Women, it seems, make up a goodly proportion of the habitués of these pubs. Late at night in the Whitechapel section of London I saw wretched women, sometimes supporting each other home, sometimes tearing each other's hair.

Viscount Astor, commenting on the drink problem in England, said to me: "If you compare recent years with postwar conditions, you will find the convictions for drunkenness of women are doubled. Think of what that means to the homes of Great Britain-twice as many women convicted now as in 1918, and that in spite of the fact that we have worse unemployment, and therefore less money to spend on drink!"

The Hon. Rosslyn Mitchell, M.P.,

Protect the Child

The rising generation is the raw material of "the Trade"

Party, authorized to make a report on the liquor trade to the 1923 Labor Conference, found that out of a total working-class income "which can hardly have exceeded 1,000 million pounds, we may infer that at least 200 million pounds was spent on this one item of alcoholic beverages. This one-fifth of the income of nine million British manual-workingclass families appears to be about as much as the whole of the rent they pay for the cottages and tenements which now constitute their homes. It is more than the whole of the purchases at the co-operative stores of the one-third of these families who form the co-operative membership. It is probably ten times as much as all the wage-earners pay to their trade unions and friendly societies."

No Thoroughfare

The drink bill of 1923 (£307,500,000) would have enabled Santa Claus to put £7 2s. into the stocking of every man, woman, child, and baby in Great Britain on Christmas Eve

to more than the interest on their huge national debt. It exceeds the gross annual value of lands, houses, etc. It is more than double the cost of the army, navy, and air forces combined. It costs the nation annually, directly and indirectly, far more than 20,000 lives.

About $685,500,000 of the nation's drink bill goes back to the Government through the liquor taxes. Many argue that the volume of the liquor trade must be kept high in order to yield the Government this enormous revenue. The logical deduction to be drawn from this argument is that it is the duty of all loyal British subjects to get drunk for the benefit of the state. The fact is that the nation spends one hundred pounds in

order to raise forty-four pounds revenue. The money spent for drink each year might build 400,000 houses yearly, and thus do away in a short time with the terribly crowded slums. Every child in the nation could be given a good education and a chance to make the fullest use of his life.

The mass of British people are, unhappily, not so well off that they can spend at the rate of $175 per year on drink without depriving themselves of something else which they really need. And the great and useful industries of the country languish in a state of depression for want of capital, while the profits of the brewers increase every year.

I have before me a letter from an

Y DEAR B—:

M

How far away seem those times when the physician at Moscow visited his patients in his own. carriage drawn by a thoroughbred, and dined at night, his work done, at the Hermitage, on the Trubnaja Ploshtshad!

Where are the times when the lawyer used to live in his own beautiful house on the Powarskaja Street, owned a villa in Sokolniki, and besides called a country house with a vineyard in Sotchi, at the Black Sea, his own?

Even the veteran school-teacher could afford a villa near town and a pleasure trip to the Caucasus, or even to Constantinople, in the summer holidays. Yes, that is how it used to be once. And now?

Now the Tovarishtsh (Bolshevik) rides through the streets in a red-varnished motor car, and at his side his mistress with snow-white painted face, redpainted lips, and with eyes unnaturally dilated by atropin. Where too has gone the whole smart society which used to crowd the Smiths-Bridge (one of the most fashionable streets) in the afternoon hours, and their long row of carriages, that stood waiting before the warehouse of Mür & Merilis? The Smiths-Bridge is even at present crowded with people and there are more smart motor cars to be seen than formerly. The latter are also good and smart ones, but the passengers are neither the one nor the other.

The doctor, the lawyer, the schoolteacher, are done for, and with them the

Another Letter from Russia whole of the educated classes. They have perforce become frightened tools of the Tovarishtshi. If they obey, they can somehow exist; if they do not obey, they are discharged, put into prison, or simply disappear and no one knows what has become of them. The wages are wretchedly small. A doctor in an official position at Moscow receives sixty rubles monthly, a completely inadequate sum to live on. The governmental service is, so to speak, compulsory. A doctor with a free practice is so maltreated and so heavily burdened with taxes that at last he gives in and applies for Government employment.

It is interesting to notice that the Tovarishtsh doesn't seem to think at all of the fact that he might need a doctor himself; otherwise, he would not treat him so badly. The better-posted Tovarishtsh has indeed no reason to care much for the welfare of the doctors. He has such means at his disposal that in case of illness he is in a position to get a professor from Berlin or Paris; that his fellow-citizens around him die like flies doesn't concern him in the least. With regard to the judgment of the "small Bolsheviks," it is influenced by class hatred; once the doctor used to be a bourgeois, and consequently he must pay for it to the end of his life.

As to the "Red" doctors, in whom high expectations had been placed, the public has no confidence in them. They are nothing but former untrained assistant surgeons and chemist apprentices who have gone through a short medical

course, lasting one year, at the university, and have received the "Red doctor's" certificate. They have proved to be completely incapable, and no one, least of all the Tovarishtsh, consults them.

