:

In one of the leading French journals, under the title Thémis en vacances, we find this little word picture of the Long Vacation__in Paris Enter the Palais de Justice yesterday (last Saturday). The Judicial life is, as it were, cut short. Magistrates and avocats have hastened to the country. Until the 1st Oct. they will sit in judgment no more, save in the vacation chambers upon some little urgent cases. The two chambres correctionnelles remain open-the Eighth and the Tenth to deal with a few dozens of apaches and housebreakers. The Court of Assizes also does not close, but the frequenters have put themselves on strike. The affairs which are to be determined possess no sensation; they are devoid of interest. Murders and crimes of common persons, the dregs of society. There is a truce among the pleaders; no more discussions between the Bench and Bar. During two months Themis sleeps. The Palace is empty; the Palace is dead. The salle des Pas Perdus, and the galleries are places deserted. The guards sleep upon the benches or wander about like so many souls in torment. Only in the corridor of the juges d'instruction is to be seen any animation. A few journalists hover about for news. Here and there is to be seen the form of an avocat en robe flitting over the great stone floor. Occasionally a garçon from the buffet, with his tray charged with glasses of iced drinks, enters the chambre du conseil or the private room of a judge. The judge is so warm and so thirsty. In the two salles de la correctionnelle the part reserved to the public is empty or almost so. Two or three strangers, a half-dozen provincials doing Paris, and these are all the public. The avocats plead without spirit, the judges sleep on the bench, and the clerk seems suffering from a heavy drowsiness. The Palace of Thémis has become the palace of the sleeping beauty of the wood. Later will be the rentrée, with the movement, the life, the buzzing of the hive juridical, the resumption of documents, vaudevilles, tragedies, and comedies of life.

THE fact that the announcement of the Royal Assent to the Parlia ment Bill in the House of Lords on the 18th inst. was received with a cheer by the members of the House of Commons standing at the Bar has been a matter of comment. The incident was unusual, but not contrary to order. The members of the House of Commons were within their rights in indulging in expressions of feeling, since they were present in the House of Lords, not by permission, express or implied, of that House, but at the command of the King, to witness the giving of the Royal Assent to Bills. In days gone by, demonstra. tions by members of the House of Commons at the Bar of the House of Lords were of ordinary occurrence. Lord Macaulay relates that the speech of King James II., at the opening of the Parliament of 1685, from the throne in the House of Lords was received "with loud cheers from the Tory gentlemen [of the House of Commons] at the Bar. Such acclamations were then usual. It has now been for many years the grave and decorous usage of Parliament to hear in respectful silence all expressione, acceptable or unacceptable. which are uttered from the throne" (Macaulay's History of England, i, p. 251). In recent years the reading by the Speaker in the House of Commons of the copy of the Speech from the Throne has been punctuated by loud cheers at the conclusion of passages in which the introduction of legislation acceptable to sections of political opinion has been promised. It was formerly a matter of doubt whether a session was not concluded by the Royal Assent being signified to a Bill. So far back as 1554 the House of Commons declared against this construction of the law, and yet in 1625 it was thought necessary to pass an Act to declare that the session should not be determined by the Royal Assent being given to that and certain other Acts (1 Car. 1, c. 7), and again in 1670 a clause to the same effect was inserted in an Act (22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 1, s. 9), but since that time without any express enactment the law has become defined by usage, and the Royal Assent is now given to every Bill, shortly after it has been agreed to by both Houses, without any interruption of the session: (see May's Parliament Practice, p. 529).

THE question on which the Speaker stated that he would take the opinion of counsel, namely, whether the word "Ministers" in the resolution for the payment of members of the House of Commons, with the exception of Ministers, includes Secretaries to the Treasury, the several Under-Secretaries of State, and the Secretary to the Admiralty, will probably be answered in the affirmative, the aim of the resolution being to exclude from payment for Parliamentary services gentlemen who are paid aliunde for their services as holders of offices in the Administration, whether by direct appointment from the Crown or otherwise, and that accordingly the resolution should be construed in the sense it would naturally bear. The Speaker, who had been himself an Under-Secretary in a department of State-that of Foreign Affairssaid he knew that under-secretaries were not Ministers of the Crown. These gentlemen hold office by appointment from the heads of their several departments, and accordingly do not by the acceptance of such offices vacate their seats in the House of Commons. They are, not however, in general conversation spoken of as Ministers, and infrequently refer to themselves as such. Thus Mr. Masterman, the Under-Secretary of the Home Office, when under examination in the recent election petition for West Ham, pleaded that certain irregu larities had taken place wholly without his cognisance, the absorbing and exacting character of his duties as a Minister having occasioned an oversight on his part.

