the only sober man amongst a population that cannot resist the temptations of strong drink. Strange spectacle indeed! Men banished from places where they wish to live because they are too good for their surroundings! forced to remain where they can hardly eke out a miserable living. The question, surely, is justified. How did that poverty-stricken mass of oppressed people succeed in preserving its freedom from a national vice in a country where its ancestors have dwelt for long generations? Can a great virtue be maintained by sorcery? The common experience is that of the poet—