Dr. S., who used formerly to be so popular here, has been robbed of his large hospital. They have left him one room, where he is allowed to operate; he hardly gets any technical or medical assistance at all, and often he finds his room locked, so that he cannot get in when he must operate. A shockingly mean way of molestation! In order to make his life as unpleasant as possible, they have put a Bolshevik with a large family in his lodgings and left him only the kitchen and one room.

In the provinces the doctors are even worse off than in Moscow, for the arbitrariness is even greater there and the possibility of earnings much smaller. Therefore they rush to the capital, if possible, because they prefer to be shoeblacks here rather than to starve to death or to die with cold there. Their wages are from 12 to 18 rubles monthly.

With regard to the lawyers, this profession is hardly any longer necessary in S. S. S. R. What has a jurist to do in a lawless country? The so-called public tribunals are mostly composed of one more or less juridically educated person and two assessors-Bolsheviks. Now, if the lawyer wishes to pass a fair sentence he is promptly outvoted by the two

assessors.

At the lodging of an educated family at Moscow a married couple was caught

in flagranti house-breaking. The woman even had a large Finnish knife in her hand, in order to be able to fight in case of need. They were arrested and the case was brought before the Court. The couple were acquitted, because they were proletarians and evidently didn't possess anything, for otherwise they wouldn't have thought of theft. On the other hand, the people whom they had robbed were "intelligent" (educated) ones, and evidently possessed something, for otherwise one would not have tried to rob them.

It is clear that with such a simple legal procedure neither judges nor lawyers are necessary. However, municipal and state officials with a juridical education can apparently not be replaced, for one still meets them frequently. Their employment is not to be envied, as they have to work under strict control of suspicious Tovarishtshi, in intimate association with G. P. U. people (former Chekists), who discharge or imprison them, just as they please. It must be

I

very difficult for these persons to take part in the public scandalous processions, to which they are forced. On such occasions one sees them marching sadly past with hats pulled low over their eyes, not looking to right or to left around them, with the shameful caricatures, roaring bands, and naked figures of the Tovarishtshi and their female companions.

The most pitiful existence of all, here as everywhere else, is that of the tutors of the young generation. They don't get enough food to speak of, and their life is being made hard and unpleasant both by the authorities as well as by the pupils. The young pupils know only too well that the teacher is completely powerless, and molest him to the utmost, while from above the control is intolerable and the Red school programme with its new text-books is impossible to carry through for a more or less conscientious pedagogue. For instance, in the new textbook of history which is compulsory for intermediate schools there may be read about Peter the Great that he didn't

distinguish himself by anything, but that, instead, he had a venereal disease. Very necessary, indeed, for children to know!

In spite of all difficulties, two standard schools had grown into existence in Moscow. The teachers' staff was excellent, and automatically these schools by and by attracted a comparatively good class of pupils. But after two years the Tovarishtshi couldn't bear it any longer. They began to "mix"-that is, they moved the teachers and pupils hither and thither, till all the schools of Moscow were equally bad again.

The misery of seven years' standing has left deep traces in the "intelligent" (educated) classes. Most of those who have persevered and have not gone over to the Bolsheviks are ill, nervous, and miserable. These people, who go to wreck and ruin themselves and who have to look on while their native country is being systematically ruined, deserve the deepest pity and sympathy.

By C. P. RUSSELL

T was in a grove of oak and pecan trees on the edge of a North Caro

lina cotton farm that I came upon a roadside camp of automobile tourists on their way to the new promised landFlorida. Night was falling, and there

were a sound of clattering dishes and a smell of cooking in the air. Tents of white or brown were slowly rising like angular camel's humps. Children's voices mingled with the barking of small dogs.

H.

There were fourteen cars in the camp, ranging all the way from dusty Fords to big and glittering limousines with balloon tires and tremendous horse-power. Included were two large caravans built on truck frames. One housed a family

of eight persons, and the other contained a single elderly couple, whose wheeled abode was fitted up like a Pullman car. One automobile drew a trailer laden with a substantial stock of canned goods. Its owners were taking no chances on running short of food in the unknown South.

The States represented were Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, and Washington. The population of the camp was perhaps sixty, including dogs, cats, and ukeleles. Children were numerous, and there was a fair sprinkling of old people-the parents of young couples who had sold out everything "up North" and were on their way to the far South to make their fortunes, to find work, or just to "locate."

TH

HE tourists included men of almost every occupation. Carpenters and bricklayers-attracted by tales of high wages were numerous, but there were also engineers, lawyers, doctors, schoolteachers, salesmen, and proprietors of small-town stores.