THE fact, on which stress was laid in the recent debates in both Houses of Parliament in relation to the Parliament Bill, that, unlike the House of Commons, the personnel of the House of Lords was not affected by a dissolution of Parliament was thus happily and wittily expounded by the late Sir William Harcourt in a speech delivered by him so far back as Saturday, the 22nd Feb. 1879: "The House of Lords," he said, "knew no dissolution, except that which the Black Rod of Nature allowed; they answered no questions; they gave no pledges; they had no fear of Liberal Four Hundreds before their eyes." In that speech Sir William Harcourt pointed the contrast between the elastic procedure of the House of Lords and the strict regulations which control the action of members of tle House of Commons, which must have presented itself to the students of constitutional procedure, who, in the recent debates, watched the proceedings of both Houses. We quote from the Times of the 24th Feb. 1879: "The House of Lords enjoyed many privileges not possessed by the House of Commons, but, on the other hand, were deprived of many pleasures which the House of Commons greatly appreciated. The Lords voted no supplies and were sensible of no grievances. They had not the exhilarating amusement of discussing the details of the Estimates, but then they had very great advantages. Their House was not liable to be counted out. They had no quorum except that particular number which by the common law was sufficient to constitute a riot. They did not suffer from perpetual and vexatious motions for adjournment, for he had observed that there was generally a motion for adjournment made at the interesting hour of half-past seven which was always received with universal and cheerful acceptance. The House of Commons had recently some trouble on the subject of Standing Orders. He did not know whether the House of Lords had any Standing Orders at all, because he had observed that its members were able to speak upon any subject on any occasion without restraint or regard to relevancy. Among other privileges, the House of Lords had a Speaker who was always speaking, ɛnd in exchange for that he had no authority.”

In the House of Lorde, on the 17th inst., the Conveyancing Bill and the Indian High Courts Bill were read a third time and passed without amendment.

On the motion of the Earl of Donoughmore, the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was read a first time.

In the House of Commone, the remaining clauses of the Copyright Bill were passed through the report stage, after which the Bill was read a third time.

The Salford Hundred Court of Record Bill was recommitted, and was read a third time.

In the House of Lords, on the 18th inst., the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was read a second time and passed through all its stages.

The Appropriation Bill was also passed through all its stages.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, replying in Wednesday's Parliamentary papers to Mr. Sutton, who asked whether the London and North-Western Railway Provident Fund, the Midland Railway Friendly Society, and other railway companies' funds of a similar character will be eligible to become approved societies within the meaning of the insurance scheme, says: "It is intended that funds such as those referred to should be enabled to become approved cocieties. In this,

as in all other cases, the contribution of the existing members of an approved society and of their employers under the National Health Insurance Bill will be in substitution for all or part of their present premiums, and not in addition thereto. Railway companies will only be entitled to make deductions from wages for unemployment insurance in respect of such of their workpeople as are engaged in the trades specified in the 6th schedule to the Bill. The great mass of railway employés are not included in that schedule. It will be open to the Board of Trade to make arrangements with them under clauses 79 and 80 if they give unemployment benefit to their members. All compulsory contributions to the unemployment fund will be paid through the employer, and power is given to any union which has made an arrangement under clause 79 to make a correeponding reduction in the subscription of those members who have to contribute."

Workman injured and totally incapacitated by inhaling poisonous Germs while emptying a dead Well-Injury by Accident-Workmen's Compensation Act 1906.

AT the Dereham County Court, on the 25th July, before His Honour
Judge Mulligan, K.C., the following judgment was given.
Keefe (solicitor) for the applicant.

Bagge (instructed by Mills and Reeve) for the respondent.

His HONOUR.-William Dack is a painter and handy man. He worked regularly for George Took, who is a builder and contractor. On the 24th Jan. 1911 Dack and another workman were employed by Took to do certain jobs at Saham Grove, Watton, which included the emptying and putting in order of a dead well. Now, it so happened that a water-closet had drained into that well and had made it into a sort of cesspool. This was not discovered until the workmen removed the earth from the wooden cover and the wooden cover from the top of the well. The work was carried on in this way: Dack let a pail down into the well, filled it with soft matter, and drew it up to the surface, where it was taken from him by the other workman and emptied into a cart. That process was repeated during seven or eight houre. This was the only job of that kind Dack had had, and he was in good health when he began it. On arriving home the same evening he was taken ill with sickness and diarrhoea. This continued all through the night. Numerous boils broke out upon him afterwards. Dr. J. K. Howlett was called in. He found Dack in bed suffering from blood poisoning. He ascertained the nature of Dack's work, and has since visited him time after time. He says that the blood poisoning and the boils were caused by inhaling germs from the well, and that Dack is still unable to do any work. Mr. Keefe claims compensation for the workman. Mr. Bagge, for the employer, contends that this was not an accident, that the injury to Dack was the gradual and cumulative effect of swallowing sewer gas, and that it is a disease not provided for by the Act. He cited several decisions in support of his contention. Now, the inferences of fact deduced by other minds in other cages under other circumstances from other contracts of service in other fields of labour are neither here nor there. This claim depends on its own facts. Those facts are of a peculiar character. It was expected that the liquid to be drawn up out of the dead well would be harmless. The unexpected happened. What Dack really had to tackle was poisonous matter, such as would come from an old cesspool. That was the first verse in a chapter of accidents. Then every pail which Dack filled and hauled up brought with it noxious germs, some of which (I infer) entered into his body when he happened to open his mouth. Every time Dack inadvertently swallowed a draught of these bacteria, accident was added to accident, just as if poison was given in mistake for a cooling drink. There was personal injury by accident arising out of the employment, like moke arising out of a chimney. I award compensation.

COUNTY COURTS, EQUITY, AND BANKRUPTCY CASES.-Published quarterly, price 4s., post free. Comprising the Decisions in Law and Equity, administered in the County Courts; the Appeals from the County Courts; the Judgments in Important Cases decided in the County Courts; and all the Cases in Bankruptcy in all the Courts.HORACE Cox, County Courts Chronicle" Office, Windsor House, Bream's-buildings, E.C.-[ADVT.]

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

THE RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL WALKER, BART., LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND.

