n was sober and
the gentleman was drunk. Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was
emphatically a picture of real life. The truth is subject to the
simplest of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly
drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a cab. If he had
the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, he would be sitting happily
on the pavement beside the old gentleman; a symbol of social equality
found at last, and the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say
that there has never been such a monster known as a drunken cabman; I do
not say that the driver may not sometimes have approximated imprudently
to three-quarters of the complaint, instead of adhering to his severe
but wise conception of half of it. But I do say that most men of the
world, if they spoke sincerely, could testify to more examples of
helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside cabs than of helplessly drunken
drivers on top of them. Philanthropists and officials, who never look at
people but only at papers, probably have a mass of social statistics to
the contrary; founded on the simple fact that cabmen can be
cross-examined about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social workers
probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and compartments,
showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen compares with the
parallel intoxication of costermongers; or measuring the drunkenness of
a dustman against the drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. But there is
more practical experience embodied in the practical speech of the
English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.'

Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a pretence in
America, simply means that the man who has drunk less shall have no
drink, and the man who has drunk more shall have all the drink. It means
that the old gentleman shall be carried home in the cab drunker than
ever; but that, in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to
excess, the man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in
moderation. That is what it means; that is all it means; that is all it
ever will mean. It tends to that in Moslem countries; where the
luxurious and advanced drink champagne, while the poor and fanatical
drink water. It means that in modern America; where the wealthy are all
at this moment sipping their cocktails, and discussing how much harder
labourers can be made to work if only they can be kept from festivity.
This is what it means and