convened at Manchester by the British Temperance League, which was attended by about 900 ministers; and in April, 1875, the National Temperance League was the means of bringing together several hundred ministers at a similar Conference, held by permission of the Lord Mayor in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House. The growth of public interest in educational progress led the Committee of the National League to put forth increased exertions to advance Temperance in connection with education. Several large public meetings were held in Exeter Hall, one of them being presided over by the Bishop of Exeter; Conferences were held at Westminster Abbey and elsewhere with associated bodies of teachers of all grades; the "Temperance Lesson Book," by Dr. Richardson, and the "Temperance Primer," by Dr. Ridge, were published, and have been extensively used; and educational publishers are gradually introducing Temperance lessons into their ordinary school-books. Meanwhile, legislative measures were exciting increased interest. The introduction and subsequent withdrawal of the Licensing Bill, promoted by Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare) in 1871, prepared the way for a Government measure with several restrictive clauses, which was passed in 1872; but when the “Publican's Parliament” of 1874 came into power, an Amendment Bill was speedily carried through, which permitted public-houses to remain open half-an-hour later than was allowed by the Act of 1872. The Sunday Closing question was persistently pressed forward, and, after many vexatious delays, the Irish Bill was passed in August, 1878. In May, 1876, a memorial was presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury, signed by 13,500 clergymen, asking their official head to move in the House of Lords for the appointment of a Select Committee upon Intemperance. His Grace complied with the request; the Committee was appointed, and twice re-appointed; and on March 18, 1879, after four bulky volumes of evidence had been laid before the House, the Report of the Select Committee was presented, but no action has yet been taken with the view of carrying out its recommendations. A Royal Commission upon Grocers' Licenses met in Scotland in 1877, and several useful recommendations were made in the Report, but no alteration has taken place in the law. Numerous attempts

have been made to obtain an act to restrain and confine habitual drunkards, but although Dr. Dalrymple's Select Committee presented a valuable Report in 1872, nothing was done for seven years, when the present Act was passed, which is virtually a dead letter. Temperance work in the army and navy continued to receive attention, and a successful effort was made in 1873-4 to establish coffee canteens at Dartmoor, Cannock Chase, and Aldershot, the arrangements being effectively carried out by Miss Robinson, and the expense of the experiments (£700) was met by the National Temperance League. In 1872 the League succeeded in abolishing the sale of alcoholic liquors at their annual Fêtes at the Crystal Palace; and they also held Fêtes under the same condition at the Alexandra Palace, the Royal Horticultural Gardens, and the Royal Albert Hall; a temperance banquet on a large scale being held at the Crystal Palace in 1876. The Crystal Palace Fête of 1878 was organised by the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union, and in 1879 Fêtes were held by the Good Templars and the League of the Cross, as well as by the National Temperance League. The largest number of visitors reached was in 1871, when 63,069 passed the turnstiles of the Palace. Mr. Gough's third visit to this country, which extended from July, 1878, till October, 1879, was attended with great success, and his eloquent and impressive lectures proved exceedingly useful to the cause. Other notable events were SO numerous during this period that many of them must be passed over; but mention should be made of the establishment of the London Temperance Hospital in 1873; of the League's Conference with managers and directors regarding railway refreshment rooms, held in 1872; the Ladies' National Temperance Convention, held by the League in London in 1876, and the formation of the British Women's Temperance Association at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the same year; the appearance at the League's Annual Meeting of 1877 of the Teetotal Arctic voyagers; the great Exeter Hall meeting against "Moderate Drinking," in February, 1877, which was addressed by Sir Henry Thompson, Dr. Richardson, Canon Farrar, and other eminent speakers; the commencement at Leamington in 1877, of a series of annual conferences with members of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain; Dr. Richardson's

remarkable tour through Ireland in the same year; the Dublin Total Abstinence Society's breakfast to members of the British Association, and the International Temperance Congress at Paris, in 1878; and the dinner of the British Medical Temperance Association at the Langham Hotel in 1879. The various national and district Temperance organisations were busily at work in their several spheres during this decade, and their success was generally encouraging.

LITERATURE OF THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT,

1830-1880.

BY THE REV. SAMUEL COULING,

Author of the "History of the Temperance Movement."