AN Irish correspondent writes as follows:

The death of Sir Samuel Walker, Bart., on the 13th inst., at his residence, Pembroke House, Dublin, while holding the Great Seal of Ireland, removes from the headship of the Irish Judiciary one of the most eminent lawyers who have ever filled that position. The duties appertaining to the great office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, like those which fall upon the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, are so ceaseless and exacting that death seldom terminates the tenure of the Great Seal, which is usually resigned in obedience to warnings of ill-health and decline in physical energy which compel retirement unconnected with the fall of Administrations. In Ireland in the last century, of the twenty holders of the Great Seal, three only died when Chancellors. John FitzGibbon, Earl of Clare, who had filled the position without a break since 1789, died in 1802, after a few days' illness, in the early fifties; Mr. Hugh Law, who was appointed Lord Chancellor in Nov. 1881, died with startling suddenness in Sept. 1883; and Sir Edward Sullivan, his immediate successor, who was promoted from the Mastership of the Rolls, died in his study in Dublin in the afternoon on coming home from the discharge of some Ministerial duties in Dublin Castle. His death was strikingly similar to the death of Lord Campbell, the last Chancellor of Great Britain who died in office, having previously filled the positions of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Lord Chief Justice of England. He died on the 22nd June 1861, having sat in court and attended a Cabinet Council during the day.

The writer of this article in the far-away days of his boyhood heard a distinguished Irish judge describe the Irish Bar as a lottery," and, in later years, a gentleman, who subsequently became himself a Lord Chancellor of Ireland, a peer, and a Cabinet Minister, remarked to him: "The reason of one man's success and another man's failure at the Bar is a mystery. It is wholly impossible to predict with the remotest chance of certainty how any man will do at the Irish Bar." Sir Samuel Walker had none of the showy qualities which are supposed to command success. A casual observer would have seen nothing in him at any time of his life calculated imme. diately to convey the impression that he was a man of powerful personality and exceptional intellectual gifts. He was rather below the medium in height, and of pleasing but homely features, which, when ho smiled, were lightened up by clear brown eyes which sparkled with a sense of humour. In conversation he was generally more of a listener than a participator. Eloquence did not touch his lips, and in his speeches at the Bar he rarely made any attempt to rise above the colloquial style. How, then, did he attain the very foremost position at the Irish Bar and fill with éclat the Irish Lord Chancellorship? The mystery is easy of solution. He had a great power of application, a mind of great subtlety and acuteness, an unrivalled penetration of character, and a genius for the study and administra tion of the law which absorbed his intellectual strength and, far from being a task, was the most delightful of recreations.

Sir Samuel Walker's abilities could have found other spheres for their exercise. He had an exceptionally brilliant career in Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a scholarship in classics and senio classical moderatorship with a large gold medal. He, however, took no prominent part in the literary societies of the universities. He was called to the Bar in 1855, and, without any influence or solicitor connection, by masterly industry and profound knowledge of legal principles early made a reputation as a reliable junior. He was, moreover, in his peculiar way a good man in court. He never said a redundant word, but frequently in cross-examination by a very fow pointed questions he exposed the weak places in an opponent's case, while his speeches to the jury were simply common-sense observations made as if were he taking them into his confidence. He had, moreover, the faculty of making friends, and no one was more popular with his brethren at the Bar. Before he took silk in 1872 it is safe to say that this somewhat taciturn, retiring man was sought for on one side or the other, not infrequently on both sides, in all difficult cases requiring careful management in the common law courts, and in all cases in the equity courts in which knotty questions of law and of the construction of wills or deeds were involved. At the Inner Bar Mr. Walker increased the reputation he had acquired at the Junior Bar, and proved by his success as a verdict-getter in the common law courts and by the effect of his arguments in the equity courts and Courts of Appeal that a very halting speaker, whose words, however hesitating and feeble, were the result of clear reasoning and profound thought and erudition, was more than a match for the brilliant declaimers and the shallow but far more showy advocates who were his opponents.

Mr. Walker's leanings in political matters were to the Liberal side in politics. and his instincts of justice were averse to the anomalies of the Irish land system of generation ago, while his practice at the Bar had brought home to him the grievances under which tenants laboured in being deprived by the operation of laws, avowedly made in the landlord interest, of improvements effected on their holdings by their own labour. In 1883 he became Solicitor-General for Ireland in Mr. Gladstone's Administration, and member in the House of Commons for County Londonderry in succession to Sir Andrew Porter, the Attorney-General, who had been made Master of the Rolls. In the House of Commons, in which he sat till the General Election of 1885, when, after the fall of the Gladstone Administration in the June of that year, he lost his seat, never returning to Parliament, he

scarcely felt at home. He intervened in debate only to the extent to which it was absolutely necessary, having regard to his office, to do. He had the disadvantage, owing to the fact of his entering the House of Commons as a law officer of the Crown, of being from the very firet in the embarrassing position of an occupant of the Treasury bench in a Parliament with whose ways and methods he was necessarily unfamiliar. When on the evening of the day on which he had been introduced in the House of Commons he was asked what he thought of the proceedings, the lawyer overcame the politician, and be replied, not humorously but quite seriously, that he was quite puzzled at gentlemen on both sides making statements as to facts without having evidence to support those statements-" No statutory declaration or affidavit appeared during the whole debate."