As they drew in and stopped their heated engines, some of them threw themselves flat upon the ground and lay there as if exhausted, some walked around stiffly for the purpose of limbering up cramped limbs. Others immediately began to erect their tents, set up cots, and lay out their cooking utensils, for your motor tourist, after a long day's drive, has but two thoughts-first to eat, and then to rest under shelter.

After being rested and refreshed, nearly everybody was willing and even anxious to talk. A gathering around a central camp-fire was turned into an experience meeting. There were few without a tale of calamity to tell, for Floridabound cars are heavily loaded, and the continuous driving imposes a strain on men and machinery which manifests itself in more or less troubling accidents.

There were stories of inhuman hills, of unsuspected holes, of terrifying detours, of blow-outs and broken parts. Nights of horror in storm-beset camps were described. A lady camper told how she had been kept awake for an hour one night by a stealthy gnawing and pulling at the corner of the tent. She was afraid to move or to call her husband. She recalled stories of the wild beasts of the semi-tropical South, of cougars and catamounts, of alligators and bears. Finally, she summoned strength to arouse her husband. He awoke peevishly and criticised the race of women, but on listening to the menacing sound drew his revolver and got out his flashlight. He He cautiously raised the flap of the tent and

pointed both revolver and light in the direction of the intruder. The glare revealed a bewildered kitten.

In the course of the discussion it was brought out that one or two of those present had been over the Florida trail before. They were instantly made the targets of multitudinous questions.

Was it true that a cordon had been drawn around Miami and that no more strangers were being admitted? Was it true that you had to wait in a long line to buy food there? What about the mudholes in south Georgia and the sandbanks in north Florida? Was it true that the natives fixed up these traps on

mentous changes in its train. Southern States, long negligent of their roads, have been stimulated into transforming rough or sandy rural thoroughfares into straight and stately hard-surfaced boulevards, with a consequent fillip to internal intercourse. Old-fashioned Southern villages have been awakened out of their sleep, with an ensuing desire to paint up and brush up. And for the first time in history the common, ordinary "fo'kes" of the North and South are meeting one another on a really large scale, mostly by means of the National chariot-the Ford car.

stuck cars out with mules at $10 a draw?

There were assertions and denials, rumors and fantasies, arguments and disputes. And above and around it all was perceptible an air of suppressed excite

ment.

It was evident that for most of those present this was the Great Adventure. Some of them had never been far from their native towns before. They were quiet, sedate, settled people who prefer life that runs in an accustomed groove, and to whom change with readjustment to new conditions is upsetting. A few of them confessed that they had sold out everything, including the ancestral home, had bought a car and a camping outfit with the proceeds, and were staking all on Florida.

Some declared that they were in search of a climate in which cold and industrial smoke would not afflict bronchial tubes made tender by Pittsburgh or Chicago winters; some avowed with astonishing frankness their failures as laundry superintendents or grocery-store proprietors and their intention to start all over again; others announced that they were "goin' to be a-goin'" or "just to look around." None would admit that he hoped to get rich quick by speculation in land.

is improbable that the country at large grasps the extent of the present National hegira to Florida. For nearly a year the road on which this particular camp was situated has been traversed by perhaps an average of one hundred cars a day. In the middle of the summer the average climbed up to perhaps two hundred. In September and October the movement attained a crescendo, which was checked only by the advent of chilly and disagreeable weather.

And yet this route is only one of the three favored by motor tourists bound south from the North Atlantic States. The other two carry scarcely less traffic.

The movement promises to bring mo

setting in motion of a current which may result in a National shift of population scarcely less important in American history than the rush to California and the far West in the days of '49. Though unwarlike and less violent, this movement may have effects as far-reaching as other celebrated hegiras; such, for instance, as the descent of the Goths on Rome, the Mongols on China, the Dutch on South Africa, or the Mormon trek from Illinois to Utah.

Observers of social movements will probably see in it the manifestation of the stampeding instinct which at times seems to seize human beings as well as cattle. Cynics may see in it the aberrant pursuit of a chimera or the sordid desire to get something for nothing. But, whatever its cause and source, there is no doubt about its presence and its probable increase. There are prophets who assert that the South-bound rush of the past summer and autumn will be repeated next year on an increased scale, and there are some who foresee a long motor highway stretching from Bangor to Miami and lined with auto accessory shops, filling stations, Greek lunchcounters, and hot-dog stands. This trail will be strewn, not by whitening bones, but by discarded inner tubes and heaps of salmon cans.

Certainly it is the first time in history that a hegira has been carried out on pneumatic tires, upholstered seats, and patented gasoline stoves. Never before have trail-breaking pioneers been able to cover such distances in such de luxe style. By carefully selecting their routes they are able never to be long out of sight of ham and eggs or a quart of medium oil. The fortunate go through from New York to Tampa without the labor of even lifting an automobile hood or a hardship beyond a punctured tire.

A new Mark Twain will doubtless arise to record some of the picturesque history of the route to Florida. But he can never use the title "Roughing It."