, as they obviously
should be, an exact copy of the Federal Act. Among the articles
specially mentioned in such legislation we find candy, vinegar, meat,
fertilizers, milk, butter, spices, sugar, cotton seed, formaldehyde,
insecticide, and general provisions against adulteration, false
coloring, the use of colors and preservatives, etc.

Going from matters merely unwholesome to actual poisons, the course of
legislation on intoxicating liquors is too familiar to the reader
to make it necessary to more than refer to it, with the general
observation that in the North and East the tendency has been toward
high licensing or careful regulation, always with local option; while
in the West originally, and now in the South, the tendency is to
absolute "State-wide" prohibition and even to express this principle
in the constitution. How much this extreme measure is based on the
racial question, in the South at least, is a matter of some debate;
and the working of such laws everywhere from Maine to Georgia, of
considerably more. One may hazard the guess that the wealthier
classes have no difficulty in getting their liquor through interstate
commerce, while the more disreputable classes succeed in getting it
surreptitiously. Prohibition, therefore, if effective at all, is
probably only effective among the respectable middle class where,
perhaps, of all it is least needed. In the older States, at least in
Massachusetts, there has been a decided tendency away from prohibition
in the last twenty years, and even from local prohibition in the
larger cities. Worcester, for instance, after being the largest
prohibition city in the world, ceased to be so this year by the
largest vote ever cast upon the question.

Whatever may be said of the strict prohibition of liquor dealing, no
one can have any objection to such laws as applied to cocaine, opium,
or other poisonous drugs, and we find statutes of this sort in
increasing number; while the manufacture and sale of cigarettes
to minors or even in some States, their consumption, is strictly
prohibited, under criminal penalty. Laws of a similar sort were aimed
at oleomargarine when invented, but this probably not so much to
protect the health of the people as the prosperity of the dairymen.
The mass of such legislation has emerged from the scrutiny of the
courts, State and Federal, with the general result that only such laws
will be sustained as are aimed to prevent fraud; but the manufacture