At the General Election of 1885 Mr. Walker did not succeed in retaining his reat in the House of Commons, but, on the return of the Gladstone Administration to office in 1886, he was reappointed Attorney-General for Ireland. In the split on the Home Rule question, he adhered to Mr. Gladstone's policy, and, on the defeat of the Gladstone Administration in 1886, resigned the Attorney-Generalship, and was out of office till his first appointment to the Lord Chancellorship in 1892. Party politics ran high in those days, and Mr. Walker was made to feel in the practice of his profession the full wrath of dominant partisanship. Despite his acknowledged position at the Bar, his practice for some months left him, and it was, strange to say, his appearance as the holder of a brief for the defence in one of the numerous State prosecutions of the period in 1887, in which his masterly management of the case proved that the " boycott" to which he had been subjected was injurious to the public, that he acquired the large practice of which he had been undoubtedly from party feeling deprived. In 1892, on the establishment of Mr. Gladstone's fourth Administration- Mr. Naish, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland in his last Administration, being dead-Mr. Walker was made Lord Chancellor, holding the Great Seal till 1895, when, on the fall of the Gladstone Government, he took the position of honorary Lord Justice of Appeal, and frequently went circuit as Commissioner of Assize. On the formation of the CampbellBannerman Government in 1905, he was again appointed Lord Chancellor, and in 1906 was made a baronet. His judicial career was characterised by the same qualities of thoroughness, penetration, and able application of doctrines and principles to given cases which made him so distinguished at the Bar. His very cautious temperament brought him into difficulties similar to those with which Lord Lore burn in this country has to contend in reference to appointments to the magisterial bench, and his delay in making in some cases and refusal to make in other cases appointments to the magistracy, urged on him by influential and representative people in the localities for which such magistrates were declared to be essential, have been the subject of severe stricture.

In 1881, Sir Samuel Walker, by the illness of Mr. Macdonagh, became the leader for the traversers in the great State trial of Reg. v. Parnell and others, and discharged his difficult duty in a way which increased his already great position at the Bar. The leader for the prosecution in that trial was Mr. Hugh Law, the Attorney-General, who was succeeded by Mr. Walker as the representative of Londonderry, for which Mr. Walker sat also as Attorney-General, and who died, like Mr. Walker, as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The chapter of coincidences is not ended when it is remembered that Lord James of Hereford, who was Attorney-General for England when Mr. Walker was Attorney-General for Ireland in 1885, died within a few days after the death of the Irish Lord Chancellor.

The late Lord Chancellor of Ireland had a like experience with an eminent English judicial dignitary. The late Lord Justice Thesiger, a younger son of Lord Chancellor Chelmsford, was a brother of the second Lord Chelmsford, a general, and a most distinguished, though unfortunate, commander in South Africa in the Zulu War. Lord Chancellor Walker was a brother of the late General Sir Alexander Walker, V.C., one of the ablest and bravest soldiers in the British Army, to whose courage and presence of mind the victory of Inkerman in the Crimean War is mainly due.

Lord Chancellor Walker was one of three Lords Chancellor of Ireland who since the Union accepted baronetcies, the other two being Lords Chancellor Napier and Brady. Lord Chancellor Walker was the only Lord Chancellor who was made a baronet during his term of office. Lords Chancellor Brady and Napier both became baronets after they had ceased to hold the office, while Sir Edward Sullivan had been made a baronet when Master of the Rolls, before his promotion to the Chancellorship. The late Irish Chancellor broke the record in filling that office at a salary lower than the salary at which he at first had held the Great Seal. During his first tenure of the Great Seal, and for some period of his second tenure, the salary of the office, now reduced to £6000 a year, was £8000 a year. The retiring pension of £4000 a year Irish has not been changed by the legislation which reduced the former salary, which was the highest salary of a purely judicial office in the United Kingdom. The salary of the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain is, no doubt, £10,000 a year, but, of that, £4000 is payable to him as ex officio Speaker of the House of Lords. In Ireland, before the Union, the offices of Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Lords, though in practice generally united, were regarded in theory as distinct. Thus, in the first session of Parliament after the Restoration, the Primate, Archbishop Bramhall, and not the Lord Chancellor, was Speaker of the House of Lords. The theoretical severance of the offices is brought prominently before us by the Duke of Rutland, as Viceroy, so late as 1784, wishing to create a Speakership of the House of Lords, with a salary attached, distinct from the Chancellorship.

The appointment of Sir Samuel Walker to the Irish Lord Chancellorship in 1892 and his appointment in 1905 supply striking illustrations of the changes and chances which so powerfully prevail to affect judicial preferment. In 1892, Mr. Naish, who was the Lord Chancellor in 1885 and again in 1886, during the very short period of the Gladstone Administration, would, had he been living, undoubtedly have been Lord Chancellor in 1892; but Mr. Naish, who was some fifteen years junior to Sir Samuel Walker, had passed away. Again, if members of the English Bench and Bar had been eligible for the Irish Lord Chancellorship, as they were till the passing of the Irish Judicature Act of 1877, Lord Justice Mathew, who was an Irishman, would have been selected. Mr. Pallee, the Lord Chief Baron of Ireland, was actually offered the Lord Chancellorship in 1892, which he felt unable to accept as he could not conscientiously reconcile himself to the policy of Home Rule, and accordingly the Great Sea! was, owing to this series of circumstances, intrusted to Sir Samuel Walker. In 1905, on the return of the Liberal Party to office, the Great Seal would, as a matter of course, have been placed in the hands of the late Right Hon. Charles Hare (Lord) Hemphill, who had been Solicitor-General in the Liberal Government from 1892 till 1895; had been for ten years in opposition in the House of Commons, and who-The MacDermot, who had been Attorney-General, being dead-on the ground of services and sacrifices was entitled to the appointment. The circumstance of Lord Hemphill's advanced age he was then in his eighty-fifth year-alone precluded his promotion to the Chancellorship, which was conferred a second time on Lord Chancellor Walker, who thus, owing to an accidental circumstance, again obtained the Great Seal.

