MARK TWAIN

have it in spite of all the laws ever passed; when they don't
want it, no drink will be sold. Without wanting to know the
experience of America, you people in Australia have an object
lesson in temperance legislation. There is supposed to be no
drink sold on Sundays in Sydney and Melbourne. Yet I, a
stranger, can see that plenty of it is sold, that the most invet-
erate boozer can get all he wants while he is able to pay for it.
Now, if Prohibition cannot be enforced on one day of the week,
it cannot be enforced all the year round and year after year.
If men cannot do without a drink from Saturday night till Mon-
day morning it is certain that they cannot wait longer. The way
in which your Sunday-closing law is evaded will give you an
idea of the so-called Prohibition districts in America. The front
door is closed, but the back is opened; instead of open honest
drinking, you have sly boozing; instead of having the traffic
under the supervision of the law, and conducted in the interests
of order and morality, there is no supervision at all and the
trade is conducted under the most demoralizing conditions. The
manner in which these absurd liquor laws are broken breeds
contempt for law in general. Then, while intensifying, instead
of eradicating the evil, these laws give rise to smuggling, and
informing and perjury. So now you see why in the States and
Canada they are often repealed on the very first opportunity.
The only approach to Prohibition I have seen is in those Eng-
lish towns where hotels shut during certain hours. There I've
seen thirty customers refused and told to wait until the house
legally opened. Such a thing would never have happened in
Prohibition Maine, where a man gets served at any hour.

"Ah," sighed our distinguished visitor. "Why don't the tem-
perance agitators remember Edmund Burke's words? Lawful in-
dulgence is the only check on illicit gratification. Abolishing
matrimony would not stamp out fornication. Well, what mar-
riage is to morality a properly conducted licensed liquor traffic is
to sobriety. In either case a certain human propensity is regu-
lated so as to be a blessing; while left to itself, or subjected to
repressive efforts, it would be a curse."

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