Ir was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who declared that "No entertainment was so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting." But true as this may have been nearly two centuries ago when the accomplished lady gave to the world those brilliant letters, which have handed her name down to posterity, it is much more true now when books are multiplied so rapidly and purchased so cheaply. "Reading," says Lord Bacon, "makes a full man," and it is probably in accordance with this that Henry Ward Beecher has said, "Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows. It is a man's duty to have books; a library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life." This theory about books is, doubtless, noble; and, to a great extent, it is recognised as such, and, more or less, put into practice by all civilised nations. There were twelve booksellers' shops and public libraries in ancient Rome, and the wealthy patricians were as careful to supply their country villas with the works of their philosophers and poets as to adorn their extensive gardens with beautiful statues and ivy-girdled trees. Yet we find that there was little of the living diffusion of literature that forms such a striking characteristic of the present age.

The British printing press, like the wheel of Ixion, rolls its

eternal round; and ever and anon issues forth, in almost countless numbers, Standard Libraries and Classical Libraries; Papers for the People, and Libraries for the Times; together with Railway and Parlour Libraries, and Sea-side Books; until the wonder almost is, not that there should be found books enough for the people, but people enough for the books.

Now that the Temperance movement has within the last halfcentury undoubtedly created and established a literature of its own, of which it has no reason to be ashamed, and which will favourably compare with any other class literature, must be at once apparent to every observant mind. It has books adapted to a great variety of tastes. The term literature is, indeed, one of wide acceptation, being not infrequently used to denote whatever is contained within the covers of a book. Hence the Temperance press has produced literature of every description. It has, for example, its History and its Biography; it has the scientific essay, and the graphic, if not sensational, tale or novel; and if it has not yet poetry that, in order of merit, can compare with Milton in the past, or with Tennyson in the present, it has, at least, rhyme and reason for those who are poetically inclined; while its periodical literature is equal to most, and far superior to many, of the papers and magazines of the day.

With regard even to quantity, it may be said that thousands of volumes and pamphlets are annually sent forth from our press ; that millions of pages of temperance truth are continually being scattered throughout the land; and that tons of Temperance literature find ready sale in the houses of our London and provincial publishers. It is not, however, the quantity so much as the quality that merits commendation. Contributions to what may be called the literature of alcohol, properly speaking, began with the Temperance movement; and it is to John Dunlop that we unhesitatingly award the honour of commencing in the United Kingdom our permanent and standard literature, as it was in 1829 that he published his first edition of the "Philosophical Enquiry into the Drinking Usages of Society," and also in the same year a pamphlet, now very scarce, "On the Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance." James Silk Buckingham, who died in 1855, was a native of Cornwall, and after a long life

spent in travelling in the East, he became M.P. for Sheffield. He succeeded in obtaining a select committee of the House of Commons "to inquire into the causes and extent of the evils of intemperance, with a view of recommending some safe and efficient remedy." The evidence taken before this committee was afterwards published in 1834, and has long formed an important text book on the subject. He also published, not long before his death, a "History of the Temperance Reformation." The History of the Temperance Movement has, however, yet to be written. In 1862 an attempt was made to supply what was felt to be a want in this direction, in the "History of the Temperance Movement in Great Britain and Ireland," by the Rev. Samuel Couling, who was at that time an official in connection with the National Temperance League. Mr. Lythgoe, " in his Temperance Reformers;" Dr. F. R. Lees, in his "Text Book of Temperance in Relation to Morals, Science, Criticism, and History," 1871; and Mr. William Logan, in his "Early Heroes of the Temperance Reformation," 1873, have all added valuable contributions for the use of future historians.

In the enlightenment of the professional and public mind on the medical and scientific aspects of total abstinence, Dr. W. B. Carpenter's essay, in 1849, played no mean part. This essay "On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors," was afterwards, in substance, published in a cheaper and more popular form, under the title of "The Physiology of Temperance and Total Abstinence;" and in 1855, Dr. Charles Wilson brought out his "Pathology of Drunkenness." There was, however, still room for some more popular work, and therefore, at the suggestion of the Scottish Temperance League, Dr. James Miller contributed, in 1861, two delightful volumes, abounding in sparkling bonhommie and scientific research, entitled, "Alcohol; its Place and Power," of which above 30,000 copies were speedily disposed of; and "Nephalism the True Temperance of Scripture, Science, and Experience." Mr. Henry Mudge, Surgeon, of Bodmin, in Cornwall, also, about this time, published two useful hand-books on "Physiology, Health, and Disease," and a "Guide to the Treatment of Disease without Alcoholic Liquor." And in connection with the physiological and scientific literature of the movement,