The career of Sir Samuel Walker, which is summarised in an obituary sketch which scarcely occupies more than half a column in the Times, seems, when related as a mere narrative of promotion from office to office, somewhat devoid of interest and commonplace. When the surrounding circumstances are recalled to recollection and the incidents which marked them borne in mind, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that few forensic and judicial careers are fraught with a more unique interest as being peculiarly favoured in the drawing of prizes, when the chances were against it, in the "lottery" of the Bar.

HABITUAL DRUNKENNESS.

THE following is the introductory chapter taken from the report of the inspector under the Inebriates Acts 1879-1900 (Mr. R. W. Branthwaite) for the year 1909 :

HABITUAL DRUNKENNESS AND ITS TREATMENT.

Every alcohol user belongs to one or another of three categories; he may be found amongst persons,

(1) who are always strictly moderate in their indulgence;

(2) who drink more freely than is consistent with strict moderation, or are occasionally drunken;

(3) who are habitually drunken, or, being usually sober, are subject to occasional outbursts of uncontrollable drunken

ness.

(1) THE STRICTLY MODERATE USER.

So far as members of the first section are concerned there is little to be said; the harm they do to others is problematical, and the harm they do themselves still more so. The large majority take alcohol because it is customary, as an aid to social intercourse, to give relish to food, or for the bodily sense of well-being it engenders when swallowed in small quantities. This bodily sense of wellbeing is the only pharmaco-dynamic effect they desire to experience, and any sensation of more advanced alcoholisation is repugnant to them. There is no credit due to such persons for being sober, because they have no desire to be otherwise, and it is no trouble to them to keep sober, because they are not called upon to exercise control over desires that do not exist.

Although this description applies to the large majority of strictly moderate alcohol users, there are a few members of the class who remain absolutely sober notwithstanding the existence of some measure of desire, and who, in consequence, deserve credit for their sobriety. Such persons, as a rule, have acquired a knowledge of, and liking for, the sensations associated with alcoholic excess during youth, and by the subsequent development of self-control have become able to regulate later life with ordinary prudence. Possessing a fair standard of psycho-neurotic integrity, it only became necessary for them to fortify by exercise an already existing selfcontrol, in order to gain sufficient strength to counteract the influence of acquired desire.

A brief mention of this strictly moderate section seems necessary because of its magnitude, in order that a due sense of proportion may be maintained when dealing with other smaller but more important classes. Otherwise the members of this section are of no interest to us; they require neither help nor pity, and may well be left to care for themselves.

No statistics are available from which any definite information as to proportionate number can be obtained, but, from general observation and an extensive knowledge of habitual drunkenness and free drinking in all classes, one would be inclined to suggest as a figure for the strictly moderate about 980 per 1000 of all alcohol users.

(2) THE FREE DRINKER AND OCCASIONAL DRUNKARD. Intermediate between the "strictly moderate" and "habitual" is the class into which is relegated the free drinker and the occasional drunkard. In this group there is more of interest than in

the one previously dealt with, because, although there is little to distinguish the worst members of the first class from the best of the second, there is also no line of demarcation between the worst members of the second class and the best of the third. We are therefore brought more or less into touch with the inebriate problem directly after leaving the realm of the strictly moderate; indeed, it is probable that no stability at all can be claimed for any intermediate section, nearly all constituent units being capable of relegation to the class that precedes or to the one that follows. Its members are either those who indulge in excess carelessly, possessing enough power of self-control to be sober if they will, or those who are showing early symptoms of the development of a constitutional peculiarity that eventually leads to ruin.

The chief characteristic of this (second) class is the presence in all its members of a desire for experiencing the more advanced sensations associated with alcoholic excess; in other words, the mere sense of well-being that satisfied the members of the first class is not sufficient for those of the second. The latter endeavour to obtain the general exhilaration and cerebral excitement accompanying the early stages of alcoholic poisoning without proceeding to its later stages; in this, without meaning it, they sometimes fail. Together with this desire for modified intoxication we have a neglected self-control, or a self-control that is losing (but has not lost) its power to govern; the power is still there, and is strong enough to maintain sobriety if exercised to its full capacity. Possession of power to remain sober naturally implies responsibility for insobriety, and therefore carries with it responsibility for any action done during a state of insobriety. For this reason offences by occasional drunkards should be treated with sharp punishment, in order that the necessity for self-control may be emphasised and its exercise encouraged.

If a census of alcohol users could be taken, it is probable that those who might reasonably be included as transient or permanent members of the free-drinking class would number about 17·5 to 18.0 per 1000.

THE HABITUAL DRUNKARD (OR INEBRIATE).

