marvelous to think
of, the larger part of these persons are actually licensed by the State
to get gain by hurting, depraving and destroying the people. Think of
it, Mr. Dinneford! The whole question lies in a nutshell. There is
no difficulty about the problem. Restrain men from doing harm to each
other, and the work is more than half done."

"Is not the law all the while doing this?"

"The law," was answered, "is weakly dealing with effect--how weakly let
prison and police statistics show. Forty thousand arrests in our city
for a single year, and the cause of these arrests clearly traced to the
liquor licenses granted to five or six thousand persons to make money
by debasing and degrading the people. If all of these were engaged in
useful employments, serving, as every true citizen is bound to do, the
common good, do you think we should have so sad and sickening a record?
No, sir! We must go back to the causes of things. Nothing but radical
work will do."

"You think, then," said Mr. Dinneford, "that the true remedy for all
these dreadful social evils lies in restrictive legislation?"

"Restrictive only on the principles of eternal right," answered the
missionary. "Man's freedom over himself must not be touched. Only his
freedom to hurt his neighbor must be abridged. Here society has a right
to put bonds on its members--to say to each individual, You are free to
do anything by which your neighbor is served, but nothing to harm him.
Here is where the discrimination must be made; and when the mass of the
people come to see this, we shall have the beginning of a new day. There
will then be hope for such poor wretches as crowd this region; or if
most of them are so far lost as to be without hope, their places,
when they die, will not be filled with new recruits for the army of
perdition."

"If the laws we now have were only executed," said Mr. Dinneford,
"there might be hope in our legislative restrictions. But the people
are defrauded of justice through defects in its machinery. There are
combinations to defeat good laws. There are men holding high office
notoriously in league with scoundrels who prey upon the people. Through
these, justice perpetually fails."

"The people are alone to blame," replied the missionary. "Each is busy
with his farm and his merchandise with his own affairs, regardless
of his neighbor. The common good is nothing, so that his own good is
served. Each weakly folds his hands and is sorry whe