the form of a contract. Those who signed this contract pledged themselves neither to buy nor to sell alcoholic liquor of any sort for five years, and to give no aid to such inhabitants of Okushiri as persisted in the buying or the selling of it. For any breaking of the contract there was a heavy fine, and all such fines were to be spent in buying rice, which should then be hoarded in a common granary. Those who bought alcohol were to be fined half as much as those who sold it. All immigrants from other provinces were to be taught promptly about the prohibition plans of the island, and no one was to be admitted who did not understand the situation thoroughly. Such persons as bought alcoholic liquor in any form from passing ships or boats were to be taxed to the full extent of the law.

Last of all, the following statement was distinctly made:

This contract is to be in force for five years; and when the provision for years of scarcity is fully made and each and everybody is able to lead an independent life, proper changes shall be made upon further deliberation.

One hundred and seventeen Okushiri islanders signed the contract. It was rigidly enforced for five years, and at the end of this time still other records show what the results were.

It was now 1890. Not a drunkard was left on the island. Some had been reformed by giving up the

drinking habit. Others who were too weak to change had gone elsewhere to live. Those who stayed had prospered greatly, while their numbers had increased fivefold. The money which they had put into the fishing industry had multiplied itself by ten. They had even started a new line of work, for now they raised their own hemp and made their own fish nets. Their houses were larger and better made, their schools had improved in quality and in numbers, additional roads had been constructed, and there was less crime. From being spoken of with pity by neighboring islands, as was previously the case, these fishermen were now referred to as "the prosperous people of Okushiri.”

The five years had certainly brought good results. Okushiri islanders were no longer a poor and miserable people. Famine did not threaten them now. Was it necessary, then, to keep sake and brandy out of the island any longer? This was the great question of the day for Okushiri in 1890. They discussed it thoroughly and answered it by deciding that for still another stretch of five years they would travel by the road which had led them to such happy results. According to last reports they were still going without alcohol and were still prospering.

In other lands those who are interested in the question of profit and loss have asked themselves whether or not it is a good investment to put money into daily

drinks of beer. They have looked into the matter quite as thoroughly as did the governor of Okushiri, and have come upon a striking set of facts. By making careful inquiry about prevailing prices in America in 1908 they found that if a person should drink three glasses of beer a day during one year he would spend on this drink alone enough to buy the following articles. They are placed one under the other that they may be read easily.

I barrel of flour

50 pounds of sugar
20 pounds of cornstarch

10 pounds of macaroni

Io quarts of beans

4 twelve-pound hams
I bushel sweet potatoes
3 bushels Irish potatoes

10 pounds of coffee

10 pounds of raisins

10 pounds of rice

20 pounds of crackers 100 bars of soap

3 twelve-pound turkeys 5 quarts of cranberries 10 bunches of celery

10 pounds of prunes

4 dozen of oranges

10 pounds of mixed nuts.

3 tons of coal at five dollars a ton

CHAPTER XXVIII

THAT WHICH DESTROYS, AND HOW MEN SAVE

THEMSELVES

France and the Liquor Problem. On the eighteenth of December, 1902, in the city of Paris, France, a report was made by a committee of the government. The state officials considered this report so valuable that they ordered copies of it to be printed as posters in large black letters on a white background.

These posters were placarded here and there on the important buildings of the city. They were put on the walls and in the corridors of hospitals, on the streets, in the post offices, and even on the outside wall of the great Hôtel de Ville, where the business of the city is carried on.

A few extracts will show what it was that the government wished to proclaim in this public way.

DRAFTED BY

PROFESSOR DEBOVE, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
DR. FAISANS, Physician to the Hôtel Dieu

Alcoholism is chronic poisoning, resulting from the habitual use of alcohol, even when this is not taken in amounts sufficient to produce drunkenness. Alcohol is useful to nobody, it is harmful to all. It leads,

at the very least, to the hospital, for alcoholism causes a great variety of diseases, many of them most deadly. It is one of the most frequent causes of consumption. Typhoid fever, pneumonia, or erysipelas, which would be mild in a sober individual, will rapidly kill the alcoholic. Alcoholism is one of the most frightful scourges, whether it be regarded from the point of view of the health of the individual, of the existence of the family, or of the future of the country.

After the beginning of the Great War in 1914 France went even farther and absolutely prohibited the manufacture and sale of the intoxicant absinth.

Russia and Prohibition. In Russia, in 1914, when the war began, orders were issued that thenceforth there should be absolute prohibition of alcoholic drinks. This meant that in a country where 150,000,000 people had been using all the liquor they cared to pay for, no more should be either manufactured, bought, or sold. In describing what was done, Professor Helenius Sepälä, of the University of Helsingfors, Finland, says:

On the sixteenth of October, 1914, all the old stock of ale in the beer shops was, by order of the authorities, poured out on the ground. Everywhere in Russia, including Siberia, the Caucasian provinces, Courland, etc., the sale of distilled liquors and strong wines is strictly prohibited. . . . I walked about the capital one day after another, stepping into restaurants both in main streets and in side lanes, and feeling like a dreamer because the sights I had formerly seen everywhere in the Russian capital I now no longer saw. . . . I did not see drunken men and women, I did not find whisky or vodka anywhere. There were great festivals going on, the streets were filled with people overpowered by their patriotic emotions, it being the birthday of the czarevitch, but all the time I did not see a single person the worse for liquor.