Although it is clear that a marked correlation exists between the recognised forms of mental defect or disease on the one hand and habitual drunkenness on the other, the association is not definite enough to justify the commonly heard statement that all inebriates are more or less insane or mentally defective. When inebriates of all social grades are classed together it will be found that the majority are neither the one nor the other; indeed, many typical habitual drunkards are extremely capable individuals during sober intervals. Notwithstanding this, even the most mentally sound inebriates are not normal persons, but the victims of a constitutional peculiarity or fault of some kind, which cannot yet be defined or located, although the evidences of its existence are none the less definite on this account. The peculiarity in question is a potent one, calling for recognition as the true inebriate state, of which drunkenness, disorder, and erratic behaviour generally are merely the outward and visible signs. It is the condition we refer to when we speak of inebriety," and it is the one that has to be reckoned with when matters pertaining to treatment require consideration. The distinctive characteristic of the man who is afflicted with this peculiarity is his inability to take alcohol in moderation, despite the most strenuous effort of which he is capable. It is a psychoneurotic fault that implies defective resisting power to the action of alcohol or drugs, in exactly the same sense as the tubercular diathesis implies impaired resistance to the specific infection of that disease. It is possible that inebriety may be acquired by longcontinued indulgence, just as tubercular disease may be acquired by long exposure to chronic infection, or brief exposure to extremely virulent infection; but it is more probably inherited as a diathesis in most cases, remaining latent or becoming evident according to circumstances of habit and environment.

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When inheritance is referred to, as here, we mean the transmission from parent to child of a peculiarity that renders inebriety possible, not necessarily an heredity of drunkenness, the important dif ference being that the person who inherits the peculiarity does not always become a drunkard, but may exhibit his failing by surrender to other forms of disorder or moral obliquity. Moreover, the inebriate state in the child is not necessarily the product of parental inebriety, although it is often so-other parental psychoses and neuroses show a similar tendency to transmit inebriate possibilities to offspring. There is, for example, a sort of triangular reciprocity between all forms of mental defect, epilepsy, and habitual drunkenness. The epileptic may produce mentally defective or inebriate children; the mentally defective person, inebriate or epileptic children; and the inebriate, epileptic or mentally defective children. Instances of this interchange are repeatedly. before us. In these circumstances it is probable that the inebriate peculiarity is merely a variance of a morbid strain-a neurosis that needs little in the way of modifying circumstance to determine its character in one or other direction.

When the constitutional peculiarity, or fault, or diathesis, whatever we may call it, is present in man or woman, it is permanent and ineradicable. Some abstainers from alcohol possess it unknowingly; other persons, who take alcohol, realise its existence only too well, and spend long lives battling against weakness. Some of the latter succeed, others fight and fail, despite an eager desire to live soberly, whilst a residue make no struggle, but hopelessly succumb early in life. The last named are generally handicapped by the additional presence of some form of mental defect. Should an

inebriate (after a period of surrender) become a sober individual, the peculiarity still remains a factor to be reckoned with during the whole of his life. Notwithstanding his sobriety, it is always there, ready to redevelop in irresistible force on the first taste of alcohol. The writer, after thirty years' experience with inebriates, embracing a knowledge of some 10,000 cases, does not know a single instance where a typical inebriate, who has become sober, has remained sober as a moderate drinker. All who have remained sober have avoided alcohol altogether; all who have touched alcohol have become drunken again. In many cases years have elapsed, under the most favourable circumstances for abatement in virulence, without any sign of modification in the tendency. For instance, in the case of a man who has just submitted himself for treatment a second time, eighteen years' teetotalism intervened between the cessation of his former drunken habits and a recent attempt at moderate drinking, which failed so miserably that early reversion to drunkenness followed a few days' indulgence. In the sense in which we now use the word, once an inebriate always an inebriate is an indisputable truism, but, fortunately, only a truism in that one sense. An otherwise hopeless position is relieved by the possibility of that seeming paradox-a teetotal inebriate.

Given the inebriate diathesis, two other factors determine whether or not the affected person will remain sober or become drunken(a) the presence or absence of a desire for intoxication, and (b) the adequacy or inadequacy of self-control.

The desire to enjoy the feeling of intoxication is always acquired by experience-it is obvious that no such desire can exist antecedent to practical acquaintance with the sensations resulting from excessive indulgence. Persons who have never taken alcohol have no desire for it, however insatiable the craving of those who are susceptible may become when once they have indulged in it. It is in the formation of this desire that environment plays such an important part in the making of drunkards. The desire when created (in persons who are born with the inebriate diathesis) is of compelling force, and resistance is possible only when those who are afflicted possess, or are able to acquire, an antagonistic influence of sufficiently vigorous character. The antagonistic influence referred to is that combination of faculties called self-control; that power with which a normal person is endowed in order that he may govern his desires and keep them within the bounds of ordinary prudence.

Recognition of the fact that placid surrender involves physical consequences, moral ruin, poverty, loss of self-respect, and loss of the respect of others, gives rise to a wish for sobriety; the wish leads to an exercise of volition, and volition to efforts at resistance. The result depends upon the relative strength of such efforts and the strength of desire. Should self-control be insufficiently vigorous to govern an intense desire, or should it be so impaired that an ordinary desire obtains predominance, then excessive indulgence is likely to result. Should self-control be of normal strength, or educable enough to be strengthened to meet requirements, a desire of average strength, or even one of considerable intensity, may be adequately governed, and abstinence be maintained, in spite of constitutional susceptibility.

It is probable that, given the inebriate diathesis, accompanied by strong desire, the requisite amount of self-control to maintain sobriety can be acquired by the majority of persons who have become habitually drunken, provided they are mentally capable of appreciating the necessity for effort, are afforded a reasonable chance of making it, and can be induced to believe that their peculiar condition renders them unable to take alcohol in any form during their lifetime, in the smallest possible quantity. When self-control is lacking to a marked extent, it generally means the presence of a stronger morbid strain than is represented by the ordinary inebriate susceptibility.

