PROHIBITION AND MORALS.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 88, 14 April 1894, Page 4

PROHIBITION AND MORALS.

3ocial, political, and industrial developments taking place in tho society to which these Bgures refor." The result is, of course, mere Agnosticism so far as tho statistics go. unless the means are to hand for testing and analysing them. . , But a still greater fallacy remains to bo p inted out in this particular case. A prohibitory law over a large area like an American state, with its police under local control and subject to local election, simply moans that the prohibition is merely nominal in thoßO places which chooso to disregard it. There are many such places in the prohibitory states, and it wonld be no matter for Mirpriso if crime in these places is acti',il!v increased by the ohango. But to upsot < t.r nrynment for local Prohibition m New 7. il.inrt our <;ppo<ipnts hliouUl thow that in •i trmn or rti«-tri>t uhoro the law is honestly (iimmstfH il, mid hackf-d by public opinion. , H^nl'rt imve bocii '"hd I have nevor seen -iifh .1 innnf fo tr.uc-h as ut'empted. "pro in ono instance of the good rp-ults under the conditions I liave named : In Topeka, the dijiital ot KanMW, when Prohibition was fir-t thoroughly enlorced. in 1885. the criminal calendars nf tho County District Court showed 222 cases in 1834, 60 in 1885, 30 in 1886, 16 in 1887, and 21 in ISBB. After makinor every allowance for Mr. W. V. MoriiHon'H cautions, it seems impossible to help ascribing this remarkable improvemoni to Prohibition, and thoconclußionis confirmed by other testimony. Even Mr. Fanshaw, whose report is adverse to Prohibition generally, speaks as strongly of its success in Topeka aB he does of its failuro in somo other Kansas cities. Tho seorot is that tho public opinion of Topeka supports the law. The true moral of American Prohibition, with its many successes and its many failures, is that a prohibitory law is an unmitigated blossing when honestly administered and approved by local opinion, but not otherwise. Both theso necessary conditions of succoss will exist when Wellington tries the experiment in 1897. 1 am, &c , A. It. Atkinson. 12th April. [Wo are somewhat surprised that Air. Atkinson should presume to claim space in our columns after the nttorly unwarranted accuBation whiohhe made agamßtns a few weeks ago, on the Opera Honse stago, of boycotting the Prohibitionists and refusing to report their meetings or insert thoir letters. He might at least have had the grace to apologise for making a statement which he had good personal reason to know was nnfonuded, beforo he again asked us to accept any communication from him. He would havo had no jus>t canse for complaint if in the ahHonce of such an apology we did boycott him. We, however, publish his letter, leaving it to our readers to appraise its worth and to judgo between him and Dr. Hayoroft,M.D.,Dr.So.,P.BS.E.— Ed.E.P.J

TO THI XDITOB. Sib- If Dr. J. B. Hayoroft's "learned and oritioal" audience possessed even an elementary knowledge of the statistics he professed to deal with, they will have Been that he waa guilty of those very devices whiob have brought all statistical arguments into such disrepute. He refers to the three ohfcf Prohibitory States. Of those, Maine shows an average amount of pauperism, and a small amount of crime ; Kansas a small amount of pauperism and a largo amount of crime ; antt lowa a small amount of both. What, then, does tho doctor do? He givos n» the figures as to pauperism in Maine and crime in Kansas, seleoting in oach oaso the particular naif-truth that suits bis argument ; and, as the figures of lowa do not suit his argument under either head, he passes thora over altogether ! I leave it to you to say whether this is fair dealing. The figures which Dr. Haycroft fails to give are these : Ratio of prisoners per million of „ population.

These figures Rive Maine an advantage of about 40 per cent, and lowa of 25 per oent. over the reapeotive neighbouring States. With regard to tho upward tondcnoy of Maino orimo, it was unfortnnate that tho doctor omitted to mention that it ia oonsideiably loss than' the same tondonoy in the neighbouring license States. As to panperiHtn in lowa and Kansas, these are the figures : —

lowa and Kansas added togethor cannot master us large a proportion of paupers as a single average non-prohibitive State in the lame grcnp. This omission on the dootor's part is also to be regretted. All he tells ns about lowa ie that an informant of his informant heard from someone else that thore is mnch opium smoked in lowa town. To this hearsay in the third degree I will only reply that if the people of lowa are foolish enough to legalise the opium den after outlawing the alcohol den, it is only natural that the remedy should provo worse than the disease. To return to the statistics, I may say that even if Dr. Hayoroft's half-truth represented the whole truth, it wouldn't trouble me in the very least. Yonr space being limited. I must refer your readers to the first ohapter of Mr. W. D. Morrison's Crime and its Causes," where the fallacy of comparing the criminal statistics of different countries together, or oven those of different periods in the same country, is very clearly exposed. Thp paradox that an increasing orime rate may moan an advanoing moral standard is thore made to appear a truism. Mr. Morrison's oonolusion is that it is " impossible by looking only at the bare flgrires contained in oriminal statistics to say whether a community is growing better or worse. Before any conclusions oan be formed on thoso matters oithor ono ' way or the other, we must go behind tho i figures and look at them in the light of tho 111 1

Maim Average North States .. lowa Average North Statei ... Atlantic Central 1880. 613 1062 493 675 1890. 7U 1221 497 680

Jfatio of pftnpers por million of population. 1880. lowa 717 KanFM ... . 350 Arerage North Central States 1141 1890. 848 416 1145