Unfortunately, many forms of mental defect are often associated with the peculiarity in which we are chiefly interested, being evidenced by deficient intelligence, impaired moral sense, weak control over impulses, and outbreaks of passionate temper, of violence, of restlessness, or of destructiveness, on slight provocation. For obvious reasons the prognosis is not good in persons of this type; they come of families in which there are other instances of brain disorder, and require treatment chiefly for their mental state and only incidentally for their inebriety.

It is extremely difficult to suggest even an approximate figure to represent the prevalence of habitual drunkenness; the incidence varies so greatly with social status, environment, and occupation. Indeed, it probably varies from considerably less than 1 per 1000 of alcohol users in educated and refined circles to 3 or even 5 per cent. in persons engaged in some occupations associated with the distribution of liquor. Taking all classes together, the figure one would suggest as approximate stands somewhere between 20 and 2.5 per 1000 of all alcohol users.

THE TREATMENT OF HABITUAL DRUNKENNESS. There is only one subject of more importance than a consideration of the underlying causes of inebriety, and that is the means and methods by which we may eliminate them or modify their effect. Such means and methods of amelioration are imperfectly understood at present, and, even when understood, are erratically employed or almost neglected. Public interest in the question is considerable. many thousands of persons being fully alive to the evil results of inebriety and the necessity for the employment of some remedy. Unfortunately, on the incontestable ground that if there were no drink there would be no drunkard, and because drunkenness has been regarded as sinful and vicious in all cases, little attempt at

dealing with the drunkard has been made, the preponderance of effort being directed towards the advocacy of universal abstinence as the only possible remedy. In this way those who could be influenced by mere teaching, who still retained power to follow the dictates of conviction, have benefited; free-drinking persons have been made more moderate, and occasional careless drunkenness has diminished. So far, so good; but none, or practically none, of those who have thus benefited belong to the third of our classes, the one that contains the persons who do the real harm, cause all the domestic misery and poverty, are the disorderly persons, the potential criminals, the lunatics of the future, and who, in consequence of their condition, become life burdens upon public funds. These persons are not affected by temperance teaching; it rarely reaches them; if it does they will not heed; if they heed they are powerless to obey its dictates. Something entirely different, more capable of individual application, is wanted-something aimed at the modification of underlying peculiarity, the reduction of desire, and the strengthening of self-control. It is useless to ask more of a person than he can perform without first endeavouring to endow him with the power to perform it.

Some efforts, of varying value, distinct from orthodox temperance advocacy, are now being directed towards the treatment of the inebriate. Philanthropists, and other persons for commercial purposes, are advocating the employment of special drugs and mixtures, to which they attribute curative qualities; some medical practitioners are employing hypnotic suggestion, some electrical treatment; other persons are pinning their faith to rigorous religious discipline; others are pushing work in labour colonies for all it is worth; and others, again, are relying upon long-continued abstention from alcohol in institutions (with or without special medical treatment) to obtain the desired result. It is possible that some, or all, of these methods may be advantageous in individual cases; but they are too erratically employed to be of anything like general value. There is no order or co-ordination, with the result that many inebriates are subjected to useless remedies, and labelled hopeless when failure follows as a natural consequence. Moreover, most of the measures that can be used are only applicable to a few cases, because of general ignorance as to their existence, impecuniosity on the part of the inebriate, or his refusal of consent to undergo treatment. When the application of useful remedy has at last become possible, the case is generally of long duration, and therefore too confirmed for any hope of benefit to accrue. As a consequence, adding together (1) habitually drunken persons who can be persuaded to undergo some drug or other special treatment; (2) those who consent to detention for purposes of treatment; (3) those who are committed to reformatories for offences associated with drunkenness; and (4) the vast majority of inebriates who never have a chance of recovery at all, it is unlikely that more than 2 or 3 per cent. of the whole ever become sober and decent members of society. The number of persons who benefit from treatment in the first, second, and third of the classes just mentioned are hopelessly swamped by the host comprising the fourth. Stated differently, it is highly probable that from 97 to 98 per cent. of all persons in the kingdom who become habitual drunkards die drunkards, or become (more or less permanent) inmates of workhouses, prisons, or asylums. There are very few other morbid conditions that show such a low recovery rate, because for every other there are well-thought-out remedies and operations, or there are asylums, hospitals, and sanatoria for the special care of all who are afflicted. For the lunatic, the consumptive, the epileptic, and the feeble-minded who can pay there are persons ready to provide accommodation; for patients of the same sort who cannot pay, municipal authorities, guardians, and charitable societies are willing to do what is necessary. There are persons ready to provide for the infinitesimally small number of inebriates who can pay for treatment, and are willing to submit to it; but for those who are impoverished, whether they are willing or not, there is very little chance of treatment, and for the destitute none-until they become criminal.

As a preliminary to the closer consideration of the conditions that should govern the treatment of inebriety it is necessary to recall its three causative factors-constitutional peculiarity, acquired desire for intoxication, and lack of self-control. So far as constitutional peculiarity is concerned there is no evidence to show that any method of treatment known to us can be trusted to eradicate it, or even modify its power to any material extent. Long-continued abstinence gives the best chance, but it is doubtful whether even this results in great benefit. If, therefore, an inebriate is to be turned into a sober man, the change must be made notwithstanding constitutional peculiarity, and in spite of its continued existence. All the same, no person engaged in the treatment of inebriates can expect to attain any measure of success unless he regulates all his procedure by a recognition of the importance of this proclivity, and uses every means in his power to impress the same recognition upon his patients, insisting upon their lifelong abstinence from alcohol in all its forms as a sine qua non to sobriety.

It would doubtless simplify matters, and be greatly to the advantage of the inebriate, if no intoxicating liquor could be obtained anywhere; but, as total abolition is not likely to come about, and as he must continue to encounter alcohol on all hands, he must be induced to avoid it, or be made to do so if he becomes dangerous, or too much of a nuisance to others. He must be taught that he cannot take it, for the same reason that the diabetic patient has to avoid certain articles of diet-because of idiosyncrasy; but, in order to effect this, it is essential that habitual drunkenness shall

cease to be regarded as a crime, and cease to be preached about as a "vice" or "sin."

The inebriate's desire for intoxication, as we have already seen, unlike the foregoing characteristic, is acquired by experience, and, what is more, maintained by indulgence. In the very large majority of cases, when an inebriate can be induced or is made to discontinue his indulgence, the desire ("craving") diminishes, or leaves him altogether, a few hours or a few days after his last drinkgenerally in two or three days. When an inebriate is supposed to have given up alcohol, and, after a reasonable period, continues to complain of 'craving," he is usually still indulging, although possibly in a quantity that would hurt no other person. Therefore, in order to decrease or abolish desire for intoxication, total abstinence again becomes an important factor in treatment. An inebriate may be able to regain, or acquire, sufficient self-control to enable him to resist alcohol altogether; but he can never attain sufficient of this power to enable him to combat successfully the irresistible desire for intoxication created by even small doses of alcohol.

Every inebriate possesses more self-control than he appears to possess, or believes he possesses, but in very few cases is self-control sufficiently strong to warrant a reasonable hope of recovery unaided. Those who say they can shake off their fetters without assistance are many; those who believe they can do so are few; those who really can do so are fewer still. Sometimes the help required is small, but help of some kind is nearly always needed. Had selfcontrol been adequate the inebriate conditon would never have been reached; indeed, the condition never is reached in such cases. No man ever became an inebriate wilfully, having power to be otherwise, or ever remained in that state of his own free will and accord; the life is too full of misery to be one of choice.

It is the possibility of awakening dormant self-control, or stimu lating by exercise weakened self-control, that gives the man who is treating drunkards his best chance of success. The constitutional peculiarity he can do little with, and the desire for intoxication automatically lessens or disappears with abstinence; but self-control needs as much care and nursing as a delicate plant, and just as much protection from adverse influences during development.

Other things being equal, the success or failure of treatment depends largely upon the early application of remedial measures. As soon as inebriety is fully established the case becomes one for serious attention, long before persistent alcoholism has interfered with social position, caused poverty, or rendered possible the occurrence of mental change or physical debility. Unfortunately, at present this is just what cannot be done; few cases submit themselves to treatment or are committed to detention for this purpose until the probability of recovery is comparatively small. Unless he commits crime or becomes an intolerable public nuisance, the law allows no interference with the will of an inebriate; the will of any inebriate who merits the designation is determinedly_set against measures involving restriction of his supply of liquor. Few of them can be made to see the necessity for amendment, and even when they do acknowledge it, the difficulty in obtaining consent to treatment is so great that it is only in a few cases that anything can be done. The rest continue in their habits until poverty or sickness provides an opportunity for friends to exercise some control over them. or until crime or lunacy necessitates interference for the benefit of the community. The attempt to turn them into sober persons is then handicapped, to say the least of it. The Departmental Committee of 1908 fully realised the position, and made recommendations which, if embodied in legislation, would go far towards providing the possibility of earlier treatment. In the meantime, thousands of lives are wasted annually through our inability to exercise timely interference.

When an inebriate who is drinking heavily submits himself for treatment, the measures necessary to obtain the desired result should vary in severity from simple encouragement to long-continued detention (with enforced abstinence) in special institutions. The necessity for either extreme being determined by his standard of psychoneurotic integrity, duration of habit, strength of desire, and power of self-control. The writer has himself successfully and permanently weaned some inebriates from their habits by simple encouragement to resist desire, without the employment of other means; on the other hand, he has also found it necessary to detain persons under conditions of compulsory abstinence (more or less continuously) for five or six years, before ultimate success was attained. If an inebriate can be dealt with successfully without restriction to personal liberty, i.e., by inducing him to bring about his own salvation, so much the better for him at the time and for his future prospects. A man who thinks he has made himself sober has a much better chance of remaining sober.

Simple encouragement, to be of any real value, must be applied by some person in whom the inebriate has confidence, otherwise it is useless; mistrust or antagonism are equally fatal to success. The secret lies in personal influence, that power of support exercisable by a stronger over a weaker will. Although encouragement, unsupported by other means, is not often successful (because it presupposes more volition than the average inebriate is capable of exercising), it is sufficiently successful to justify at least a trial in every At any rate, it costs nothing but sympathy, patience, and perseverance, and can be applied early, without fuss; but a fund of sympathy is needed, wealth of patience, and illimitable perseverance. The man who has railed at an inebriate as sinful and vicious, or called him "sot," is no use when personal influence is required; so far as he is concerned, all power for good is gone. The man likely to succeed is one who will use every moment of penitence to impress

case.